#reloading the save fixed it but what if i had gone through the game like that

[muntadhir]

I broke Lies of P again

So like right when you get to the hotel at the start of the game, Geppetto is actually in his study, the door is just locked. This is the save where I was recording the weird chair animations.

Anyway I did Mad Donkey later, to take screenshots of the scene afterward for RP icons. Then I either quit the game during Geppetto's dialogue or right after.

Loaded back in another day and I was right in front of dad. Okay. Load in today and he's not on the bridge but neither is he in his study. Killed the boss afterward, got to the gate where Gemini tells me to go back to the hotel. Dad still gone.

FATHER WHERE ARE YOU

PAPA

my fuckin chair now

Tried looking for him and this is even funnier

DON'T YOU LIE TO ME DAD where are you

[celesticaether]

[Log Date - 01/01/23]

I'm starting this log as to chronicle a weird glitch I've encountered in the latest Pokémon. Here's the gist:

I was playing Pokémon Violet again because I got bored and figured that my team could use some new composition, so I looked around and started replacing members here and there.

Out came Great Tusk (primeul Tusk as my friend named 'em), in came Garchomp. Out came Ampharos, in came Mirai... wait, it goes back to its ride form EVERY time I ride it? Who let that through?!...nevertheless, in came Toxtricity (side note, turns out I just had to look slightly hard to find the other Miraidon and had passed it previously, but that's for another time.)

Anyways, I had my team set up but there were some flaws, and even if I didn't intend to get rid of Meowscarada I figured I could have a look at Amoonguss, because A) haha, GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD, but also B) it's fast enough with some set up to pose a genuine threat with Spore.

After EV training the team a bit (aka getting bored after about 10 moves a piece) I went looking for the Amoonguss I wanted. But that's when I came across... it.

It wasn't a normal Amoonguss, almost like it had had lasting effects from Salt Cure, but eh - stylish. Regardless, when I tried using Let's Go because it was a little freaky, Miraidon refused. I knew it wasn't shiny, so what was the holdup?

Regardless, I figured I'd just hit it with something like Power Gem (I was planning to get rid of it soon, since I didn't need it for anything besides a Bug type that somehow had taken out the entirety of the rest of my team, which... not gonna happen, be real.) but that's when things really got weird.

The thing had 0 HP. Not like I could see the number, but with an empty health bar that'd be redundant. Despite this, it managed to outspeed Miraidon by some miracle and landed a Spore. But... this wasn't just a "Spore". It was some kind of move that almost seemed like a typo, being "Spores".

The effect was mostly the same, but instead of falling asleep, the game pointed out that Miraidon was "in a deep sleep" which, again, a little freaky, but nothing major. After this, the game closed randomly. I hadn't managed to faint it; then again, could I have? I mean... it was technically fainted prior, so I guess I won automatically - but that's besides the point. What matters is what happened when I reopened the game.

The title screen was silent, or maybe I just had a weird audio thing; the chimes still played, plus when I loaded in everything was fine audio-wise. However, when I checked around me... the Amoonguss was gone. This was strange, since I thought Pokémon would respawn upon reloading a save at least, shiny hunters always SAID to save.

What was stranger was that... Miraidon was still asleep. Now, if it was really before the battle, it shouldn't have had time to autosave, but maybe the game was weird. Even so, I checked it out since maybe it was just a visual glitch, but...

...the summary page was off.

In it, it had a little note at the bottom, in almost illegible text just stating one message:

"Tainted - Stage: 1. Curable if given a certain item."

Now, I looked this up and nothing useful. What the hell did "tainted" mean anyway? Probably nothing - Miraidon LOOKED fine.

That's where I last saved. Will update if anything changes, or if I fix this stupid bug. Send in advice if you've seen this before, cause I've got a weird feeling this is time sensitive.

[scripting-life]

FFVII: returning to my first love

 *peeks out of the corner of my lurking spot*

Hello? Anybody out there? It’s only been, oh you know, four-ish years since the last time I’ve posted anything here. I apologize in advance for anybody who’s still following me from my Castle days. If you couldn’t tell from my extended absence, I’ve mostly moved on. Castle and Beckett were fantastic characters that let me to play with some deep-dive analyses, and Castle will always hold a special place in my heart as my comfort show and my first real and extended experience with online fandom. I’ll always be grateful to the community I’ve had the joy of interacting with (or, the community with which I’ve had the joy of interacting, as Castle would correct me my dangling preposition).

