#not that i've ever made a gif on pc but. still

[yourmcu]

Ace

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x Gamer!Stark!Reader, Avengers x Reader

Summary:

Your girlfriend, your dad, along with the rest of the Avengers, support you during a VALORANT tournament.

Word count: 4.6k+

Warnings: too much VALORANT descriptions, you can google stuff about it if you want to get a good visual of this story, basically an avengers fic as a whole but i love supportive gf nat >:(

A/n: one of the drafts I left a long time ago! I miss writing for the avengers, so I decided to finish this one.

(completely italic dialogues - casters commentating)

All the hollering from the lounge died down when Natasha practically shoved both Sam and Bucky off the couch, stealing the TV remote in the process. Their basketball game can wait, her girlfriend’s tournament is more important.

“Oh, shoot. Y/N/N's tournament is today?” Sam suddenly remembered and Bucky made a quick detour out of the lounge to fetch Steve and possibly the others. They kind of promised you they'd support your game this time around, with the knowledge that they had free time on the dates of your tournament. Sam snapped his fingers, “Snacks. I'll be right back.”

No, you weren’t a professional athlete; if anything, you’re the opposite. Your wrists move more than your whole body most of the time, you only stay an hour or less in the gym, and you prioritize getting better in Aim Lab than a shooting range.

Ever since women playing in VALORANT E-Sports were normalized, you were one of the anticipated gamers to compete, of course you were on board and signed on to an esports organization and team roster. You’ve made a name for yourself in the gaming industry because of your high IQ and big brain plays. You used your head in every match, every round unlike the majority of the players mindlessly aiming and not landing shots. Because of your career, you’re known for something else and not just Iron Man’s daughter.

Natasha didn’t like the fact that you were glued to your computer most of the time at first. She thought Tony spoiled you too much even as an adult, but she later on realized that you graduated with a degree before settling into gaming. You worked for the Avengers, sometimes as an IT for a big company which paid more than you needed. You were basically set. All of this while you were still pretty young, a little younger than Natasha.

It’s safe to say all of Natasha’s doubts went away. She felt rather impressed and took a liking to you, which developed into something more over time.

From her phone, you chuckled when you heard Sam and Bucky’s shuffling. “We’re not up for another thirty minutes, babe.” On your end, you and your team were with the event's coordinators backstage of the actual place the tourney was held. Natasha always called you before and after your events, just because she was the best supportive girlfriend ever.

“I know, I wanted to set everything up before anything else,” Natasha put you on speaker while she dealt with the TV’s settings. You smiled to yourself, absolutely adoring your girlfriend even more when she was eager and supporting your games. “Are you guys still at the hotel?”

You had to travel out of the country for the tournament. As much as Natasha wanted to go with you (Clint wanted to go too because he ‘needed a break’, you just rolled your eyes at him and laughed), being a full time hero and an Avenger doesn’t mean you get to travel 24/7. She has to be with the team in case something terribly wrong happens, which doesn’t come with a warning. “Backstage, actually. Cloud9 and Misfits are wrapping up their last match right now,” You replied. “I've already warmed up at the hotel earlier. It's crazy how our room fits all of our PCs.”

“Ah, c'mon, you don't need no warm-ups!” Sam teased, hearing you on speaker as he walked back with refreshments and an assortment of chip bags.

You giggled, rolling your eyes at the Falcon’s words. “Stop it, Sam. You know me; I always get tilted when I play too much before the actual competition.”

Sometimes you get anxious and it affects your performance, same goes for when you warm-up too much; you lose focus the more games you play, leaving nothing for the tournament.

Despite Natasha's excitement to watch your team play, she’s not too vocal about it. She wouldn’t squeal when it starts or bombard you with loud encouragement through the call, because one, she doesn’t want to be the embarrassing girlfriend, and two, she’s the Black Widow. She’s naturally subtle about everything. You knew her more than anyone else though, so even if that was the case, you still felt her support.

Thirty minutes went by quicker than you’d hope, you were so caught up in watching the game of the other rivaling teams and commenting on everything that happened whilst still in the call with Natasha. You also answered Bucky’s queries when he came back; he’s only ever heard of e-sports since you started competing in it. He couldn’t imagine how hard switching point of views and the player’s face cameras must be. Bucky has only watched, what, actual live game tournaments, basketball or chess or whatever. It was confusing to him at times, but you told him he’d get used to it eventually just by taking note of the red and blue colors.

You were cut off by one of your teammates placing a hand on your shoulder, signaling you that it was time to go. “Alright. Nat, I have to go, I’ll call you when I get back?”

The two men were the first ones you heard react, Sam shifted in his seat excitedly while Bucky wondered out loud if he should call Tony, Peter, and Bruce, who were all unnecessarily working overtime at the lab.

You felt yourself smile again when she spoke. “Okay,” Natasha bit her lip, feeling anxious about the tournament, “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“Good luck!” Sam shouted before you hung up.

Natasha almost snorted when she heard loud footsteps coming towards the lounge entrance. Her sister had the worst timings ever.

“Someone decided to take a long shit while we were heading back. Has Y/N’s game started yet?” Yelena walked in as fast as she could with Fanny, looking at Natasha expectantly as she shrugged off her thick coat and got out of her boots. Fanny ran to where the couches were as soon as Yelena removed her leash, wagging her tail happily without a clue in the world.

“About to, but you did miss her on the phone.”

“Ah, fuck.”

Soon, Bruce, Tony, Peter, Wanda and Vision came down to watch as well. Your tournaments were one of the occasions the team had the chance to bond and get together in one room, it definitely helped with the morale as Steve would think, and they have you to thank for that.

Everyone was just in time to see you walk out to the stage with your team and the opposing one. You were in your team jersey and arm sleeves with your teammates behind you in a straight line.

Tony woot-ed, plopping down next to Natasha. “Heard Y/N/N's team is going up against a brand new team roster. This should be a piece of cake for her, eh?”

Peter sat down beside him, looking at the said rival team with yours, all lined up on stage. “I don't know about that, Mr. Stark. One of them recently went viral after getting five aces on a ranked game. She's radiant, too.”

Admittedly, he also played VALORANT with you and Ned, but often miscalculates his strength as he frequently breaks his keyboard or mouse because of freaking out whenever he sees an enemy. His reflexes and fighting skills were better off used in real time.

“And Y/N/N's been on the top ten leaderboard for, what, six months?” Tony challenged, evidently confident in your skills.

The chatter on who's better than who died down when both teams sat down on their respective computers. Though it wasn’t that noticeable to most people, Natasha noticed it right away: you were wearing the necklace she gave you. You considered it your lucky charm.

After both teams chose the maps they wanted to ban and maps they wanted to play, the game started.

You mostly play the character - or agent - Killjoy. The agent reminded you so much of yourself from her overall vibe and game mechanic: she had utility to aid the whole team, from turrets to alarm bots, and an ultimate that conducts lockdowns on any part of the map. You were so used to that character that you even played her on maps she’s not very helpful at because you mastered everything about her, which made you stand out from other players as no one would dare use characters on maps they weren't good in. Gears were practically turning in your head as the game loaded.

Then, the first game commenced.

The Avengers always made noise whenever you got a kill, or whenever the casters praised you for outsmarting the opposing team, which Steve and Bucky appreciated because it was hard for them to distinguish whether or not you did something good.

Your team easily won the first game. The Avengers were now watching your tournament on the flat screen TV like a bunch of teenagers watching a romcom, all giddy and filled with anticipation.

“Look at that, 13-1? She’s insane." Bruce shook his head. A team needed to win at least 13 rounds to win, if it's neck and neck, 14, or they may choose to go into overtime.

“I’ve never seen Y/N play with that kind of aggression before; they don’t stand a chance.” Wanda pointed out. She liked to spectate from the side whenever you played at the compound, whenever she could.

Natasha’s lips turned upright when they replayed your team’s best moments. One included your one versus three clutch, in which you threw a taunting, questioning look at the opposing roster across the stage after you effortlessly took out three enemies on your own. It was like their heads weren’t in the game at all.

The team laughed when they showed the exact clip of your face camera mocking the other team across the room. Natasha liked that about you; sure you were reserved and shy in general, but she loved it when all your confidence just comes out while you’re out there.

Another clip was when you had a problem with communication, so you weren’t aware that there were enemies around. Your character didn’t stop running because of that and you were exposed to two enemies. You reacted fast and jumped, pulled out your vandal to shoot both of them in the face.

Tony clapped his hands together at that moment. “Let’s go. Let’s fucking go, Y/N/N.”

Natasha, not all that phased on your brilliant play, could still not contain the smile on her face as she plopped back down on the couch.

“What? Wait, hold on, how did she even-” Sam looked back at everyone while they reacted to the highlight. He didn’t exactly process what happened because you moved too fast.

“God reflexes,” Yelena shrugs, not looking away from the screen. Wanda laughs in agreement.

After a bit of commentary and commercials, it was on to the next match on a new map.

Now, Natasha did not know the difference between the multiple maps at all, but she did remember you mentioning that your weakest one had to do with ice.

The next match was on a map called Icebox.

So, she watched intently as your team took a little while during the agent selection. But in the end, you decided to go for Killjoy again. Natasha could only guess what you had in mind to pull off another win.

“This is highly unusual for [Team Name] Y/N, isn’t it? Right now she’s watching the flanks when we usually expect her to be out there with a duelist to try and take picks!” The caster exclaimed, looking at their partner caster. “She’s one of the strong sentinels who you would trust to be by your side - and look at that, she takes out two already, they did not expect anyone to be holding the flank!”

“But she's using Killjoy again - couldn't she have gone for Cypher or Sage? Then again, they already have Skye on their team.”

Even though you were trying to play smart in this map, you still hated it, it was your weakest one. Still good, but not all that great. The opposing team seemed to know the typical Killjoy strategy on the Icebox map. You got sniped every round and your setups were way too predictable to the opposing team.

Soon, the score was 4-10. It was definitely not good to be on the end of only winning four rounds. Your team had to win the remaining rounds or hope for the best and go to overtime, or you lose this game and go onto the third one which would be way nerve racking and increase the odds of losing.

“Intense match so far we've got here. With [Team Name] Y/N at the bottom of the leaderboard this just has to be a miracle for [Team Name] to get a second win and move on to the next round.”

“There's also a bit of a setback with her shots in the last few rounds. I guess this is when we get to see if she's learned a thing or two from her girlfriend, right?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “They honestly did not have to bring that up.”

The other commentator expressed confusion at their partner's comment.

“The Black Widow! [Team Name] Y/N's been dating her for the last couple years. Honestly, where have you been?”

Everyone groaned as they started bringing your dating life to the conversation when they should be sticking to the game. Tony chose to laugh it off to and ignore the annoyance, whereas Yelena mumbled, “Did they just turn into a morning show now?”

After everyone in your team died, you all decided to ask for a timeout to talk things out. While that was going on, the Avengers had their own timeout and were trying to talk about the game, or at least what they thought was happening.

“Okay, assuming we've all seen how this Killjoy character works, her character would make most sense if her utility was in Site A." Bruce said, in thought.

Vision, one of the smartest of the bunch, had not grasped the game mechanics that well over the hour and half of the tournament. "But why is that, Dr. Banner?"

“Site A is pretty cramped, while site B has a lot of space. Of course the opposing team would always go to B since Y/N’s character's utility can't place utilities in both sites, they only have limited range," Peter points to the map as soon as it's shown up close, the casters having their own separate conversation about it.

Bucky turned to a confused Steve and Sam, “I have no idea what they're talking about.”

“Where else would she put her chicken gun on site B, then?” Tony joined the conversation, talking about your character's utility placement.

“It’s,” Natasha sighed. “It’s not a chicken gun...”

“Well, that chicken gun slows down enemies, right? It would make sense if Y/N places those bomb thingies to instantly kill them.” Yelena said.

“Lena, I think Y/N is fairly capable of playing the game right,” Wanda chuckled.

“Then she should be winning.” Yelena said jokingly, chugging on her drink.

It was astonishing how a group of heroes are knowledgeable about a video game, just so they could follow what you enjoy doing. That's how much they adored you.

Clint entered the room and looked at the source of ruckus, absolutely sick of the discourse. He was aware of your tournament and has been probably spectating on different means. “They still get another match if they lose this one. It’s the best out of three.”

“I’m starting to think someone’s cheating, has anyone noticed that some of the opponent team instantly kill them with only one bullet?” Steve squinted.

Tony scoffed. “That’s ridiculous, it’s a tournament.”

“It’s because they hit them precisely on the head, Steve. Who wouldn’t die if they got shot in the head?” Sam crossed his arms.

“Me,” that came from Vision.

“You don’t count.”

They all turned back to the screen once the timeout timer ran out. Natasha could sense the tension in your team, just from the way you glanced across the stage… she could tell you were gonna have a different way of playing the remaining rounds. The screen turned to you stretching your neck from both sides, seriousness evident in your face as you clutched your mouse, ready for the game to resume.

