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shianhygge-imagines · 4 years

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Sundown 勿忘草 [Reno/Reader]{Final Fantasy VII} Episode 2

AN: Here’s the next part of Sundown Wasurenagusa! I’m sorry that I’ve been slow on posting any new story material! I had a bit of a writers’ block, and I’m still trying to work through it!

I had intended for this to be much longer, but I felt like this part was a good length to post. The first part of this ‘episode’ is going to be formatted weird because I can’t get Tumblr to format a text conversation in the way that I want.

If you like the content I create, please consider donating to my Ko-fi! Please help me feed my tea addiction!

|Masterlist Link|

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 12

Reno {07:10}

[Good morning, sleeping beauty]

Me {08:30}

[Morning]

[Do you not need sleep?]

[You probably went to bed late last night]

[And while it truly does make my day to hear from you]

[Why? It’s so early ;.;]

Reno {08:40}

[Can you blame a guy for being eager to talk to you?]

[Lol, Sorry. I didn’t disturb you, did I?]

Me {08:59}

[>///<]

[No, you’re good. I gotta get up to get ready anyways.]

[Flatterer]

Reno {09:34}

[I mean, can you blame me? ;) ]

[So, I was thinking about taking you on a date outside of Midgar, but I realized that I should probably get your opinion on it first]

Me {10:01}

[I mean, that depends? How early do I have to get up on my day off? And how long will it take to get there?]

Reno {10:05}

[Um… well, it’s getting pretty chilly in Midgar, so I was thinking about taking you to Costa del Sol… beach date :P]

Me {10:30}

[…]

[Costa del Sol is pretty far, Reno…]

Reno {10:31}

[And?]

[I’ve got a way]

[Don’t sweat the details]

Me {10:32}

[You’re taking a company helicopter, aren’t you -.-]

Reno {10:33}

[Ack! You’ve figured out my master plan!]

Me {10:34}

[Are Turks even allowed to take company assets out for joy rides?]

Reno {10:35}

[ TT^TT I told you not to sweat the details!]

Me {10:40}

[I just don’t want you to get into any trouble.]

Reno {10:50}

[Awww, don’t worry about me.]

[You have a party to attend later, so do me a favor and have fun, okay?]

Me {11:03}

[That reminds me…]

Reno {11:05}

[??]

Me {11:11}

[bluedress.jpg sent]

(The image is of you in a sapphire blue dress, the sleeves long and neck high. The dress itself ends just below your knees)

[This dress?]

[reddress.jpg sent]

(The second image is of you in a backless ruby dress that ends just above the knee. There are no sleeves to this dress despite the fact that it has a high neck)

[Or this dress?]

Reno {11:13}

[…]

[Y/N]

Me {11:15}

[Reno]

[???]

Me {12:01}

[If I don’t look good in either of them, just be honest ;.;]

Reno {13:05}

[Gah! Sorry, I got pulled away for something]

[The red one. For sure]

Me {13:06}

[Just because red’s your color… >.>]

[I hope you’re okay, Reno ;.;]

Reno {13:15}

[Hey, first of all, remember what I said about red being your color?]

[I don’t lie, k?]

[But also, yeah. Also because it’s my color, you should wear it ;)]

[Do you have a sixth sense or something?]

[image.jpg]

(Opening up the image file gifts you with a selfie of Reno, looking minorly roughed up and being supported by an infrantryman. He looks like he’s by the old church that Aerith likes to visit. Despite needing to be supported by the infantryman, the red headed Turk’s winking and holding up a peace sign)

[Just a few minor bruises ;P I’ll be fine]

[Unless….]

[You want to kiss me better? ;)]

Me {13:30}

[… Well. I’m sorry for worrying (¬_¬) ]

Reno {13:45}

[Joking, joking! :D]

[All patched up]

Reno {14:07}

[Y/N?]

(´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`)

[I’m sorry.]

[Please talk to meeeeeee]

Me {14:00}

[image.jpg]

(It’s a picture of you in the red dress. Your hair is done up with an attractive amount of make up. You’re wearing a sensible set of black flats.)

[The party starts in an hour, so I might be answering my phone too often.]

[And Costa del Sol sounds perfect for tomorrow ;) I’ve got my outfit all picked out]

Reno {14:15}

[Uh, yeah, that’s gonna be your new contact photo]

[I’m picking you up earlier than we agreed so that we can have more time to relax in the sun]

[Duty calls. Have fun tonight, okay?]

Me {14:20}

[And what? My contact photo for you is going to be this?]

[screenshot.jpg]

(It’s a screenshot of your mobile phone screen. There’s an edit with a red arrow pointing directly at the photo icon for Reno’s contact…it’s the photo that he sent earlier except you’ve photoshopped cartoon ‘uwu’ eyes and added pink anime blush to his cheeks)

[And don’t worry, I’ll probably have enough fun for the both of us.]

[We’ll have fun tomorrow, be safe, okay?]

Reno {14:30}

[I’ll try ;) But if not, I’ll have you to take care of me.]

[Also? That picture?]

[P.E.R.F.E.C.T]

Me {18:30}

[Hope you’re safe!]

[Message me after work to let me know you’re okay!]

[image-2.jpg]

(It’s a group photo of you and your friends in silly poses)

Me {19:21}

[image-3.jpg]

(It’s a close up shot of a delicious plate of food)

[I should have brought you with me ;.;]

|You called Reno| 20:58

[Unable to leave voicemail]

December 13 - 08:21

The morning after the confrontation with AVALANCHE at the Sector 7 Pillar, one would expect the medical bay in Shinra HQ to be jam packed full of patients. There should have been a horde of doctors and nurses, running around to treat the injured infantryman and civilian survivors. But there were only two individuals in the med bay, Reno and Rude. When the plate fell, only a handful of infantryman were able to escape the chaos. Many were left behind to fend for themselves.

Despite surviving a helicopter crash and the brawl with Tifa, Barret, and Cloud, Rude only sustained a few bruises and minor bone fractures. He had been assigned bedrest after being treated by the doctors, but the weight of what he and his partner had been tasked to do twelve hours ago felt like an overwhelming burden. Needing something to keep his mind occupied, the taller of the iconic Turk duo simply engrossed himself in a novel that Elena had brought over during her visit.

On the bed beside Rude’s, Reno groaned in pain as he sat up, eyes still not open and alert as he raised a hand to press against his pounding head. “Gah, what the hell.” Reno’s face stung at the cheeks when his face scrunched up at the pain that seemed to come from every part of him. Even the act of sitting up proved too painful due to his newly broken ribs.

Rude watched his partner sink back into the sheets from his own medical bed, sunglasses on as was usual of him. He wondered how long it would take Reno to realize that it had been nearly twelve hours since they had dropped the plate. He also wondered when his sassy partner in crime would realize that he had a date this morning. Of course, Rude didn’t think you’d get angry at Reno for missing a date when he was hospitalized, but the taller of the iconic Turk pair knew that Reno would never forgive himself for skipping out on you.

While Rude watched, Reno allowed his body to collapse back into bed, an exhausted and pained groan escaping his lips as he want, arms flopping onto the bed as he fought to remember what had happened to land him in such a pitiful state.

Oh yeah…Rude and I went to Sector 7’s plate… and we fought blondie’s group of self righteous freedom fighters… and then…I blacked out. Cracking both eyes open, Reno furrowed his brows and turned his head to examine his surroundings. Med bay back at HQ… The red head swiveled in place to stare at Rude, “The mission….” He trailed off with a questioning tone.

His partner merely grunted, “We finished it and escaped.” Lacking in detail, but still straight to the point.

Sighing in relief that his work track record wouldn’t have a stain on it, Reno flopped back down, “Whooo…” The red head cheered sarcastically, pumping a fist without any energy or cheer behind it. Gah, and I promised Y/N that I’d be safe… Reno’s eyes snapped open and he bolted to a seating position with an alarmed cry, “Crap! Y/N! What time is it?” Shit, I gotta message her to let her know that I’m going to be running late! The Turk second in command thought as he pat down his person for his cell phone.

When he couldn’t find it, Reno turned to his partner, who gestured towards the bedside table. “It was damaged during our fight with AVALANCHE, but it should still be working.”

Not paying any attention to the fact that he was now bleeding through the bandages wrapped around his abdomen, Reno grinned, “Whooo boy! Partner, you’re a life saver!”

The sheer amount of relief within Reno voice made Rude stop and stare at his partner. Hmm… maybe Reno’s serious about her after all.

Meanwhile, Reno quickly unlocked his phone screen, ignoring the fact that the glass display seemed shattered beyond repair. When he pulled up the chat room that he shared with Y/N, Reno cursed, “Five missed messages and one missed call.” Quickly reading through the text messages, and smiling at how much fun you were having at the party, Reno tapped out a quick message in reply to you before listening to the voicemail that you had left.

Yesterday

Y/N {19:21}

[image-3.jpg]

(Reno’s mouth watered at the sight of the food in the picture)

[I should have brought you with me ;.;]

|Missed call from Y/N| 20:58

[Click to listen to voicemail]

Today - December 13

Me {08:43}

[Gah, sorry Y/N, I may have bit off more than I could chew yesterday.]

[I just woke up in the med bay at HQ]

[I’m going to be a little late picking you up]

[And I’m a little roughed up]

[But nothing is stopping me from taking you on our date!]

[See you in an hour?]

When Reno lifted his damaged cell phone to listen to the voicemail that you had left him, the only sound that reached his ears was an error notification that the voice recording app had failed. “I’m sorry, but the voicemail recording that you wish to listen to failed to load properly. Please quite all applications before trying again. If the problem still persists, please contact Shinra Mobile’s technical support service to resolve this issue.” The phone recording informed Reno, pleasantly.

Knowing from experience that getting through to technical support at the current hour was next to impossible, Reno merely tapped out another message.

Me {08:47}

[Hey, the voicemail that you sent to me didn’t go through.]

[What was it about?]

Satisfied with the messages that he’d sent out, Reno shifted to get out of bed, an excited grin on his lips. “Welp! Time to get going! Got a wonderful day off with a gorgeous gal!”

Sighing, Rude lowered the novel to look in his partner’s direction. “Your date with Y/N?” When Reno only gave a sassy shrug in reply, Rude shook his head, “Just remember, you’re still injured.”

“Will do, partner!” Reno saluted the older man before dashing out of the med bay, dodging the nurses swiftly as he made his way to the elevators, itching to get back to the Turk dorms to change into something that would help him blend into the slum crowds of Sector 5. On his way to his room, the red headed Turk would raise his phone to check for any new messages, lowering it in disappointment every time there was no response.

“That’s weird, normally she responds by now.” Reno mused, sending out another quick text once he’d changed into dark jeans, a red hoodie, and a dark beige trucker jacket.

Me {09:12}

[I’m on my way to your place now.]

[Are you awake?]

Around twenty minutes later, on the helicopter ride down to the Sector 5 slums, Reno furrowed his brows and bit the inside of his lip when you didn’t respond again.

Me {09:32}

[Y/N?]

[Please answer.]

[I’m on a helicopter down now]

[Message back. I’m getting worried.]

When there is still no response, Reno taps on your contact and brings the phone up to his ear, trying to call you.

“Hey, this is Y/N. I’m probably away from the phone right now, so leave a message, and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.”

Straight to voicemail.

Something wasn’t right, and Reno could feel it in his bones.

When the helicopter started to land in the Shinra barracks, Reno didn’t even wait for the helicopter to fully land before jumping out of the aerial vehicle, landing solidly before taking off in a sprint towards your apartment.

She’s not answer any of the text messages… Did she lose her phone last night? Did she accidentally break it?… Did she find out what I did yesterday? Is she ignoring me?

