#other than the lack of bugs and the fact that it runs well (which is nice!) i am disappointed

[dyrrn]

i wish i could enjoy da:tv but it's just... bad. in a lot of ways. i'm not going to go on a whole hater rant but how the hell is anyone giving this a 10/10? it's 4/10 for me at absolute best

[loki-us]

Welcome to my Mega Problematic Sylvie post

I wanted to make a list of everything problematic about Sylvie in s1 and s2 because she gets away with whatever she wants and it bugs me to no end that she never takes accountability for any of the pain she causes.

You have been warned. So let's get into it.

1. Sylvie’s way is the only way and she expects everyone else to just bend to her will without complaint

2. She is physically mentally and emotionally incapable of trusting anyone besides herself

3. She uses other people's emotions to manipulate them into getting what she wants

4. She refuses to even entertain the possibility that anything besides her own opinion is correct

5. She criticizes others' attempts to clean up the mess she caused while she herself does absolutely nothing about it

6. Always looking to ruin and run, taking the easy way out and avoiding any accountability

7. Puts her own need for revenge above the well-being of everyone else in the multiverse

8. Blames everyone else for the problems she herself caused

9. Insults everyone at the TVA for their lack of empathy despite it being the exact reason she didn't want to return in the first place. Every critique she delivers just illustrates how much of a hypocrite she is

10. Berates Mobius and all the people who are actually trying to fix her problem even though they never once blamed her for the mess they're in

11. Acts like she's doing everyone a favor just for being there and insulting everyone when in reality, Loki had to ask multiple times before finally getting her to return

12. Never willing to put in more effort than just destroying everything and walking away

13. Even when directly asked for her help, Sylvie straight up refuses. She couldn't care less about anything besides her McDonald's employee-of-the-month badge

14. Sylvie gaslights Loki into thinking they're the same, that she's not in the wrong because they're both only thinking of themselves. In reality, Sylvie is thinking only of going back to her own timeline, alone, while Loki is thinking only of making his friends happy, because that's what makes him happy too.

15. While being completely unsympathetic to Loki struggling with his greatest fear, Sylvie makes the decision that Loki's friend's are all better off where they are now. But is it really better for them, or just better for Sylvie?

16. And now, after 11 episodes and countless requests for Sylvie's help, she actually cares about the rest of the multiverse. And yet it's still solely because her own timeline is finally in danger

17. When Loki ends up sacrificing himself to solve the problem Sylvie created, her only response is a joyful shrug that she's now happy, alone, and responsibility-free.

Overall, I know Sylvie's only purpose as a character is to be a darker mirror of Loki and everything she does is understandably informed by her trauma. This is likely a result of having a limited-episode-series and having all male/not diverse writers creating female characters. Sylvie is used only as a comparison to Loki before he met Mobius, and unfortunately is never given any thoughtful character moments like Loki had showing how he was aware that his actions hurt others. In 1x1, Loki talks about how he doesn’t enjoy hurting people and only does it to maintain control. The only time we ever see Sylvie reconsider her actions is when she didn’t kill Timely, which I think is more because she saw herself in Timely as someone who didn’t want to be controlled by their ‘destiny,’ not because she developed any kindness or compassion toward him.

I understand the fact that Sylvie was never given someone like Mobius to allow her the opportunity to change like Loki did, but I don't think that should excuse her causing so much pain and being so self-centered. Sylvie never trusted or cared about anyone and that's also my biggest argument against Sylki; her loving or being driven by anyone besides herself is just so inconsistent with her entire character.

Anyway, my purpose here was not to be hateful or to search for any reason to criticize Sylvie, but instead to look critically at her character since I've seen a lot of people praise her as the strong, independent female Loki whose behavior can always be forgiven. Unfortunately, the way she was written is that Sylvie turned her own trauma into everybody else's problem and they all spent 2 seasons trying to clean up her mess. That's my take thank you and goodnight

[queenshelby]

Yes! Mr Murphy (Rewritten)

PART SEVEN: THE SHINING 

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Angst, Age Gap, Teacher x Student, Fluff

PLEASE COMMENT AND ENGAGE!

An hour later

Needless to say, it did not take Cillian long to convince you to stay and, even though you were a little nervous about it, you felt somewhat excited about spending the night with him, albeit in different bedrooms.

Cillian, on the other hand, seemed to be a little more content and calm than you about the situation and knew that, realistically, you lacked other suitable options.

You had nowhere else to go and, if you were to go back to your own apartment, you would have run the risk of James turning up there unannounced. You knew that he was dangerous and that, alone, gave you enough reason to spend the evening elsewhere, with a person you could trust.

In so far as the situation with James was concerned, over a period of an hour, Cillian also convinced you to go to the police and you had promised him to do exactly that on the following day, right after class.

It was a promise you knew Cillian would hold you to and you had no desire to beach his trust. You, too, knew that this was the most sensible option for you and you did not want to risk another bruised cheek or two if you failed to take this seriously.

After convincing you to go to the police, Cillian then ordered some pizza before jumping into the shower as well and settling down on the couch with you in order to watch a movie.

As expected, he kept his distance from you and, despite the fact that he did, you were still close enough to stare at him and his somewhat strange looking pyjamas.

His pyjamas comprised a t-shirt featuring bugs bunny and a pair of matching grey boxer shorts which appeared to be too short even for a man of his height.

“My son bought them for me for Christmas” Cillian ought to clarify and you smiled.

“I like them. They look pretty cool, especially with the big carrot covering your crotch. It’s quite something” you teased, causing Cillian to laugh.

“Well, yeah…bugs bunny and his big carrot…what can I say…” Cillian joked and you both broke out in laughter just before your eyes caught on his legs which, too, were exposed.

They were masculine and strong, probably because of all the running you knew he was doing every day before school and, for some reason, seeing him like this. aroused you.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Cillian then eventually asked as if he was trying to divert your look from his legs to the TV screen.

“Yeah, a movie sounds good. What do you want to watch?” you asked with blushing cheeks. You could tell that he was noticing the way you had been looking at him and, clearly, that made him somewhat uncomfortable now.

“I don’t know. What sort of genres do you like?” Cillian asked before reaching into the coffee table draw to retrieve a large blanket which, in the end, he used to cover his legs.

“Honestly? I love scary movies” you told him as you watched him hide his legs from your gaze.

“Scary how?” Cillian asked. “Like ‘The Shining’ scary or ‘gory scary’?” he then wanted to know and you did not quite understand what he was talking about.

“What’s the Shining?” you wanted to know and his chin immediately dropped.

“Seriously?” he asked. “Have you never seen ‘The Shining’?” he was surprised and you reluctantly shook your head and stammered out a quiet “no”.

“You are almost thirty, studying to become an actress, and never watched ‘the Shining’…unbelievable…” Cillian then teased and you felt as though you should correct him. You had still not told him about your true age and felt rather guilty about it.

“Actually, I am…” you began to say, wanting to tell him that you were almost eight years younger than he thought but then you changed your mind. “Never mind” you thus said, backing out of what you were going to say for fear of being rejected by him. “I may have seen it. I am terrible at remembering the names of movies though” you then said and Cillian took this as an opportunity to introduce you to cult classic.

“Hmm. Okay. How about we watch it then and see whether you can remember it? I haven’t seen thus movie in over ten years and it is pretty good” Cillian thus told you and you agreed.

“Okay. Yes. Let’s watch it” you said before asking a an all-important question. “Do you have popcorn?” you wanted to know and Cillian immediately furrowed his eyebrows.

“Really? Popcorn?” he asked and you nodded.

“Yeah. I love popcorn” you admitted.

“I should do. The kids eat it all the time” Cillian then informed you before giving you a lecture about the suitability of popcorn while watching scary or intense movies.

In the end, however, he gave in to your demands and you both settled on the sofa again with some snacks.

***

About an hour into the movie, Cillian reached over from some popcorn and you swatted his hand away playfully.  

“You said you don’t eat popcorn when watching movies like this” you teased before you popped another piece into your mouth.

“I did say that, but I am hungry” Cillian chuckled and you voluntarily handed him the bowl and laughed.

“You didn’t eat much pizza, so I am not really surprised” you giggled before realising that, just minutes ago, Cillian had opened another bottle of wine as well but then inadvertently left it on the kitchen bench.

Looking at your empty glasses, you hopped off the couch and walked towards the kitchen in order to retrieve it.

“I paused the movie” Cillian then yelled out while you padded back to the living room barefooted with his oversized t-shirt barely covering your swaying hips. Earlier that evening, Cillian had given you some of his shorts but they were too big for you and kept on rolling down, so you decided to take them off and put on your panties instead, leaving you in nothing but cotton underwear and his black t-shirt.

“Thanks. I wouldn’t want to miss anything as I am really enjoying this movie so far” you said before placing the wine bottle on the coffee table in front of him and, just after you did, Cillian poured you each some more wine into your empty glasses.

He then settled back against the back of the sofa with a glass in his hand and, just after he did, you picked up the blanket which he had, by now, pushed to the floor. But, instead of settling on the far side of the couch again, you settled down in the middle, right next to Cillian.

“It’s freezing, isn’t it?” you then said before covering both of your laps with the blanket while settling back against Cillian comfortably, not delicately or carefully by any means.

“Yeah” Cillian said, swallowing harshly. He was not expecting you to come so close to him.

“Shit. I am sorry” you then said as you realised yourself that you had leaned back against him which, after a few glasses of wine, came naturally to you.