“And we're back, and it seems that [Team Name] had enough time to come up with a different game plan. We've got one duelist camping B, one on mid, and look at [Team Name] Y/N's utility. She's got her alarm bot and nano-swarms over on A, but her turret is on B as she's over by tunnel to keep it active.”

“Again, I have no idea what he's talking about.” Bucky shrugged, crossed his arms and kept his eyes on the screen.

After fixing your team's strategy, all that was left was to deliver with accurate shots and stay alive as much as possible. By the end of a few rounds, with your team’s communication and teamwork flawless than ever, the score was 12-11. Your team only had to win one more time to officially win.

At this point, Yelena and Wanda were loudly reacting to the gameplay, Sam and Tony were howling, rooting for you. Clint ended up setting himself on one of the sofa's arms, invested in the match.

Natasha was on the edge of her seat, clutching the couch cushions. She couldn’t help but chuckle when they showed your reaction momentarily, clearly breathless and eyes wide, fist bumping your teammates seated beside you.

“Oh, what a comeback! The most intense so far, am I right?” The caster exclaimed.

“[Team Name] only has to win one more round before moving on to the next part of this tournament!”

The last round wasn’t exactly in your team’s favor in the half. Three of your team got killed already, only two of you remaining and the five of the enemy team. The rival team obviously did not want to hand over the win that easily.

After the call of another successful kill by the opposing team, you were the last one standing against a full set of players. You would either have to clutch up the round or go into overtime.

Clint perked up, pulling out his wallet. “Alright, who wants to get the bets started?” He asked, placing down a crisp fifty dollar bill on the coffee table. “Y/N wins the game.”

They all stopped to look at him as if he was a madman.

“C’mon, Barton, it’s one versus five.” Sam pointed out.

“So what? Am I the only one who believes in Y/N here? Oh, Nat, you better start placing fifties.”

Natasha merely rolled her eyes, not once wanting to bet on or against her girl. Her eyes glued to the screen in which your character is cautiously checking if the area is clear to plant the bomb.

But Tony pulled out the same type of bill from his wallet, placing it on top of the archer's money.

“Mr. Stark, you do realize you're betting against-” Peter started.

“Hush, spiderling. Watch the game.” Tony brushed him off and watched the screen intently.

Tony was proud of you, truly. But it would also be funny to tease you lovingly when you go home as a loser.

You set up your utility, kind of surprised the whole enemy team went to the other site in which they thought you were heading. They did not leave anyone behind to make sure, as per your cautious scan of the area before settling. After checking all angles again, with thirty seconds to spare, you planted the spike.

“This is a dangerous game to play. She has to hold a lot of angles by herself, they could come in from anywhere.”

The spike continued to beep, which added a lot more tension among the Avengers. Natasha alternated from looking at the actual game to your face camera, of which was the only one left colored. You kept pacing at one of the hiding places, waiting for the slightest noise or actions from the other team.

You decided to peek at one of the entrances to the site once, the Jett with an operator narrowly missed your head so you took the opportunity to blast her head off. Afterwards, your alarm bot from the other side of your hiding place went off, so you went and peeked quickly, managing to pick off another player from the opposite team. Two down, three to go.

The Avengers erupted in noise. Sam and Peter were losing their minds, Bucky and Steve had amazed grins on their faces, and Natasha was clinging on to Yelena and Fanny like a fangirl trying to contain herself.

“What was that?!”

“She's a god!”

“My god, this is way too intense for me.”

Both commentators erupted in surprised glee as well. “A double kill from [Team Name] Y/N! The others are slowly making their way into the site, what will she do?!”

A Sova fired a dart to hopefully reveal your location on the map, but you were too quick to shoot it down to cancel it. But, the Sova spotted you anyway, and was able to shoot you until you were at only 50 HP.

You hid again and recalled your turret, placing it on top of the wall in front of you before sneaking your way to the opposite side. It could watch your back while you attempt to peek on the other side to surprise your enemies.

That move managed to catch one of the other players trying to sneak in as well, and you killed them off with ease. Three down, two to go.

“Down goes [Player Name]! Sova and Yoru are still on the lookout, it's like an intense version of hide & seek up in here!”

Barely anyone was talking now, all eyes on the enormous screen.

“Y/N has her ult!” Peter pointed out.

That you did, as your third kill managed to unlock enough points for it. Aware of its availability, you hurried off to the perfect spot to plant it to cover almost the entire site, still hidden from your enemies. Killjoy's voice rang through the game, saying 'Initiated!', when you planted her ultimate.

“What's that? What's happening?” Steve asked.

“Well, it's called 'lockdown', so I'm assuming it's locking off the area within its perimeter... trapping everyone inside...” Bruce said, lost in thought because of the game.

The Yoru activated their ultimate in time with yours, and you were now twice as cautious, looking around for blue swirls of the duelist to avoid getting sniped easily. He tried to blind you, but you were quick to move your view away from the flash to avoid it. Stupidly, the Yoru's ultimate ran out while trying to destroy your lockdown, so you killed them without hesitation. Four down, one to go.

Clint cackled at the turn of events while the others continued to freak out, teasing Tony, a billionaire, on losing a fifty-dollar bet. “What did I tell you, Stark?! What did I tell you?!”

The spike's beeps started getting faster and you could finally see the finish line. But, you were still cautious as they still had more than enough time to defuse if they managed to kill you.

“You know, [Team Name] Y/N could just leave the site at this point. It's game over for [Rival Team Name].”

“Ah, don't speak too soon there! [Team Name] Y/N's now inspecting the outer corners of the site, unaware of [Rival Team Name] [Player]'s sneaky entrance - and she's placed a smoke down, ready to defuse!”

Of course you were unaware of the opponent's whereabouts. But, you did hear the defuse sound go off for a second. With that, you head back, holding a grenade to throw near the area of the spike.

“She's got this in the bag.” Sam said in content.

After a few seconds, the defusing sound started up again, but you were certain that the grenade you set off did some damage to your opponent on top of the information you got from your teammates before they died.

You started to jiggle-peek from your spot, clearly visible from your opponent's perspective, so they had no choice but to stop defusing the spike to try and shoot you.

Unfortunately, they did a number on you, so you decided to go around. Once the cooldown reset on your turret, you placed it down on one side for intel. With only 20 HP left, you snuck up to the other side of the obstacle to hopefully pull off a knife kill for the finale.

“This game is way more intense than I thought.” Bucky spoke thoughtfully amidst the suspense-filled silence.

“Shhhh!”

“Oh my god, she's got her knife out.” Natasha said in disbelief, watching your character sneak up behind your opponent whose back is facing you.

“So?”

“Just wait for it.” Natasha bit her lip, knowing fully well how you always prefer a devastating way to end a match.

The commentators were freaking out, a combination of “no's”, “don't do this”, and “not like this” rang through the Avengers' speakers. It was considered devastating in the VALORANT community to be killed in game with a knife instead of a gun or anything else. The opponent is oblivious, having already defused half of the spike, but they didn't know what would soon come.

You strike your knife at their head, killing them instantly, the spike left undefused. The game graphics became slow motion while the screen flashed green with 'VICTORY' in the middle of it all. You stood up almost immediately, proud of your savage last kill, fist-bumping all your teammates.

“AN ACE FROM [Team Name] Y/N! [Team Name] IS GOING TO THE MASTERS!”

You hugged your team as well before turning to the camera nearest to you, blowing hot air onto the lens, and tracing a heart followed by a cheeky grin and a wink.

“Yup, she's a Stark alright!”

Roars and cheers emitted from the commentators, the present audience, and the Avengers. Sam yelled and everyone followed, but the loudest one was Clint, who then swooped down to collect his cash prize for winning the bet. Tony didn't care at all, laughing along with the others; he had something new to brag about his kid. Natasha's cheeks flushed, as they always did when it came to you.

“SHE WON!”

“I'll get the booze!”

“In your face, Stark!”

“Cap, you stepped on my foot!”

Natasha unlocked her phone to take a quick picture of the livestream of the heart you drew on the camera, as well as of the stage displaying all of your team's headshots with an abundance of confetti almost covering it. All she wanted now was to call you, but she knew you probably had interviews and post-game rituals with your team, and she had champagne to drink with her own team in celebration of you.

The next morning, on a quick flight back home, the first thing that caught your attention was Natasha's Instagram story of the tournament. Your family supported and watched the tourney for you, as the following slides of her story consisted of the team chugging on champagne, Clint showing off an apparent bet that he won, and Peter and Sam posing in front of the TV when your face camera was shown up close.

Smiling, you liked her stories and replied with 'Thank you for supporting me, my love. I'll see you all soon'.

[maxwellatoms]

What kind of video games do you like to play Mr. Atoms?

So many! Assuming there's time. These days there's generally not, so I've been bingeing Vampire Survivors in half-hour doses.

Above is a gif from Noita, my top game of the pandemic. It's an old-school "Metroidvania", but every pixel is simulated and you're a witch who can manipulate her spells (and thereby the world) in a seemingly infinite number of ways. Here, I've built magical "buzzsaws" around myself, which blinded me to the shadow amoeba. In Noita, almost every death is due to hubris, and I think I love that pendulum swing. If you're lucky and skilled, you can become a walking whirlwind of destruction, but you're always your own worst enemy. Bonus: You can turn your vomit into rats.

I'm currently on a break in the midst of my Baldur's Gate 3 run, with a party consisting of my BG2 character's daughter, Karlatch, Lazelle, and Shadowheart. Ladies' Night!

I'm also playing a bit of Shadows of Doubt. I'm not sure it'll hold up long-term, but it's got a lot of potential.

I don't really limit myself by genre or platform, but I'd say that I primarily play indie PC games. The games in my Steam library that I keep going back to again and again?

Cities: Skylines: A chill City Building Simulator. Lots of fun mods.

Darkest Dungeon: This thing is a classic strategy game IMO.

Death Road to Canada: A light, fast Project Zomboid. Dogs with guns!

Dwarf Fortress: For me, it's the ultimate fantasy sim. I love it so much. Looking forward to Adventure Mode finally appearing on Steam.

Project Zomboid: The ultimate lonely 2D zombie apocalypse survival game. Or non-survival game, I suppose.

Total War: Warhammer: For when I'm in a strategy-y mood. Like a lot of people, I'm a bit soured on the modern DLC scene, so I'm still waiting on #3 even though I'm a Chaos stan.

Not on Steam? I do play some Star Citizen from time to time. I backed it a decade ago. I used to joke that it was the game I was going to retire into, but more and more that's looking less and less like a joke. Still, it's made some good progress in the last couple of years and I'm hopeful that repair and engineering turn out to be fun.

The game I'm looking forward to most would be the next Elder Scrolls. I know it's still a ways off. Ever since my Nereverine landed in Morrowind with the intention of becoming a just and righteous cleric and instead found herself an unwitting villain and colonizer, I fell in love with the Elder Scrolls and it's deep, gray lore. It is (for me) a great way to really get into a character's head. Roleplaying... go figure.

Since Morrowind (and a backtrack into Daggerfall), I only allow myself one canon playthrough. My rule is to "let it ride", so that aside from death, if I screw up or if something unexpected happens I don't save-scum. All of my characters are related, either by quest or bloodline. I already know that my next character will be Aventus Aretino (the kid you catch summoning the Dark Brotherhood). My Skyrim character (above) had adopted him and then left him in the hands of a vampire, so I should be covered even if there's a big time jump. Now I just have to wait six more years for the game. And then maybe two for mods. God I'm so old.

I need to spend more time with Dave the Diver.

Anything current I'm missing out on?

[headfarintheclouds]

The Deal (Iso x Reader) Chapter 1

I tried dto post that 3 times from my PC but Tumblr crashed... so I'm posting it from my phone. I hope you guys like it !

Words count : 1400k

TW: none

"Fuck this I'm done!" yelling in anger I threw the gun to the ground, if Brimstone or Sova saw me right now I would probably get a scolding of a lifetime, but they weren't here with me. Only Gekko and his crew.

"Hey, calm down Y/n ! I'm sure you get it next try." the green haired Latino raised his hands, trying to stop me from exiting the practice range. I threw a nasty glare his way, making Trash growl at me in warning. "Hey, no that's not very nice!" he quickly scolded the creature making it roll its eyes at him.

I huffed and turned my head to the target I was practicing on. A ray of bullet holes behind it, only five or four on it. If being bad at shooting was a sport, then I was the champion of it.

"I'm sorry Mateo but I've been practicing for months now. I can't seem to land a single shot. If it's gonna be like that then I might as well quit while I'm ahead." I told him with a sad smile. His brow eyes widened in surprise upon hearing me say that, before I knew it, he was standing before me with a deep frown on his youthful face.

"Hey no, don't think like that. Not everyone is good at everything, chicka. Sometime those things take time." sending me a small smile he put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it in silent support.