The worries and thoughts that raced through Reno’s mind became more and more self-depricating as he neared entered the main town area and brushed past the crowds of people gathered in the streets. I know I said it was too late to grow a conscious, but damn it, please don’t let this be the reason she decides that she doesn’t want me around.

All but flying up the metal steps to your apartment, Reno starts to bang on your front door, calling your name in the meanwhile. “Y/N!” Bang bang bang “It’s Reno!” Bang bang bang “You weren’t answering your phone. Are you ready to go?” It took another few minutes of knocking before Reno head a door open below and slow footsteps ascend the metal stairwell.

Turning and expecting to see you standing there, Reno’s shoulders visibly slumped when he came face to face with a tiny old lady. “Oh, uh. Sorry for causing a disturbance.”

“Are you looking for Y/N, young man?” The old woman inquired, tilting her head to look up at Reno through friendly old eyes.

Feeling as if he was being judged by the elderly woman, Reno stood ramrod straight and nodded, clearing his throat, “Uh, yeah. We had plans for today.”

The old woman nodded sagely, “I see, I see. Ah, to be young again. I’m sorry to disappoint you, young man, but Y/N hasn’t been home since yesterday afternoon. I think she’s still at her friend’s home.”

The first traces of alarm flashed through Reno’s head, and suddenly his Turk persona was back, “Do you happen to know where her friend lives, ma’am?”

The old woman shook her head, “I only know that dear Selene doesn’t live in Sector 5. I’m sorry, young man.”

Suddenly jittery, Reno only nods and descends the metal staircase again, “Thanks for the help. I should get going.”

Reno doesn’t hear the old woman’s reply because he’s sprinting back towards the Shinra barracks, ears ringing and vision narrowed as he contacts a friend in Shinra’s tech department for help tracking down your cell phone’s location and retrieving the voicemail you’d left him. And while his friend works on it, Reno decided to change into a clean set of his uniform, mind suddenly kicked into overdrive as he tries to recall where you said your friend’s party was.

Gah, Reno… you pay attention to everything else she says, but you can’t figure out where her friend Selene lives? Some Turk you are! Reno scolds himself as he paces back and forth in Y/N’s office, somehow trying to find comfort in familiar surroundings. Damnit, think! What has she mentioned in the past about her friends. I only remember her talking about living in Sector 7 for a whi- Reno pauses in his steps as dread begins to pool in his stomach. “No.” He doesn’t want to entertain the possibility that you had gone to a party at your childhood sector the same night that he was tasked with dropping the plate on top of hundreds. But the more that Reno thinks about it, the more likely the possibility is, and he sinks to his knees in the middle of your office, eyes wide with horror and denial. “No… I refuse to believe it. Gotta wait for-”

His phone chimes with a notification.

Pulling out his phone as fast as possible without fumbling the already hazardously damaged device, Reno unlocks the screen, only to see that a voice file had been sent to him along with tracking coordinates.

Clicking on the voicemail and tracker, Reno’s frown deepens and his face pales as he stares at the map of Sector 7 Slums with a red dot in the center of it, the sounds of your final message to him playing in the background.

No.

The voice recording loops until Reno regains his bearings, body shaking and eyes burning as his ears pick up the sounds of explosions in the background, of your sobs as you fought to leave a last message for the man who had thoughtlessly killed you, and of your fear and acceptance that you wouldn’t live past that moment. The phone slips from his hands and clatters to the floor as Reno’s fingers go slack. “No… I didn’t… Y/N…” A strangled sob escapes Reno’s lips as he raises a hand to grip onto his hair, trying to maintain his composure, “I didn’t mean to�� If I’d known, I would have…” The Turk second in command paused and hunched in on himself, not caring if anyone could see him through the glass walls of your office.

M-maybe she left her phone behind when she ran? But… if she’s not there, then where would she have gone if not home?

There weren’t any excuses or any other reason he could come up with. Reno knew that. If he had known beforehand that you would be in Sector 7 Slums, he would have warned you, but you would have tried to evacuate as many people as possible from that sector, and AVALANCHE might have managed to leave, therefore ending in a failed mission. He would have done everything he could to make sure you stayed away from Sector 7, but in the end, he’d still go through with the mission.

“I killed her.” Reno sobbed in realization, biting his bottom lip so hard that he tasted copper, “Just like I killed all those people.” Shaking his head, inconsolable, Reno could only mourn quietly. “I’m just the worst. This is karma for all the shit things I did in life, isn’t it?”

Eyes dulled and slightly puffy, Reno hastily wiped at his face and sat down with his back against your desk, his phone ringing with notifications as Tseng and Rude sent him requests for ‘status’ updates. And the Turk second in command ignored his colleagues, eyes staring into nothingness as he wreaked his brain for what to do next.

I really was looking forward to the date. Reno’s thoughts trailed off, It’s sappy as hell, but I wanted to ask her to be my girlfriend. Tseng said that relationships for Turks never ended well, citing Veld as an example, but… gah! This is the worst situation for Tseng to be right!

It was only the early afternoon… maybe he could start a search party for survivors… it was probably too late, but Reno knew that he had to do something to look for you. With renewed purpose, Reno got to his feet and marched out of your office, blue eyes burning with fiery determination as he hung onto the faint hope that you might have survived.

December 13 - 12:13

You groaned in pain and shifted your body, eyes cracking open to be met with blinding industrial lights. The pain from the glaring lights startled you into closing your eyes again, turning until your body was facing away from them. For a moment, you wondered why you were laying on some sort of weird metallic floor instead of your soft bed, and then the memories of a falling sky sent your eyes flying back open as you took in your surroundings.

The floor was indeed cold and metallic because it looked as if you’d woken up in a maintenance passage. Despite most maintenance passages usually being dimly lit, the one you found yourself lying in was lit from both of the walls. The ceiling above your face had a hole in it, though it was covered with metal and concrete chunks. You assumed, as you clambered to your feet, that you’d fallen through that hole and rolled a few feet away due to the pile of rubble directly beneath the hole. Wincing slightly, you poked and prodded your person for bruises, broken bones, or fractures. Slightly satisfied with just a few small skin lesions, bruises, and maybe a fractured rib, you patted yourself down for your mobile phone, hoping to call for help. Frowning, you found that you did not have your cell phone on you, nor was it anywhere on the floor near you.

Since you hadn’t expected to live through a plate falling on top of you, you could only look on the bright side of things, turning to walk down the metal tunnel with determination set on your face. I didn’t almost die from a plate falling just to give up in an empty tunnel. Plus, a fond smile appeared on your face, I have a date waiting for me when I get back topside.

It seemed pretty simple to you. You’d falling who knows how far down, but you knew for sure that the way out was up. So the only thing to do was to keep walking until you found a passage up. Easy peasy.

December 13 - 15:35

There’s a fierce snarl on Reno’s face as he stands by several parked helicopters. All around him, emergency responders and Shinra infantrymen scrambled to load up supplies and equipment. The dark look on the normally sassy, easy-going Turk’s face seemed like a literal beacon for anyone not bearing good news to stay the away. Though, if some of the troops were to be honest, Reno had very good reason to be irate. The Turk second in command had called in an emergency rescue operation for survivors trapped among the plate wreckage nearly three and a half hours ago, and they were only just beginning to start the rescue operation.

After Tseng, the Turk commander, had authorized the mission to rescue anyone buried under the rubble, the mission had quickly been side-tracked by Shinra executives Scarlet and Heideggar. Scarlet had protested against the operation simply because of the notion that dogs living in the slums were of no use to Shinra, and therefore, the mission was a waste of resources. Heideggar, meanwhile, had agreed that while in times of disaster, Shinra’s army bore the responsibility of launching operations to rescue civilians affected, the members of AVALANCHE were widely unknown and could easily disguise themselves as regular civilians.

It took nearly two hours of careful negotiations and subtle ego inflating by Tseng and Reeve, before both executives agreed to support the relief effort. Viewing it as a strategic move to improve public opinion of the Shinra Company, President Shinra gave little to no resistance when Tseng forwarded the mission brief to be sanctioned.

Now, an hour after the mission was sanctioned, Reno felt the beginnings of a headache forming as he directed the flow of supplies to each helicopter before making sure that there were rotations of supplies and emergency responders that would journey to and from the wreckage of Sector 7 once he landed with the first round of helicopters.

When he had deemed all in good order to head out, Reno sighed and hopped into the helicopter cockpit, buckling himself in to the pilot’s seat. Plopping the headset on while he waited for the rest of the crew to load up into the helicopter, Reno busied himself with flipping switches to make sure that pre-flight and the ride down to Sector 7 would be as smooth as possible. When his co-pilot buckled himself in and gave Reno the thumbs up, the red headed Turk spoke as clearly and seriously as he could into the mic. “Alright guys and gals in all active units, hope you’re all buckled up with headsets on because I sure as hell will not be repeating this briefing.” After a brief pause, Reno continued to speak while directing the helicopter off the platform. “You all probably heard about what happened yesterday. The official reports from HQ state that AVALANCHE launched an attack to compromise Sector 7’s plate pillar. Despite all efforts directed to stop the terrorist attack, the plate still fell. Our job is to go down to the disaster zone to provide relief to all affected civilians. We will also be launching search and rescue operations for survivors.” Reno paused once more as helicopter gained enough air to safely fly out of the landing zone. “I’m gonna be real with you all. Someone important to me was in Sector 7’s Slums when the plate fell and I’m going to try my damnest to look for her. So if any of you fuck this up… not gonna lie, I’m gonna be pissed.” Nobody replied to Reno’s admittance… not that he really expected much of a reply after he dropped that bomb on them. Having enough of the silence, Reno exhaled, “Alright… good talk.”

December 13 - 16:03

It wasn’t easy peasy. Definitely fucking not.

The chrome walkways and exposed piping-lined maintenance passage that you had fallen into hadn’t been a simple few meters under the surface as you thought. No. It’s was more like several meters down with a layer of minor blocked off passageways right above. And, as if that weren’t terrible already? The maze of pathways that made up the layer above seemed to take joy in bringing you up a level, just to drop you back down a level because some asshole decided to seal off the passages at various points.

Your eye twitched in annoyance when you walked down a metal walkway only to be face to face with another fenced off passage lined with reinforced plating. To your surprise, you could see a man stumble around the corner of the opposite side. When you saw one another, your eyes widened. “Holy shit!” The man gasped, stumbling forward with a noticeable limp and sliced up arm. “I didn’t think there’d be another person down here!”

“This place is like a maze, so I’m not surprised that any survivors had yet to meet up. A-are… are you okay?” The blood leaking from the deep scratches in his left arm seemed to ooze a poisonous purple color.

The stranger bit his bottom lip as he hastily hid his injury, “Yeah… I’ll be fine. Listen, girl, you should watch out while down here. I think the rumors about the underground lab were true after all. There are monsters running around everywhere.” Your expression must have been one of utter dismay and despair because the man coughed and reached into his pocket to roll two materia under the fence. “Uh. Shit. Well, it looks like you could use these then. It’s a Cura and a Fira. Hopefully you won’t need it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Anyways, I hope you make it out of here, girl. I gotta keep looking for other AVALANCHE survivors.”

When the man made to jog away, you called out to him, “Wait! You said that you’re looking for AVALANCHE members? Are you one of them? Do you know what happened?” You pressed yourself against the fence in order to see the stranger from around the corner.

The stranger turned around to stare at you with a grim expression. “Whatever you’re thinking, AVALANCHE didn’t cause this, okay? We were framed by Shinra.” At your confused expression, the man scoffed, “C’mon, you really think that Shinra was going to let civilians protest and riot against them? They couldn’t figure out who was a member and who wasn’t, so they figured they’d drop the entire plate on top of us to get rid of us all.”

“But that’s such a drastic move!” You protested, wanting to believe that your employers wouldn’t have such blatant disregard for human life. “They wouldn’t just sacrifice thousands to eliminate AVALANCHE!”