“It’s fine. You can lean against me if you are comfortable like that…I am cool with it…” Cillian stammered in response before looking back at the movie, trying not to think of your body pressing against his.

“Oh, okay. I was comfortable, so yeah, I mean, if you don’t mind” you told him before leaning back again although, by now, Cillian’s arm felt as though it was in the way.

“Or maybe not. Your arm is in the way now. Can you move it?” you giggled and Cillian awkwardly lifted it up and then settled it around you while trying not to touch your body.

“Better?” he then asked and you responded with a quiet “yes” before you pulled his arm closer to get more comfortable.

“Y/N, I think that…maybe…” Cillian began to say just as you snuggled in, bringing the blanket with you, but just as he spoke, he realised that you were completely focused on the movie again now.

“This is intense. She needs to get out of there” you spoke, referring to the scenes on screen and, just as the movie progressed, you began to nervously draw your fingertips across Cillian’s arm, giving him goosebumps.

“Please tell me she is going to escape” you then told Cillian while fidgeting nervously but he did not say a word as, unbeknownst to you, he tried very hard not to become aroused by you being so close to him now.

Eventually, the movie intensified and you moved forward again, right onto the edge of the couch and, instead of grasping for the blanket now, you had dug your finger nails into Cillian’s arm.

“Oh my god” you said as the final scene of the movie came on and Cillian felt relieved for the fact that it was almost over.

“Fuck that was so good” you then said when, finally, the movie came to and end and your reaction amused Cillian just slightly.

“So you haven’t seen it, have you?” he mused and you shook your head before you stretched yourself and yawned.

"No, I haven’t. It was a great, but I am absolutely knackered now” you then told Cillian while moving away from him again.

“Well, it is almost eleven o’clock. We should probably go to bed” he suggested and, of course, he was right. You had a nine o’clock start and even he had to be at drama school at around ten the following morning.

“Yeah. We should” you thus said. “Thank you again for letting me stay here, and thanks for the pizza and wine…” you then told him before leaning in slightly to give Cillian a friendly kiss on the cheek.

“You are most welcome Y/N” Cillian responded, swallowing hard before wishing you a good night’s sleep which is also when you made your way to the guestroom.

To be continued…Please comment and engage. I love getting comments and predictions pretty please!

Tags: @fastfan@elenavampire21@dolllol2405@allie131313@cilliansangel@coldbastille@kpopgirlbtssvt@cdej6@kathrinemelissa@landlockedmermaid77@crazymar15@damedomino  @lauren-raines-x@miss-bunny19@skinny-bitch-juice@odorinana@cloudofdisney@weepingstudentfishhorse@allexiiisss@geminiwolves@letsstarsfalling@ysmmsy@chlorrox@tommyshelbypb@chocolatehalo@music-lover911@desperate-and-broken@mysticaldeanvoidhorse@peaky-cillian@lelestrangerandunusualdeetz@december16-1991@captivatedbycillianmurphy@romanogersendgame@randomfangirl2718@missymurphy1985@peakyscillian@lilymurphy03@deefigs@theflamecrystal@livinginfantaxy@rosey1981@hanster1998@fairypitou@zozeebo@kasaikawa@littleweirdoalien@sad-huffle-nerd@theflamecrystal@0ghostwriter0@stylescanbeatmyback@1-800-peakyblinders@datewithgianni@momoneymolife@mcntsee@janelongxox@basiclassy@being-worthy@chaotic-bean-of-smolness@margoo0@vhscillian@crazymar15@im-constantly-fangirling@namelesslosers@littlewhiterose@ttzamara@cilleveryone@peaky-cillian@severewobblerlightdragon@dolllol2405@pkab@babaohhhriley@littleweirdoalien@alreadybroken-ts@masteroperator@stevie75@shabzy96@rainbow12346@obsessedwithfandomsx@geeksareunique@laysalespoir@paigem00@lkarls@vamp-army@luckystarme@myjumper@gxorg@eline-1806@goldenharrysworld@cristinagronk16@stylesofloki@faatxma@slut-for-matt-murdock@tpwkstiles@myjumper@cloudofdisney@look-at-the-soul@smellyzcat@kittycatcait219@theliterarybeldam@being-worthy@layazul@lyn07@kagilmore@50svibes@mainstreetlilly@ourthatgirlabby@bitchwhytho@takethee@registerednursejackie@sofi128@mrkdvidal1989@minxsblog@heidimoreton@laylasbunbunny@laylasbunbunny@queenshelby@camilleholland89@forgottenpeakywriter@vintagecherryt@indierockgirrl@mrkdvidal1989@bluesongbird@dudde-44@gasolinesavages@kissforvoid@bluebird592@1eugenia1isabella1@esposadomdp@lulunalua23@lovelace42@bookklover23@iwantmyredvelvetcupcake@moonmaiden1996@marlenamallowan@cyphah (cannot tag)@majesticcmey@cleverzonkwombatsludge@throughgoeshamilton@alessioayla@elenavampire21@justforfiction@cilliansangel@alannielaraye@satellitelh@pandoramyst@duckybird101@snixx2088@kylianswag@alessioayla@pono-pura-vida@iraisbored69@howling-wolf97@aesthetic0cherryblossom@weirdo-rules@lovemissyhoneybee@dazaiscum@esposadomd@etherealkistar@ur--mommy@throughgoeshamilton

[evolutionsvoid]

Islands are fascinating, if a little frustrating, ecosystems to study. Unlike habitats on mainland, which are all interconnected and have a whole lot of bleed over in certain regions, islands are their own separate thing. You might as well be stepping onto another world if you find one out in the middle of the ocean. It is here that life has gone on with no idea of anything else around it. The species that are here are the only things they have to deal with, and thus they have grown accordingly. With no clue of the rest of the world's rules, you get things like giant creatures becoming tiny and small critters now acting like megafauna. It is truly a mind-boggling thing to take in, and I feel like there is an endless amount of research to be done here. However, the frustrating part is that these places are fragile, and one muck up from the outside world can destroy these tiny worlds before we have a chance to understand them.

The reason I am waxing on about this is because the species I am writing about comes from an island. Like the others who live in isolation, they have grown in odd ways that is very unusual for their family. The Rahiruru is a bird, and rather big one. Their life on this remote island has caused them to grow to the size of a bear, and that isn't the only thing they took from them! It seems that a long time ago, the Rahiruru decided it didn't need wings anymore, which I guess came from the fact it had nowhere to fly to. Thus, the species is flightless, and even straight up wingless. Their forelimbs have changed more into dexterous appendages, more akin to bird feet than bird wings. And so instead of flying, they are knuckle walkers that live their entire lives on the ground. Crazy to imagine from something that is a member of the harpy family!

While odd as it may be with its size and flightless manner, why it has gone this path appears obvious. It has renounced its wings because there is no where to go, and there is nothing to run from. With that, it also explains why they have gotten so big, because the Rahiruru has no threats to worry about. On this island, they are the biggest thing around, and thus nothing contests them. There are no major predators here, resulting in no worries for this big bird.

If you weren't aware of this place lacking predators, you could probably get clued in by the way the Rahiruru acts. This quadrupedal bird beast struts about without a care in the world, doing whatever it pleases. They make no effort to hide or keep quiet, and defensive measures are probably something they never thought about. They feed on fruits, nuts and bugs, and most of the time their manners are far from polite. Rahiruru will gorge themselves on the spoils of the land, to the point where they practically fall asleep on the dinner table. They eat so much that they get lazy and sluggish, which soon leads to nap time. Honestly, that seems to be most of their lives, eating and sleeping. Grooming takes up the other part, but their efforts in that are also pretty lax. If one finds a bountiful fruit tree, then they may spend an entire week sitting under it and refusing to budge, fat and happy as long as the fruit keeps falling. They are so passive and uncaring, that outsider beings like you or I could walk right up to them without an issue! They straight forgot how to interpret threats and how to act around them!

When it comes to breeding, Rahiruru use booming calls to locate mates. The noises that result are probably not what you expect. They are very low and sound sort of quiet, but that is because it is at a level we can't really hear. Though it isn't impressive to us, other Rahiruru can hear it clear as day, and it travels all across the island. When females come in, then they use more conventional croaking calls from their inflated air sacs to sweeten the pot. If a male comes to challenge their mating attempts, the two may settle it with annoyed shoves and weak wrestling.

Rahiruru eggs are laid on the ground, because why bother hiding it from predators that don't exist? They hardly build a nest too, as the female just uses her body to keep them safe and warm. She will lounge about on top of the eggs til hatching, and when the harplets come out they will not stay in any nest. Rather, they use their hooked forelimbs to cling to their mother, who will then seek out a nearby food source for her and her children. These babies stay with their mother for way longer than many other bird species, but that seems to be due to their general lethargy than anything else. The young ones don't feel like leaving and mom doesn't feel like kicking them out. It looks more like they leave whenever they get bored, or their wandering takes them in a different direction.