"It's been six months through, what if I'm not made for this?" I looked up at my best friend, desperation clear in my voice.

"Nobody was made for this, but everyone made it work in the end. You'll get there soon enough." he nodded his head, firmly believing in his own words.

I sighed. Yeah, I was invited to Valorant by Brimstone himself, but back then none of us knew I would be an absolute shit at shooting. All he saw was a silent Radiant, with control over sounds who was amazingly good at sneaking and getting information. It was what he needed, he told me back then. But then assured me he wouldn't send me anywhere until I finished my training. Ever since then I have been on the base spending my time in the shooting range alongside Gekko and Neon, who quickly became my best friend among the Agents. Guess I got one good thing out of that whole shit show.

"I'll talk to Brimstone." I said, already making up my mind. Wingman who was standing in-between us, put his tiny limp on my leg and let out a series of sad chirps making my heart clench in pain. Gosh I was going to miss this adorable guy. Neon and Gekko too, heck even Yoru who was a pain in the ass from day one.

"Y/n please, think about this." Gekko begged, his eyes glossy from the unshed tears. I chuckled halfheartedly at my friend and put a hand over the one he still had on my shoulder.

"I have."

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:

After my talk with Brimstone I made my way to my room and started to pack up my things. The older man wasn't pleased with my decision and tried to persevere me to stay, heck he even involved Sage in it knowing how much respect I held for the women. But I wasn't about to drag everyone down with my poor skills. They had Omen, Sova and Cypher to gather all the information they needed.

A knock on my door stopped me in my tracks. Narrowing my brows I sighed and decided to ignore it in favor of putting my things in my duffle bag. Another knock, this time a louder and more aggressive one.

"I don't want to talk, leave me alone Gekko!" I yelled hoping it would be enough. After all who else would it be? Neon didn't know about me leaving yet, and both Sage and Brimstone respected my choices enough to leave me alone for now.

"It's not Gekko." my eyes widened in surprise upon hearing the deep voice of Iso.

The Chinese hit man quickly became my favorite person around HQ, even if we didn't spend nearly enough time together, I still found myself harboring a crush on him. What was he doing outside my door?

I walked over to it and punched in the code to open them, coming face to chest with the handsome man. My eyes widened upon seeing the intensity in his lilac-colored orbs. They seemed to be glowing.

"I heard you were leaving." he stated, no greetings or how are you's. Just straight to the point.

"I.. I am yes." stuttering I gasped when he pushed me in the room and closed the door behind him.

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'?" I blinked in confusion.

"Why are you leaving? Give me a one good reason." he wasn't making any sense to me. Why was he suddenly so interested in me leaving the place? We spoke maybe a total of five times during my stay here. But I had to admit, it did make my heart do summer sluts inside my ribcage. Did he care?

"I suck at shooting, that's why." I stated simply, observing his face for any kind of reaction. All I got was him clenching his jaw and mumbling something in Chinese.

"Is that all?" he asked, making me narrow my own eyes at him.

"Excuse me?"

"That is not a valid reason to leave." he said in anger, taking a step closer. I never realized how big he was until now, holy shit! And he was mad at me to! (For some reason) Was this the way I was going to die?

"What's it to you?' I challenged him with a hiss.

"You. Me. Shooting Range tomorrow at noon. I will train you personally from now on." I could myself going pale. He wanted to train me? Personally? Yes please, but also no fucking way. I wasn't about to make a fool out of myself in front of my crush.

"No way. I'm leaving first thing in the morning." shaking my head I missed the moment he got closer, until I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face. It smelled faintly of cinnamon.

"I am not asking you, I'm telling you Tián tián." he leaned his head even closer, so close in fact I could make specks of dark purple in his eyes. "Listen to me. Let's make a deal. If you stay, I will make it so you'll be one of the best shooters in the entire team. Give me three months." I blinked at the sudden change of attitude. He was very confident in what he was saying that much I could tell.

"And if I don't become the best shooter?" I whispered, too scared to speak any louder than that. He was still very close to me, so when he smirked upon hearing my Question I about fainted then and there.

"Then I will let you go."

"You will let me go? Aren't you getting ahead of yourself, big guy?"

"Let me put it this way. If at any point of the three months you'll run away, I will personally hunt you down and drag you back. Do you understand?"

Okay, what the fuck was going on right now? Where was the sweet and shy guy who stuck to the side lines and didn't interact with others? Was he swapped during one of the missions? Did he hit his head or something? I blinked up at the older male, trying to understand what was being said to me.

"Okay. But what if you win the bet? What do you want in return?" I asked, my voice curious to hear his reason.

"You'll see." he stood up straight, putting more distance between us and making my heart calm down a bit. "I'll see you tomorrow." he winked and left both my room and me in a state of ruin.

[echantedtoon]

Demonstober Day 19 Cupid

In classical mythology, Cupid /ˈkjuːpɪd/ (Latin: Cupīdō [kʊˈpiːdoː], meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, love, attraction and affection. 

Tagging: @lavenderdropp @six-eyed-samurai @trancylovecraft @shadyd3ar @cherrysuzaku

@nousija @mspurpl3

Remember if you want to be added to the spooktober taglist lemme know

"You know I've been having some really weird things happen to me ever since my ex dumped me on Valentine's Day last year."

Your friend blinked at you from across the table as he paused mid bite in his burger. Murata blinked at you before slowly lowering said food. "Huh? How so?"

You hadn't been wrong about the weird bad luck you've been having since Valentine's Day last year. Your cheating ex-boyfriend had dumped you over text after ghosting you at the park you were supposed to meet at for a star gazing date and left you to angry cry all the way home. Luckily you hadn't been together long so it only took about two months for you to completely get over him. But ever since that day things have been rather...strange.

It started with your new neighbor. His package had mistakenly been delivered to your house so you went to go return it to him, however as you spoke something pushed you from behind and you ended up slamming painfully into him before you both landed on the floor. In front of his wife. Who went ballistic seeing a stranger on top of her husband. In the end you had a headache from where your heads slammed together, you had to pay for the china that the package contained because your combined weight crushed it, and one of your new neighbors now hate you. Great. 

You chalked it up to a gust of wind at the time before forgetting about it. However there was a slew of other things that happened to you over the next year.

Somehow the resident annoying office playboy got assigned to work with you on a project after your VERY confused boss swore he sent him an email assigning him to someone else. So you had to endure his constant flirts for two weeks. 

You were constantly bumping into people, knocking someone down, or spilling your drink on them and vise versa. Which lead to many, MANY fights, slight coffee burns, money out of your pocket paying for their drinks, and fights from their angry partners. Once you got trapped in an elevator with a pretty girl who happened to be claustrophobic and ended up vomiting from the stress all over your new coat as you attempted to calm her down.  Then there was the time you got stuck in traffic with three flat tires costing you lots of money and the tow truck driver was a creepy older man who kept asking for your number.

However what must've been the most painful blow was the call you got one day while TRYING to fix your broken pc. Your phone wouldn't stop buzzing on the table annoying until you finally got fed up and answered it with a scowl.

"WHAT?!"

"Um...Is this Y/n L/n?", a man's voice asked.

"Yeah? Who's this?" You held your phone with your shoulder as you tried to screw the back of the computer back on. 

"I matched with you on your profile. I wanted to set up a date."

You paused. "What?"

"Your profile? Your Single Me profile. I matched with you yesterday but you never responded-"

You immediately hung up on the guy and blocked him assuming it was either a scam, prank call, or he mistook you for a person with the same name. You didn't have a profile on any dating websites. However after four more calls from different people who asked when you were free for a date. A search of your phone surprised you when you found an app you DEFINITELY never downloaded and logging into said app lead you to a profile with your pictures, interests, and phone number listed.  You immediately deleted the profile and app before taking your phone to the electronics store the next day for a spyware scan. Someone must've hacked into your phone to impersonate you and made the profile but the tech guy told you there wasn't anything wrong.

You still rebooted your phone and added new privacy settings just in case.

It's been a little quiet now. You haven't had any accidents or any weird interactions with anyone else so far for about two months now. So maybe your weird luck involving stupid romcom scenarios was finally over.

"Like every other time I told you about?", you pointed out deadpanned to him.

He shrugged and just went back to eating his burger with a happy hum. "Maybe it was just a funk you were in for a while? Like how some people get burn out of writers block. Nothing's happened to you for a while now."

"I guess you're right. Nothing bad is really happening." You placed you hands down and sighed. "I just hope this isn't some divine sign my love life is going to crap though."

"Cheer up! Being single isn't bad. In fact, it's really awesome. You don't have to worry about anyone else and you have a sweet bachelorette pad!"

Despite yourself you chuckled. Leave it to Murata to make you feel better. "*Sigh* Thanks, Man. It means a lot."

"Of course. You still going to that singles event for Valentine's Day tomorrow?"

"Nah. I'm just taking the day off and eating all the discounted chocolate the day after."

"Hell yeah! Discount chocolate is the best!...Are you sure you're ok though?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You're holding my hand."

You blinked and looked down only to raise your eyebrows. Your hand had  been by your plate. Not laid on Murata's hand. Immediately you pulled away from your friend. "I'm sorry. I must've moved it without thinking." 

He laughed and shrugged it off. "No worries. We always do that. Did you see the new ScorpionMan movie?"

Guess your weird luck wasn't over yet. 

Didn't help that Valentine's Day was tomorrow. But you had the day off so you were just going to sleep in, order take out, and just play video games all day! A perfect day for someone like you and then just buy a lot of discounted chocolate the next day. Saying goodbye to your friend, you couldn't help but feel like someone was watching you..but you shrugged it off as you walked all the way home. You didn't pay any attention to anyone as you got back to your apartment and got inside. Doing your normal night routine before going to bed and nodding off.

"Hey! Wake up!"

You snorted..but went back to sleep.

"OOOH! Come on! Wake up already!! We're already behind an hour!"

Something shoved your shoulder hard enough to turn you on your stomach. THAT woke you up with a snort and you pushed yourself up onto your arms. Blinking tired eyes as green eyes beamed at you.

"Oh finally! I was worried you'd never wake up!," a green eyed woman with long pink hair tied into braids smiled widely at you. "Do you want breakfast first?"

....you slowly blinked. 

"Oh nevermind. We can get something to go so it'll be faster! First we need to get you up and ready for the day!" Out of nowhere she produced a long paper with a list written on it. "Our first stop is a speed dating event. It'll be fast and you might get a few people's numbers! Then there's a party your coworker is hosting. I know you got the day off but if you stay for a little bit you might connect with someone you already know! And who knows where that could lead?!" She threw her arms off in a positive cheerleader pose.

She continued to babble on about something as your tired self sat up and yawned before stretching out your back and rubbing at your face. Your tired mind didn't register the fully grown woman with two fluffy white dove wings fluttering from her back for a long time as she continued to babble on and gesturing at nothing.... Before you ever slowly blinked at her. And then the reality hit your tired mind.

THERE WAS A STRANGER IN YOUR HOME!!

The reality shocked you awake staring at her before you yelled scrambling back and falling off the bed. Your actions and the thud of your body hitting the floor made her pause and watch as you shot back up to your feet in a panic and grabbing the nearest thing  to arm yourself. Which happened to be your alarm clock. You grabbed it pulling your arm back like you were gonna throw a baseball at you and pointed with your other hand.

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU IN MY APARTMENT?!"

She continued to blink at you before she gasped in realization. "OH MY GOSH!! I didn't introduce myself to you! HI!!" She waved an arm at you. "I'm Cupid and I'm here to find you that perfect soulmate!"

You stared at her. "...What?!"

"Don't worry! I know I haven't been able to get but on this day my powers are off the charts! I'll be able to find you a partner in no time!"

"...Ok..Did Murata put you up to this? Seriously who are you!? If you don't leave right now I'll call the police!" 

She squeaked out dropping the list before holding up her hands. "Wait, wait, wait! Please don't panic! I'm telling you the truth I swear!"

"Yeah right!"

"Look! I'll prove it to you!" In an instant her tiny fluffy wings snapped open and flapped rapidly. Your face fell in shock as she lifted three feet off the ground, twirled once, and then floated back down. "SEE?! I'm totally just here to help!"

....Clank-

The metal clock fell out of your hand as you continued to stare before you pointed at her. "You're-..." Your hands smacked your face. "This can't be real. I must have gone nuts!"

"NOPE!! Im real and here to save your love life!! I've tried to get it right for an entire year now but nothing I tried seemed to work. But I'm sure we'll have better luck today!"

.....Wait a second.

"Wait." You scowled. "You mean YOU'RE the one responsible for all the bad luck I've been having!?"

She paused blinking at your face before guilty tapping her fingers together. "W-Well...I wouldn't call it bad luck exactly."