“Believe what you want, girl. But the reality is that my friends and I all went to the pillar to stop Shinra from dropping the plate, and it dropped anyways because two Turks were sent to finish the job.” The stranger didn’t allow you to retort as he limped away. Not that you would have responded anyways with how the stranger had said that two Turks had arrived to help ensure that the Sector 7 plate dropped.

Pulling away from the fence, you knelt down to pick up the two orbs of materia, the color of your skin taking on a sickly pale pallor. Two Turks were sent to the pillar to drop the plate on top of all of us. Your mind instantly supplied the first Turk pair that you could think of and you felt like you were going to dry heave. I don’t know Rude too well, but from what I know, he and Reno wouldn’t do something so horrendous. Surely, there must have been another pair of Turks who were sent to do it. But you did work in a different department as them, how did you know that there were more members of the Turks? And with Reno’s position within the group… He could have known what was happening…

You told Reno that you would be hanging out with your best friend… that you guys were having a party. He’s smart enough to deduce that your friends still lived in Sector 7… Did he forget? Or… Your stomach churned violently as you sank to your knees on the cold metal walkway. Did Reno just decide he didn’t care if I survived or not?

The edge of your vision burned with tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. A simple blink sent them trailing down your cheeks as you stood upon shaky legs. “Can’t worry about that now.” You muttered, eyes filled with determination as you gathered the excess fabric of your dress to gird up your loins. “I need to find a way out of here. The tunnels might not be able to hold for long.”

Lifting your arm, you pressed one of the materia into your forearm, like you’d seen a few SOLDIERs do before, marveling at how the orb of power sank into the flesh of your arm. Smiling at how seamless it was to merge flesh with Materia, you pressed the other faintly glowing orb into your other forearm, concentrating for a bit before casting Cura upon yourself.

Newly rejuvenated, you back tracked through the metal corridor to find the ladder leading down. “Welp, there’s no time like the present,” you mumbled to yourself as you descended further into the tunnels below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#shian imagines #final fantasy vii #Final Fantasy 7 #ffvii #ffviir #final fantasy vii remake #ffvii:remake #reno #reno x reader #final fantasy vii reno

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thegamercollective · 3 years

Text

7 Best Star Wars Video Game Ideas

Star Wars! You know it, I know it. It’s pretty great, right? Whether it’s the attacking clones or the returning Jedi there’s something for everyone in the vast Star Wars universe. But when it comes to video games the property seems largely underserved; as we pass the halfway point of EA’s ten year deal with Disney the opportunity for big, exciting AAA Star Wars experiences feels squandered, with only a few mobile titles and two tepidly received Battlefront’s to show for it.

True, before the deal there were a number of excellent games from various developers like Knights Of The Old Republic and The Force Unleashed. But it would be great to see new titles with the same level of creativity with the technology and principles of the industry today. Twitch streaming equipment for beginners.

So without further ado, I present to you7 Best Star Wars Video Game Ideas!

7. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Extraordinaire BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

This is a bit of a safe one, but for good reason. Borrow the open-space jet-setting elements of No Man’s Sky, Star Citizen and Beyond Good and Evil 2 with an emphasis on tracking down and eliminating bounties like in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or Assassin’s Creed and you’re in for one hell of a time! The original concept for Prey 2 was similar to this, with the player running around a Blade Runner-esque future city hunting down criminal aliens.

Of course, the concept of a specifically Star Wars Bounty Hunter game has been in development for a long, LONG time, what with the cancelled Star Wars 1313 back in the LucasArts days and what is currently in development at Visceral Games. Even if it isn’t the most original idea it’s still an exciting one with a bantha tank-load of potential. Pink gaming chair under 100.

6. Rome Total Star War BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

The age of Real-Time Strategy games may have past its prime, but a handful of titles carry the torch for this corner of the galaxy. The Starcraft and Halo Wars franchises have elevated the genre from the days of Age Of Empires and – what do you know – past Star Wars RTS titles. Now would be the perfect time to return to that galaxy far, far away with a platoon of clones and a squadron of starfighters at your command.

This game could easily take cues from The Lord Of The Rings: Battle For Middle Earth RTS series, with the huge roster of hero characters swimming around the Star Wars canon. If this game lets me deploy Max Rebo to stun my enemies with the dolcet sounds of his red ball jett organ, it’s got my preorder. Corner gaming desk with lights.

5. Something something womp rats BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

Imagine, if you will, a free roam survival game set on an iconic Star Wars planet, in which you must battle the elements and fierce creatures to provide for your community. That’s right, I’m talking about Meerkat Manor: Tatooine Edition.

Few games throw you in the body of a wild creature to do what wild creatures do. Star Wars is full of weird animals, so what better universe to pick from? I can already picture myself sneaking around profogg burrows as a lone womp rat hunting for unsuspecting prey, or migrating through a sandstorm with a family of babies clinging to my belly.

Not that it couldn’t be any other species; imagine hunting with a pack of ewoks or flying with a flock of porgs. You can’t tell me this isn’t something you’d play.

4. Knights Of The Old Republic, Again BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

Okay, maybe not specifically The Old Republic era but I’d love to see another Force-focused RPG in the Star Wars galaxy. The KOTOR games are some of the best RPGs around offering you the chance to explore your inner Force user, be you a benevolent Jedi Master or a ruthless Sith Lord. This classic formula with updated visuals and mechanics would be a sight to behold, and, if done by OG KOTOR developers and RPG specialists Bioware, it could be a major upswing for the downtrodden studio.

Jedi abilities could also be expanded in a more modern way; instead of jogging down hallways traversal could easily take cues from the likes of Prototype or Infamous. Combat could also take some inspiration from the Batman: Arkham series and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with combo-based saberplay mixed in with Force abilities and weapon items.

3. Galactic Podracing Championship BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

Now THIS is podracing!

It might sound like a dumb idea, but imagine a deadly, high speed action racing game set on race tracks from all across the galaxy!

White knuckle chicanes through the ice caves of Hoth, glorious drifts along the beaches of Scarif, high octane dragging through the volcanic death traps of Mustafar or death-defying traffic dodging through the busy underworld of Coruscant. Throw in dynamic vehicle combat, environmental hazards and opportunities, forked paths and split-screen multiplayer and Disney would have themselves a grand prix winner.

Think of the possibilities! Be it Mario Kart arcade racing or Forza Horizon realism, this concept is nothing but supercharged, Force-injected, illegally energized podracer fuel ready to be shot straight through your visual sensors and into your brain!

Actually this game was made back in the Nintendo 64 days, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be reconceptualized for the modern gaming scene!

2. Mandalorian Warfighter BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

For those of you who don’t regularly scour Wookieepedia, The Mandalorian Wars took place around 4000 years before A New Hope between the Galactic Republic and the warriors of Mandalor. The conflict had a significant impact upon the galaxy and has been directly referenced in both Star Wars Legends and official canon, so for it to feature in a new piece of Star Wars media isn’t completely out of the question.

Okay, history lesson over.

I would love to see this period tackled in the style of Ryse: Son of Rome, Brothers In Arms or Star Wars: Republic Commando, with a small squad of soldiers (either Mandalorian, Republic or Jedi) at your command. The added need to look after your men, making sure they’re fully stocked on weapons, ammunition and survival supplies, while helping them cope with the mental trauma of war (ala Darkest Dungeon) would add a much needed layer of emotional attachment. With brutal violence and decisions to make similar to those of Spec Ops: The Line I think this could be an extremely exciting title that would shed some canonical light on an era of Star Wars currently left to speculation.

1. For Honor, but Star Wars BEST STAR WARS GAME IDEAS

I think this one speaks for itself, but allow me to elaborate anyway.

The one big problem that I have with lightsaber combat in Star Wars games is that it never feels like you’re in as much control of your blade as a real Jedi. You’re either smashing an attack button to trigger pre-designed strikes and combos or prescribing a series of attacks from a list of abilities, just to watch them execute automatically. There’s so much room to elaborate on the various forms and styles of lightsaber combat with intuitive, malleable controls like those in Ubisoft’s For Honor.

Of course, I don’t just mean battle scenarios. A deep and interesting story about the Jedi and Sith with the significance of the lightsaber itself a thematic focus and some light RPG elements (character customization, a morality system and ability/lightsaber upgrades) would help tie the whole package together.

Imagine charging down a hillside battlefield as a powerful Sith Lord, lightsaber at the ready, when a Jedi Knight appears before you. As the battle rages on around you you analyse and deconstruct the enemy’s stance and form and change yours for to optimize your strategy. You hold your blade out, moving it to block the oncoming attacks waiting for the perfect time to strike. With bursts of lightning and other force abilities you bring your opponent to their knees and execute a brutal, glorious victory. In the words of Anakin Skywalker, “this is where the fun begins.”

#star wars #gaming #games #video games

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msotherworldly · 4 years

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6 More Features I Would Like to See in the Sims 5

1) Improved Babies

Simmers are anxious for babies who...do stuff. Infants can only do so much in real life, and this life state would have to be kept distinct from Toddlers, but newborns still have their own unique activities in real life. One behaviour which would immediately distinguish babies from toddlers would be their need to crawl. Sims 4 toddlers improve their mobility, but are otherwise able to walk right away. Infants would have to learn this skill, along with how to babble and play—basics toddlers can do from the start.

Babies can be given their own objects to interact with, like a special teddy bear, a baby swing, or a rocking bassinet, and behaviours (such as “chew on toy” and “make noise”). Parents could do more with them, such as taking them to friends’ houses to show off or walking them around in baby carriages; the use of a special outfit could even enable a parent to carry a child around with them in a pocket at the front of their overalls.

At the very least, babies should look distinct from one another. They should have the same range of skin tones as their parents (including more unusual tones like blue or green), the same hair and eye colours, as well as the ability to be edited in CAS. Clothing options should be available for babies without the use of expansion packs. That alone would set them apart.

2) Active & Work from Home Careers

The ability to either follow your Sim to work or have them work from home opened up the ability to be more involved in your Sim’s life. However, this functionality only extended to new careers, and the Get to Work and Acting careers remained the only ones you could participate in without the use of mods.

Careers, including school and part time work, would be much more fun if they were all given three options from the outset: work from home, send to work alone, or join. The rabbit hole would remain an option for those who wanted to focus on the rest of their household, but there would be an incentive to choose the other two options, with “join” allowing the highest amount of performance gain each day.

Work from home careers should also be given more depth. While some of the challenges given each day are tricky, others are too easy. In the Floral Designer career, you only have to create one floral arrangement and you receive your wages for the day. Sims should be given a decent list of small tasks to complete, making working from home feel less like a day off and more like a job.

3) Skill Overhaul

Skills are relatively straightforward, but they’re almost too much so. There’s no correlation between skills, leading to some suspension of disbelief (someone who’s mastered the piano, for example, shouldn’t be terrible at the pipe organ). Furthermore, there are an overwhelming amount of creative skills, but a relative few for logic and confidence based moods and only one for fitness.

While the inclusion of more creative skills is still desired (such as drum playing, flute, or animation), more skills should be slotted under fitness. There’s a big difference between figure skaters, long distance runners, or wrestlers; all, while contributing to a person’s “fitness,” are distinct skills.

The inclusion of “Main Skills” and “Sub Skills” could spice up the system. Sims who reached Level 5 Fitness could then begin progressing towards other “fitness” based skills, such as Swimming, Boxing, Running, or Basketball. Sims who reached Level 5 in Writing could learn other skills like Fiction, Nonfiction, Blogging, or Copy. The 4th game already offers a glimpse of what other skills would look like: the Music Skill would lead to the Singing Skill and mastery of other instruments, while the Cooking Skill would open up other skills, including Baking and Gourmet Cooking.