Due to their size and appearance, the Rahiruru drew quite a lot of attention when it was first discovered. Well, when it was "discovered" a second time by outsiders, because locals who lived near these islands knew about them for far longer. Travelers chucked out the original name in favor of calling them "owlbears" due to them looking a fusion of both. They marveled at these giant birds and stories began to spread far and wide. Some folk recalled tales of shipwrecked sailors washing up on an island filled with "large, beautiful women" and wondered if these Rahiruru were the origin. Do remember that harpies have air sacs that look like human breasts, and the males have the biggest set amongst the two. With their odd head feathers, wingless state and "bosom," I guess dehydrated, sun poisoned sailors could get the interpretation that they landed on an island paradise with very large women. I struggle to see how someone could be that out of their gourd to think a bird was a woman, but I guess those folk were desperate at the time and clearly deranged. You think one of them would wise up and wonder why there was an island of nothing but giant lazy ladies who did nothing but ate and slept, but I guess they didn't want to spoil the fantasy (hey, if such a place existed, sign me up for an extended vacation). Lets just hope that the stories were accurate and that the sailors did nothing else but eat fruit and sleep. I really do hope that...

Outside of the raunchy hallucinations, the Rahiruru gained itself some popularity, especially when advertised as an "owlbear." It made them sound fantastical, and folks were interested in seeing more of these strange beasts. This is where things go south, because when the people see a market, they start doing stupid things. And wouldn't you believe it, people started capturing Rahiruru and bringing them to other places, to either show off to crowds or sell as pets. Obviously, their population didn't take to this too kindly, especially when these ships started bringing outsider species to their island. Invasive rats and other critters got introduced and started causing havoc, which led to Rahiruru losing eggs to these vermin. The population took a steep drop, and things weren't looking good. On top of that, some knotheads thought that an "owlbear" would be the perfect creature to throw into a gladiator arena. This stupid idea came from the name and their appearance, which people assumed would make them fierce fighters. They only realized how poorly researched this plan was when they opened the cage to let their monsters loose and the poor Rahiruru only cowered in its corner in fear! They never fought anything before, and thus weren't designed for screaming arenas filled with savage beasts! I don't want to think of how many perished horribly to being thrown into this blood sport.

Thankfully, this story doesn't end badly, as people started to wise up and realize this species was quickly headed towards extinction. Locals took action to protect the island these birds lived on, finding ways to kill the vermin and ward off poaching. Researchers and conservationists looked to secure the birds that were taken off the island, as they needed every potential breeder they could. It was said that some zoos bought caught Rahiruru from their gladiator captors once the owners realized they made poor fighters. Those that could be sent back home safely were returned to the wild, while others broken by captivity stayed in zoos. There the birds could be taken care of and used to educate (like telling folk their real name and not that stupid owlbear junk). Folks curious to see one could visit these facilities rather than some idiot's collection of animals he doesn't know how to take care of. These captive ones were also used for breeding, and the young born from these programs would be reared and released back on their island. It was no easy feat, but the Rahiruru population was saved through these efforts. The island is now heavily watched and maintained, looking to keep it as close to its original state as they could. Those who couldn't make it back home at least now have comfortable lives, and they don't seem to be complaining. Due to their charming appearance and popularity, some of these residents absolutely get spoiled by their keepers and audience. They certainly earned it!

Chlora Myron

Dryad Natural Historian

-----------------------------------

"Rahiruru"

The idea started as me doing a harpy version of a kakapo, but then I realized my idea was getting close to an owlbear. It was then I thought "huh, it would be neat if this took some notes from said owlbear! Let me see what their deal is!" And from what I looked up, owlbears scream and kill things, and they are always screaming and always killing things. And when they aren't screaming and killing things, they are dreaming of screaming and killing things. Thus, I kinda threw that idea out and went the complete opposite, at least personality wise.

[nowis-scales]

🔥 for whatever's been bugging you lately

🔥 For FE-related things, I think for sure one thing that’s been getting under my skin is the notion that Timerra is the least popular Engage royal because she’s “just not that interesting” and is one-note because honestly? I don’t really see it. She’s honestly probably my second favourite of them all. I think for some people, they have this misapprehension that her default state is just perky-happy all the time, which is… not that accurate, I would say.

For me, the big thing that stuck out to me about Timerra right off the bat when meeting her in game was that while she was charming and funny, she was also clearly clever and had her own sense of morality that was a bit different than what you would usually see in a leading Fire Emblem character.

The Solmic way of thinking really interests me, particularly in the way it manifests in Timerra. I think there’s a lot to be said about how the country has a sort of carefree approach, but when push comes to shove, they know how to knit themselves together to keep themselves safe. They’ll lend help to one of their own if they’re in a bind, as they’re still people and they care about the world around them… but they also know when to say when and when they need to look out for themselves. Their morality is very much about choosing when to care, and who they will care about. While Albert’s first instinct as prince of Firene was to run off to try and help other people and connect with others, Timerra and Seforia agreed that Solm’s resources would best be spent trying to deal with the problem themselves, and not worry about anyone else because… well, their hands were full already. They had to look out for their own first.

I think that says a lot about Timerra because it’s not a demonstration of a lack of kindness, but rather a dedication to her OWN people. They are her priority first and foremost. The fact that she, Seforia, and Fogado all knew about Sombron but made no indication, instead focusing on protecting themselves and being certain that they could get help from the Divine Dragon, says a lot. It speaks to the degree of thought that Timerra puts into the way she conducts her life, and how she may come across as a silly, cheery girl — but she’s actually much more clever and has a stronger sense of duty than anyone seems to give her credit for. Hell, she doesn’t even react in fear when Hortensia threatens to kill her mother.

I guess to some people that’s not terribly hypnotic, but I personally find it quite compelling that Timerra, as Solm’s princess, is able to strike that balance between being warm and caring, but also thinking with a focus most immediate to herself and her people and what they need. She’s not the type of girl who wouldn’t help a friend in need, but at the same time, she recognizes that politically it’s never that simple. She sticks to her guns, regardless of whether or not it’s comfortable — and she’s never particularly ashamed of the way she thinks, either. I think that creates a neat duality in her character, because yes she is kind and often wants to help, but won’t always do so if she thinks it will cause her and her people an undue amount of trouble. It sounds relatively minor to some I think, but we so often see characters who try to help even at the expense of themselves, so it was refreshing for Timerra to still be a nice girl and know when to say when. Granted, that doesn’t mean she would have been right to decide not to help the others with Sombron, just that she would have had her own set of priorities that weren’t as easy to sway as some others. When it benefits the people of Solm to have the allyship, that’s when she’ll go forward with it.

Even outside of this, though, Timerra is still allowed complex feelings outside of the main storyline. Her support with Fogado is really charming for this, because she makes it clear that she loves her little brother, but she also feels a bit quietly resentful of him at times because of how often his escapades left her lonely. We as players know that Fogado has dedicated so much of his life to supporting Timerra in his eventual reign as queen, but at the same time, we get to see the effect that this distance had on Timerra, too… and realistically, I think Timerra is aware of how much effort Fogado is putting in to support her as queen, but she tries to express to him that she wants her little brother around, too. There’s not an animosity there, but she still has clear and concrete feelings about it, and is open to expressing them to Fogado. It shows a tendency to not shy away from difficult conversations, and to take the opportunity to handle things as they come up.

The more I play Timerra’s supports, the more I feel like just lots of new and interesting stuff comes up, which makes it a bit tiring to me that she’s so frequently dismissed as one-note. Yeah, a lot of her character IS about being cheerful, but there’s more there than what meets the eye. I think a lot of people have trouble understanding that with FE characters it’s about actively looking for things, rather than just having them fall in your lap. The cast will always be simply too big for everyone to get a big piece of the story, so if you want to know more about a character, you tend to have to make a more conscious effort to look.

[cruelprincae]

❛ promise me you’ll still be here when i wake up. ❜

&. 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬.

                   His  head  cranes  to  the  side  and  his  eyes  lower  beneath  a  curtain  of  thick,  long  lashes  as  he  gazes  down  upon  Marinette;  Her  words  are  half  muffled  considering  the  way  her  cheek  presses  against  the  desk  she  is  fully  leaning  upon,  already  submerged  into  sleep's  velvet  veil,  alas,  Cardan  understands  her  perfectly  ―  and,  as  though  whispered  into  his  ear,  they  bring  a  shiver  to  run  down  his  spine,  causing  his  inside  to  churn  and  his  tail  to  rattle,  as  though  startled.

                   And  in  a  way  he  is,  for  no  one  in  the  past  wished  for  him  to  stay,  least  of  all  begged  to  give  his  word  to  the  binding  contract  that  is  a  Faerie's  promise  ―  not  Nicasia,  not  his  siblings,  and  certainly  not  his  mother,  with  the  latter  going  to  extreme  lengths  to  ensure  he  would  be  effectively  removed  from  her  close  proximity  until  her  merry  ran  out  and  she  wished  to  remember  of  her  son;  and  from  the  collection  of  scattered  memories  the  Prince  has  of  his  mother,  it  was  always  him  that  sought  her  out,  rather  than  the  other  way  around,  only  to  be  chastised  out  yet  again.  Thus,  the  plea  catches  him  by  surprise,  and  for  a  brief,  brittle  moment,  Cardan  merely  stares  at  the  girl  before  him,  standing  still  as  though  a  deer  caught  in  the  headlights  of  Paris  whilst  her  eyes  grow  heavier  and  heavier,  until  they  have  completely  hidden  behind  the  rose-coloured  lids  of  her  eyes  and  her  lips  part,  finally  having  given  into  sleep.