I honestly didn’t think I would ever have reason to come back to Tumblr after Castle ended. But the FF7 Remake has returned me to my very first love--when I was young and innocent and before I knew anything about OTPs or ship wars. I’ve been back lurking for several months now and seeing all the fanart/fanfics and fun theories and analyses has reignited my enthusiasm for the FF7 franchise. It’s also fun coming back to this franchise with a more mature understanding of the themes/concepts that completely flew over my head as a young preteen.

(This ended up being super long, so the rest is below the cut to spare everyone the pain of scrolling. Apparently, my rambling tendencies have not changed at all. lol.)

When FF7R was officially announced (five freaking years ago!), I was filled with apprehension. FF7 was my first taste of a “grown-up” game. I was 11 and played my brother’s copy of the OG on PC in 1-2 hours spurts on the weekends when I visited his apartment. It took me months, if not years, to finish the game (I ended up stealing his copy to play on our computer at home...lol), and I was so blown away by it. I remember the exact moment I finished it and how I was literally shaking as I watched the ending FMV.

Later, when I found out my brother had a copy of FF8 (my poor brother was so accommodating to his annoying little sister...haha), I was so excited to play, in large part because I thought it would continue the story of FF7. Young, naive me didn’t understand the numbering conventions of Final Fantasy titles. I was madly theorizing and breaking my brain trying to find connections between the two games’ plots and had literally played through more than half the game before I finally realized the storyline of FF8 had absolutely nothing to do with FF7. I was sorely disappointed, and I think that has somewhat tainted my appreciation of future titles. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed the subsequent FF titles, but I think a little part of me is always comparing them to that first experience of wonder and awe that I had with FF7.

I discovered fanfiction in my teens and starting writing FF7/Cloti fics in college. Aside from interacting with a few fic writers at the time, I was not involved in any online communities, so I kept myself pretty free of any ship war drama and the like. When I did research for my fics, I’d sometimes see shipping sites and theories where I didn’t always understand the logic of how certain conclusions were reached, but frankly, I didn’t much care and didn’t realize that Clerith vs. Cloti was such a touchy subject. I was peripherally aware that some sort great LTD war was waging, of course, but it didn’t really touch me. I stayed in my Cloti shipping/fic-writing lane and was probably a lot happier for it. And, to be honest, based on FFN’s listings for FF7, I felt like I always saw a bunch of Sephiroth/Cloud fics and thought that was just as popular as the more conventional ships.

Graduating college and entering “real life” pretty much ended my FF7 fanfic-writing journey. In the intervening years between college and the release of FF7R, I haven’t gone back to the OG too much. I’ve played almost all the Final Fantasy games since then, and I always enjoy getting my FF7 crew fix when I play the non-canon mobile games or the Kingdom Hearts franchise. But FF7 was a happy part of my teenage years, and I was content to think on it with sweet nostalgia.

Remakes, in recent experience (*cough cough* Disney, why?), have been hit or miss, with a lot of misses. It’s hard to strike a good balance between catering to nostalgia and delivering a fresh product, never mind the change in social mores through the decades. I was so afraid FF7R would screw up my memories, especially since I wasn’t the biggest fan of Advent Children. The graphics were great and the action scenes were fun, but the story felt like a let-down. Cloud, in particular, felt so different (and yes, moody) from where we left him after the OG. I understand now that a lot of his character motivation was better explained in the On The Way to a Smile novels, but back then, I just felt like AC came out of nowhere. 

Btw, because I see this question a lot on other blogs when I’m lurking, I’ve ALWAYS thought that it was very clear in AC--even without reading anything else--that the reason for Cloud’s depression was due to guilt and not because he was pining for Aerith. The only reason I didn’t like his characterization in AC was because it felt like it came out of nowhere since AC is set 2 years after OG and by the end of the OG, he seemed to be in a pretty decent place mentally and emotionally. That being said, I can absolutely understand why some traumas resurface years after the originating incident and how times of peace might actually be worse because he is no longer solely focused on saving the world, but I was just surprised and a little bummed that this was the direction the devs chose to take AC at the time. Now that I’m older, I do better appreciate the complexities of Cloud’s mental state and the fact that they depicted a hero with lingering mental health issues is actually pretty awesome. I’m drawn to characters that have flaws--sometimes serious ones--but try their best anyway. Hence, why why Tifa Lockhart and Kate Beckett are some of my all-time favorites.