Progress couldn’t be made on any Sub skills until the correct Main Skill had reached Level 5, but all Sub Skills would contribute to the improvement of the Main Skill, and the Main Skill, beyond Level 5, would make the mastery of any Sub Skills easier the higher it went. Someone who began learning the Violin Skill with a Music Skill level of 10 would have an easier time, having practiced music so much already.

4) New Skills

If Skills are overhauled, there are room for new ones. Digital Painting should be a separate skill. Drawing (with the use of pen, paper and other traditional mediums) would be realistic. Mastering different sports, such as Hockey, Volleyball, Soccer, or Football, would give teen sims something to do (particularly if they could join a school team), and logic could include such skills as Chess, Math, and Biology. The possibilities are endless.

More unique skills might include a Tattooist Skill or Animation Skill (either 3D or 2D). What about a Hair Stylist or Modeling Skill? What about Pottery, or something trippy like a Ghost Hunting skill? Opening the skills further could make the game refreshing, even if it was a spin on old skills (such as more “cooking” or “instrument” based skills).

5) More Categories

Whether it be for writing, painting, or simply watching TV, more interactions are usually a plus—cumbersome menus notwithstanding.

Sims currently have the option to watch various channels on the television, including Romance, Action, and Sports. However, we use our televisions for so much now; traditional cable is going out of style with the onset of...Simflix. If Sims had the option to “Watch a Movie” under different genres, “Watch Funny Cat Videos on SimTube,” or “Stream” from a number of different options, TV watching alone would be more exciting.

More categories for writing are a definite must. While more romance options, such as Trashy or Regency, would be appreciated, other genres that are common in real life are absent. It’s unusual that you can’t write Horror or Literature novels. Drama, YA, Western, and LGBTQ could be categories too. Being able to create your own genre and choose what the cover would look like would be an added touch.

6) Relationship Options

Families are complicated. Some people have two parents, and the step-parents who come with them following a divorce. Some kids have two moms or two dads; some have adopted parents, or foster siblings.

While the Sims 4 does allow you to have two “Mothers” or two “Fathers,” there’s no distinguishing the relationships beyond that. Unless siblings are biologically related, they can’t be categorized as such...leading to some awkward scenarios when they grow up. The inclusion of a “step” or “adopted” relationship for parents, siblings, and children would add to the game, especially for family players, and would more realistically reflect a world in which families are becoming more varied.

The current system is still based off the nuclear model, making the creation of more detailed families none-existent on a technical level. You can create a blended family in your game as it is...but don’t be shocked when your Sim’s “step parent” doesn’t take fault with flirting with their “kid” later on!

Other categories previously seen in the game included “Ex-spouse,” which could make certain relationships wonderfully awkward. It would be great if you could choose such a relationship directly within CAS, as well as that of a step-parent or adopted kid.

#sims5 #thesims

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the-uptake · 5 years

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Concrete Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky

The Uptake, With Symbiotic Self-Indulgence. Book III, Chapter 9. Go to previous. Go to next. TW: Disaster area navigation. That’s not suspicious at all.

_________________________________

A month after Central Day, Tri-City announced acceptance of the initial wave of returning citizens, public transportation filled to capacity which was dedicated to just the task of easing the displaced out of Manhattan Premier. On the triple-decker bus headed to Level 10, ‘Choly’s wheelchair wedged up close to Cecil’s seat. Albeit grateful to be rid of the impermanence of the Hillock Plaza and its Overflow, none of the bus’s passengers felt any reprieve from the dread of uncertainty ahead.

“There’ll always be another page of billing,” Cecil finally sighed. He glared at the screen in the front of their floor’s cabin, as it looped instructional clips how to proceed upon returning home. He shifted in his seat at ‘Choly’s slowly elongating face. “We’re increasingly tethered, through lack of choices otherwise, to federal aid programs. Billing is the least of my worries. How the rolling sector housing provisional care will pan out is a definite concern. But what we’ve been allotted is all we’ve got at the moment. We don’t even have a ‘who’ or a ‘why’ yet. So we’ve got to make do.”

“It’s a long time before we have to worry about moving,” ‘Choly offered unhelpfully. “Silver linings, that we were federal employees, I suppose. Surely five years’ provisions will be long enough for them to get Central repaired, or even replaced.”

“It’s less that we don’t have to move, and more that we can’t. That’s probably the one thing I’ve signed off on in the past month that I straight up can’t stand the thought of.” Cecil squirmed in place to straighten in his fiberglass seat. “Look. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s all we’ve been discussing for days, between getting packed up and speaking with the FEMA attorneys. I’m going to turn off my ears until we’re at the complex, okay? Try out your new reader’s headset, get used to it. Chill a bit. We both need a chance to unplug from this shit for a moment.”

Cecil put a hand to ‘Choly’s knee, then used his other hand to gesture along the surface of the thetic halo to free the handshake. The faint glowing of the circuitry within the translucent organometallic structure encircling his head went dark, and he slouched back with a slow grunting exhale to stare out the window.

With a pouting nasal snort, ‘Choly pulled the bone conduction headset from his diamond bag, unfolded it, and slipped it on. He had many ways in which he envied Cecil’s survivorship. Here and now, he most envied the feature of his boyfriend’s accommodations which enabled him the ability to unplug from unpleasant discussions. He did wonder if Cecil had any theories as to motive and perpetrator, but despite all the time they’d already had to discuss the Central bombing, Cecil always conveniently found the means to sideline the subject in favor of just about anything else. But this felt nothing like how Cecil had withheld from ‘Choly that the Fulton Mass and the Supermarket Geek had been one in the same, despite vocal interest in both Web sensations. He could chalk up Cecil’s behavior to the traumatic nature of such an experience: Cecil had, after all, survived an explosion which destroyed a majority of the building which housed the city’s largest concentration of servers, networks, and energy sources.

Maybe ‘Choly was being insensitive, forcing Cecil to talk about it any more than he had. It was one thing, to disclose secondhand information about a tragic event, but another entirely to have been directly involved and impacted to the extent as his other half.

So he focused on fidgeting with the new reader. The model nearly felt like a totally different type of technology compared to the reader ‘Choly had had for eight years leading up to Central Day. His last reader had been rooted and customized to his specifications, and he’d had all the settings just as he liked them and hadn’t had to adapt to a new model or interface every four months like the Levelers. This reader had nothing in common with his last one, barring the fact they were both readers. Last time he’d tried to set it up, to his chagrin he’d figured out how to handshake the cube tray wrist loop to the reader storage. It had no mounted cube tray, and he hated it, but he’d just have to deal. He still couldn’t figure out how to pull up the screen’s keyboard, and the Web settings were greyed out where he couldn’t edit them. The notifications reminded him on the regular that the reader’s operating system awaited pending updates. He couldn’t turn off these reminders, either. His jaw tightened.

A hybrid slasher sounded like an easy distraction at first, since he knew they had a long transit ahead of them, but he knew he couldn’t focus on a film in his mental state. As he set his music cubes to shuffle and adjusted the volume of his headset, he realized that the reason he couldn’t access Web settings was because Web in Tri-City had ceased to exist. Can’t pull up specs on a dead network. He swallowed and Cecil let him hold his hand, joining him in watching the cityscape flicker by around them.

He had to look at the time on his reader to be certain of the time of day, because the trichotomy of the rolling blackout made it impossible to tell just by the qualities of the neobrutalist building surfaces. Tesla Incorporated had divided the city into sectors five levels high and roughly one mile square. Primary sectors aligned with the first shift of midnight to eight in the morning, secondary sectors with the second shift of eight to four in the afternoon, and tertiary sectors four to midnight. The city already reflected the effects of the roll. Projected adverts and running lifts animated the active secondary sectors. Charged Wolfram concrete alone illuminated the stretches of yawning primary sectors. And tertiary sectors lay dark and silent, as they had not yet received any returning inhabitants. They’d have to get used to the Tesla employees, vehicles, and equipment now a present and constant sight in Tri-City for the indefinite future. Only emergency vehicles, public transportation, and ShipShop drones shuttled about the thoroughfares.

The denizens of the bus had all come from HP and HP Overflow. ‘Choly got stuck surveying the survivors. He didn’t often feel much camaraderie with strangers, and it dulled him to find himself reflected in the angles of others’ segmented thetic limb prostheses and cosmetic reconstructions, and the haggard fabric of their faces. He wondered if they, too, experienced the sense of this othering unity, like they all belonged to a new class of citizen altogether, when they regarded his wheelchair, and his leg brace. He shook his head of it and assumed no one else would entertain this brand of nonsense.

His eyes lolled in dismissal of his mentality, silently cursing out those living higher than Level 19. How dare they have access to solar energy? He had never really given the upper crust much thought or attention, but in that moment, his sentiment throttled him to tremendous jealousy. The disaster had all but not affected them. Besides the loss of Tri-City specific Web broadcasts, ‘Choly couldn’t think of a single way the Twentisomes didn’t simply go on as they always had.

He sneered. Except those in the Newark Bay area, of course. But somehow, ‘Choly was jealous of those evacuees most of all. They’d been affected by the bombing more than any survivor. Only the block directly adjacent to Central, Levels 5 to 19, had been evacuated until the reactor explosion. FEMA thought they had the nuclear facility under control, only for twenty thousand civilians to get irradiated by four of the nine reactors melting bottom-out. One of the four exploded outright, sending two reactors into the bay with it. The entire Newark Bay would be in a permanent state of phosphorescent excitation until federal employees could seal up the waste fuel and any irradiated debris. Newark Bay survivors would remain under the care of Overflow facilities throughout New Jersey and New York for indefinite supervision and medical care. ‘Choly had been glued to documentation of this nascent exclusion zone, and he endeared it as though some transcendental slurry of ghosts trapped in place for centuries to come.

The bus let out at its next Level 10 stop, this time in Journal Square. Everyone unloading here retrieved their luggage from the under-bus cargo, and besides those who lived on Level 10, they filed out to the public lifts appropriate to their final destination. Tesla operated the lifts with on-site generators dedicated just to this mode of public transportation, already acutely aware of not just the heightened necessity for vertical mobility, but also the varying injuries the returning population had sustained. Almost too graciously, the power company, cooperating with federal emergency agencies, had taken injury and disability accommodations into consideration, and extended all the help they could within the apartment complexes for those who could not simply take the stairs once they were on the right level.

‘Choly removed his headset, and Cecil turned his halo back on. Cecil pulled a piece rolling luggage behind them and put the smaller piece in ‘Choly’s lap, and pushed ‘Choly along inside the public lift. Once the lift was to its five hundred occupant capacity, the Tesla worker ordered the pocket doors shut and they were on their way to Level 15. Fortunately for the pair, they would exit on Level 12 about fifteen minutes later.

The facade of their apartment complex crawled with advertisements for ShipShop’s new drone program. They filed in with about a hundred of their technical neighbors, and waited in line for the Tesla-operated elevators. Many of those who had the option grew impatient and dragged themselves up the stairwells rather than wait ten at a time. When ‘Choly and Cecil rode, only eight could fit from the wheelchair, and the Tesla employee cited space and weight limits. At the last minute, a heavyset tall blond man in a white bodysuit and a thetic with insectoid quadrupedal limbs squeezed their way into the elevator, its ninth and tenth occupants.

Everyone in line yelled and groaned at him. The pocket doors shut, and the Tesla employee slapped him in the chest. The thetic’s heavily stylized mannequin-like holographic features swiveled around to apologize to the group in the elevator without turning its cylindrical head.

“Did you not just hear me, ShipShop?” the operator snapped. “You of all people should know better than to push capacity.”

“We just got off shift.” He rolled his eyes and slicked back his short sweaty hair. “Gimme a break.”

“Please forgive him, if you could,” the thetic insisted with hesitant posture. It telescoped itself tight up into the back corner of the elevator to occupy the least amount of space possible. “We’ve had a particularly dicey day of it.”