                   There  is  a  cacophony  of  emotions  swirling  within  his  torso,  unbeknownst  yet  formidable  enough  to  feel  as  though  each  holds  an  iron  grip  around  his  heart,  alas,  the  Prince  dwells  in  them  no  longer.  Rather,  he  kneels,  lowering  himself  to  her  level  and  collects  her  in  his  arms  as  effortlessly  as  a  feather  breezing  through  the  wind  before  he  just  as  gracefully  stands  and  makes  way  toward  the  grand  bed  of  her  chamber,  covered  in  pink,  soft  coverlets,  fashion  magazines  and  designs  of  fashion  sets  half-sketched  into  life.  His  tail  gives  one,  lazy  swing  across  the  bed,  pushing  all  clutter  to  its  very  edges  and  once  cleared,  Cardan  carefully  sets  her  upon  it,  tucked  beneath  layers  and  layers  of  coverlets  before  he  climbs  as  well,  occupying  the  other,  significantly  smaller  side,  where  he  rests  with  one  ankle  gracefully  crossed  over  the  other,  his  hands  supporting  his  head  as  though  a  pillow,  and  his  tail  draped  over  the  edge.

                   Everything  is  quiet  which  results  in  to  the  thoughts  circling  his  head  becoming  all  the  more  loud.

                   ❛  I  promise,  ❜  The  Prince  breathes  out  despite  the  fact  that  Marinette  is  long  asleep  to  hear  the  answer,  his  whisper  a  loud  echo  in  the  stillness  of  the  room.  It  is  not  as  though  he  wants  to  leave;  Marinette's  space  is  cluttered  and  easy  on  the  eyes,  her  bed  soft,  and  her  mortal  parents  breathe  an  air  of  welcoming  and  warmth  that  his  own  always  lacked.  And  like  a  stray  cat  fed  to  satisfaction,  like  a  moth  drawn  to  the  light,  does  not  wish  to  abandon  such  place  ―  at  least,  not  yet.  And  so  his  stays,  if  not  for  his  own,  selfish  reasons  of  drinking  everything  in  until  he  becomes  sated  and  drunk  on  it,  then  for  the  promise  he  made  if  not  moments  prior.  ❛  Till  the  first  ray  of  sunlight,  I  shall  remain  by  your  side,  little  bug.  ❜

[the-s1lly-corner]

General Kinger hcs

you guys already know the drill; mix of general kinger stuff as well as dynamic stuff blah blah perhaps even some x reader stuff if you squint

not very warm, very hard. hes a giant chess piece and his robe doesnt do much to soften and warm him... though the fur of his robe is softer than the majority of his clothing...

very tall, has back pain, for two reasons. one, because hes old!!!! two, hes constantly huddled in his pillow fort so hes hunching over all the time, i mean look at hos he stands.. hes hunch

this mostly applies to any post digital circus aus where everyone escapes to the real world but i can easily see this being true for kinger atm or perhaps later on, but he has some level of agoraphobia (a type of anxiety disorder, makes you not want to leave places you feel secure in. can range in severity, for some its only not wanting to leave their town for others it can be as bad as not wanting to leave a room in their own home. this is a v brief and summarized description so i recommend you guys look into it) (this might be a little self projection as admin has a mild form of it)

good friends with gangle and ragatha! as mentioned in the general ragatha hc post they have a more father/daughter dynamic whereas he and gangle have a grandfather/granddaughter dynamic!

loves telling embellished stories about himself and his adventures... probably hypes up stories about him bug hunting around the grounds

i think he keeps a bunch of bugs in his room, all in their own little homes! terrariums!

on the fence of hcing the he preserves bugs... maybe he did prior to the digital circus but stopped due to a mix of forgetting that was something he did... and if he does have vague memories stopped because it kinda... makes him feel weird, like it reminds him of how hes trapped in the circus now.. which... admittedly is not the same as the preserved bugs but shrugs

leaves flowers and things at queener/queenies room, usually he visits her old door most nights to talk to it... some nights hes consciously aware of the fact that shes gone, other nights when hes a little more out of it than usual he... doesnt

if he ever does start dating again, i think hes going to be watching you like a hawk... never letting you out of his sight and, as unfortunate as it sounds, he might come off as a little too overprotective... overbearing.... overly clingy... at times.. likely all three

definitely sleeps with weighted pillows/blankets, this one is another one thats more so for post circus au but i can see it also being relevant to the actual.. circus stuff, probably asks caine for them

speaking of caine, i can see them having a... decent relationship

theyre not close friends, i think, but theyre polite and friendly to one another

perhaps its out of familiarity and security, at least on kingers end since caine probably isnt able to abstract and hes been there the entire time

i personally dont think kinger really thinks hes royalty, as he refers to himself as in the pilot.. honestly i think he was just trying to appeal to the gloink queen... perhaps he does joke about him being a king, though

he makes dad sounds (grunts, loud sneezes, diabolical snores, ect)

fidgets a lot... usually tugs and plays with the fur of his robe... or messes with his hands (drumming his fingers, flapping them, cracking knuckles, flexing fingers, folding them, ect ect), probably paces around a lot too

has definitely tried to grab someone and run but due to his lack of arms hes run away without his hands and the person he was trying to take with him

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Thoughts on TOTK Ganon's appearance?

A lot of them!! Some would say: too many!!! Too much!! So much so that I was almost starting to turn this ask into a TotK early review, so I'll simplify my answer a little.

I have not finished the game yet, but I have seen the memories and a good chunk of it, but my opinion is therefore incomplete and subject to lapses in judgement/hasty positions. Also, my opinion on this is kind of a buzzkill and I already made people depressed and bummed out by explaining it, so I'm putting it under the cut to avoid hurting the good time of people who might not want to think about this/might disagree on this description alone (and I understand, since it's an opinion that also depresses me!!! I wanted to like everything!! I wanted to be blown away!!).

I think this Ganondorf is like OoT Ganondorf redux, but with even more problems than OoT Ganondorf, somehow??? which is honestly a flex at this point.

(I love OoT Ganondorf to be clear, but the flaws are pretty undeniable and you have to navigate through a lot of bullshit to get to the good parts)

Between the green skin that lacks any proper justification in the context of the game (I say this because I always hear "oooo but it's because he's a demon/undead" and uhhhh no, it's not because of that apparently), the fact that he's half naked but we're never ever meant to conceive him as a human person in any way but merely as a constant physical threat... Like I'm certain the famous Ganondorf Designer did their utmost to give him justice and there is an obvious attention to details in his design, and I'm not blaming them or anyone in particular for the Nintendo treatment --but it does add up to something quite uncomfortable in his characterization regardless. Even the fact that his face rigging is extremely flimsy and makes his emoting feels super strange bugs me (I heavily suspect it's because it's way less soft anime and structurally very different from any other face in the game, especially around the jaw, and so they had to do a custom rig and had to work around its limitations --it's all speculation, and I am always here for Unsettling Ganondorf Faces, but it kinda felt accidental and not intentional like in WW or TP). He's at once a lot and really not much. I find his characterization beyond barebones. Even Twilight Princess Ganondorf had more to him than this (like the man was fascinating in comparaison, show me a guy claiming to be chosen by the goddesses while sitting on a throne next to the decapitated statues of said goddesses any fucking day over what we got here)

I like the mechanical aspects he introduces; the gloom is cool, the hands that grab you are amazing, the bosses are such cool callbacks --and he's just causing messes and putting parasites in things!!! You go girl. I do love that he's having his little puppet Zelda run around causing hijinxes, that's very fun of him and my favorite part of his character in this game so far, tho I don't know if that even counts as him --and I'm not 100% sure what that even says about anyone?

But here's the thing: nobody (beyond * arguably * Rauru) seems to be allowed to have a character arc in this game, so it's hard to come up with anything to say since he's the sole cause of conflict while being almost completely motivation-less. I don't think anyone is written particularly competently honestly; it just shows more with him because a Ganondorf who's not well written reverts back to Ganondorf at his most generic expression of a baddie imaginable, with a side-serving of, quite frankly, really questionable orientalist themes that I see little excuse for being handled the way they were in the year of our lord 2023. Like I'm kinda shocked not to see more people calling the racism for what it is, because it's... pretty blatant. But that goes beyond Ganondorf and that's the whole game, and I said I would try to keep my scope limited, but!!! I will screech about imperialism eventually!!!

The other aspect of that discussion, which is inevitable, is how much does TotK erase everything that came before? I'm sure there are some amazing Zelda theorists out there who will find a way to reconcile all of this, but for now, I get the sense that Nintendo wanted to get away from their messy timelines (fair) and reinvoke some of the old songs for a new audience, and in doing so scrubbing the slate clean. My problem is not so much that they wanted to do this (even if I think BotW's solution was, strangely, much cleaner and more respectful of their own history), but what they introduced instead: and, in Ganondorf's case, he's kind of reduced to a parody of himself --one that is so unbelievably unsympathetic and impossible to relate to and also responsible of his own oppression and also not oppressed since he attacked first!! and also oppressive?? (I made A Sound when I heard the line about Rauru talking about "the last free gerudo village falling" bitch!! free according to whom??????)

Removing a lot of the Goddesses/Triforce thing (so far, maybe it will come up) also does this conflict zero favors in my opinion, as it makes everything and everyone's actions much less fated and an expression of self-determination/resilience over their predestination, and much more uhh political in a bad way, while still borrowing the aesthetics of divinity to justify its own mind-numbing moral simplicity.