"Do you know what you've put me through for the last year? Because of you my neighbor hates me!" You scowled harder crossing your arms. "And I lost so much money fixing things. Not to mention all the wasted money on all the spilt food. I still have scars on my lap from coffee burns!"

"Um..Well may-maybe bumping into people wasn't the best way to go about it-"

"Especially if they're already married or got a girlfriend!" You frowned harder at her puppy dog like face. "Why? Just-...Why have you been putting me through so much? You couldn't help anyone else?"

"Oh no. I could. But I saw how heartbroken you were last year after that nasty break up and I wanted to help. I don't why I haven't been having luck though. I'm supposed to help someone find love and you don't seem to love anything no matter how hard I try."

You blinked... before sighing and reaching out to facepalm. "Well that's where you're wrong. I do love things and people."

Immediately she literally up. "So you did find someone to love!?"

"Yes. Multiple people."

"Aw.~ A poly relationship!"

"Uh...No." She blinked as you gestured to her. "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there's other kinds of love besides romantic? I can love someone and find fulfillment in loving my friends. My family. My pet cat. I still love all of them just as much as I would someone romantically."

Her eyes widened at you. "I..Never thought of that before."

"It's not that either. I have love for other things too. I love reading and going on walks and doing my other hobbies. I love my job. I love eating at my favorite restaurant. I love things. But most of all-" You pressed a hand to your chest. "I love myself. And as long as I love myself, I'll be perfectly fine. There's so much to love than just the overrated romantic aspect of it. Don't you think?"

She stood there for a long moment thinking before nodding. "You're right. I just never thought of it that way." She frowned like a kicked puppy again. "Now I feel really bad about everything I put you through. I'm so sorry."

"Hey. It's all good. Just promise me you won't push me into anyone again."

She giggled and nodded happily. "I promise!"

"Good...Hey. While you're here, do you wanna play a video game with me?"

[chessb0r3d]

I post jack shit of the things I like. Yippee!!

Multifandom art accont

-> @chessboredom

Hamsteak accont

-> @disguisedcheezed

World of Edd accont

-> @cheezeweezer

Stimbored accont

-> @chessboreds

Dirk Strider.

♤ ♡ ♤ ♡ ♤ ♡ ♤ ♡ ♤ ♡ ♤ ♡ ♤ ♡ ♤

Fun Facts about me and more jack shit! Bluh!

I made those BTW/TBH creature comic posts. :3

> 1 2 3 4 <

Spam liking/reblogging is okay and is highly encouraged! Go crazy!

I have no DNI. Don't send me discourse/drama and such. U_U

If you followed me for my non-homestuck, here's a thing:

I LOVE dirkjohn. I am So Normal about them <-(warning) I will go into a weekly dirkjohn spam reblog hunt into the depths of this hell site, whether it either contains them both or individually #john #dirk. I also tag them in cat posts with #cat john and #cat dirk. I've been reblogging dirkjohn posts over a year. Current number of #dirkjohn tagged posts is 3155.

( Shout out to those who still followed me. I love seeing you guys in my notifs. )

I have other hyperfixations, but DirkJohn occupies almost all of my thoughts so I don't really care about them right now. /copypasta

More of which that is listed here in my listography.

《 Welceom to my really shitty tagging system navigation for myself 》

Tip! Click on the hashtags if your on pc/browser, or the words if your on mobile.

#chrambles - Me talking about what ever.

#mine - Tag for all of my art from across my blogs posted/reblogged here.

#chess ocs - My hell spawns that I love and hate dearly.

#asks stuff - Tag for answered asks.

I tag warnings such as #blood , #gore , #self harm , #decapitation , #noncon #sucide mention. just as they are. <- applies in all across my fandom blogs

I only tag bugs when I like the post.

#so cool - My inspo tag. It's because of this 13 second yt video that did irreversible effects to my brain.

#this is nice. - Like it said, it has nice things. The posts where it hits so close to home, and other positive things I'd like to remind myself that the world a wonderful place to be in. :)

#mecore - Posts that are LITERALLY me.

#more for the collection - Genres of posts that I find funny and so common and I like seeing them every where.

#cat :3 , #doggy :3 , #honse , #borb - Creatures I like. :3

《My Other Homosuck Related tags》

#so sadstuck , #dirkapitation , #hs meta , #hs gifs , #hs sprite edits ,

#striders , #lalondes , #strilondes , #egberts , #harleyberts , #crockerberts , #harlenglish ,

Other favorite ships that I'll just put here because yes

#nuzi , #tomtord , #krusie , #davejake , #batterie , #2bhank , #sasunaru , #sonadow , #kawoshin , #charlastor

[stonegearstudios]

Despite the best efforts of cruel nature, hitting me with an ice storm that snapped trees like twigs, cut my power for days, and slowly contrived to freeze me even in my well insulated house, I have endured.

And more than endured, I snorted that ice like meth and finished the entirety of On the Ruins of Giants with just a quill and candle! We'll be crowdfunding soon!

...

...

yeah, you know what day it is, and that I'm a lazy bastard that's spent the last few days napping in a chair under a blanket, but SOME progress has been made, so let's go through it

State of the Game - April 1st 2025

Yeah we're nowhere near done, and still a ways away from even a basic alpha, but we're further along than any of my other projects.

So, I've been working on putting things in a google doc, so that I can eventually share versions with people and solicit comments (which is gonna be so, so painful to me).

Wish I had a better way than using google products, but I don't know of one.

So far I've been going through and organizing sections, to fill out from there. I have

A table of contents

A "What is a RPG" section, including a part on the kind of game I created this system for. You don't have to listen to me, but I think it's a useful way to set expectations.

A short scene setting lore primer and explanation what these mutant mice even are

Character Creation - I intend to have two paths to make a PC in the final project, by using playbooks to generate a backstory to (shamelessly inspired by Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures) as well as a point buy system. Working on the point buy system first.

Then we get to the mechanics section, covering how stats(Strength, Scurry, & Savvy), Abilities (big TBD there), and derived stats (Health, Luck, Stress, & Speed) work

Then we cover the three main modes of play in the game: Exploration, Socializing, & Combat

Exploration is the central pillar of the game, in my mind, so I'm putting it first. Players need to know how to explore this ruined world, how to investigate sites of interest, and how to establish base camps.

Socializing includes both mechanics for rp between players, but also NPCs back at Nest. Finally, Colony Building could be seen as the default goal of player characters, before they figure out something for themselves.

Finally, combat, which encompasses not just how to fight, but how to run (You are a very small mouse after all), and how to manage the resources you need to survive

Finally, I'll need to put together a GM section, so that people other than me can create challenges, maps, enemies and the like

So, when will I have a version that's at least theoretically testable?

...

Man, I dunno, I'm absolutely terrible at estimating my own work times. That's why if I ever do work up the courage to crowdfund it won't be until all my work is done.

[horrorslvt]

Corey cummingham x reader where him and the reader have been together for a while, but he has been suspicious of them, and he catches the reader cheating one day. He still loves the reader and decides just to get rid of anyone who comes between them.

Hellooo, thank you so much for requesting! I don't think I've ever written something like this so interesting experience tbh. Hope you like it. 🫶🏻

Illicit affairs.

Summary: After finding out evidence of the reason why you've been colder lately, Corey decided to take matters into his own hands.

Pairing: Corey Cunningham (post-Michael) x fem! reader.

Trigger warnings: Cheating (???), murder.

Corey couldn't believe his eyes as he saw it. You couldn't do this to him... right? You were his angel. You could do no wrong in his eyes.

You two had been together for two years now, and your relationship had always been perfect. Sure, you two had some ups and downs, but that was normal, right? Every relationship had them.

What was important is that you had always supported each other. You had been with him when his abusive mom put him through hell, when the whole town hated him, everything.

Of course, he noticed how you had grown distant lately, but that couldn't be because you didn't love him anymore or something like that. You were his soulmate.

Though, after around two months of you being colder towards him and your relationship becoming more distant... he decided that he had enough. He had no choice but to snoop through your things to search for what was causing this sudden coldness.

And boy, did he find the reason.

As his rough hands moved on the keyboard of your PC, he found an open tab that had your Instagram account open. How silly of you, so unaware about how inexistent your privacy was.

His brown eyes scanned everything on the screen as fast as they could. Quickly, he entered your DMs... and there it was. Another guy sending you messages.

Well, more than one, but there was one in particular that you were replying to. As Corey entered the chat and read, he noticed this had been going on for a long time. This couldn't be real.

When he felt like he read enough... which to him was the whole chat, he minimized the tabs again and leaned back on the chair.

This couldn't end like this. Corey wouldn't allow it. You weren't like this. It had to have another explanation... it had to be that the other guy manipulated you.

Corey just didn't think it made sense for you to cheat. It had to be the other guy getting in between you two. And as any other bump on the road... Corey had to get rid of it. For the better of your relationship.

As you got home, everything was quiet and still. Not the usual smell of food already done and waiting for you (since Corey got home sooner from work every day), no sound coming from the living room, nothing. It made you suspicious, but as you entered the house and you put your purse down, there was a note on the coat rack.

"Hello, angel:

I'll be out for a couple of hours, don't wait for me. There's food in the oven to warm up.

Love, Corey."

You sighed a bit and walked to the kitchen, looking into the oven and seeing a freshly made lasagna. He must've cooked it before leaving.

As much as you wanted to be appreciative... something felt weird. Something was off. Your hand went to the pocket of your jeans, taking out the phone and calling Corey, for no avail since he didn't answer.

Corey looked down at the buzzing phone in his jeans before sighing. God, you always called in the worst moments.

After dismissing the call, he made his way over to the open garden sliding door of your little fling. Corey's steps were soft and calculated, and the knife in his hand reflected the moonlight that entered through the house's windows.

The guy he was looking for had just entered the bathroom, sighing as he looked in the mirror before looking down at the sink and washing his face.

As the guy looked up again, he didn't have time to scream when he saw Corey in the mirror, Corey and the knife being quicker as he sliced the man's neck, making him bleed and fall almost instantly.

Once he was down on the bathroom floor, Corey looked down at him with a sinister smile before getting on top of him and stabbing him in the chest.

"You." Corey said while stabbing the man's chest. "Will learn." Stab. "To." Stab. "Not interfere." Stab. "In relationships." Stab.

Once he was done with the guy, Corey decided to change before coming back home to you. His angel couldn't see him all bloody. He didn't wanna scare you.

After he cleaned the knife and then threw it away, he made his way to the recently killed guy room. Corey roamed through the closet and found clothes that looked like something he would wear.

He changed and then threw his own clothes away before leaving the house and getting on his bike and driving back to you guys shared apartment.

You were sitting on the couch eating and watching TV when you heard the door open, quickly putting your plate down on the coffee table and walking to the entry.

"Oh my god, where were you? I was freaking out, and you weren't answering my calls!" You said walking over to him, your arms crossed.

"I'm sorry, angel, I didn't mean to scare you." He said softly as he gave you a bouquet of flowers. That was unexpected. Yet you took the bouquet and then sighed and hugged him.

Corey obviously hugged back. Now everything was back to normal. His arms tightened slightly around you as you two hugged.

Though as they did, you felt a familiar scent coming from his clothes...

[crmsndragonwngss]

I've been thinking about this since I answered the ask about gifmaking a little while back, and I've been kind of unsettled about it since. Not because I don't like sharing my process, nothing could be further from the truth, but because I realized that that process isn't entirely accessible. So here I am again with an alternative way to make gifs that's infinitely easier, way more accessible, and just as valid as the other way. I wanna stress that. Anything you put time and effort into is valid and worthwhile. No time spent on doing something you enjoy is ever wasted, not least of all anything creative

That said, this method is considerably more limited. I made gifs this way for years before my brain was quite literally hijacked by an idea I could not get out of my head and I had to learn to do it the fancy way. I was also intensely annoyed at having to rely on my shitty internet to make gifs, and I probably would have made the switch at some point regardless just for that lol

I would also like to stress that this is not necessarily a tutorial any more than the other post was, it's simply a couple of resources and more or less how to use them. Like I said in the other post, never download and install anything to your device without doing your own due diligence first!

details under the cut

So first, you need to get the video. If you're on mobile, your device should have a screen recorder built in. Use that, and be sure to turn on Do Not Disturb so you don't accidentally capture any notifications! Once you've recorded your video, you can use your device's native editing ui to trim and crop the video and adjust color. If you want effects like slow motion, I like Splice on iOS. The big thing is that it doesn't watermark your videos, but it's also just a pretty good app overall for video editing. If you're willing to pay for it, it'll also allow you to make gifs right there in the app, but it's subscription based and the price is absolutely outrageous, so I don't recommend doing that when you could just use a free online converter

Which brings me to the next step: ezgif. You probably know this one, most everyone does, I think, but if you don't, here's the basic gist of it. Select Video to Gif and upload your video there. Be sure to trim it down to seven seconds or less, or else you'll never be able to get it down below 10mb. On the next page, change the size of the gif to 540xAUTO (for Tumblr), then change the frame rate to 20 or 25. More frames means a smoother gif, but it also means a bigger gif, so play around with it to see how the frame rate affects your gif. I don't think there's really a huge difference between 20 and 25, so 20 should be sufficient. If your gif is still too big, you can select optimize and try to compress it a little. The lowest compression level is 5, so start there and go up by fives until you're satisfied. If you get the gif below 10mb and it looks bad, then you should go back and trim your video length down further and try again. After that, simply save the gif to your device and upload it wherever!