Anyhow, that didn’t stop me from pre-ordering FF7R, of course. I avoided reading any reviews as I didn’t want my first impressions to be swayed, and boy, was I happy that I went in mostly blind. That sense of awe really almost felt like playing the OG for the first time again, but somehow more. The combat system is incredibly fun and the world-building is nothing short of incredible. The variety and abundance of NPCs gives the game so much flavor and the locations have been rendered so well. As I’m going through areas like the Sector 7 train station and Wall Market and Aerith’s house, I can almost superimpose the layout from the OG in my head, but now it’s in 3D and so rich and full. It’s obvious that a lot of attention was paid to details, and I love all the head-nods and homages to the OG.

And oh, the characters!

This is the Cloud I’ve been wanting to see in glorious HD and the Cloud I remember from the original game: all awkward, dorky trying to be cool, socially inept, mentally unstable, abrasive-at-times, reluctant to act depending on who’s asking, wannabe hard-ass who’s actually a big softie inside Cloud. I remember reading an article a few years back about how the devs basically redid Cloud for the Remake because they wanted him to go back to his dorky roots--which ends up making him closest to his personality in the OG than his appearances in other franchises--and I was SOOOO incredibly happy to hear that. I was so sick of the way Cloud was constantly depicted as this cool, broody McBrood in his cameos when he was a pretty big dork in the OG. (Anybody remember him doing squats in the Highwind when Tifa says it’ll be lonely with just the two of them and Cloud responds that he’ll make enough noise to make up for it? Like I said: cute, but a dork.)

I WAS surprised by how comfortable and sweet and touchy (so very very touchy) the devs made him with Tifa from the beginning. That initial scene of Cloud being such a smooth operator giving Tifa the flower had my jaw-dropping and every single flirty interaction after that (and there are many) had my Cloti heart overflowing in shock and bliss. Throughout most of my years as a Cloti shipper, even though I believed Cloti was supported by canon and pretty clearly together, I was also under the impression--mistakenly or not--that Cloti was the minority ship. So for Square Enix to make it so blatantly obvious that Cloud is really into Tifa at such an early stage has been an unexpected gift.

Also, they’re just really hot together. (Clotiscrew tunnel--be still my heart!)

As for Tifa...oh, what wonderful character development we’ve already gotten for Tifa. Tifa has always been one of my all-time favorite characters ever since reading her character blurb in the OG game manual. Initially, as a child, it was because I saw so much of myself in her. She was outwardly bright and optimistic, but tended to hide all of her stronger feelings inside. She fought with her fists, and for someone who was a tomboy growing up who liked playing contact sports with the boys, I connected with her in a way that I had never been able to connect with other female protagonists who were primarily back-row specialists. (I also aspired to grow to her listed height of 5′4″, which alas, did not happen...lol).

I love how the Remake delves into more of Tifa’s moral conflict between the destruction that she causes as part of Avalanche and needing to do something to stop Shinra, and yes, even seeking revenge. They touched on this in the OG lightly, but the Remake really hammers it home. She’s perhaps the most conflicted character in terms of motivation in Part 1. That scene with the Shinra manager on the train is actually one of my favorite scenes of her because it highlights that tension. The elevator scene, if you opted for it instead of the stairs (or if you did one, saved, and reloaded to do the other one, like me), is also underrated in terms of how much it reveals about Tifa’s inner struggle.

On this point, I also appreciate that the Remake has the characters reflecting on the damage they’ve both indirectly and directly inflicted--the Avalanche team all do this to a certain degree. In particular, Jessie’s constant inability to figure out what she’d done wrong with the bomb to cause such a massive explosion and her remaining feelings of guilt during her death scene (”they were my victims” ouch!) were heart-breaking.

Aerith’s depiction was another pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest; I didn’t much like her in the OG. She was too pushy and willfully oblivious to the point of being mean at times. In the Remake, much of her sometimes too in-your-face playfulness was kept--perhaps still a little too much--but I appreciate the nuance that they gave her. The train graveyard scene tells the player that she didn’t have friends growing up, and I think that partially contributes to her lack of social tact at times. The other factor that gives her personality more nuance is the hint of special knowledge that affects how she interacts with the rest of the group. It gives her additional hidden motivation and adds to her mystery for new players while simultaneously pulling at the heartstrings for old players who get the impression that Aerith is somehow aware--to a certain, unknown extent--of her own fate. 