I don't know. Maybe the third act reveal will really surprise me and make me reconsider my position, but it would take a lot to scrub off all the dedicated efforts made to flatten Ganondorf to his lowest possible denominator (him and his people honestly my follow-up to the gerudo post will probably be Oops! All Salt) for the sake of the most brazenly imperialistic and feudalist Hyrule to date and its really weird and uncomfortable reimagined origin story.

So uhhh, Thoughts Bad! I guess thoughts bad. :(

(Matt Mercer did a great job with what little he was given tho, and so did every voice actor)

[thirstyforred]

10 games I played this year, vaguely in the order of playing them and not by how much I liked them

This year was pretty good for me and games, I feel like I played more than in previous years. I also started to pay more attention to demos, which led to discovering new cool projects, and I want to see a few indie titles come out next year.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

I heard about it from NoClip Podcast, tried the demo that was on Switch, and just brought it immediately. I don't have nostalgia for the franchise and I'm not well-versed in metroidvanias or platformers, but this was just such an immediate hit for me. The visuals, the music, the smooth gameplay, the story! I love how unapologetically anime it is. I feel like I can't shut up about how good this game is. Also, Sargon is just such a good guy, love that short boy.

Balatro

Listen. It's Balatro. It's numbers go up game. It's Balatro. It's the game everyone has been talking about this year. I have 130h in it and I still haven't unlocked all decks.

Neon White 2022

I heard about it when it came out, but for whatever reason I haven't played it until this year. They weren't lying, this is good shit. Real how to teach a speedrunner. I love all the abilities, movements, and levels. One thing is, I think that the boss fights are mostly unnecessary, or at least could be done better. The music is killer and the writing is fun.

Marvel's Midnight Suns 2022

I was actually supposed to play it when it came out, but I didn't. I think I just didn't have money at the time. But I got the game sometime later on sale and still haven't played, until this spring I was listening to Dear Dwyery podcast and was like "shit, I need to play it". I'm not even sure where to start on this one: the story is fun and exciting and very comics book-ish. This deckbuilding turn-based gameplay sucked me in for hours and was in the perfect mix with the not-dating-sim dating sim mechanics. I know it's not an RPG, but I swear my Hunter had a deep relationship with Morbius. Also, I'm not even annoyed about the queerbaiting, but it was funny as hell. A goddam shame this flopped and won't get sequels. Tho now I'm gonna look for the next project from Jake Solomon and his new studio.

The Thaumaturge

Hey Fool's Theory, are you in my walls? I have been keeping tabs on this one since the very second I learned this studio is going The Witcher remake. And holy shit what a little pearl this is. Deep atmospheric story, so much folklore and history. Absolute banger of the protagonist. The music! Man, some of these tracks I had on loop since March. Yeah, this game fucks.

Strange Horticulture 2022

I had a Moment this year of trying different strategy simulator puzzlers, some are still in beta, and some I just didn't like that much, but Strange Horticulture is just perfect for me. On a shorter side, occultist but not incomprehensible (yes, this is a dig at CultSim), with very nice visuals and story. I want more of it and can't wait for the sequel.

Knock on the Coffin lid

I put like 20h in the prologue and kinda forgot I'm not even playing the full version of the game. This is just a solid roguelike deckbuilder. Looks good, sounds banger, Bjorn is a dog, the toes are out, and the villain has hot ultimate form, this game has it all.

Hades II Early Access

It's fucking Hades, man, what's more to say here. Can't wait for the full release.

Dragon Age The Veilguard

I decided not to do top10 because I would have to put Midnight Suns above it and I feel like the Bioware team already embarrassed themselves enough. I like my Rook a lot, but that's more to do with the fact that I had him since 2016, not the writing of this game. I think the music is all over the place and I'm not a big fan. The game looks gorgeous but lacks interesting designs. It runs well and I had no bugs or performance issues, which apparently isn't the norm in AAA anymore. I did enjoy the gameplay as a rogue a lot, way more than any other DA game, and will return to this game more often. On the one hand, I'm satisfied, but on the other, I know there really wasn't anything to be satisfied with. Also, I fucking hate the secret ending.

Dungeons 4 2023

I may be the Ultimate Evil, but I love my little Snots.

Games I eagerly await:

The Diary, The Alters, Cabernet, The Horror at Highrook, Sultan's Game, Strange Antiquities, Arkane Studios' Blade, literally any news on TW1 remake, Two Point Museum, VTM2 if it even exists

[lostusagis]

@jiraipink asked:

"Th-There... There... There's..." She points a shaky finger to her bed. "There's a spider on my bed when I woke up!" She slept too long that it was already afternoon by the time Kamui visited; apparent by the bedhead, cutesy comfy pajamas and lack of makeup. If only she woke up peacefully to Kamui's warm smile and soothing voice, but a spider greeted her instead. Not that she hates them nor has anything against what they do, but their appearance is what scares her.

Hearing and seeing Kamui look so confused made her feel bad for worrying him. Geez. She felt embarrassed for running towards him calling out his name and clinging onto him for something so trivial. Her hands release him and she awkwardly fidgets with her fingers. "S-Sorry. I guess I just... When I saw you, I couldn't help it. You make me feel so safe and ended up relying on you..." And then a realization hits her. "O-Oh no! I don't even look ready! Oh god my hair is a mess I'm so embarrassed!" Her black nailed fingers comb through her two-toned hair speedily to at least have less strands sticking out and detangled. "C-Could you wait for me in the living room? Don't worry I may be scared, but I'm used to catching them. I don't like killing them eheh...." Namida offers him an apologetic smile before she picks up an empty jar she keeps in her room specifically for these instances and anxiously looks all over her My Melody Kuromi blanket to find the little creepy crawler.

''. . . . . .'' Kamui blinked, looking at her for a few seconds before his body would erupt with laughter. Here he was, having assumed the worst. Yet, she had screamed like that over a spider of all things.

''Hahahahaha- Namida. . . .'' It was too funny to him, although maybe he was being a bit mean. Kamui couldn't imagine something like bugs ever actually scaring him. Hell, he's seen some way bigger than the ones typically living on earth. Which is why he found this situation so funny.

''Sorry, sorry. . . .'' He eventually stopped laughing, although Kamui just kind of smiles warmly at her when she'd say she felt safe with him and relied on him too. There was an indescribable happiness from that, especially since he felt the same way.

''You don't need to feel embarrassed though, I think you still look cute even when you're not all dressed up. Not a lot of people can say that.'' The messy hair was adorable in his opinion, Kamui was tempted to take a picture but decided not to. Maaaaybe another time.

''But alright, good luck finding the oh-so-terrifying little spider.'' Kamui teasingly says with a smirk, ''If you need my help, just call me. ♡'' Although, he'd probably just kill it instead of saving it like she intended. It occurred to Kamui that's probably why she hadn't asked him for help at all.

Well, whatever, he'll just wait for her on the sofa. Kamui couldn't help but find the fact that she was still going after the spider, despite being afraid really admirable. She was really amazing in so many ways, which was why he liked her as much as he did.

No other human was this interesting.

[dailycharacteroption]

Creature Corner: Vermin part 1

(art by TyhonArt on DeviantArt)

Overview

And here it is, the last creature type of Pathfinder First Edition. This will be the last special in this format, though I’ll probably do a couple of week-long specials on how the creature types developed in Starfinder as well as Pathfinder and Starfinder Second Edition as well, so we’re not quite done. I might even do a special on templates as well.

In any case, let’s get right into it.

Skittering, rustling sounds in abandoned tunnels, the humming flutter of wings carrying a rounded chitinous form, the sudden tugging on your ankle as a previously unseen tentacle drags you down, these are the sensations that often accompany the vermin type, mostly filled with giant bugs and other simple organisms.

But what exactly differentiates creatures of the “vermin” type from the animal type? Back when we did the entries on the animal type, I pointed out that the unifying features of that type were having either a spinal column or having relatively complex brains despite being boneless, but that would be defining vermin by what they are not.

The vermin type consists of insects, arachnids, crustaceans, most mollusks, cniderians, and echinoderms, creatures that range from complex and chitinous to entirely soft-bodied or possessing radial symmetry. It’s a pretty diverse group spanning entire branches of Kingdom Animalia with little to know relationship in some places. Pretty unusual to group them together, honestly.

The vermin type also is noted for usually having the “mindless” trait, meaning they are immune to most mind-affecting effects, including most enchantment spells and certain types of illusions. However, while it’s easy to assume that these creatures truly do act only on instinct, being too “simple” for mental manipulation, complex living things are considerably different than mindless constructs, giant-sized amoeba, and lesser undead. In fact, studies on insect and arachnid behavior has demonstrated many actually have really good memories, being able to recognize individual humans and even demonstrate personalities, so perhaps it’s best to interpret it as the vermin type are far too dissimilar to other minds to use even the broadest enchantments on them.

Perhaps the most unifying thing about the vermin type, however, is that the vermin type is composed of creatures that lack internal skeletons and would be highly unusual and frightening to encounter at massive size.

The idea of giant insects, arachnids, and other vermin has been with us for a very long time, with the first film involving the concept being THEM! In the 50’s, and the first science fiction story involving them being H. G. Wells’ Food of the Gods story back in the 1900’s.

Even before that, regular-sized vermin appear plenty of times in mythology and religion, so even these so-called lesser creatures have their place. It is interesting though that the concept of dialing up their size is so recent though.