PC is more or less the same, you just need to get a third party screen recorder. You can actually use ffmpeg to screen record if you'd like (I don't have the command line for that, however, and at that point, you should just go ahead and use yt-dlp instead to get a high quality video). If the command prompt is too much, you can just use a screen recorder app instead. I like 2-Click Screen Recorder. Again, you can actually use ffmpeg on that video to create frames and then upload those to ezgif, but if you'd still rather go from video to gif, then use CapCut or a similar video editing software to trim down your video to seven seconds or less. From there, the process with ezgif is exactly the same as it is on mobile

And there you have it! Easy mobile gifs! While I do really encourage you to try the "fancy" method of making gifs, this is still a great alternative, and you can make some pretty good gifs this way. Here are some of mine I made this way before I switched:

[avastrasposts]

Hello!

So I just realised about 300+ people decided to follow me and, I suppose, read my stories? And 300 is such a small number but to me it's surreal that so many of you want to read what I write!

So I thought I'd introduce myself a little, just to be polite you know, and be like those author blurbs they put on the inside flap of books. So read on if you want to know more about me and my writing, or just keep scrolling if you'd rather I remain a redheaded mystery with a thing for Frankie Morales.

Also, chapter 16 of The Pilot and his Girl will be posted tomorrow, it just needs another round of editing.

Also, again, this got long, so if you can't be bothered reading all my ramblings below the cut, I totally understand. I have a habit of getting wordy....

So, I'm in my 40's and I've been writing for most of my life, starting with embarrassing little short stories in adorable misspelled fashion when I was just wee. I aspired to be a journalist and then went on a completely different tangent career wise, ending up with a PhD in an area I no longer work in (fifteen years of higher education never to be touched again but you definitely want me on your team in a pub quiz!). I have vague memories of writing fan fiction in my early 20, I think? (I'm old, give me a break). But I only got back to it late last year as a way to kick start my imagination and discipline around writing again. I needed a creative outlet and writing is something I always enjoyed and found easy to do.

I live in England, in the amazing but fucking expensive city of London. I look pretty much like my profile picture, only more wrinkles and maybe a bit of silver in all that gingerness. I'm a very good cook and baker (Pedro, I'll teach you how to cook any day!) and I'm married to my very own sweet Latino man. He's not called Frankie but he does call me cariño. I have big chunk of family in Sweden and I speak a little bit of Swedish (it's actually where I am right now, we're over here celebrating midsummer).

I started writing fanfics for The Boys fandom and Karl Urban as I was binging the whole show after finishing season 4. Then I stumbled into the Pedro Pascal fandom as I watched The Last of Us.

TLoU has a very special place in my heart. I've been gaming since my early teens and bought a Playstation 3 after saving for months, my first console after playing on PC for years. When TLoU came out in 2013 I bought and played it straight away and I, like so many others, had an experience playing it. It's the only story, in any medium, that's made me cry after just 10-15 minutes of game play. The scene were Sarah dies, still gets me every time. And the rest of the game...I turned up at work the next week in a daze, just needing to tell people about this incredible story and experience I'd had. It was like no other game I'd ever played, before or since. And I've replayed the game about once a year since 2013. Back then, that kind of game was totally unique, there was nothing like it. Some games had explored stronger story telling elements, but not on this level, nothing came even close to creating such a bond between gamer and characters. Now days we're spoiled by powerful storytelling in video games, in 2013, The Last of Us was totally unique (sorry, I'm blabbering, but I could go on at length about TLoU and the impact it had).

So when I heard there was talks about turning into a tv-series, I was scared. Really worried. The gaming community have seen so many horrendous adaptations of video games, my beloved Assassin's Creed was butchered in 2016. But then I heard Pedro Pascal had been cast as Joel and I was carefully hopeful, and then Bella Ramsey as Ellie and I got really excited. I'd seen them both in Game of Thrones, both of their performances sticking in my mind. I even remember reading about Pedro being cast in GoT and looking him up and being disappointed because he looked nothing like I'd pictured the Red Viper when I read the books. But then he just swanned in and crushed it, he was so damn good, he won me over straight away. I can't imagine anyone else playing Oberyn.

And then of course, the first few trailers of TLoU dropped and we got glimpses of the show and I remember texting my equally TLoU obsessed friend and we squealed in delight at how good it looked! And the first time I heard the clicker sound....I shuddered, it was a very real physical reaction. If I'd been on the actual set and heard it, I think I would've run a mile.

And then, as I was still writing The British Connection, a fic set in The Boys fandom, I watched Triple Frontier, and, like so many others, fell hard for sweet Frankie Morales. So jumping the gun a bit, I decided to write something with him, just a drabble, to get used to writing him and to write in the Reader insert format. But it kind a grew in scope and when I had the idea of sticking him and the rest of the Triple Frontier boys into TLoU universe I knew I had to create something bigger.

Looking back I would've made the story tighter, less lengthy, had I known from the start that's where it was going to go. But part of the fun of fan fiction is posting as you go, I think. I get feedback from you guys and it makes me think of other elements to add to the story. There isn't always a set road map for how a fic is going to develop.

If you've made it this far, congratulations and thank you, I'm impressed you read all that rambling from some stranger on Tumblr! The Pilot and his Girl has a set plan now, I have chapters drawn up and although I'm not sure how many chapters I'm going to end up with, I know where the story is going. You'll find out what's happened to Pope, Will and Benny. And Joel and Tommy will of course come back to the story later on. There will be more trauma and angst as the story continues but there will be a happy ending, of sorts, in the end.

And again, thank you all for reading, commenting and reblogging! I love you all!

[blaiddfailcam]

A couple of tricks for gififying Bloodborne on console

Understandably, not many people bother making gifs of Bloodborne as it still isn't officially on PC, and the workarounds to do so unofficially require a fair bit of hassle that most won't bother with, particularly if it requires purchasing a PS4/Bloodborne Machine for that sole purpose. To think one of the most visually enthralling games ever made is utterly without even a mod for photo mode... It makes my head shudder.

Thankfully, I'm a weirdo who finds joy in manipulating the camera on console versions anyway, because I was always too lazy to get a PC for the like 3 game series I care to play. So here are a few insights I've uncovered in my first few hours of reabsorbing the colorful (metaphorically speaking) sights that Yharnam has to offer.

Wall-crouch, the Ol' Reliable

Just like in Elden Ring, standing near a wall in Bloodborne and then hunkering down so the Hunter is out of view allows for some wide FOV shots. Unlike Elden Ring, however, FromSoft hadn't devised a foreground object transparency effect, which can be somewhat irritating at times, but on the other hand allows for some fun perspectives.

Also unlike Elden Ring, there's no crouch button. This means one has to resort to the "Sit" and "Prayer" gestures, which are painfully slow when trying to capture enemies or transitory environmental hazards.

Damn you, OTS monocular

The monocular is Bloodborne's equivalent of Dark Souls' binoculars or Elden Ring's telescope, but with some choice differences. For one, it doesn't put you into first-person perspective, but rather into an extremely zoomed over-the-shoulder, meaning the bottom and right of the frame are constantly obfuscated by the Hunter's shoulder and head, and any two-handed weapon will block the view entirely.

However, there are a couple of caveats. The player still has all the same gameplay functionality while in monocular mode, with the exception of running or locking on. This means that wherever they stand, the player can once again use the "Sit" or "Prayer" gestures to drop the Hunter out of view, making those close-up shots of smaller environments and objects once again feasible without having to crop out the Hunter and wind up with a muddy gif. (Again, this is a clunky method that doesn't work terribly well for enemy encounters, but it's not entirely impossible.)

Bless you, OTS monocular

As mentioned, the player retains a good deal of mobility in monocular mode, making it possible to record panning/dolly shots with a careful mind for how to hide the Hunter's shoulder. If the player moves to the right, the Hunter slides almost entirely out of frame; moving uphill also drops the Hunter out of view, which is handy in a surprising number of places already.

Oh, but be sure to wear form-fitting gear. Having a shot fudged by a feathered tricorn can be frustrating. I suggest sticking to the Foreign Hood or Prospector Hood, as they maintain a trim silhouette while also hiding the Hunter's hair. Also be aware that shouldered parts of trick weapons and stick out past the Hunter's shoulder.

○ ○ ○

That's all I've got for now, but it's been fairly helpful in getting all sorts of new perspectives on a game I've played dozens of times already since 2016 (I was a year late to the party).

You can probably detect hints of the Hunter's presence in some of these gifs, whether I had to keep just a smidgen of their shoulder in view or if the camera staggers with their footsteps, but I kind of like letting those slide sometimes.

I'll be experimenting with consumables later, particularly Pungent Blood Cocktails. Too bad they only work on so many enemies.

Until then...

[kaizsche]

You are such an incredible writer, but you’re also an amazing gif maker! So, what’s your favourite gif set that you’ve made this year? Also, what is the fic that you’re most excited to write in the new year? Thanks for being such an incredible friend Kai 🥰

(literally me seeing your ask and am i copying q's answer to her own ask? the answer is yaaaaaaaaas.)

i don't really see myself as an AMAZING gif maker and an INCREDIBLE writer so to hear all these compliments from you is just straight up melting my goddamn heart vis. *teary-eyed emoji cos im in pc*

so to ask your... well... ask, i haven't been kind of productive this year, both in writing and editing stuff so i can't say i have a wide selection to choose from, but here's my ultimate fav gifset. like fr.

which predictably is a gifset from your fic which i've gotten so much interaction on and just having you message me about this was just... it honestly made me cry so yeah...

the freaking 'i know you have a lot of fic planned this year' just cracked me tf up. like... you and q know i go all ramble kai on anything resembling my fic ideas so you know what i already have in store next year...

first off, i am sooo excited to finally enter the spuffy writing fandom so there's that. i already have like 20+ spuffy wips in my docs rn but the most excited i am for next year are these two, i think: (and i'll be letting y'all take a lil peek of them)

sun and moon

“Who are you?” The Slayer demanded. Buffy could hear the restless fear simulating his heart and the cautious steps he took to back away from her. Smart Slayer. So he has honed his skills then? Knew she was different from the other vampires he dealt around the small town. Buffy grinned wickedly. It’ll be fun to dance with this one. “I kill your kind for sport, Slayer.” She let her words stew in the air, watched him put the pieces together—inch by agonizing inch.

spuffy dark fic (warning has possible incest!)

Joyce's heart stopped completely. Because standing at the door, a boy, her son she hadn't seen in years stood before her. Joyce had wanted to believe he changed—hair longer and tied at the back of his neck, still dressed in his boarding school's uniform but a few sizes bigger than she had first seen him—it was his eyes that gave him away.  It was cold and unfeeling. He regarded her as if she wasn't his mother, as if she was nothing to him at all. "Joyce."  "William—" She watched his gaze snap over her shoulder and at once, the piercing cold melted into warm fondness as did the trembling tension in his body. "Hello, cutie." "Will!"  Buffy barrelled past her, leaping in his arms and she wasn't afraid, she trusted him to catch her. William staggered a few feet back from the impact, wrapping one arm across her waist and the other held her bottom to prevent her from falling. "You're here. You're really here."  William held Joyce's gaze, a muscle in his jaw twitching as if to dare her to scold him—to remove him once more out of his Buffy's life.  "Never gonna happen, love. I'll be here forever. I promise."  Buffy sighed happily, enjoying the feel of his warmth, his hands on her. Joyce sighed in resignation, turning away from the challenge in his eyes.  "It's cold outside. Come in." At this, William grinned. "Thanks, mum."

last but not least, how could i forget tvd?

take my breath rewrite (kolena + klena) i mean how can i ever resist kolena theyre like my main otp. i go batshit crazy for them.