The Tesla employee ignored the pair and addressed the other eight people.

“Floors, everyone?” She instructed the elevator as indicated.

“–Wait.” ‘Choly couldn’t decide whether to stare at the ShipShop employee or the thetic, whose upper half very clearly had once belonged to some manner of public transit autopilot system. “You already got back home? You sure you’re in the right building?”

The blond shoved his gloved hands in his pockets with a matter of fact slouch.

“Never left. ShipShop associates weren’t allowed to evacuate. Ninth floor, by the way.”

The Tesla worker jammed the button a second time for emphasis. ‘Choly and Cecil both flinched that he lived on the same floor.

“That’s sure an interesting customization,” Cecil commented of the thetic, not making eye contact with either. “ShipShop approve that?”

“If you let me help you carry your luggage,” he sleazed, “I’ll tell you all about it.”

‘Choly flipped his sunglasses down and shrank in his chair. Despite obvious body language that ‘Choly disapproved, Cecil nodded and shrugged with a bored frown.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Not sure why you’re offering to lug anything after what you said was a particularly awful shift, but I imagine not too many of the neighbors we knew before all this are coming back. Might as well get familiar with our floor mates.”

The ShipShop employee tried to take the handles of the wheelchair to shuttle ‘Choly along, but Cecil shouldered the man away and gave him the luggage. Cecil pushed ‘Choly, and the blond let out a hesitant chuckle as he let the thetic carry both the rolling luggage and the carry-on from ‘Choly’s lap, trawling along on its four long spindly legs.

“A natural redhead, then, I’m presuming,” he grinned as he trailed along behind them.

“You were saying?” Cecil quipped, not looking back.

“Oh! Angel here?” It let out a digital chirp when mentioned, but said nothing. “It was the navigation system of the ShipShop delivery truck I was working on April Fools, but it crashed on the Lincoln Skybridge. ShipShop wanted to scrap it ‘cause they faulted its navigation matrix for the six-car wreck. Funny how I haven’t met a single person who had a good night on the First, right? Anyway, I smuggled it into the taxi that picked me up before crash collection could haul it off. Been working on it all month. It’s given me something to busy myself with, mostly alone here. The legs are a work in progress, but it’s pretty great, right?”

“Gives me the creeps,” ‘Choly blurted out with a sharp saucer-eyed sniff. “Fff. Franken-thetic.”

“Giving him the creeps is a good thing,” Cecil translated wryly. “I’d be lying if I said I weren’t a little impressed.”

“What are those legs even from?” ‘Choly continued, fidgeting.

“That’s my secret.” The blond grinned. “Name’s Jacob, by the way.”

“Cecil. And this is Melancholy.”

“Jus’ ‘Choly’s fine.” They got to Cecil’s door and ‘Choly glanced to Angel. “Hazarding a guess. Those legs are somethin’ salvaged from a yard on Level 2.”

Jacob straightened in place, not blinking for a moment while he processed the theory.

“Now that’s an interesting thing to suppose.” He whet his lips and pressed them together. “I guess I could say you answered one of many questions, by asking one of your own.”

“He’s on the level.” Cecil gestured for Angel to relinquish their luggage. “Though I wonder if you are.”

“What coy dialogue. I was right to help you along to satisfy my curiosity. Is it just the two of you here?”

“Yes– Wish I could say one way or another if it’s been a pleasure.” Cecil shrugged gratefully at the thetic. “Thank you, Angel.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. I was just acting on Jacob’s behalf.”

“I don’t like sayin’ stuff besides what’s meant,” ‘Choly started with a frown. He glanced both ways down the hall. “Why did you follow us? You didn’t just want our impression of your robot.”

“910-B. We’re down at 925-B.” Jacob eyed the apartment door. “You said it yourself, Cecil. What’s the matter with helping a couple of my floor mates get settled back in? We were going the same way.”

“Do let us know if you need a thing, will you?” Angel swiveled behind Jacob to the other side, trying to nudge him along, its features flickering anxiously. “Jacob keeps odd hours, but if we’re present, we’re more than happy to be at your beck.”

“Right. Y’all need help inside?”

“We appreciate the help, but I hope you’ll understand that we’re not inviting you in at the moment.”

“I’ll come borrow a cuppa glow later then.” Jacob kind of hopped in place and gave them a jerking salute with his left hand, his head askew. “I’m gonna go crash.”

“Goodnight,” ‘Choly called out after them jokingly as they walked off without further circumstance. He double-checked the time on his reader. Not quite three in the afternoon yet.

Jacob thoughtfully mumbled Melancholy under his breath, just loud enough to be heard.

Cecil already had the door open before ‘Choly noticed, and shoved him inside to use the wheelchair to prop the door open. He dragged the luggage inside. A good number of lights and appliances were still on. ‘Choly wheeled himself down the hall track to the kitchen, and spaced out in disgust at the thought of what the void of electricity might have wrought of the living space. He realized he was staring at the coffee carafe in particular. Cecil abandoned the luggage in front of his reading chair and joined ‘Choly in the back half of the apartment.

“I don’t like him,” Cecil remarked.

“I do. He’s just weird enough to get stuff. The. The coffee maker.” ‘Choly sniffed, and pushed his sunglasses lenses back up. “That half carafe’s been brewing for a month.”

“I’m not looking forward to investigating the fridge. We’ll deal with that later. Promise me if Jacob or that thetic come to the door, you won’t answer it. –Think it’s stuffy in here, or is it just me?”

“I promise,” ‘Choly echoed dully, registering the remark to the air quality. “Guess the HVAC hasn’t got working full swing quite yet.”

“Hopefully it’ll get circulating soon. It’s hot and… not dusty. Stale? in here.”

“Agreed.”

Cecil tried the faucet in the kitchen, eliciting a deep groan in the wall and little else. Then he tried the bathroom sink, and finally the bathtub faucet. A successful splatter of stale-smelling water spilled out into the tub, and he let it keep running, hoping to jog the plumbing a bit. He stared at the water for some time before leaving to fish through the kitchen cabinets, and returned to fill the one large resealable container they had on hand. He also filled a drinking glass and smelled of it before sipping it. When it passed his inspection, he filled the next two largest containers as well. All the while, ‘Choly had retrieved his cane from beside him and righted himself, leaving the chair in the kitchen to flop on the daybed. He pushed everything off the bed that he’d strewn about trying to quickly get ready to meet Augen for lunch a month ago, and readily dozed off. Cecil let him rest while he unpacked to distract himself.

“I’m thinking ordering dinner from ShipShop,” Cecil half-asked, half-announced from across the apartment. “Chinese?”

“Mm? Yeah. Sure.” ‘Choly took off his glasses and rubbed at his face. “Guessing that’s our main option until they get the lift situation hashed–”

The walls of the building hummed in decline, and everything fell dark. Only one of the two long walls of the apartment had exposed Wolfram concrete, and ‘Choly and Cecil just sat in place trying to accept this phase of the rolling blackout.

“–out.”

“Guess I’m done unpacking for now.” Cecil sighed. “We should buy some more Wolfram installments. One wall isn’t gonna cut it long-term.”

‘Choly got up and made the executive decision to open the blackout curtains over the window which took up the entire outer wall of the apartment. He stared out from where he stood with a difficult brow.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing the city only lit by the concrete,” he murmured.

“We’re inside. It’s fine. Come on, tell me what you want for dinner. The Web reception tanked with the power. I’ll go up to the rooftop kiosk and order in person. For once I’m glad we’re on the ninth floor of a twelve story building.”

“Let’s split something with shrimp.” ‘Choly started to walk toward Cecil, but stopped short. “I just put a finger on why that guy followed us. He recognized me.”

“From where?”

“The wreck on the Skybridge. He saw me and Augen walk away. Fuck–” He tugged at his sweatshirt in the twilight. “I’m even wearing the same shirt I was wearing–”

‘Choly could hear Cecil’s agitation mounting.

“…How were you two involved in that wreck?”

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#biopunk #cyberpunk #dystopian #postapocalyptic #robotics #the uptake #with symbiotic self indulgence #concrete boxes made out of ticky tacky #ticky tacky #melanochro kara #george cecil #angel #jacob thorn

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jinwoowoohoo · 7 years

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Astro in DC~

Hello! I’m here to give you my complete fanmeet experience to the best of my abilities~ I’m going to preface this by saying I’d been feeling ill the past few days, so it took a lot of my willpower just to keep myself standing for a fair chunk of the show…. Which means 1) my memory is a bit fuzzy and 2) I just did not have the brainpower to focus on every member, so this is a very Jinwoo-biased fan account (not that any of you should be surprised tbh).

P.S. I’m sorry I wrote a literal novel;;; this is largely to help me remember it all both now and in the future, but I also wanted to share!

(rip mobile users someone please teach how to actually make readmores work on mobile edit: never mind my iPad did the thing! Bless)

The Beginning:

The girl who did the cover dance absolutely rocked it, and the crowd had no problem hyping her up - she performed Again and we were fanchanting and everything~ And then when she finished the lights dimmed, she left the stage, and we all waited very anxiously for the real show to begin.

Now. I knew going in that Jinjin would be the first on stage with his dance solo, but that did not stop him from still completely taking my breath away (like I actually gasped and put my hand on my chest/over my mouth). It was the moment of realization that he’s real! And really here!! And he’s doing his thing!!! Like I’m still processing the feeling of seeing him in real 3D space, seeing his body as a real human body, with depth and warmth, not just a flat image (I hope that doesn’t sound weird??). And man did he kill that solo. I always love when he gets a chance to bust out his house dance skills 💕 (I should actually check cams from the other shows to see if he was doing a set choreo or going freestyle 👀). And then, of course the Rocko man himself came out, and proceeded to just destroy us all (and booooy was the crowd Rocky biased - the screams for him were REAL yall).

Once that section was done the rest of the boys came out and!! Myungjun was in just a black tshirt and jeans!!! How dare he attack me so soon into the show!!!

They performed Again which was stellar as always, and then they segwayed into Baby. And things got LIT. Their demeanor changed, the crowd energy changed, it was just. Exactly the mood you’d expect from Baby~ The boys got really smiley and just looked like they were so happy! Just rainbows and sparkles all around haha

After baby finished they did their intros! Jinjin went first and of course intro’d himself as the leader and main visual. Eunwoo said a good bit in English but so help me if I remember any of it 😰 Moonbin gave his whole intro in English too! And you can seriously tell how hard he worked to be able to do so!! Like he really said a lot and you could tell he was thinking carefully as he was talking, I was so proud of him :’) He’s adorable, his voice is adorable, hearing him say ‘puppycat’ is deadly 😂 Mj introduced himself as the happy virus, and I unfortunately don’t remember the rest of his or Socky’s intros :( After intros, the staff brought out chairs and they sat down for q&a time!

Q&A:

If you had drawn a line directly from my seat to the stage, that’s where Jinwoo was sitting :“”“”“”) So basically I had the perfect view of him (even if I was like 12 rows back). I cant remember everything that was asked/said (im sure there are 100 fancams anyway) but some highlights include:

♥ The first question was who pays for meals the most, and they did the 3-2-1-point thing; everyone pointed to Jinjin. Then they said some stuff I couldn’t hear/catch, but it ended with Jinwoo saying something (in English!) about no longer having access to his mom’s card 😂😂

♥ Someone asking Bin his workout routine, and him genuinely telling us lmaoo And every time he would name an activity (running, weights, etc) Jinwoo would be in his chair just miming it out like a NERD 😂 (Jinwoo was just generally very animated and interactive, and he was smiling soooo muuuuuch you could just tell he was in a good mood!!)