Of course, having giant bugs and the like running around begs the question of “why and how”. After all, a lot of you are probably familiar with the “square-cube law”, which when applied to biology, states that the bigger a creature is, the more stress it’s body is under just to not collapse under it’s own weight.

Now obviously in a fantasy setting like Pathfinder, the square-cube law is thrown right out the window off the bat what with all those giant cosmic horrors and literal kaiju and other titanic monsters and literal giants running around, but some still find it a stretch too far without some sort of explanation.

The easiest answer is to say that such giant-sized vermin are just a normal, ubiquitous part of the world. Meanwhile, most science fiction involving them explain it as an extraordinary external factor (typically radiation or some superfood, but in a fantasy setting you can also say magic) that either made giants of that which was miniscule either all at once or generationally. Or maybe the laws of physics are just different in the setting and the square-cube law is more of a suggestion, which isn’t entirely implausible in a setting where “altering reality through sheer force of will” is a part of the metaphysics.

Of course, aquatic vermin like crabs, sea jellies, and the like have somewhat of an excuse with the buoyancy factor, but even they can only go so far before you bump up against and trample over the borders of possibility.

Another factor you run into with giant bugs, and well, any unusually massive creature, is how they affect the food web of their home environments, which also include all sorts of other fantastical beasts, but this is mostly handwaved because it’s fantasy, not a reality simulation.

Moving on from the question of how, let’s talk a bit about the themes that come up with the vermin type. Most are giant-sized versions of bugs and critters both familiar and exotic, while others are just swarms of the regular-sized ones, and others still are fantastical insectoids that don’t quite match any real species but aren’t quite unusual enough to warrant being a magical beast.

As such, the themes of the vermin type are often the horror of being in a situation where you are prey to a creature you’d probably not notice normally, whether they be massive or simply massive in number. While this is true of most, a few vermin also play into other horrific themes as well, such as the xenopterid, which actually mimic a cloaked human before they spread their wings and reveal their clawed legs and move in for the kill.

So while the vermin type does not quite have the variety of concepts beyond Earth’s biodiversity with the photoshop scaling tool applied to it, it still can be a source of fun in it’s own right, as we’ll see as we go through the week. I hope you’re looking forward to it.

[brutalbacklogreviews]

Rainswept (2019) Review

Bottom line: This game is barely even worth thinking about. 1/10

Rainswept, published by Frostwood Interactive in 2019, is a "character-driven murder mystery game" in which you can't form any meaningful attachments to the characters, and which has a disappointing and bland mystery that the player has no hand in solving. I played the Nintendo Switch version.

Writing

As a mystery game, the writing is arguably the most important aspect of the game. The writing is also easily the worst aspect of Rainswept. The game is riddled with grammatical errors, missing punctuation, misspellings, misused sayings etc., making it very clear that no effort was put into proof-reading or editing. in fact, I would be extremely surprised if someone fluent in English even looked at the game before it was released in English. I couldn't enjoy the narrative at all due to the lack of care put into the actual writing.

The characters and relationships in the game are painfully bland. The protagonist is vaguely interesting due to his PTSD, but every character he interacts with feels like a prop to move the mystery or his journey of self-forgiveness along. We're told that he is becoming more friendly with members of the community, but we don't see any of this despite spending all of his investigation with him. We also see flashbacks from the perspective of one of the "murder" victims/possible perpetrator, Chris, which chronicle his relationship with his fellow victim and girlfriend Diane. Their relationship is completely unrealistic, they have zero chemistry and it's very difficult to empathise with them until the final few scenes with them. For a "character-driven" game, the audience doesn't even get the chance to like any of these characters.

The game utterly fails as a murder mystery. The player isn't given any relevant information until a few minutes before the killer is unveiled, and has no agency in the unveiling. It is a very linear experience, with the illusion of choice barely maintained by letting the player carry out their daily chores in whichever order they please. The player has no impact on the narrative, there is no fail-state as the game solves the mystery for you. Rainswept feels less like a mystery video game and more like a badly-written murder mystery novel that you'd skip to the last chapter of just to get it over with. It is clear that the narrative cares more about the detective's mental health journey than the murder mystery, and the mystery is barely enjoyable or even functional due to this.

Gameplay

Rainswept plays like a modern point-and-click adventure game. Most of the game is spent walking around a 2D plane speaking to NPCs and asking them questions, while occasionally investigating objects. The dialogue sections don't allow the use of the directional buttons, forcing the player to use the imprecise joystick to choose dialogue options. Outside of conversation, the game is a chore to play. The game doesn't tell the player that there's a run button (ZR, R2 etc.) despite it being sorely needed. Even with the run button, the gameplay just feels like busywork. A fast-travel option would've been greatly appreciated here. The game also features about 3 classic point-and-click-esque busywork fetch-quests. These feel completely out of place and serve no purpose other than padding gameplay time.

The game's performance leaves a lot to be desired, at least on the Switch. Loading screens are quite long and occur very often considering the game's limited locations and simple presentation. The screen often flashes bright white after loading, which is very jarring. I also ran into a bug where I couldn't move after dialogue, and had to replay about 5 minutes of conversation as there is no manual save or skip text option. Pressing the X button allows the player to see every object or person that can be interacted with... as well as everything that could have been interacted with at any point. If a character had been standing in a certain location, the interact icon will remain in that spot for the rest of the game, even if there's nothing there, which makes investigation quite confusing at times.

Presentation

The game is visually heavily inspired by Night in the Woods, and it's as if the artist/s just lifted certain elements of NitW's art style without understanding why they worked. The style is very simple, both backgrounds and characters having little detail, and would've looked much better if the colour schemes were also less realistic, a more vivid and stylised colour scheme may have suited the art style more. Another element lifted from NitW are the dialogue boxes, black with coloured text to show who's speaking. Rainswept completely misuses these, however, as there seems to only be 3, maybe 4 dialogue colours shared between the cast. This makes it very difficult to keep track of who's talking in situations where two characters have the same text colour. It's clear here that the developers just wanted the visual flair while ignoring the utility of this aspect of NitW's visual style.

The animations in this game are simple yet poorly executed. Characters often teleport between animations, sometimes even teleporting to a different location in the scene completely. Walking and running animations make characters look like eggs balancing on sticks for legs. The animation just adds nothing to the game.

The character models are very simple, with their only facial feature being their eyes. This works for most of the game, however there are a couple of instances, which are intended to be more emotional, that feature close-ups of the character's faces with the most terrifyingly hilarious eyes imaginable, or just with the game's laughably poor animation. The ugliness of the characters in these scenes completely ruins any potential for an emotional response, for instance I found myself laughing during the flashback to the murder/-suicide.

The game features pretty good music for the most part, however there is a single track that feels completely inappropriate and out-of-place whenever it appears. Throughout the game, the protagonist has distressing dreams, which are undercut by a fun and upbeat vocal track that doesn't fit in the slightest. Otherwise the music usually fits well with the game, nothing to write home about but no complaints.

Conclusion

This game has "very positive" reviews on Steam right now, which may sway people, but this game is truly awful. The story is boring, the mystery is basically non-existent, and the visuals are so bad at points that they completely ruin any possibility the game has at eliciting an emotional response in the audience. The game suffers from a very clear lack of care, likely from the publishers, while the developers leaned a bit too hard on their inspirations and forgot to make something original that can stand on its own merits. This game is a complete waste of time and truly isn't worth investing your time or money in.

[andersunmenschlich]

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams

Updated for the Modern Reader

You said you wished I'd stay alive and healthy long enough to become a Calvinist, or at least praise Calvin's god; that wish would make me immortal.

See, Calvin didn't believe in any god. What he worshiped was obviously a demon.

You and me, we worship the creator of the universe—a good guy who does good things! Calvin's "god" is so disgusting that it would actually be better to be an atheist than to insult God by saying He's like that.

Actually, on the subject of making atheism seem attractive: I think the idea that it takes a supernatural revelation to prove that God exists encourages atheism. Every Christian sect believes that, and they shouldn't! These days, apparently only 1/6 of all the humans in the world is Christian. By standard Christian reasoning, that means the other five sixths (since they don't believe in the Jewish and Christian revelations) completely lack all knowledge of the existence of a god!

This pretty much hands the win to atheists.

Modern atheists (the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D’Holbach) have this one argument that they think can never be debunked:

Whenever you're trying to figure out how things started, you have to assume that something always existed, right? And if you're going to reason logically, you shouldn't say there are definitely two things when one is enough to explain everything.

Then they say that it's simpler to assume that physical reality has always existed, with all its processes and changes and reproductions, according to the physical laws we see going on around us today and which may continue going on forever, than it is to assume the eternal existence of an invisible, unknown, non-physical, incomprehensible Creator.

I disagree.

Without appealing to revelation, I hold that all we have to do in order to know that there's a creator is look at how complex and perfect all of physical reality is.

Look at how the stars and planets and moons etc. are held so exactly to their paths of movement by the perfect balance between the force that makes things spin and the force that pushes things out and away from the center of spinning things. Look at the construction of our own planet, and how much water we have vs. air and land. Look at the plants and animals, and how well they work! Look at bugs! They're so tiny, but their bodies are just as functional and well-organized as the bodies of humans and elephants! Look at all the minerals there are, and how useful they are to us!

It is impossible for a human mind to take all of that in and not believe it was created on purpose.

You have to believe that there is design there. Cause and effect, all the way up to an ultimate cause, someone or something that makes stuff out of matter and motion, that upkeeps things it's currently allowing to exist in their present forms, that regenerates them into new and other forms.