I also appreciate that Aerith is more grounded as a real person than as some sort of revered being. I do blame AC for some of that. When you have the power to cure a fatal disease from the afterlife and send the dead back to life, it gets into some godlike territory. Maybe it’s a fair depiction of her powers as a Cetra, but I just get the feeling that Aerith herself wouldn’t really appreciate being made into this goddess-like figure. Remember that her character blurb in the original game manual implied that she was more interested in earthly things (i.e. the love triangle) than in exploring her own powers. I personally think that Aerith used the “love triangle” in the OG as a form of escapism from the weight of her burdens rather than genuine interest, and I just think she’d want to be thought of as a person rather than as a god. One of my favorite scenes for Aerith is when she and Cloud are traversing the rooftops and she slips on the ladder, letting out a simple, “Shit.” It humanizes her in a way that combats some of the ways she’s sort of been deified in the last 23 years. Also, Aerith wielding a folding chair like it’s WWE never fails to make me laugh. Overall, she just comes off as a more reasonably flawed and--as a result, to me--a more likeable character in the Remake, and I do very much like her now.

Barret is pretty much the exact larger than life character I imagined in my head, only somehow even better, and I really love how expressive and emotional his eyes and facial expressions are. His scenes with Marlene are truly the cutest thing ever. Red XIII is a big, furry ball of sass, and I need so much more of him in the coming parts (Cosmo Canyon still wrecks me to this day). The interactions between the Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie are incredible, and they really feel like people who’ve been friends and basically each other’s family for years. The Turks and Rufus are pretty much as cool as I imagined them in the OG.

There’s still so much more I haven’t even started touching on about the Remake, and I think that’s why I’m finally posting this now. I just can’t contain my love for this game any more, and I really really need a place to express myself. I don’t know if anybody is still reading, but I appreciate having the opportunity to finally gush about this game and franchise that I’ve loved so much for pretty much two-thirds of my life.

[punkscowardschampions]