♥ Someone asked what the members needed to have when traveling. Rocky said mask pack, Jinwoo said Arohas love 😑, I didn’t catch what Eunwoo said??, I think Bin also said Arohas love, MJ said contacts and something else genuine, and Sanha said?? He brought Jinjin??? And Jinwoo was just like ???????????????? What are you talking about 😂😂

♥ Someone asked who’s the best cook/who cooks the most and what do they make. Immediately Sanha just goes “not me!” and everyone laughs. They said they really don’t cook much at home, but Bin likes to cook and wants to make food for the upcoming birthdays! :’)

After the q&a they introduced/moved into Run which, again, Jinwoo’s position was DIRECTLY in line with my seat for a lot of the song; I was #blessed. Also at the very beginning when they were passing the mic down the line, Eunwoo teased Sanha and almost didn’t give him the mic in time - the baby got a little flustered 😝 (P.S. Sanha is the most adorable and pure being on this earth, and I’m pretty sure his giggle could cure cancer. I still can’t believe I got to hear it in person.)

So Run was good, the crowd def didn’t know the lyrics as well as the other songs but the spirit was still there! And then then segwayed into Crazy Sexy Cool and for some?? reason??? I have very little memory of it…. I do remember the fanchants being STRONG though, esp for rapline haha

After that I think they took a short break while the MC did his thing, then they brought the boys back out for gaaaaame tiiiiiiime 😀😀

Game Time:

The first game was the mystery box one, and the members were divided by staff into Hyung line vs Maknae line. The grandpas being on the same team were, of course, being goofy and extra af lmao (And Eunwoo just stood there laughing as usual). They r/p/scissored to see which team would go first - it was Jinwoo vs Rocky, and Jinwoo decided to be Extra™ and do it by turning away from Rocko and sticking his arm out behind him. Rocky won, and I’m like 99% sure he totally cheated and waited a split second for Jinjin to throw his hand before showing his own….

But either way, Maknae team won so they made Hyung team go first. Before they brought out the box there was some hyping/smack talk~ Eunwoo said (approximately) in English “Just one thing: we win >:)” and then our precious child Sanha goes, also in English (approximately) “Just one thing: You lose!” It was seriously the cutest ah my heart 💖 So they brought out the box, and the thing they had to guess was…. Raw egg 😫😫 Maknae team peeked at what they’d have to guess and omg their reactions 😂😂 They were thoroughly grossed out and excited for the other team to suffer lmaoo

So Jinjin went first, and he took off his jacket and rolled up one shirt sleeve and he;;;; has a very nice forearm;;;;; You should find fancams for their reactions tbh bc there’s no way I could do them justice, but watching Jinwoo’s face distort in discomfort and hearing him let out a small scream was sure something 😂😂 Because it was raw egg it was suuuper wet and drippy and gross and you could seeee it dripping off his fingers when he took his hand out of the box 😣😝 (the staff had towels at the ready, don’t worry). He removed his hand from the box, wiped it off a bit, and then smelled his fingers and as soon as he did that we was like “…aaaaaaaaah 😈😈” so he probably figured it out right away. Mj was next and of course he had to be a little extra when putting his hand in, walking his fingers around the opening a bit before diving in. And then as soon as he touched it he just full on screamed 😂😂 And he kept screaming and making weird noises for a bit, then he got a little used to it and was like “ooooh 😳” I can’t remember anything he might have done after that 😩 Eunwoo went third and was def the most anxious. He stuck his hand in and I can’t remember if he even touched it or not before he freaked and pulled his hand back out 😂 Again that’s really all I can remember from him 😢 Then they had 15 seconds to collude as a team and settle on their answer, and they guessed it right!! Also once the crowd heard what it was they had touched we were all just like “eeeeww oh noooooooo!! DD: ” And then. And then the Extra Bros™ Myungjin start acting like chickens =w=;;;; There were fair amounts of butt wiggling. (MJ started it of course).

So! They guessed right! Which meant if Maknae line couldn’t get theirs then they would have to do a punishment. So. The staff brought out the next item, which was white and round and squishy. Hyung line snuck a peek and they were just standing there poking it 😂😂 And then freaking troll Eunwoo said to the other team “guys be careful! Its moving! Its alive!!!” And Myungjin went along with him on it lmao Maknae line didn’t really know what to make make of them lol

Rocky went first, and he really Did Not want to stick his hand in there - you could just see the classic suffering smile on his face. He definitely yelled several times when touching it (not a scream, but a very Rocky yell haha) Once he was done he seemed to have an idea what it was, and started whispering in Bins ear. Sanha went second and he was… well…. Sanha lol Very squirmy, very screamy. Bin went last (I think, he and Sanha might be switched aaah I’m so sorry), and I don’t really remember Bins reaction while his hand was in the box at all. I do know that he was like full-on squeezing the thing and the MC was losin it at him, and after he took his hand out he sniffed his hand and then licked it =w=;;;;; and all of us were just like Bin no!!!! Then he went back and there was more Moonrock ear whispering.

Once all 3 went they had their 15 seconds to decide, and I didn’t understand what the answer they gave was (it was hard to hear Rocky and the MC didn’t repeat what he said for us) buuuuuuuut it was wrong! The right answer was a ball of mozzarella cheese~~ Hyung line of course started taunting them for losing (mostly led by Jinwoo) and even got the whole crowd involved 😂😂 And thus the losing team was introduced to their punishment: they had to spell their names. With their butts. Sexily. (And I was like you’re going to make the Maknaes do what?????). So Bin went first and he pretty much died of embarrassment one letter in, but he powered through! Rocko was next and he was also internally dying (and externally yelling 😂) but the dancer part of him took over and booooy does he have balance and body control. I’m pretty sure after he was done he ran and hugged Bin to deal with his embarrassment and the crowd LOVED that 😂 Sanha went last and the MC had to torture him!! And make him do his full name!! 😭😭 Of course it was more awkwardly cute than sexy, and him saying the letters as he went was unbearably adorable. (I honestly covered my eyes/turned away to laugh/cringe for most of the punishments =w=)

The next game was guessing the song based on choreo. They split up into teams by randomly selecting colored papers and somehow!! Binu still managed to be a team!! How many times has this happened now????? The other teams were JinHa and RaMyung. They were deciding who should go first and Bin said the “maknae” team should go first (referring to RaMyung) and literally everyone was just like what are you on about????? 😂😂 Fake Maknae MJ strikes again! They r/p/scissored for team order again and I’m like 80% sure Rocko cheated again 👀👀👀 But either way the order ended up as Binu, RaMyung, JinHa. Binu actually did really well!!! with Bin dancing and Eunwoo guessing, but I have to shame Woo for not getting Sistar’s Shake It like boy come on! I think they got 6+ right? RaMyung were…. less successful, but it was honestly more on Rocky??? I think he just like panicked and couldn’t straighten out in his brain what he should actually be doing with his body, then the ones he did actually do the dance to MJ was pretty hit or miss 😂 But they still got a few!! Aaaand then came JinHa… For some reason they decided Sanha should do the dancing, and well…. He passed like every other one, and I don’t think Jinwoo was able to guess a single one 😂 It was just a lot of panic and failure lmaoo So needless to say their team came dead last.

It was decided both losing teams had to do punishment, and that punishment was 40 pushups per team. However the MC said they could divide that any way they wanted, for example Sanha could do 1 and Jinjin 39. JinHa team went first, and Sanha volunteered to do his share first. And the kid got down, wiggled into position, did 1 pushup, and stood back up like “all done!” 😂😂 We got to witness Jinwoo’s legendary ‘possibly contemplating murder rn’ face 😂😂 But then Sanha got back down - and as he was going of course Jinwoo was starting to take his jacket off to prepare for his half but then we reached 20… And 21… And 22… And Sanha kept going all the way to 40! So Jinwoo didn’t have to do anything, and he seemed really pleased :) and was like *shrugs* alright then and put his jacket back on. Mj went first for RaMyung team and bless his heart he did the whole 40 too so Rocky didn’t have to.

The final game was random play dance and there wasn’t much to it really, they just ran through the point parts of 2 other group songs (BTS Dope and Apink No No No). They all did fine for BTS of course, but Binnie KILLED it with Apink lmao to the point where the rest of the members kinda stopped and just let him shine. The final song was one from Dream Part 01 but I cannot for the life of me remember which one it was 😩 I want to say Dream Night or Dreams Come True?? (Watch it be neither akdbsj)

And that was the end of game time! I think they maybe took another quick break, but maybe not idk;;; and then we segwayed into Breathless!

And boy let me tell you, Aroha get PUMPED for Breathless. Confession too tbh, like I don’t remember much from CSC but I definitely remember people just going hardcore with love for these songs haha And I’m pretty sure the boys could feel the passion for them too~ Also during Breathless when Moonrock have their dance bit and then it switches to a rapline dance bit, Jinwoo’s shirt came up a little bit and idk why that suddenly affected me so much but I literally like gasped said “oh my god” out loud 😳

They then moved into the final ment, which worried me at first as I thought maybe we had to skip You & Me due to time or something, but nope they just did the ment first!

Final Ment:

I don’t really remember much of what they said, but I do know Eunwoo said that when he was younger DC was one of the cities he dreamed of visiting, and that it was a beautiful place~ And I think it was MJ(??) who said DC Aroha are the best of the 3 shows so far of course~ 😂😂 Omg and Rocky, when he was in the middle of his ment (I think that’s when this happened anyway aksbaj my awful memory) he just stops like mid-thought and goes “I can’t see” and does the most epic hair flip to get the hair out of his eyes, then just stands there for like 10 seconds basking in his new-found vision. It was so majestic and unexpected I doubled over laughing 😂😂😂 They also said they know it’s hard for us to see them and they were grateful to us for waiting for them, and they would be waiting for us in Korea as well~

For You & Me they first asked if everyone knew the choreo, and enough people said yes that the were like “alright then, show us what you got!” and the music for the chorus played and we all did our darn best to remember the choreo (I failed, I didn’t refresh my memory beforehand and couldn’t remember it well enough =w=;;;) They seemed genuinely impressed by how we did overall though! After that they had Sanha teach us how it goes cutely, and yeah, it’s exactly what you’d expect from that sentence 😂 Once everyone had learned from Captain Sanha and practiced a couple times, they started the song for real! And I already posted about it, but it really is softest, warmest, sweetest experience. To have everyone in the crowd doing choreo and interacting with their neighbors whether they knew them or not it just, i don’t even know how to describe it, it’s just nice?? And lots of people were giggling and smiling, including my right-side partner, which was so fun to turn to each time 💕💕 I definitely got a little emotional during it (but I didn’t cry! Go me!) Edit: Also I forgot but when Jinwoo started to move to the front to do his rap, MJ pushed him out of the way and did it instead! Jinwoo was hyping him up and laughing his butt off 😂😂 And MJ genuinely did really well

After Y&M they gave their official goodbye and left the stage, and almost immediately the crowd started chanting “encore!” and as expected, after a bit they came back out~

Encore:

Our encore was I’ll Be There and they were throwing out bags of gummy bears. Also for the encore a TON of people rushed the stage, including like everyone to the front and right of me. Soooooooo~ When Jinwoo threw some into our area, there was nobody but me to retrieve it :’) (I maaay have accidentally body slammed the seat in front of me trying to catch it 😅) In my wildest dreams he threw it to me on purpose, but in reality he never actually looked at me so I doubt it (it’s nice to have dreams though 😂) Some people who were up at the stage got some great footage of Jinwoo getting right up into their camera’s business so I look forward to seeing those 👀👀

Once they ran out of candy and the song ended it was officially time for them to say goodbye 😢 They gave their last “Wanna be your ☆” and took a bow, then headed backstage to chill until perks began!