We know that there's some superintending power that keeps the universe running in order. We see proof of it all the time. Well-known stars have disappeared and new ones turned up instead; comets probably run into planets and stars and so on and have to be remade somehow; certain species of animals have become extinct, and if there were no restoring power, eventually every organized living being would be extinct and there'd be nothing left but a chaotic, unliving mess.

This is such strong evidence that, for all of human history, most people have found belief in an eternally pre-existing god much simpler than belief in a universe that just exists on its own.

Only one in a million people has ever been an atheist—maybe less.

Surely the fact that most people throughout history have believed in a creator makes a creator the simpler hypothesis!

Besides which, some early Christians did actually believe in both an eternal creator and an eternal creation, without being confused about which came first in that case. Cardinal Toleto tells us that's what St. Thomas believed:

"Deus ab æterno fuit jam omnipotens, sicut cum produxit mundum. ab æterno potuit producere mundum.—Si sol ab æterno esset, lumen an æterno esset; et si pes, similiter vestigium. At lumen et vestigium effectus sunt efficientis solis et pedis; potuit ergo cum causâ æterna effectus coæterna esse. Cujus sententiæ est S. Thomas Theologorum primus."

See?

Now, that's not enough to tell us anything about the nature of this creator and maintainer.

Jesus tells us that God is a spirit (John 4:24), but doesn't tell us what "spirit" is. We know that down to the third century it was still considered a physical thing, albeit lighter and more airy than our own physical bodies. According to Huet's commentary on Origen, "Deus igitur, cui anima similis est, juxta Originem, reapte corporalis est; sed graviorum tantum ratione corporum incorporeus," while Origen himself said "appellatio ασοματον apud nostros scriptores est inusitata et incognita."

Tertullian said the same: "Quis autem negabit Deum esse corpus, etsi deus spiritus? Spiritus etiam corporis sui generis, in suâ effigie." These two experts, Origen and Tertullian, lived in the third century. So that proves what was believed then.

John Calvin seems to have copied the Jews to get his god's character. But the whole point of Jesus was to fix the Jewish idea of God's character: when Jesus spoke to the Jews, his goal seemed to be to take those blasphemous attributes the Jews had put on God and replace them with more worthy ones, pure ones, sublime ones.

Jesus's ideas about cosmology are clearly laid out in the first three verses of John 1: "εν αρχη ην ὁ λογος, και ὁ λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεος ην ὁ λογος. οὑτος ην εν αρχη προς τον θεον. παντα δε αυτου εγενετο, και χωρις αυτου εγενετο ουδε ἑν ὁ γεγονεν." The true translation of these verses is, "In the beginning God existed, and reason [or mind] was with God, and that mind was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were created by it, and without it was made not one thing which was made."

Obviously what Jesus meant by this was that all of physical reality was created by one supreme, intelligent being.

But modern Christians have taken this verse and twisted it to support their idea of three gods in one! They mistranslate 'λογος.' Sure, it can mean 'a word', but that's clearly not what it means here, because that's gibberish!

A word, an action or articulation of the voice and organs of speech, creating something? Don't be ridiculous! It obviously ought to be translated 'reason'. Translated that way—which is a perfectly legitimate way of translating it—the verse explains how God existed before everything else and created everything. Modern Christians insist it be translated as 'word' because they know that's gibberish, and the only way to make it even approach sense is to turn the 'word' into a whole other preexisting being and attribute the creation of everything to him instead of to God.

This allows the atheist to point and laugh at a god so useless that a vibration in the air does more creating than it, and to hold up the idea of a preexisting physical universe as infinitely more likely.

The truth is that the greatest enemies to the teachings of Jesus are those who claim to be explaining them. They have perverted the doctrines of Jesus to build the structure of an utterly incomprehensible imaginary castle that they like better than truth, a castle with no foundation whatsoever in Jesus's actual words.

Someday, the idea that Jesus was mystically generated in the womb of a virgin with the supreme being as his father will be filed right alongside the myth of Athena being mystically generated in the mind of her father Zeus, and I hope that that dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will not only do away with all this artificial scaffolding, but also restore to us the genuine teachings of Jesus, who was a most venerated reformer of human errors (like the Jews'—and Calvin's—idea of God's character).

So much for your quotation of Calvin's "Mon dieu! Jusqu’a quand."

When addressed to the god Jesus worshiped, the god you and I worship, yes! I join you in that wholeheartedly. May we both end up in heaven whenever God wills it, us and all our ancient colleagues, and together hear God telling us, "Well done, my good and faithful servants."

[xaharadesert]

MC with Love Language of Touch - Headcanon

Arcana Characters (Main 6) x MC

A/N: Back to your regularly scheduled headcanons :) this one is a pretty old request from @divinedaughterofposeidon! I’ll be going through the older requests before moving onto the new ones, but with finals coming up I’ll probably spend more time writing and procrastinating instead of studying! Please let me know if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes! Requests are open :)

❤️Julian❤️

This man is absolutely a complete cuddle bug

You want a hug? He’s dropping everything (sometimes literally) to give you one immediately

You never need to worry about feeling too clingy with Julian— the man isn’t exactly distant himself

Honestly, you may even have to pry him off yourself to get him to do other things

It started as a joke, but now whenever the two of you go walking somewhere he holds his arm out so you can link yours with his like he’s escorting you around a fancy ball

This can cause a problem every once in a while, when one of you sees something interesting and nearly yanks the other off their feet to pull them to it

Sometimes when the two of you are relaxing at home, Julian will lay down with his head on your lap, holding one of your hands in his own, just gently running his thumb over your knuckles

He’s elated to have someone who doesn’t mind some of his more clingy tendencies, and he adores that you’re so willing to hold him as close as he wants to hold you

🧡Portia🧡

Physical affection is one of her favourite ways of showing you just how much she adores you!

She feels like sometimes she’s so busy that she doesn’t have enough time to properly articulate how much you mean to her, so quick hugs and squeezing your hand as she walks by are nice substitutes

Speaking of squeezing your hand, it becomes almost a little made up language for the two of you

Not like Morse code; it’s much simpler than that

One squeeze for “I love you”, two for “see you soon”, three for “I’ll miss you”, etc

When she holds your hand on walks it’s almost like having your own mini conversation

Obviously she’d prefer being closer to you, maybe cuddling or hugging or taking a nap together, but when you’re both so busy it’s nice to know that a couple hand squeezes will make up for a lack of time

💛Lucio💛

Listen, you’d be hard pressed to find a clingier man than him

Like, seriously, just try to pry him off once he’s latched onto you

He doesn’t care if it’s unprofessional, if he has to be in some sort of boring meeting, one of you is sitting in the other’s lap (or less, just cuddling— he will have a couch brought into the room solely so that he can cuddle you)

He likes to have you on his right side so that he can feel you properly— his golden arm is amazing, but he likes to run his hand up and down whatever bare skin of yours he can reach, and it’s not quite the same with a metal hand

Sometimes if he’s feeling extra clingy while you’re having a conversation with someone else, he’ll stand beside or behind you and lean in really close until your faces are practically smooshed together

It works great for weirding other people enough for them to leave you alone as well as making you laugh, which is one of his favourite sounds

💚Muriel💚

Out of the main love interest’s, Muriel is perhaps the most unused to touch

I mean, he’s obviously not touch-starved, seeing as that would be nearly impossible while having Asra as a friend, but with how large he is, he can sometimes be a bit nervous when showing physical affection

He tries his best to be gentle, never hugging you too hard, and constantly asking if he’s being too rough

He’s even a little nervous to sleep in the same bed with you, worried that he may role over and squish you or accidentally smother you

But he does enjoy it when you use him as a pillow when cuddling or sleeping together

He’s still a little anxious, but having you draped on top of him relaxes him

Not only is it pleasant to have full-body contact with you, he finds the pressure of having you lying over with your full weight to be grounding

💙Asra💙

Everyone knows for a fact that Asra likes to be in physical contact with you, whether they even wanted to know that or not

He is consistently touching you in some way, whether it’s an arm around your waist while talking with a vendor, or locking your pinkies together in a crowded space so you don’t get separated

If you just happen to be laying around somewhere at home, reading a book, taking a nap, or just daydreaming, he will drape himself over you like a cat

He likes to be as close to you as possible, and sometimes acts like a bit of an octopus by wrapping himself around you and refusing to let go

After so long of not being able to hold you the way he wanted to, he cherishes every moment he can spend pressed up against you

Even if the two of you are having a disagreement, you’ll probably just have to sleep with your backs pressed against each other because he would miss you too much otherwise

You’ll never even have the opportunity to miss his touch because he will constantly smother you with affection every single chance he gets

💜Nadia💜

At first you may think that she’s not really one for touch, but you’d be wrong

As someone who is constantly standing tall and somewhat intimidating above all else, she finds it relaxing to just scoop you into her arms at the end of the day and smother you with love

She has a bit of a hard time expressing herself through touch at first, seeing as most of her previous relationships were devoid of such comforts, but once she finds her footing, there’s no stopping her

One of her favourite things to do is run her fingers through your hair, and style it, if you’ll allow her

She adores having her haired played with as well, as she finds it soothing

If she has a busy day, and not much time to spend with you, she’ll never fail to gently caress your cheek before she heads off to face the day

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are Weird: Soldier without a war. Part I

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

 “You sure the speks don’t patrol there?”