Joe & Ronnie

Joe: Hi Joe: There's no gentle way of doing this, so I'll just get to it, I'm sorry if you don't want to talk about it but you're free to ignore this if that's the case Joe: but I've been looking for my half-sister, and I think its you Ronnie: if youre basing that on a family resemblance youve shot yourself in the face like Ronnie: reload & keep looking Joe: Yeah, I know Joe: but I ain't Joe: Aside from coming at you with what's on any facebook profile anyway Joe: do you know your biological mum's name or? Ronnie: whos used facebook in a decade thats your 1st fuck up Ronnie: 2nd to reckoning my dna is any of your business Joe: who's putting their date of birth and hometown anywhere else? Joe: you were born in [hospital] right? Ronnie: phone numbers on toilet walls getting played out Ronnie: yeah & Joe: then it is you Joe: everything adds up, you have the right birthday, right place, right last name, and first, still Ronnie: right colour Ronnie: miss me with your schoolboy maths Joe: its your bio dad that's black Ronnie: fuck you i know that Ronnie: read my file well before you stalked me Joe: so do you know her name or nah Ronnie: it was in there Joe: Tess Vickers Joe: she is your mum Ronnie: i came out of her Ronnie: shes not my fucking mum Ronnie: id know you if she was Joe: 'course Joe: that's what I meant Ronnie: pick your words more careful soft lad Joe: she don't have any more Joe: I ain't had to do this before, like Ronnie: made up for her Ronnie: & you Ronnie: only took her how many years to claim her bastards Joe: I don't know why she didn't, only what she's said Joe: but if you wanted to ask her, I could set that up Ronnie: if it took her a bit to recover from goin black i don't need to ask her about that Ronnie: got my own experiences cheers Joe: is there anything you do Ronnie: if i had any questions id have chucked 'em at her when i aged out Joe: fair enough Joe: you wanna ask me anything then Ronnie: you old enough to be cleaning out your mas skeletons & seein if theyll dance for you Joe: not what I'm doing Joe: but I'm 19 Ronnie: course she never kept herself stitched up for long Ronnie: got a taste for it like Joe: by all accounts she met my dad the same year she had to give you up so Ronnie: bet he was proper comforting Ronnie: fucking hell Joe: Must've been Ronnie: if she kept you longer than the hour yeah Joe: I've got 3 brothers and a sister too Ronnie: when did she meet their dads Joe: we've got the same, like Joe: youngest is nearly 5 Ronnie: shes still alive then Ronnie: impressive Joe: is it? Joe: suppose so Ronnie: he got cash your sperm donor Ronnie: less dangerous game that one Joe: they both do alright now but you'd probably aim higher if that was the game you were playing Ronnie: shifting gear aint no game now or back then Ronnie: but she was small time Ronnie: that hand to mouth shit Joe: yeah, for years Joe: her dad's debts not helping none Ronnie: hes gotta be dead Joe: yeah Joe: year I was born Joe: so new mouth to feed and inheriting the neverending debts of John Joe: must've seemed like a great time to have more 'cos my brother is only a year younger than me 👍 Ronnie: least you aint inherited his name Ronnie: like i said insatiable Joe: thank fuck Ronnie: piss poor addiction but fuck it Ronnie: shes keeping 'em fed & clothed this time 👏 Joe: gutted social don't hand out round of applauses no doubt Joe: know she is for a fact 'cos she ended up working for 'em, and fostering two poor kiddies in need Joe: what do you reckon to her addiction now? Ronnie: sounds about right theyd left her Ronnie: state of the cunts running that show Joe: mhmm Ronnie: white kids are easier to love Ronnie: its on the posters like Joe: in theory Joe: but this way she gets to be obsessed with you from afar Ronnie: pay me enough & ill come press my face longingly against her windows Joe: I'll keep it in mind for her birthday or something Ronnie: fuck all else you wanna rock my world with or what Joe: Hmm Joe: hold up whilst I trawl a lifetime of overshare for any more tidbits Ronnie: she aint rotting by the roadside or ashes i can snort means my hearts already broken Ronnie: take your time Joe: sorry to disappoint Joe: suppose by the time you got to your file, it told you she'd run away from Liverpool, yeah? Ronnie: bullshit are you Ronnie: youre loving having another cunt to share it with Ronnie: whats the matter dont your brothers & sister wanna play Joe: I'm the favourite Joe: favourite that's about Joe: they got the gist but no file for them Ronnie: 💔 Joe: you said Joe: so, what you saying, you care if I tell her I found you or what? Ronnie: if it feels good do it baby Ronnie: why would i care Ronnie: shes not gonna show up Joe: what if she did? Ronnie: no fixed address Joe: I've told you she loves a cause Joe: say you don't wanna see her Ronnie: shooting the messenger aint no kill shot Ronnie: youre not invested in me Joe: I'm not not, clearly Joe: I'm the one looking, ain't I Ronnie: let her look under every rock with you Ronnie: i hope one bashes her skull in Joe: alright Joe: I'll pass it on Ronnie: good boy Ronnie: get that sticker on your