Hi-Touch:

The staff decided to do hi touch first, and since I had both perks it took me a hot minute to realize I needed to get in line too (since I was sitting in P1 and nobody around me was moving lol) The girls I was in line with were very cute and nice - one of them was newer to the boys so she had a hard time telling Myungjin apart haha We tried to help her get them straight~ The line moved really quickly and when it was my turn my brain switched to auto pilot……

Jinwoo was first bc apparently the universe likes to see me Suffer. I don’t even remember what he looked like, all I remember is him seeing my shirt and saying “aaaah, slow~ 😉” and all I could get out was a “yes!” 😂😵😵😭😭 Sanha was next in line but my brain was so busy processing the first interaction I have absolutely 0 memory of him, if I even managed to hi five him at all akdbaj like I completely just blacked out for a few seconds. Eunwoo was third and I regained myself enough to actually start looking at their faces, but I still couldn’t make my own sentences, so instead I started parroting what I was hearing from the members which was “thank you” - which is a fine thing to say and I wholly meant it, but I do wish I could have said a bit more… Bin was third and I also Do Not remember him, like, at all 😣 I’m so disappointed, he deserves better. But then came Rocky. There really must be something just inexplicably striking about Rocky, because I remember him pretty damn clearly all things considered! He had his big Rocko smile and it was strikingly beautiful 😪 Finally was MJ and I remember seeing him and thinking “I have to make sure he knows I genuinely love and support him!!” So I looked really hard at his face, but my brain was still *static noises* so all I could say was thank you :“) I tried to really sincerely say it and show him with my eyes that I meant it though!! And then it was over, and I took a big ole breath as I made my way down off the stage and back to my seat. And thus began the waiting for group pic. (The girl I had been sitting next to laughed when I came back 😂😂

Group Photo:

The line for P2 was pretty much a free for all, but the line for P1 was specifically done row by row. I was at the back of Orchestra Center, so I wasn’t first by any means but I was probably in the first 1/3. The setup was there were 8 chairs, and the boys stood behind the chairs. They were all doing different poses and switching it up for each pic while I was waiting in line (I’ve been told staff made them stop later on which is dumb af if you ask me like people are supposed??? To pose for pics??? Also have you met Astro aksbaj but ANYWAY).

Jinwoo was last this time, which meant if I wanted to be in front of him I had to be #1 in the group of 8. Well, they counted us, and I was #7. The girl behind me was 8, and her friend ended up being #1 of the next batch. The two clearly wanted to go together, and I wanted the #1 spot, so when staff wasn’t looking we quickly switched! And I got to sit directly in front of him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he of course remembered me from when I did the hi touch like ~10 minutes ago lol I made sure to look at all the members again as I was walking up, esp Sanha since I missed him the first time! And again I’ve got Nothing on Bin (rip 😢), but Rocky’s smile seared itself into my psyche yet again 😂 When I finally walked up to Jinwoo I said “I get to sit by you! :DD” and he was like “yeah!” We sat down (god I wish I had actually clearly looked at his face, I have no memory of it from either interaction 😢😢😢) and I kinda tried to do a hand heart with him but he had other plans and was like “let’s do this instead!” (retrospectively I think maybe the girl behind me was also a Jinwoo stan so he wanted to do something with us both). So he LEANED DOWN BETWEEN US SO HIS FACE WAS SEVERAL INCHES FROM OUR EARS and made finger hearts for the first pics, then he said “cheeeeese!” (or it sounded like that to me anyway) and switched to peace signs for the second. I honestly have no idea what my face was doing the whole time soooo the pics could be fun >w>;; (I WAS JUST FOCUSED ON THE FACT I COULD FEEL HIS PRESENCE/BODY HEAT HOVERING OVER MY SHOULDER AND HIS HANDS WERE RIGHT NEXT TO MINE AKSHAJ). And then we were done! And I think I turned and smiled at him one last time as I was heading off the stage, and I think he smiled back, but who knows!! Certainly not me!!!

And that was that.

I went out into the theater hallway and just….existed for a bit (and yelled into all my chats lol) and more than one fan came out hysterically sobbing :( I think it was a mixture of happy and sad tears, like some people overwhelmed with happiness and others crying cuz they didn’t get the place in line they wanted.

All in all it was an amazing night, and completely worth being absolutely nuts and dropping everything to fly literally halfway across the country to attend. 100/10 would give all my money to these boys again (I mean they already own my heart and wallet anyway)

Also I didn’t know where to fit these tidbits in, but the members overall:

Jinjin - I mentioned it already but he was just a goofy happy boy! So many smiles, so many silly actions. I didn’t think I could love him even more and yet :”)

MJ - He sunshined a number of times but overall seemed really tired, which is COMPLETELY understandable (I really feel like he’s an introvert, and I can imagine how draining an international tour would be) and I just hope he’s feeling ok and was able to enjoy himself!! 😣

Rocky - He was also quite lively and just giving fanservice left and right! I didn’t watch him too much but even then I could see him waving and throwing hearts and smiles to people 💕

Eunwoo - I really didn’t watch him at all but I’ve been told he was also giving out just tons of personal fanservice~

Sanha - My favorite son, he just had us all cooing and giggling the whole night. He really did seem to be in good spirits!

Moonbin - I’m sorry Bin stans….. I’m sorry Bin….. I don’t know why my brain just decided to completely block him out but 😢😢😢 I barely remember anything he said/did besides what I already talked about. His muscles were probably too powerful 😣😣

#astroindc

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prettycooregrey · 5 years

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So after setting up a 100+ plugin modlist for Raka, I started their official Skyrim SE run with SkygerfalI. This is really long. Like, really really long. And it’s packed with spoilers, so my fingers are crossed that the cut works on mobile because otherwise I am so, SO sorry to mobile users.

Links: Legendary - Special Edition

What a hell of a mod. It was so much easier to swallow than Daggerfall proper, I’ll give it that! For one, the 3D map in Daggerfall drives me batty. I can’t read it at all, and the samey graphics in every dungeon make them really hard to navigate. For another, Daggerfall notably averts the “take your time” trope where players are allowed to fuck off and do whatever they want while the main quest stays politely paused in the background - almost every single quest is timed, and exceeding the time limit is an automatic fail. It’s possible to lock yourself out of the main quest this way.

Thankfully, the Skygerfall mod recreates all the main quest dungeons with a significantly more helpful Skyrim-style local map. The mod page describes the dungeons as hand crafted, and... well, I’d personally describe it as LOVINGLY put together. The attention to detail is exquisite, and it absolutely feels like a recreation of the dungeons. In fact, it’s so carefully and thoroughly remade that for the most part, the original walkthroughs on UESP came in handy for the few places I got stuck (ahem... Direnni Tower). There’s so many twisting corridors, right angles, and those big huge pyramid-esque centerpieces. My unabashed favorites are the little diagonal rooms hidden within other small rooms, tucked into corners in and of themselves. My own playthrough of Daggerfall made me look forward to those spaces as good places to rest or find loot.

There is not much going on outside the cities or dungeons though! Since it was, for the most part, a single dev putting the whole thing together in their spare time, it’s just the main quest. Even the main towns are largely empty, save for tavern owners (who act as general good merchants), a blacksmith in Daggerfall proper, and any NPCs directly related to the main questline. Ironically, Scourg Barrow is one of the most populated places in the entire game, if only by volume of nonhostile NPCs! The palaces also have merchants and guards around, and there’s a... cheerful little kid over at Wayrest who would love to meet your Agent.

That means no questlines for any of the side factions, very few extra merchants to buy your high volume of crap (though you wont actually need more than one or two at a time), no side dungeons to explore, and nothing in the landscape between the map markers. There’s not even any generic NPCs to populate the towns, and almost no interiors.

Still, it’s entirely worth playing, if you want the basic runthrough of Daggerfall’s main quest in a familiar, modern engine. Particular props goes to some of the scenery and levels. Where there’s very little going on outside of your quest targets, the places that have been built are stunning. Shedungent’s exterior in specific enchanted me, looking exactly like a medieval castle with plenty of nooks and crannies to poke into (though no loot, unfortunately... not that I need any extra with how much garbage I haul out of those dungeons). Another particular detail that I loved were... pigs, actually. I loved the pigs. There’s a few dungeons that contain pigs, which existed in Daggerfall.

I love them. They’re darling.

I dunno, the fact that Oracus0 put so much time and effort into making sure that Skygerfall was a true to the original as possible, down to the animals passively hanging out, really brought me into it. Sure, I wish there weren’t giant scorpions in any game ever, but I can also appreciate that since they were in the original, they were there in Skygerfall (and that they dropped a Raka certified safe alchemical ingredient). And who doesn’t get excited when they see the loot pile model tucked behind a locked door?

I also ADORED - spoiler alert - Aetherius, which turned the game into a full-fledged puzzle platformer. Note to anybody playing through the Room of Fire? You can and will fall off if you’re not careful! But the scenery there is also gorgeous, with a stunning backdrop of swirling stars and galaxies, hellfire, and a wonderfully dapper Sheogorath (whose voice actor does a great job, by the way, of holding true to Sheogorath’s canon voice).

Bonus points for having (and I must emphasize) FULL VOICE ACTING. Every NPC available in the game has a voice. All of the custom NPCs have custom voice acting, and every voice actor did a real bang up job. There wasn’t a single character I encountered whose voice didn’t match them.

It’s also way more... cartoony? Than Skyrim, and it shows a lot in places where custom and vanilla 3D assets were used right next to each other. There’s a lot of blocky, and almost plastic-y walls, floors, sconces, etc that made some of the rough-and-tumble stuff stick out, but it’s not actually enough to take you out of the game unless you’re a really picky bastard imo. It works really well for being a faithful recreation of Daggerfall, which looked like... well. This:

I had a habit of taking pictures of any cool animals I saw in Daggerfall, especially if I haven’t seen them in TES before. Speaking of this awesome camel picture, not to fear if you’re worried about hauling all your crap out of the dungeons like I am (my partner has a hard time watching me play Skyrim with the way I lug out everything that isn’t nailed down to hawk later)...

There’s a mount waiting for you near Sentinel!

...(: That’s right. You get a camel. No need to buy it, it’s not tagged as theft (as of 11/12/19, a little under a month post initial release). It works exactly like a horse - hop on and it’ll help you bounce between map markers, even if you’re overencumbered by several hundred pounds of loose swords, gemstones, potions, and your enemies’ underwear. It looks AMAZING, and though you kind of clip through his hump a little bit, it’s again not really an issue unless you’re overtly picky.

The only thing I absolutely cannot stand is... mythril.

Mythril in this mod is... blue. The armor is gray, but the weapons and shield are blue. Not a silver blue or a dark slate blue in the way you’d expect from something metallic. No, I’m talking about Hawaiian Punch Blue Typhoon, I’m talking blue raspberry Airheads, I’m talking about Lapis lazuli from Minecraft and/or Steven Universe, Cornflower Blue Crayola, “her cerulean orbs” fuckin BLUE. That was the ONLY thing that really stuck in my craw. Raka is an archer, but in the event of an emergency they dual-wield daggers and for a period the best one I had on hand aside from the ebony dagger was mythril and I hated it. I resented it. Every time Raka had to get into close quarters I grumbled with distaste as soon as that goddamn Manic Panic deep dream knife popped out on my screen. I replaced it with adamantium as soon as I was able to.

Everything else was copacetic! As with the set dressing, a lot of the custom armor and weapons were kind of cartoony and might stick out in Skyrim proper, but they’re pretty charming in that way. If for no other reason than collection purposes, I took one of everything with me to Skyrim at the end of the questline with the intent to maybe display it in one of Raka’s player homes. Especially the adamantium, which out of everything fits in the best with vanilla Skyrim’s assets (as far as I can tell, don’t quote me on that, please!).