“If they did do you really think I’d bring this rust bucket along for a job?”

Melp strapped himself into the copilot’s chair and looked over the console readings one last time. All systems were showing minimal operational capacity which normally would have been setting off alarm bells but with how things had been going for him and his captain lately it was the best they could ask for.

Melp was part of the salvage company “Outlying Star”, co-owner in fact with his partner and current captain Galem. When the war against humanity had started the two had thought it was the best idea to make a fortune with all the wrecks floating between star systems from fleet combat and had went all in on a converted freighter to pick through the bones and sell what they could.

At first Melp and Galem had made a killing, bringing in semi functional sub space drives and salvaged fully automated hard shell loaders from human ships. They made enough to fund a fleet of five ships and live the good life back on Valfha without a care in the world; for a little while at least.

Galem thought it was because of the government’s restrictions on salvageable items that had hampered their business but Melp believed it was because they were just too good at it that and had inspired countless others to take up the salvage game. Soon markets, both legal and black, became flooded with salvaged goods and people willing to undercut each other to make a quick buck. Neutron cannon went from 3.5 billion credits in value to just under 300 million credits in the span of six months. As a side effect of the sudden influx of salvage parts the government began taking notice and cracked down hard. Salvagers were called “Scavies” and deemed criminals by the government and the military would all too happily fire on any scavy ship they spotted. Seems they weren’t too happy about people rummaging through the wrecks of ships that once held their friends and the government would turn a blind eye if a scavy ship was destroyed during “Live Fire Exercises”.

Soon the jobs became even riskier and Outlying Star lost three ships after they were caught and destroyed. Another had to be sold for parts and salvage and now the final ship, the Morning Gale, was the last hope for Galem and Melp to make back some money.

“How do you even know this site hasn’t been picked clean already?” Melp asked over his shoulder as Galem entered the cockpit and locked the door behind him. “We could be wasting our time on a fantasy.” Galem shook his head which did little to ease Melp’s concerns.

“I got it from a reliable source that there was a big fight in the Glipi Cluster that we lost to the humans.” Galem began as he took the controls and slowly pulled back on the engine throttle as the ship ascended. “It was so embarrassing that the navy wiped all records of the battle and said the destroyed ships were lost in a freak transition from sub space into a rogue comet cluster.”

“If the data was wiped how does your source know about it?”  Melp quipped as the ship breached upper atmosphere and exited the travel lanes for the jump point.

Galem smirked as he engaged the sub space drive.

“They were there.”

 As the salvage ship exited sub space Melp let out a gasp. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes yet when he opened them all he could see was a shroud of purple. Galem saw Melp’s confused expression and chuckled.

“It’s the color of the gas filtering through this entire cluster.” He said calmly as he flicked on several scanners and filter units. “Try looking now.”

Melp looked again as the shades of purple faded away and let out a startled gasp. Upon gazing out of the cockpit window he could see why the navy had wanted to cover up this place so badly.

Floating around them were dozens of lifeless wrecks of Mibari warships ranging from light destroyers to several cruisers. Compared to their tiny ship it was as if Melp and Galem had entered the realm of giants. Melp was transfixed by the wrecks and became utterly enthralled when a massive shadow draped across their vessel.

“Is that what I think it is?” Melp spoke sheepishly as his blue hands trembled and changed to a soft orange color. Galem leaned forward in his seat to look out the window and whistled as his eyes caught sight of what had terrified Melp.

“A galaxy class troop carrier.”

The massive ship spun slowly in place like a top that refused to stop spinning, the metal interior exposed in several places from weapons revealing a dark interior of metal supports and long dead hallways. Melp looked towards the front of the ship as the command deck slowly spun into view and he was surprised to see the name of the ship had survived the damage it had taken.

“The Vault of Ohya…” Melp softly spoke. He reached out with an arm and shook Galem who was smiling like a hatchling on birthing day. “That’s the Vault of Ohya!”

“A piece of her hull to the right collector would be enough to refurbish this little dingy,” Galem said as he playfully smacked the command console, “into one hell of a floating casino.”

The two of them broke down into fits of laughter as if they had just been driven mad by their findings; but it was not of madness that now drove them but the sheer joy of their discovery.

These dozen ships floating lifelessly in the cluster were more than enough to bring the two of them back into the life of luxury they once held and keep them there until their dying days.

Melp was still star gazing at the shattered troop carrier when something else suddenly grabbed his attention.

“What’s that?”

Melp tore his gaze away from the Ohya and saw what Galem was looking at.

A new vessel slowly drifted out of the shadow of the troop carrier and came into view. It was clearly a human vessel of some kind; the lack luster design a clear give away. The body of the ship was missing sections of itself, but rather than appearing as if it had been damaged in the battle it looked more as if the ship had not finished being built. Sections of the body were lacking armor showing a complex network of pipes and corridors. The hull was painted in a soft grey color that stood out sharply among the ever shifting gas cloud surrounding it. Rows of gun ports ran along the sides, their openings revealing nothing of the pitch black interior giving them the appearance of small gaping mouths ready to consume Melp and his ship.  

The more Melp looked at the ship the more he felt something was just wrong with it. Galem must have felt something as well as he pulled up the virtual display and began interacting with it.

“Not sure what that thing is but it’s not listed in the records.” He said as he closed the display and leaned over the controls to get a better view of it. The tingling feeling at the bottom of Melp’s three stomachs was starting to grow stronger as his uneasiness did not subside.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that there’s no record of that ship variant from the entire war with humanity on any recorded file.” He popped open the virtual display again and flicked it over so it was hovering in front of Melp to view while he fiddled with the controls again. “Which means it’s worth a whole lot more than anything here.”

“How do you figure that?” As a response to Melp’s question he waved his arm across the scattered wrecks.

“Out of all the ships here the human ones are all clustered around that one as if they meant to protect it.” Galem said as he began moving the ship closer to the strange human ship.

“They could have bugged out and ran, but instead they all fought and died just to protect that thing; which means something on it must’ve been worth defending.”

Melp knew what Galem had some merit, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still very wrong; but before he could raise his concerns though a loud shudder ran through the scavenger ship.

“Get your suit on,” Galem said as he exited out of the cockpit, “let’s go find us some treasure.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the exterior of the ship had uneased Melp, the interior down right terrified him.

No sooner had the airlock door opened the two scavengers leaped back in shock. Standing at the entrance was a humanoid looking figure. Galem screamed and grabbed hold of a nearby cutting tool and swung it at the figure before Melp could even say anything.

A shower of sparks eradiated off the figure’s body as the plasma torch cut into it, all the while Galem was continuing to scream, and cut a decent size hole through the beings torso.

“Shut it!” Melp shouted at Galem, forcing the scared halfwit to calm down some while Melp inched closer and retrieved the still burning plasma torch. The figure had not moved and inch even as the torch had melted away his exterior and as Melp moved closer still he noticed why.

“It’s an automated drone you idiot.”

Melp motioned him forward and the two of them inspected the machine.

It was human shaped but it was entirely of metal and wires, a mindless drone used for menial tasks such as inventory handling or maintenance. It wore a human uniform for some reason which clashed with its blank reflective visor face.

“Why’s it standing here?” Galem asked as he nervously tapped the drone. The touch pushed it off the ground and the dead drone slowly lifted off the ground in the zero-g environment and floated back into the ship, bouncing off the back wall before continuing to silently float away.

“Maybe it’s here to greet us?” Melp chuckled as he activated his mag locks and his feet latched on to the metallic floor. Galem followed suit and the two began entering the derelict ship.

“Can’t be,” Galem began as they reached the airlock secondary doors and began slowly opening them, “these tin cans would run out of power in a day and it’s been years since this tussle went down.”

With several loud grunts as the two strained with the manual release the inner airlock to the human ship finally cracked open. The two entered slowly, not knowing what to expect, and took stock of their surroundings.

They entered a long hallway that seemed to stretch out far into the distance passed the reach of their head lamps. Melp could see side corridors scattered every few dozen feet no doubt leading to other sections of the ship, but likewise they too were pitch black.

Something about Melp’s comment made him pull out his data scroll and do a quick scan. The device beeped rapidly as the scan commenced before ending with a loud “DING” and displaying a waterfall of information.

Melp read the data as the two continued to hover by the airlock entrance.

“It says here that somethings still giving off a power signature here.” Melp commented as he ran he scan again to be sure.

“Give it here,” Galem said as he turned to Melp with his hand outstretched, “you must be reading it-“

When Galem didn’t finish his sentence Melp looked up and saw something akin to a mixture of fear and surprise on his face. He was staring at something over his shoulder so Melp slowly turned in place , his magnetic feet latching heavily to the decking with each step like two magnets smashing together.

When he finally turned around he let out a yelp of surprise and tried to jump back, but his magnetic feet kept him firmly locked to the floor leaving him in an almost comical off balance state.

Standing directly behind him was another of the drones, this one dressed in what appeared to be some sort of security uniform even including an empty weapon holster at his side.

Neither of the scavengers knew how the thing got there as it most certainly hadn’t been standing there a moment ago. Before either of them could respond the drone’s visor lit up and displayed a pixelated face.  The visor was damaged with a deep crack running the length of it making the display flicker in and out on half the screen giving it an eerily ghost like visage.

“The captain,” the drone began as it stepped to one side of the hallway and extended a hand into the darkness, “requests your presence on the bridge.”