Elena gravitates towards the lake, stares at her reflection in the water. Hates her face and her blood more than she realizes. She loved her face and her body once upon a time. Now, all it ever does is haunt her every step and shadow surrounded by men who knew every crevice of her body. They knew her better than she ever did. (It is the face that launched a thousand year curse, damning the girls that carried it. Reduced to nothing but objects in a man’s eyes. Katherine was right. I am always right. She hears her taunting giggle and sees her twin’s knowing smirk. I told you so. Nothing could ever bring more joy to her evil doppelganger than proving that she was right.)

kolena roommates au (this was actually inspired by a spuffy fic i read LOL)

"Okay, 20 questions." "Go." "Who's your favorite?" "Favorite who?" Kol groaned. "Favorite Mikaelson sibling," and looked at her bashfully, like he was expecting her to… say his name? "Rebekah." He yelled out an indignant cry, "What a load of bollocks! You're telling me, after everything we've been through, I'm still—" "You are a favorite," She cut him off.  "Really?" He gaped at her, astonished.  "My least favorite." She bit hard on her tongue, seeing the sheer disappointment and anguish encroaching on his face. And somehow, his voice had gotten louder, belting out at a higher register than Mariah Carey. "I rank lower than even bloody Niklaus?!"

i do hope to be as productive as i was in 2022 when it comes to publishing fics cause i'll really wither and die if i don't manage to publish these four.

special fic mentions:

the song of wandering aengus

banish air from air

only, helen (tentative title)

and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

& special user mentions for just being there for me (listening, suggesting, reading) when i was going batshit crazy over my fic ideas. you're all wonderful ppl and i'm glad to have you in my life <3

@katherineholmes @qvnthesia @finnismyoriginalsin

thank you so much for this ask, vis <3 love ya 5ever

[kharmii]

the narrative goes more and more into hate hate and even more hate... it's tiring... I'm sure it is for you as well...

so with this ask I want to know something that you enjoyed recently. Something making you feel better. You can also infodump a little about one of your favorite topics.

I hope you don't mind this blunt question. Just think it's important to take a break and focus on the positive as well.

Just so happens I have a facetious rant. When I first got into Dabiten, I thought....why are there no videos on YouTube of Geten with his hood down? There are a few with glowing eyed gremlin Geten fighting Dabi, but fans might have made them for Dabi because Geten is the most background of background characters. I was all set to make my own compilation video months ago, but then I realized one can't download episodes off Crunchyroll onto a PC, just mobile. I'm old, and I like to do all my work on the PC. The project was abandoned.

Fast forward to two days ago when I had all the episodes I needed to make my compilation video downloaded thanks to the My Hero Academia wiki which is one of the most edited there is. One can look up a character they like and find data on every appearance they've made in both the anime and manga. I also had to relearn how to cut and splice together edited scenes. The last time I did this was six years ago when I made the Best of Renegades Mindbender video from G.I. Joe: Renegades.

Before I made the Geten video, however, I wanted to make a compilation video of the absolute best most funny thing I've ever seen on MHA -that is still funny six months later- and that is during S6.E.12 Dabi's Dance when Best Jeanist asked Bakugo if he was able to look beyond himself and pick out a good hero name. Bakugo replied he had a name and wanted to tell him in person. It was Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite!

Five episodes later in E.17 The Wrong Way to Put Out A Fire, Best Jeanist passes Bakugo in a hospital hallway and asks, "Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite, are you okay?" I about died. I put those two scenes in a compilation video, along with two more scenes with other characters -Ingenium and Rumi Usagiyama- calling Bakugo by his new hero name. When I went to upload it to YouTube, it was immediately blocked for copyright so only I could see it. In order to get it unblocked, I'd have to cut the first fifty seconds of a minute and a half video.

I appealed the decision claiming 'free use for entertainment purposes'. After all, everybody and their grandma is putting up similar MHA content with no problem. I also credited the people who owned the franchise. Looking at the details of the copyright issue, it turns out the owner has a content ID claim against the content (which might be why my idea hasn't been done before). I still disputed it. The owner of the copyright has a couple options.

After you dispute

After you submit a dispute, the person that claimed your video (the claimant) has 30 days to respond.

What the claimant can do

Release the claim: If the claimant agrees with your dispute, they can release their claim. If you were previously monetizing the video, your monetization settings will be restored automatically when all claims on your video are released. Learn more about monetization during Content ID disputes.

Reinstate the claim: If the claimant believes that their claim is still valid, they can reinstate it. This means that your dispute was rejected and the claim stays on your video. You may be eligible to appeal this decision.

Submit a takedown request: If the claimant believes that their claim is still valid, they can submit a copyright takedown request. If the takedown request is valid, your video is removed from YouTube and your channel gets a copyright strike. Learn more about options for resolving a copyright strike.

Let the claim expire: If the claimant doesn’t respond within 30 days, the claim on your video will expire and be released from your video.

I still haven't heard back from the owner of the copyright. Best case scenario is they release the claim, but I'd be happy if they'd ignore it and let the claim expire. That would be the ultimate in delayed gratification, but at least I'd get to share the damn thing twenty-eight days from now. Expect to see it here in exactly four weeks if that happens.

In the meantime, I'll eventually get working on the Geten video for fun. We'll see if that also gets a content ID claim against it. If so, hopefully that too will expire after thirty days, and I won't have wasted my time for nothing. Sheesh, this never happened after I posted all those G.I. Joe videos. Hasbro Studios, LLC, the owners of the franchise, just put a copyright claim against all my fan videos so that they were advertised and had a link to the movie The M.A.S.S. Device | G.I. JOE A Real American Hero | 40th Anniversary Special | G.I. Joe Official put on all my videos.

Side note: I love how all YouTube videos somehow automatically generate a transcript of every bit of text in any given video. That's amazing programmers were able to make that happen. I'd like to see the punctuation be accurate and have the ability to cut out the timestamps every other second, but the fact it exists is amazing enough. Maybe someday...

-Like seriously, why do we have this on YouTube.....

.......but not this:

[disasterdrvid]

What are your top 10 video games?

Thank u @shift-shaping for the tag!

I'm tagging @localfruit @star--nymph @wardenrainwall @full---ofstarlight @perfectblve @sneklesbian @magic-space-games @notebooks-and-laptops and anyone else who wants/I may have forgot to tag <3

These aren't in any particular order tbh

Dragon Age: Origins

Genuinely this game has some of the best writing in the series and really wants players invested in their characters as character origins intersect with the main plot. Inquisition was my first DA game but Origins rewired my brain chemistry.

2. Pokemon Soul Silver

Not my first Pokemon game nor my most recent but it was the one that came at a pivotal moment in my life. Many weeks of coming home from middle school and ignoring my homework to run around in the game.

3. Stardew Valley

Absolute classic and one I consistently go back to. Sometimes I need to turn off my brain and yearn for the mines.

4. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I was never a Zelda person growing up, but I picked up BotW this year in time to play TotK. Oh my god, this game made me cry multiple times with it's lovingly-crafted story. I love the act of exploration in this game and it's encouragement to find multiple solutions to the same problem. Truly one of the best games of the last decade.

5. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

This game is such a mess and I love her dearly for it. It's character creation and leveling system is one of my favorite in any game and I'm very glad traces of it exist in Starfield (I'm not playing but my brother is and there's a lot of Oblivion love in it).

6. Cult of the Lamb

A very fun gameplay loop and roguelike combat make this super fun to replay. I don't come here for in-depth story (I've compared it to Happy Tree Friends in that regard), but I love the cult creation and maintenance.

7. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Underrated game of all time. It shows it age and there's elements of the story that don't work great but dear god I love it and I'm forever sad no one plays it. Lots of Irish folk inspiration, which I think would draw more people if they knew that was there.

8. Baldur's Gate 3

For context, I haven't actually been able to play but I've been consuming a lot of content for it so I know its up my alley. (My PC would explode bc I don't have the specs and it's not coming to Xbox for a bit 😭) But I love the characters and the DnD aspect so much.

9. Mass Effect

I'm not huge on shooters but the first Mass Effect really drew me in with its story. Not a perfect game by any stretch. However, it still feels fresh and new even now.

10. Tetris

Finally, original Tetris. Love me some shapes. First game I ever played because my mom had an old school Gameboy from before I was born that she handed down to me as a kid. Sadly can't play it on the original hardware (I still have it and it still runs!) because the screen is dogshit and I can't see, but luckily there's more places to play it now.

[golem-boy]

DevLog 04: …And a Happy New Year!

This month has been kind of a mess of inactivity for me, truth be told. I've spent more of it twiddling around on Windows, playing Warframe, than anything productive… though I suppose that in of itself is an update worth mentioning.

Secret Level released toward the beginning of the month, and perhaps the most surprising part about that in particular is the fact that I only watched the episode once. I liked the Warhammer one quite a lot though!

Warframe 1999 also released--a shocking couple of days after, no less!--and preoccupied me for the better part of half the month. It's been an incredibly rewarding and fun update, and it really feels like DE is hitting their stride with new quest mechanics and storytelling methods. I'm obviously dating Quincy…

…All that aside, I've figured out a very simplistic method of muscle rigging using stretch-to constraints and some clever eyeballing:

I wound up applying it retroactively to my now-basically-complete-aside-textures reference maquette of Post-Real Xan, as well as more or less speedrunning a high-def version of the UT99 botpack/mk II Xan. I had quite a lot of fun twiddling around with getting it as close to the concept art I have stashed as I could bear. It's a really enjoyable design, and I'd like to continue refining it as time goes on.

(There it is in the middle! Super pleased with the toony-stylized textures.)

On the note of actual tech, though, one problem I've been running into as of late is the way Windows handles, well, windows. Mint, my distro-of-choice at the moment, has a useful utility that, when you right click something in the taskbar, flips it to the opposite monitor. I have two, and it's super useful to be able to toggle a window with just a click… which isn't a thing on Windows at all. There are keybinds, sure, but they lack the convenience and muscle memory for me, which has proven very frustrating.

Worse than that is the fact that… between search degradation and the general culture and attitude about software the internet has, this isn't going to be solved anytime soon--nor is there anywhere that even points me in the right direction to fix it myself. This is super tiring, frankly, so I can only dig into the problem on my best health days. :T

I did find a nice little GUI tool for screen brightness and color temperature for Debian-related distros, though, which I'll have to link at some point if I happen to remember. I also tried a command line tool, but… that one only seemed to apply to my keyboard's… indicator LEDs?? Like, the capslock/numlock/game mode indicator lights. Not even the colored LEDs backing the keys themselves.

I was baffled for five straight minutes when I eventually clued in into what it was ACTUALLY toggling, truthfully. Uniquely useless to my specific setup, ha.

Still, the tool's been a wonder for these winter migraines I've been sprouting. I have to assume it's because it's getting dark at, what, 1630-1700 or something like that? I love winter, it's when I feel most active… but man, can't argue that the darkness makes working at my PC a bit of a drag.

I haven't really made a lot of headway in writing Neocities stuff, I've been too occupied with Blender as of late. I have a hunch that I'll be coasting the wave just a bit longer before returning to my usual gamut of projects… one of which might involve diving back into Factorio, honestly. I haven't touched it in a minute and I miss twiddling around in my main save and nurturing the ever-expanding trainwreck of belts I fondly named The Scrongdongler.

…Yes, it's named after that obscure ULTRAKILL style bonus, why do you ask? :'D

Anyhow, shorter post this time 'round, but not for lack of good stuff! I've slacked on posting pictures of my projects and WIPs, but big ships turn slowly, as they say. Bluesky has definitely been nice for dumping screenshots onto, though I really should get in the habit of sharing a wider palette of stuff.

'Til next time!

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[brain-drippings]

Success!!!

I have been struggling over a month now with my computer. My hubby, an IT professional, said that Microsoft is not going to be supporting Windows 10 much longer. So l decided to finally upgrade to Windows 11. Ever since, it had been sluggish to respond and would freeze randomly. It made it hard to want to use it.

It really felt like that at times.

But it wasn't the first time I've had problems with this computer. I've reinstalled Windows 10 multiple times and it would still get buggy and slow and problematic. I had wondered if it was a hard drive problem and looked into upgrading to a SSD. Turns out not only can my computer handle it, but Dell has an SSD for this model. I finally bought it last week and it arrived today!

I needed a little help from the hubby (an IT pro whose built multiple PCs from scratch) to make sure I had found where it goes and how to pull the old hard drive. I got it installed. I make the Windows installer USB and made sure everything on the computer was backed up. Then I turned it off, unplugged the old hard drive, and rebooted.

Just installing Windows went smoother than it has gone recently. I've moved files from backup onto the drive with no problems. I think this finally fixed the problem!! I think I can actually do stuff, like work on my upcoming conference presentation and my dissertation, after I get home from work! I've been letting the couch claim me because the thought of trying to do anything on the computer was just depressing.

I mean, I got Windows installing and actually felt like working on the mountain of dishes I've let pile up. If that's not a sign of motivation and feeling better, I don't know what is.

[rjmhereunderprotest]

There's No Power Greater than X: Rebuilding My Xbox Library

This wasn't the post I intended to come back with, but it's a recent enough experience of my that I felt like documenting. I'm still working on something else that's more substantial but I just feel like talking about this.

Recently, I've been trying to write more Text Let's Plays as a means of keeping myself writing, creatively active and enabling to use my love of gaming to do so. I'd be remiss if I also didn't say I was inspired by a good friend of mine who writes hilarious recreations of his playthroughs. Mostly horror games, he subjects himself to that a lot.