reward chart Joe: god I hope so Ronnie: 🙏 Joe: Your profile says you're in London, still true? Ronnie: i don't need you at my door either Joe: 🙄 Ronnie: roll your eyes at me again Joe: 🙄🙄 Ronnie: 🖕🖕 Joe: 😏 Ronnie: what the fuck do you want Joe: I've told you Ronnie: nah Ronnie: spit it out Ronnie: youre circling around it stop being a pussy Joe: how am I? Ronnie: what do you want for fucks sake Joe: meet you Ronnie: its not happening Joe: why not Ronnie: i hate that you exist Ronnie: that she got a 2nd chance & i didnt get 1 Joe: that's fair Joe: you can hate me in person Ronnie: i aint goin to prison for killing you Ronnie: you wish Joe: yeah Joe: oh well Ronnie: take your death wish home Ronnie: or on a different part of the internet Joe: awh, cheers for the sisterly advice Ronnie: shut your mouth Ronnie: i ain't your sister Joe: kk Ronnie: dumping all your bullshit on me dont make us related Joe: we are Joe: you not wanting it don't fight biology Ronnie: her not wanting me cancels it all out Joe: not to me Ronnie: i give a shit how you feel Ronnie: youre a stranger with fuck all i want Joe: you ain't checked what I've got Ronnie: until facebook adds income i dont care Joe: 💔 Ronnie: you must look like your da Ronnie: dont be Joe: well you look like her Joe: not that I've seen yours Ronnie: fuck off Ronnie: i dont Joe: yeah you do Joe: [sends pics] Ronnie: shut up Joe: alright Joe: catch you around then Ronnie: get it through your head Ronnie: you wont Joe: what you scared for Ronnie: youre having fun trying to mess me up Ronnie: that aint how i get mine Joe: I'm seriously not Joe: I've got the message though, alright Ronnie: youre seriously throwing all this shit at me like im gonna smile as i eat it Ronnie: what the fuck Joe: I don't expect fuck all Joe: I just wanna know you but if you don't then that's alright Joe: I won't message again Ronnie: bullshit Ronnie: you aint asked about me Ronnie: you wanna bitch about 'em Joe: that's why I wanna meet you Joe: I've thrown enough questions at you for one convo Ronnie: nah you wanna meet me to see if i proper look like her Joe: I've got eyes Ronnie: if thats what you reckon you see they dont fucking work Ronnie: get down the social & claim Joe: you're fine, its not dead ringer levels Ronnie: im fucking fine cause theres none of her in me Joe: I'm glad for you Ronnie: were not family save your lies Ronnie: i dont need any blows softened Joe: its only me bitching Ronnie: yeah Ronnie: & you can save your tears Ronnie: you already cant see fuck all like Joe: what do you want? Ronnie: too late to give a fuck Ronnie: youve shit over me with this Joe: I'm sorry Ronnie: nah Ronnie: sorry for yourself aint the same Joe: Why would I be sorry for me? Joe: I got everything Ronnie: not how youre framing it Joe: why would you believe me Ronnie: not hard to believe mummy dearest loves me best Ronnie: not like she dumped me fast as she could & legged it Joe: she weren't allowed to keep you, she was 14 with a junkie non-dad to look after you both Ronnie: & what she didnt get any older or get her shit together Ronnie: fuck that Joe: did you want her to come 'round and pick you up 4 years later? Ronnie: she had you cunts instead Joe: so she comes and gets you and the social come with and see the fake bailiffs and the bashed in door and we all go back with you Joe: I see the appeal Ronnie: you reckon i had it better Ronnie: thats what this nancy drew bullshit is about Joe: nice one, genius Joe: in what world is that adding up Ronnie: yours Ronnie: in what world would i have not gone with any cunt to get me out of that place then Joe: I'm telling you why she didn't get you, not telling you why you wouldn't wanna be there Ronnie: youre giving me both Ronnie: cant help yourself Joe: they're the same reason Joe: if she tried to get you, they'd say nah 'cos her life was a mess, simple as Ronnie: & yet here you are Ronnie: not a care kid a single day in your fucking life Ronnie: so like i said she got her shit together in the end Joe: she was 18 when I came around and we got taught how to say the right thing to socials and how to shut our mouths the rest Joe: but that's just what she told me Joe: she probably didn't want you, looking back Ronnie: why would she Ronnie: had a new set up with a cunt that stayed Ronnie: cuter kids Joe: 'cos she loved your da the way only a 14 year old girl can Joe: pro and a con in your favour Joe: does she want the reminders or does she not Ronnie: not Ronnie: youre the only pussy walking memory lane Ronnie: aint her looking Joe: yeah, s'me, so why you chatting at me like I'm the one that fucked you off Joe: not productive Ronnie: cause you are Joe: I've gone to leave loads now Joe: you've clearly got shit to say Joe: so just say it at me, I've already offered that n'all Ronnie: fuck you Ronnie: i didnt ask for this Ronnie: she was in the ground for all i knew Joe: she still can be Joe: I ain't telling Ronnie: nah you opened your gob & let all that shite out Ronnie: i couldve been about to slit my throat or pull a shift Joe: you could've easily found out she weren't dead yourself too Ronnie: what should it tell