Again, it’s a very lovingly made tribute to the original game, with a lot of time and effort put into it. A lot of modder resources were used in order to achieve this end, and what an end it is. For all of the places where there might be criticism, it’s still a fantastic piece of work that deserves a lot of praise and appreciation, especially since it was largely a single dev working and learning by themselves to put it together. It’s still hours of content to work through, having taken me about 4 days to get through via my playstyle, even when it primarily involved jumping between map markers and delving into dungeons. God only knows I’d have never gotten to the actual main quest of Daggerfall in the original engine, and likely not even in Daggerfall Unity, as I was too busy messing around, getting headaches from the procedurally generated dungeons, and trying to climb the ranks of the Mage’s Guild and Thieves Guild. Not to say that that isn’t a fun and completely valid way to play the game. But Skygerfall allowed me to play through the actual main quest, kept me engaged with voiced characters and a streamlined series of events, and a thorough and faithful recreation.

A lot of people mentioned wanting more stuff between the towns and cities currently in the mod, but personally, going forward, I’d love to see what already exists be expanded. I’d love to see more shop interiors, some generic NPCs to chat with or ask about rumors from (or even just to fill out the space! I’m not picky!), and maybe some basic structure for some of the guilds.

That being said, it’s still a complete mod in and of itself. It has all the components anyone could reasonably ask for. It has its dungeons, it has its armors and weapons, it has custom spells, potions, and ingredients. It makes use of monsters from the Mihail mods, populating the underground with lots of scary and lore-appropriate foes to fight. It has very little to explore outside of that, but still offers a LOT, and I was able to enjoy the main quest of Daggerfall in a way that was comfortable and easily playable for myself, which is more than can be said for the clunky DOS the original game is built in. I would not be mad if Oracus0 decided to close it up, call it good, support bugs for a while, and moved on. They’ve done plenty in the way of Skygerfall, and though I’d love to see more I’m also incredibly happy with what I got! I’m pleased as punch, got to roleplay my little idiot moron bosmer in their original context, and then was able to seamlessly integrate them into the world of Skyrim (via Live Another Life, which is supported by Skygerfall) to enjoy the rest of their modlist. I can’t recommend it enough, especially if you want to get a feel for Daggerfall with some of the comfort and convenience of a better engine and less stingy limitations.

#tes #daggerfall #skyrim #mods #skyrim mods #daggerfall mods #ian plays: daggerfall #ian plays: skyrim #chatterbox.txt #oc: raka

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bonerhitler · 7 years

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Kingdom Hearts does not live up to my nostalgia.

So last week I tried to write a fun article about Kingdom Hearts' crazy story -and it is absolutely nuts- but I just couldn't. I couldn't just ignore the big overhanging issues I had with the series and ultimately scrapped it at the last minute and now I'm writing this here because replaying Kingdom Hearts through the 1.5+2.5 pack on the PS4, hoo boy this series just doesn't hold up. I don't know how, or why, I ever liked it as a kid either since the issues I take with the series now have nothing to do changes made to the games in the Final Mix editions, or changing tastes as I've aged. As such if I do compare them to other games, I will strictly do so to other PS2 games released around the same time frame.

So lets start at the core issue that has continually frustrated me the most since undertaking this task of replaying a once beloved series; the gameplay. It hasn't just aged poorly, but it's extremely clunky and so much of it just feels like an afterthought. The first Kingdom Hearts came out in 2002 and it's a chunky, awkward game with extremely floaty and imprecise platforming. Jak and Daxter, Soul Reaver 2 and Devil May Cry each came out in 2001 and out perform Kingdom Hearts in terms of platforming and combat.

So what's so bad about it? Well for a start you have surprisingly little control over your own character. Once you decide to attack, guard or jump you're just kind of stuck in a slow animation. Enemies, meanwhile, are fast and often have skills that let them just become briefly invincible. Meanwhile basic skills like blocking and dodging have to be unlocked through levelling up. And based on choices in the beginning (you pick if you want to focus on magic, attack or defense and sacrifice one of the remaining two) you might not get those for an exceedingly long time. In fact that whole system is incredibly bizarre since one specific choice gives two additional MP, in a game where maximum MP is not only hard to come by, but determines how strong your magic is and is exceedingly limited otherwise. You can't get those two points any other way than with that specific choice at the start of the game.

Range is also a surprisingly strange issue in Kingdom Hearts and it's not too often to swing your keyblade -a blunt weapon shaped like a key- and miss unless your character's body is nearly touching the opponent as your forward momentum and motion just stops dead. Enemies often freely can attack from range as well, whether it's a charge attack from across the map, teleporting right to you and attacking you, or just throwing fireballs non-stop. Your only ranged offense is magic. Magic is not only severely limited, with it's offensive power dictated by your maximum MP which caps at 19 compared to the 100 cap of every other stat in the game, but it's fairly intuitive to use as well, requiring an entire secondary menu to manage outside of three quick-use slots that will almost inevitably go to your utility spells.

So in the end you've got poor mobility, very little in the way of defensive measures and the game saddles you with AI partners that die almost instantly in every fight. Unless you min/max your stat build most fights in the game just become a matter of mashing the attack button and tanking hits while spamming the cure spell because there's just genuinely nothing else to the combat system. There's no reward for doing better. No gameplay function that lets you do better. In theory you can guard and counter attacks, but when you have a swarm of enemies that turn into flat textures on the floor, and another swarm of dudes flying through the sky by their nose it's incredibly hard to get the guard timing down because almost none of the enemies have attack tells that are recognizable from the spastic flailing they do when they're just standing around idle -but more on this in a second-. Inversely, however, combat is obscenely easy when it's one on one and no single enemy or boss really poses a threat unless they've got a crazy gimmick where they instantly kill you or something. In short, there's no actual challenge to the gameplay. There's nothing to overcome and learn. When you die it's not “When he does that he's doing a powerful attack, dodge it next time” or “I can't figure out this boss' pattern!” It's simply “Dang, I forgot to heal after he hit me.” It's mindless and uninteresting. You can power through everything.

Enemy design as well is lackluster at best. Visually I like the series, and I'll praise that later on. But fighting non-boss enemies is just tedious. Most enemies have some form of invulnerability. Whether it's the ability to just, literally, become invincible for a bit, invulnerability if attacked from a specific direction, or an annoying ability to just fly/teleport out of possible range -some times even the map- forcing you to sit there and wait for them to come back. This results in a lot of large fights where you kill off half the enemies then have to wait for the other half of the enemies to just let you hit them. Waiting around for enemies in a game to let you fight them is never fun, especially in a game where you don't have any kind of guard break. As I alluded to above animations are a mess as well. Enemies tend to just kind of twitch, wobble and flail around freely and a lot of their attacking animations start almost identical to their idle animations so it can be extremely difficult to tell if the guy you're going to attack is about to punch you, spit a fireball, turn into an icy tornado or just do nothing for another thirty seconds.

Even map design in Kingdom Hearts is unexpectedly strange. I remember loving the worlds when I played the game as a kid, but playing it now, well. Half the worlds are ridiculously short, lasting maybe three or four screens total with very little to do beyond listening to iconic characters talk for ten minutes or so. You could clear half the game in an evening. However some of the stages, the worlds based on Tarzan and Little Mermaid in particular, tend to be almost too expansive in comparison with very little content spread out over far more screens. I don't mean to say the game's story is bad, and that's still something I think would deserve its own write-up, but the way the game presents it is just incredibly awkward and stilted. You play through a few minutes of a disney-inspired zone then a Kingdom Hearts original character pops up, rants about friendship, hearts and/or darkness and goes away.

In the end of it all, I came away hating Kingdom Hearts, honestly. I loved it when I was younger. I completed it 100% somehow. But now, well it all just seems like overly pointless busywork. The combat isn't fun to me now and I really don't want to subject myself to a few hours of grinding so I can make the gear that makes me earn more EXP so I can grind for more hours to hit the high levels and unlock the skills needed to grind for the items to create the best weapons in the game so I can fight the optional bosses. Adding time sinks like that just aren't engaging.

Kingdom Hearts 2 does very little to fix these issues. In some cases it even exacerbates them. It came out in 2005, and while it's an incredibly unfair comparison; Devil May Cry 3 came out earlier that same year. Devil May Cry this series still is not. Combat generally -feels- less clunky than in the first game, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Rather than having stiff and slow attack animations Kingdom Hearts 2 favors long and elaborate ones. It's not uncommon for your characters to launch into massive spinning attacks at one or two presses of a button, it feels like you have almost no control over them at all in this game. Guard makes a return, but the animation is an awkward side-spin that makes timing it more difficult than anything else and dodge roll is gone now as are counter attacks. Instead you have action commands! A cool idea marred by lack of forethought. You see, when enemies do certain attacks or are stunned you can do a special highly damaging skill! Or sometimes they have to be in a specific mid-attack animation. Or sometimes they have to successfully attack you so you can do the counter-command. It's kind of random and not every enemy has action commands and generally speaking they're less useful and in terms of sheer gameplay less engaging than an actual counter system because it just boils fights town to mashing attack and waiting for the triangle button to light up.

Enemy design has actually gotten worse in my opinion. Enemies still love their invincibility, but there's a new fun trick to the overall design of bosses and enemies in Kindom Hearts 2! Stunlock. Nearly every enemy in the game has a whirlwind-style attack they'll just spam to happily stun you for several seconds and do a lot of damage. A lot of them directly home in on you, and follow you around. Without any kind of dodge roll and a flimsy hard to use block, these attacks are incredibly frustrating to fight against because they all take a very long time to play out and do a ton of damage compared to you tiny health pool. Animations are better in this game at least, and you can usually tell what enemies are going to do right away, it just doesn't help too much when almost every attack in the game is either “turn invincible and charge at you” or “turn into an invincible whirlwind and follow you around the room”. It makes every enemy other enemy feel the same. Unfortunately, the more unique enemies that don't do this stuff are the ones you almost only ever see in one world and never anywhere else.

Speaking of the worlds; level design is better. Most worlds will have their own gimmick now rather than just being a series of three to six rooms. The gimmicks tend to range from things like simply having to keep a gauge full for a while, to every area being a rhythm mini-game but it adds some interest to the over all flavor of the game-world. The plot also is much better integrated with the game play and level design, it's not uncommon to run into the primary antagonists and have fights with them throughout the game and see what their plans actually are as you progress through the story. A far better cry than just having your BFF turn evil, then have the antagonist show up out of nowhere because the game needs a conclusion.

The grinding is less bad in the second game as well. Though levels tend to be less rewarding -by level 20 I still only had 40 HP and even basic enemies were taking off half of it with a single hit- you're given a large number of ways to circumvent situations where you might be under levelled such as drive forms and magic. Speaking of which; magic kind of blows in KH2 because someone decided to make most of them melee-ranged for some reason. Your MP, however, is technically infinite since it regenerates slowly when emptied now. Cure uses all of your MP though which is unfortunate.

Finally, and on a positive note, the game's general visual design still holds up. It uses a lot of flat, smooth colors and round shapes which is distinct in a world of jagged edges and gritty shades. Some of the designs in the game, and series as a whole, even get incredibly and uniquely abstract which is amazing to see and I love it when the game actually extends its art design as far as it can. The final areas of the first game are still, personally, the highlight of the series on a visual level. While I was playing I had a friend come by and before I paused the game they saw the screen and instantly said “Oh, hey! Is that Kingdom Hearts? I thought that was a PS2 game?” The whole area of Hollow Bastion just has such a distinct look and feel to it, the enemies are so memorable on a visual level and the music in particular is excellent. It's the perfect encapsulation of what Kingdom Hearts can be -surprisingly dark and bleak but still bright and smooth-. and I just wish the gameplay lived up to the nostalgia of my memories. I'll always still like this series somewhere inside, and I'm still going to inevitably play the third one whenever it comes out. But revisiting this series has been a real eye-opener for me.

#nerdshit #Simple and Clean is still great tho #I'm just sad and old now I guess

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