I decided to do the same and my latest choice was to return to my golden age of console game playing. Namely the Original Xbox where I started more regularly playing video games and buying them outright. The reason was simple enough, I played "Halo: Combat Evolved" and I've gotten every Xbox ever since. I've wanted an excuse to revisit the console and this was it. I thought it would be a simple enough process, but it turned out to be... much more complicated.

So this is my short, as possible, look into what started as wanting to replay an old game I loved and share it with my friends online, into a sudden nostalgia trip that reconnected me with some old gaming memories and a desire to rebuild what was once forgotten, my Original Xbox Library.

Dragoons Improvise

I think it's best to start with what game I chose to highlight for the Text LP that started all this, MechAssault.

One year post its launch, Xbox got an upgrade, Xbox Live which would change online gaming forever, for better and... well, a lot of worse if the screaming racist Twelve-Year-Olds on "Call Of Duty" are any indication. MechAssault was among the first games to be heavily advertised as compatible with the service.

I've never cared about multiplayer to any major extent. I don't have good experience playing with complete strangers online. I'm just not good with social interaction in general and competitive play brings out the worst in me. So, it's just never been something I've been able to stick with. MechAssault appealed to me for only one reason, giant freaking robots! I was casually aware of the BattleTech universe but it was so impenetrable on PC, MechAssault promised an easier way to play around in these cool walking tanks and I had a lot of fun with the game when it first came out.

My choice to play MechAssault for the text Let's Play was easy enough on this grounds, I could even do its sequel right after. But I quickly ran into some complications. First and foremost, I can't play MechAssault on any modern console.

Here's the rub, MechAssault was successful in pushing units, and so was its sequel to a moderate degree, but not enough to continue the franchise. Despite owning the IP and studio in charge of it, Microsoft never released a third game in the MechAssault series for consoles or PC. And even though the game was an Xbox Exclusive, its never been made backwards compatible. Its sequel is, but only for the Xbox 360. So even that has complications.

For some people this is a problem, because they probably chucked the old Xbox out the door a long time ago. Not me, I've of course kept mine. Well, I've kept the replacement I got when the original Xbox we got suffered some sort of power surge that caused its output port for the power cable to melt. After that, the thing just never worked again and any attempt to turn it on makes it start smelling of burning rubber and plastic. Not ideal. Suffice to say, I'm glad I still have the replacement Xbox that has held up much better over the years.

So I have the console I need to play MechAssault, what I don't have is a TV that's really compatible with it. The Original Xbox uses a different AV Input than most modern TVs, known as a composite, something that took me a lot of time to figure out actually. It's entirely different from Component wires and of substantially lower quality.

Here's where the real problem kicks in. While I CAN make the Xbox's composite cords work on a modern Flatscreen, as all I need to do is plug the yellow input into the green component output, that forces me to unplug the Xbox 360's component cords. Which is a pain in the ass to do for my TV, not to mention awkward. I attempted to see if I could finagle things a little. I got myself a composite cord switch box, thinking I could make the issue less of a hassle and maybe even re-hook up my old Playstation 2 console in the process, since it also has a composite cord.

Yeah that didn't work, the switch box is fine... but it doesn't read being plugged into the the green component output so great. There's also another problem associated with the composite cord in general, it needed to be reset constantly. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be able to properly register that the green component output is compatible with the yellow composite input. It goes to a blue screen as if the connection has been lost. Replugging it in returns the video, but again, this is a hassle I don't care to deal with constantly.

However, I can at least play the Original Xbox Console so I can still do the Text LP while I wait to figure out a solution to these problems, right? All I had to do was put the MechAssault Game Disc in when I was ready to start my Text LP and we'd be off to the races. Now I hadn't played MechAssault during the time I was waiting because I wanted to come back into the game with fresh eyes, no prior playthrough, no figuring out the controls again, just as blind as I can make it. Surely this is not a recipe for disaster!

The game won't start. It will not start. I can put it in a dozen different times, close and reclose the disc tray, clean the thing off so there is no fingerprints or whatever. The disc will not play. I try out several other games at this point, concerned this is a console problem. Nope, they all work. They more often than not require me to pull the damn Yellow Video cord out and place back in, but the games all work! After a lot of trial and error and consulting threads online, almost ripping open the old Xbox and even contemplating getting a new one, I come to the very simple obvious conclusion. It's the MechAssault disc! It's borked! Something is wrong with it!

The nearest I can tell, upon closer examination, the inner part of the disc, near the hole, has some damage on it. Damage that is not consistent with other games in my collection. It's been scratched off or something. At some point the game was damaged to an irreparable degree. It can't be played because it can't be read. You cannot believe how absolutely devastating this was.

So where do I go from here? Simple, I take advice from one of the Characters of the MechAssault game itself though. Because the game opens with you crash landing, losing a ton of your mechs and being stuck behind enemy lines with no back up, the first thing your commanding officer tells you is to suck it up, "Dragoons Improvise." And that's what I decide to do.

I find out there is a way to upgrade your Original Xbox, and even your Playstation 2, to Component Compatible cables. You can also make both consoles and the Xbox 360 HD Port compatible, but those ports are being used by other consoles right now so, that's not a viable option at the moment. The point is, I can make all three of these older consoles work with my flatscreen. All I need to do is get some compatible cables for them and I find plenty online for decent prices.

The next step is a decent switch box, and thankfully there are a ton I can use. I'm hopeful it will be more successful this go around at least, the last time I tried something like this the HDMI switcher wasn't compatible with either of my Nintendo Mini Consoles. This one is more analog though and its dealing with component cables, so no digital screw ups. It's also a bit more high end than that one was, so I was more confident it would work especially after checking reviews for the thing.

I pass the time waiting for the items to arrive playing the one Xbox Game that doesn't seem to be affected by the blue screen issue that requires me to unplug and replug the Yellow Video Input from the green component outlet.

"Heroes of the Pacific" is one of many World War 2 Air Combat games that exist in the ether. It is... average in many respects. It hosts a decent list of planes, but its mechanics aren't the best and frankly "Secret Weapons Over Normandy", which released two years prior, is superior to it in everyway. From the gaming mechanics, the upgrade system for the planes, the plethora of aircraft you can pick and especially the voice acting. HotP has some of the most phoned in voice acting ever, let me tell you. But its at least functional and I managed to beat all of its levels on the highest difficulty setting while playing the thing again. So I feel like I've more than proven my capability in powering through a frankly just okay by even its era's standards.

Once my items arrived, I hooked everything up, switching out cords and fixing up the various systems, a lot of tedious stuff frankly. The end result was excellent though. The switch box worked perfectly. No blue screen when starting up games, no black and white picture, no loss of sound, all the problems I encountered just trying to get the various wires and outputs to work with each other were gone. And now, all my older consoles were hooked up to the same component connection. Everything seemed good to go.

I am now only waiting on one thing, my replacement copy of MechAssault. Which is not as hard to come across as I fear it will be. Sure, it's not on Amazon at a decent price or at all like I hoped... but it is on EBay, in a Platinum case in fact. I'm wary though, I haven't used EBay in a long time. I tried selling stuff there and rarely got any takers. And you're mostly dealing with third party people miles away and not directly with the company itself. It can be a crapshoot. However, I have little choice.

The MechAssault game does arrive though, a little later than I hoped it would, but it does show up and it does work, confirming that my console wasn't at fault. However, this experience sorta sparked something in my mind. I replaced my damaged copy of a game I loved relatively easily and for less than what most games cost today. And in the time waiting for the new copy to come, I was looking more and more into the Original Xbox's library, remembering a bunch of games I had used to play but only ever rented, if at all.

And I thought to myself, why don't I have these games? A lot of them I either enjoyed or were up my alley! Was I still so caught up on renting back in the day I didn't consider just... owning the damn thing?

It wouldn't be the first time I bought an older game for the Original Xbox online long after they stopped making them. In response to my revulsion at what had been done to the Wolfenstein games by Bethesda, destroying the lore of the series and ruining the character of the greatest Nazi-Killing Hero that ever lived, BJ Blakowicz, I had wanted to replay my favorite game of the series, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. But my desktop had given up the ghost and and my laptop is not suitable for gaming off of steam. So I looked to find the console port of the same game and realized it worked on the Xbox 360! Awesome! I could play my favorite game again!

I never considered I could probably find more old games that I loved. I had recently gotten "The Simpsons Game" for the Xbox 360 on Amazon, but the prices on EBay tend to be little less harmful to my wallet. So... why not fill out my library a little while I'm at all this? Watching a bunch of old commercials for the Xbox's life cycle of games sorta convinced me to at least give it a shot. So I started to assemble a list of games I was interested in reconnecting with. A project I called "Rebuilding the Library" concerning all the old games that I felt were missing.

Target Rich Environment

The thing about EBay is that you can find almost anything you want... and that's the problem sometimes. You really have to sort out which things are worth going after in the end and which, honestly are just wastes of your time. Not to mention some thing might not be what you're after and you should really pay attention to what the descriptions and titles say.

Let's just say that a lot of people were selling game cases without the games inside them. Or they were just selling manuals, or they were just selling the game sans all of that. You'd think that last one means you're getting a bargain, nope. Sometimes they can cost just as much as a complete in box entry, at least when you factor in shipping.

That's also what kept me off EBay so much. The sellers can sometimes SEEM like they're giving you a great deal, but their shipping costs can run into insane amounts. I find it hard to believe at times that shipping can honestly cost more than the game you're shipping itself.

Let's be fair, a lot of these people aren't Amazon, they don't have the option to ship for low prices and still make a profit. I just sometimes wonder about the justification for the shipping prices at times. Especially if they offer little benefits for how much they're asking.

Which, I sometimes ended up ignoring through my own ignorance which might have made some of these headaches a little less of one. A number of the sellers offer tracking for your items if you pay more in shipping. I did not see this on my first go around with a lot of these. So I was kinda left in the lurch for a number of them just hoping they'd show up. Most of them did. I probably could've avoided one of problems I encountered had I been more thoughtful about tracking.

I don't think I would've paid more for tracking for most of the items in the end though. I might have just decided to go to Amazon if that was the case as they tend to provide tracking when one of the third-party sellers leaves the shipping up to one of their resource centers. EBay is for when you're trying to get a decent enough bargain after all. That's the whole point of the auction system, which I wasn't using for this to be clear.

I decided early on to not get anything outside of Canada if I could help it. By the end of things I think I ordered something every single province. So I can definitively say my collection is the accumulation of every corner of the Great White North.

However, I quickly decided to be picky about which games I ultimately got. There were some I intended to get from the outset, but others I eventually decided weren't worth the expenditure. These usually fell into a few categories that got them excluded.

First: Too Expensive, at least two of these games were simply asking too much even for me and I found them ultimately in a cheap capacity on steam. As much as I would've wanted to have "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" on Xbox, I was able to get it for dirt cheap on steam and it probably works better there anyway. The other is... well it's a bit more adult I think and I don't think I just want that hanging out in the open. Besides the PC version isn't censored.

Second: I already have it on Playstation 2, this is redundant. That's what got Scarface kicked off the list. While I was okay with getting a game I already had on the computer, getting it for a console that, as I explained, I now had access to again as a result of my other purchases, seemed completely pointless. The same was true of another game that I do have for the PC that is simply not good enough on the console anyway.

Third: They're just not well reviewed or interesting. That's what got Predator: Concrete Jungle kicked at least. As much as I love the idea of playing the Predator in any aspect, I remembered too much of not being impressed with the game to buy into it this go around. It also was too expensive. Shadow Ops: Red Mercury just ended up feeling too mediocre to bother with.

Fourth: It belonged to a Genre I wasn't into. Every sport game got knocked off the list more or less as a result. Even the iconic DOA Volleyball game. If I want softcore porn of those characters, I have the internet. I can get that for free.

Fifth: They're available on Xbox's digital store front and there's no sense in wasting money on something I can probably get for cheap and with easier access to later one.

In the end I was looking mainly for inexpensive titles that were iconic, had cult acclaim, I had played before but did not own or at least seemed interesting to me regardless of anything else. Now there was an ultimate to exception to this basic rule of thumb concerning price, but that was only because it was apparent after a while I had no choice. A few of them also came from Amazon when I found them at a more affordable price.

In any case, with my reasoning for what didn't end up in getting picked up I think it's time to get to the point of all this. Keep in mind, a lot of these are of the shooter variety, but they're not all the as atypical as you might think. And even still, I like to think I got a wide range of titles all the same. So let us take a look.

The Haul

Yeah, it's a fair amount. 27 titles, maybe that sounds like a lot, but I got some of these for a bit of a steal honestly. A good number of these have always been on my radar in one form or another. It's just I finally got around to reacquiring them. If you want call some of these impulse buys, I won't dispute it, but they are more or less games I felt I missed or had missed out on. Each of them is a little piece of the history of the Xbox and Gaming overall. So, let's look over them in no particular order.

"Whacked!" was one of two games on my list from the start. One of the first games Xbox used to promote the Live Service. A party game centered around a twisted cartoon world's game show with contestants who centered their personalities around the seven deadly sins. The game is probably most known for Lucy, the lovely lady in blue on the cover who runs around most of the game naked save for censorship bars over her private bits. Yeah she's not in that outfit you see for very long.

Oddly enough though I didn't pick her as my main, my favorite character is a little off to her lower right, Eugene, the green penguin/duck with the goggles and trapper hat. He's a Canadian, he's my favorite color and he's a total nerd. It's like he was made for me. He also represents the Sin of Envy, constantly coveting what others have and secretly hating those who belittle him. Hmm, perhaps I should reconsider why I feel he's so relatable then.

As you can see in this audition tape that doubled as one of the game's trailers, this game relies heavily on madcap Looney Tunes humor. It's emphasized in a ton of the commercials that would play between rounds of the game show as well as other cutscenes where the characters interact. Whacked!'s gameplay isn't terrible though, it's rather varied from simple death matches to collecting stars, king of the hill and even dodgeball. However, it wasn't well advertised. I only probably ran into it because stuff like this was what I was drawn to. The concept of a Looney Tunes-like world that was centered towards older audiences just intrigued me... oh yeah and Lucy was hot so that's probably what got me to at least rent it out. But I actually enjoyed the humor and the game enough to keep playing it back in the day. It's still popular enough in some circles and it's even backwards compatible with the 360, but it's still a cult hit.

This was the second game that got on my radar. Bloodwake is boat combat based action title. Similar to something like Twisted Metal, but on the water and there's a more involved storyline besides a demolition derby of death. You play as a pirate in a South China Sea-like setting where you are trying to get revenge on the man who sunk your previous ship. No spoilers, but it's your brother because that's how these games go. I played this way back in the day as it was part of the second wave of titles released post the Xbox's launch. It was different and fun to play. I guess it just didn't get the numbers needed for a sequel, if any were planned. But the game showed the power of the Xbox for the time as its water effects were a standout in the graphical department. I got this because it was one of the best early experiences I had with the Xbox that wasn't centered around Halo.

It's a racing game, I'm not big on racing games. I didn't get it for the cars. Hell I didn't even really want this game in general. But I had no choice. I had to get this game in order to buy...

Jet Set Radio Future, in a era where Skateboarding was king on video game consoles, this game dared to focus on rollerblading... and graffiti... and jamming tunes! While I am not the best at extreme sports games, I had enough good memories of briefly playing the demo and a big enough desire to own this damn thing at last that I decided to finally fork in. I would've gotten it on Xbox 360's marketplace... if it hadn't technically been delisted from there. Actually, I think it was the original title anyway, not this game which is its sequel. So... yeah, it is what it is. Hopefully this game isn't too different from some other extreme sports games I played back in the day, but at least now I own it so if the itch to commit vandalism against corporate cops and their tanks hits me, it's right there.

Grand Theft Auto's original console outings always had a problem for me in one area, targeting. I could never make its lock-on system feel comfortable back in the day. When IV came out with a more traditional aiming system, it was far easier to get into. I think, however, I will be able to better adjust this go around. The real reason I got this double pack though is simple enough. Yes, I could get the remaster. Yes they've probably fixed it since its terrible launch. I don't care though, they took out some songs and I want the full V-Rock list when I'm riding around Vice City, plain and simple. Of course this brings us to a bit of a detour.

Well I can't just get these two games and not pick up San Andreas! That makes no sense. I could've gotten the Original Xbox version as well and even played it on my Xbox One. But it just would've downloaded the 360 version anyway from what I hear. So, this is cutting out the middle man in my eyes. Either way, no cuts to the radio's choice of songs. That's alright with me.

These two are the most expensive games on the list by far. Godzilla's fighting games were some of the best kaiju brawling one could find on any console. Destroy All Monsters Melee actually is from the states as I could not find it being sold in Canada anywhere. This thing is just that expensive and that coveted. The box is damaged so that's probably why they cut down the price just a little. As a major Godzilla fan, I was determined to finally own these and given I was already spending a good deal by this point, I just stopped caring and gave in. Whatever. I can finally beat down Gigan as Rodan, that's a win in my book.

By the by, did you know that ATARI logo is sort of a lie? Infrogrames bought the Atari license back in the day. Then they changed their name to Atari! They're still in business today even. But these games have been out of print forever, explaining their high price tag. There's just not many people willing to sell them at this point.

I probably could've gotten the sorta remake/sequel for the 360, two games for the price of one, but everyone only cares about Butcher Bay anyway. Starring Vin Diesel himself as everyone's favorite see in the dark career criminal, Riddick has to escape the absolute worst prison in existence. Playing this game was an experience back in the day in brutality. First person melee fighting is always tricky to pull off, but this game accomplished it. It also helped that it was fairly competent stealth game. I just generally like sneaking up on people neck snap them.

My connection with the game runs deeper than my initial playthrough. You see, the people who made Butcher Bay, some of them went on to found another studio entirely. The studio that made the terrible Wolfenstein reboots. In fact, I recognized their handiwork in the Concentration Camp level. To the point I felt like the game was less Wolfenstein and more just a reskin of this game. Down to the overly flowerly in-game narration. Which is fine for Riddick, just not for Blazkowicz. I think that's why I got the game, to remind myself of when I didn't have bad memories of this sort of playstyle.

I have a lot of 007 games. I just really like me some fun spy action and no one does it better than Bond in my opinion. From Russia With Love was the game that harkened back to classic era of the franchise, with Sean Connery himself! The game even has a jetpack to fly around in! None of the newer games gave you a jetpack! This one had been in my Amazon Wishlist for a while, I just finally decided I had an excuse to get it.

Another Rockstar game, but based on a cult classic film this time. I could've sworn I had this for the Playstation, but it's not on there in any of my memory cards. I might have deleted it or maybe I only ever rented it. I don't know, I could just be mistaken. This one caused me some trouble getting though. The first buyer from Amazon gave me the entirely wrong game! I had to return it to get my money back, which was a pain in the ass to do because of a garbage ass courier service. However, I think it worked it out. This copy came from a nice person off EBay who was trying to pay off some vet bills. That kinda made me happy to know I had helped someone out in the end.

I have the Evil Dead game for modern consoles, but I've always wanted/preferred the single player experience. These two games are highly different from each other in play style, but all I knew was that I wanted to finally play as Ash and kill Deadites without having to do it with other people. As a major fan of the Evil Dead franchise, I couldn't ignore these titles anymore than the Godzilla ones at the end of the day.

This was Free Radical's other less successful game IP besides Timesplitters. Second Sight had you play as amnesiac who wakes up in a research center of some kind with a lot of people want to kill him and psychic powers as his only real defense. It's not their typical run and gun shooter you expect from Free Radical, it's certainly more original. Sadly the game didn't sell well, shame too. You know there was a short period of time when psychic powers were all the rage in gaming mechanics. It looked like it would be the next big thing too.

Now this was a creepy as hell game. You play as a prisoner on death row who unfortunately arrives on the day a hellmouth just opens up under the prison. There's all these crazy cool monsters that are based off of various executions and ways people can die in prison. And there's a morality system that determines what ending you get that reveals how guilty you actually are. It was an awesomely scary game and I'm glad to own it again.

I have a huge affinity towards the Weird West subgenre. Just something about the mix of setting and tropes associated with it works wonders. And getting to fight vampires and other monsters in the wild west is a friggin awesome concept they should honestly do more of. I have no idea why I missed out on playing this game when I enjoyed the demo well enough. Especially knowing this was the start of High Moon Studios, the guys who made my favorite Transformers games. Although hearing it from them, that was sorta the problem. No one wanted to invest in Darkwatch, even after it reviewed well and sold decently. Before you knew it, Activision buys up High Moon, forces them to work on franchise only IPs, the original founders leave and soon after they produce Deadpool, they're all shoved into the CoD mines! Honestly, I'm noticing a pattern with a lot of these games at this point, are you?

Brute Force is a squad-based shooter where you can switch between four characters with unique abilities that are suitable for a variety of encounters and enemies you run into while playing. But the truth is, I played it because it had a crocodile man and I wanted to play as the crocodile man and that's really all that anyone cared about in the end I think. It has a crocodile man.

Mace Griffin is an ex-Space Ranger who was framed for a crime he didn't commit, was dishonorably discharged, imprisoned and when he came out all he could do was find Bounty Hunting work. The game is all about you clearing his name. For me I just felt it was cheap enough to get and, well, I like bounty hunter games. It's a cool enough concept to overcome some average scores. I think it will be fun enough for me at the very least.

I remember when conspiracy theory nonsense was just that, nonsense. Alien abductions and Area 51 used to be quaint little silly things to use in sci-fi. Now conspiracy nuts are considerably more racist and insanely dangerous. Maybe they always were. Area 51 was another of Midway's arcade games they translated to consoles. It used to be a lightgun on-rails shooter about aliens attacking the infamous secret military base. Now it's an FPS about that, but starring David Duchovny. That's right, Fox Mulder himself! I've never been into alien conspiracy garbage, but at least not I can laugh at the concept of Mulder fighting aliens on a fake Moon soundstage. Oh don't worry, we still went to the moon, but what we found there was too terrifying for any human eyes to see so we just faked the broadcast instead. OOOOOoOOOooHhhhhH! Spooky! See? It's dumb but at least it's not bigoted!

I have the two other games in the series, I bought this for completionism sake. We never got to see the end of this series, the proper end, with Bastogne and heading into Germany and all that. Instead Gearbox dumped all their money into Borderlands, left Aliens out to dry and impotently tried to save Duke Nukem. Thanks Randy. Thanks a ton. Oh well, at least now I have every entry in a once promising franchise.

The top-down squad-based strategic stealth game for PCs, becomes the action-stealth FPS game for consoles. I'll sum up why I have this succinctly enough. I enjoy taking down Fascists in video games, simple as that. Let me shoot at Nazis and I'm golden more or less. Not all the time, you need to at least make it fun and good, but killing Nazis is a good baseline.

I actually have this for the PC, but again my Desktop died so this is basically once again trying to play the game again more easily. I know people have a lot of thoughts about depicting this historical event, but for me I just try to view it as game depicting said historical event. No more, no less. It's best not to try and take your politics from video games. Especially when they don't have the time to examine all the complex context surrounding the mission gone wrong in question.

Speaking of controversial sources, Tom Clancy! Look, the guy wrote books to appease a very certain demographic, everyone right of center specifically, but there's no deny that his game studio didn't put out great hits. The Ghost Recon series is one of those and collecting the entire series as it started on consoles was a major goal for me as I've been a fan of the series for a long time. You have your standard locales for our titular Special Forces to visit, Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Kazakhstan, all the good hotspots for bad guys wanting to destroy America. If you want an action thriller movie to play around in, Ghost Recon is always your go to. And with these guys, I now basically have them all.

On the other side of the spectrum, Rainbow Six 3. Ghost Recon deals with special operations behind enemy lines. Rainbow is all about reactive counter-terrorism in mostly urban environments and indoors. Where things are more tense, closer and personal. They're very good tactical squad-based games. I've never been into Rainbow Six as much as Ghost Recon, but it's one of the central pillars of the Tom Clancy gaming library, next to Splinter Cell as the third column. So yeah, I picked it up because I already have all the Splinter Cells for the Xbox, might as well not leave Rainbow out of things.

Retro-active Final Thoughts

This all started because I just wanted to play one game, but then I guess I realized I wanted to play a lot of games. Games I had missed out on or just plain missed. I haven't had my Original Xbox hooked up in years and I guess prospect of being able to more regularly play it now just hit me hard enough to shake loose whatever else was holding me back from collecting these old favorites and curiosities.

The Xbox in general has been a huge part of my life and I suppose this journey was about making my library of games feel more whole. And the best part is, it's not really over. I still have to play through all these at some point and the prospect of that is exciting all the same. I know it's nostalgia fueled, but I did learn a lot about these games and the console as I looked them up. There was a lot of variety on the old Xbox. Even within a single genre. It's hard to look back to that moment of time and then to now when gaming feels so... different.

I'm not sure if this little expose has truly been as interesting or worthwhile to write as I believe it is. But I'm happy I got my thoughts down on it. And I do hope that, maybe like it did for me, it brought back some memories for you. I don't know if all of these games will hold up as well as I want them too, but it just feels nice to look forward to playing these games again all the same. And I enjoyed hunting for them, even if some aspects of it were frustrating.

Well, that's all for now. Next time I'll probably have something more substantial for you all. Until then, keep on gaming. Whatever console your passion is, I hope it's bringing you hours of fun. Who knows, maybe one day you'll step back into it like I have and discover some things you didn't know you were looking for.