you that i didnt Joe: ignorance ain't such bliss I've tipped you over the edge Ronnie: you dont know shit Ronnie: how does yours feel Joe: how do you think Ronnie: i think you should ask if people have got time & space to spin out before you fuck with their heads Ronnie: i think you should go suck a dick mckenna Joe: why should I? Joe: no one asked me and I owe you shit Ronnie: she owes me Ronnie: youre nothing Ronnie: you dont see me knocking cause im not looking for answers & theres fuck all else to collect by the sounds of it Joe: then fucking collect Ronnie: talk to your ma like that Joe: hit me up when you stop being scared Ronnie: keep it up and ill smash in your face Joe: how Joe: you don't wanna meet Ronnie: dont flatter yourself nancy drew Ronnie: i can still kick your door in Ronnie: be like the baliffs are back Ronnie: you can revisit your childhood Joe: now who wants to go for a jaunt down memory lane Ronnie: you wish Joe: 🙏 Ronnie: i reckon your imaginary friends gotta be sick of your bullshit by now Joe: no doubt, nancy drew Ronnie: we cant both be nancy Joe: alright you be sid then Ronnie: still not gonna kill you baby Ronnie: but youre getting warmer Joe: I know, stalked you, remember Ronnie: get a hobby or habit mckenna Ronnie: your little misery boners aint cute Joe: oh I got plenty of thoses Joe: your concern is, kinda Ronnie: youve thrown me into the big sister deep end Ronnie: sounds like how you want it Joe: very obliging Ronnie: unloved kids get it where they can Ronnie: thats on the back of the poster Joe: trust, I know Ronnie: 💔 Joe: not me Joe: never mind, not my sob story to hit you with Ronnie: you only wanna share yours Joe: maybe when we get cosy I'll divulge all the family secrets, sis Ronnie: maybe if you chat shit like that to me again ill choke on my puke Joe: n'awh Ronnie: kill yourself Joe: sure thing Ronnie: very obliging Joe: it was already in the diary tbh Joe: but I'll pop you in the note if that makes you feel 💘 Ronnie: show me yours & ill show you mine Joe: deal Ronnie: 💘 Ronnie: [skippity skip] Ronnie: pick me up Joe: where from Ronnie: [location that's sketchy as all hell] Joe: alright Joe: that should take me 'bout half an hour this time of day Ronnie: im not goin anywhere mckenna Joe: you alright Ronnie: 🖕 Joe: got it Joe: 🚖 📵 Ronnie: important for you to know your place Joe: must be popular with the cabbies 👑 Ronnie: yeah im on a ban Ronnie: look out for my picture hanging Joe: what did you do Joe: vom and not pay the fine one too many times? Ronnie: we taking another trip down memory lane Ronnie: i aint 12 Joe: go on then, what was it Ronnie: the cunt crashed its fuck all to get excited about Joe: did you get hurt? Ronnie: didnt feel it Joe: what about the driver Ronnie: i reckon he felt it Joe: fucked you're stuck with the tube then Joe: 💔 Ronnie: cheers motherfucker Ronnie: cant you drive Joe: 'course I can Joe: where'd your license go, got a story for that and all or? Ronnie: car theft would be a dead good sibling bonding activity Ronnie: but i dont need your help to break a window Joe: another time Ronnie: nah Ronnie: next time some other cunt will pick me up Joe: good thing I didn't specify Joe: tah for keeping me well in the loop of your schedule though Ronnie: other shit in the diary besides blowing my brains out Ronnie: can move it up if you aint gonna shut up Joe: 🤐 Joe: you can keep all your dates Ronnie: made up i am Joe: no need to say thanks, I feel it Ronnie: you wanted to meet up Ronnie: wish granted Joe: I know Joe: reckon blue would suit Ronnie: what Joe: genie Joe: you owe me 2 more, yeah? Ronnie: rubbing me up the wrong way dont count Joe: damn Ronnie: i can do black & blue Joe: changed your mind then Joe: my 🍀 day Ronnie: you got the accent Ronnie: my head cant do subtitles Joe: not really Joe: not proper Joe: some of my younger ones do but they can barely remember Liverpool Ronnie: nothing to be 💔 about Ronnie: its a shithole Joe: least its a shithole with some history Joe: we moved to a newbuild shithole so Joe: win some lose some Ronnie: your boner for history aint that big Joe: you checked what I'm studying? 😏 Ronnie: you dont post about fuck all else Joe: I'm barely outta freshers let me have it Ronnie: dont give me the flu Joe: thought that was just a euphemism Joe: either way, on my life Ronnie: fuck knows Joe: not as much fun as people chat, shockingly Ronnie: what is Ronnie: the shit that feels good is the shit youre meant to keep your mouth shut about Joe: hear hear Ronnie: 💘 Joe: 💘 Joe: you live there or am I picking you up from a mates Ronnie: neither Joe: alright Ronnie: drop me on the other side Joe: no problem Ronnie: then you can go back to wanking over symphonies Joe: you wanna help me with my homework Joe: so nice Ronnie: what are big sisters for Joe: yeah Ronnie: shits fucked up Joe: right Joe: but you can be more specific Ronnie: nah i cant Joe: don't know where to start? Ronnie: it starts with being born Joe: okay, so the starts the easy bit Joe: the middle Joe: we don't have time Ronnie: we aint gonna trauma bond mckenna youve been beaten to it Joe: ah you got a troubled boyfriend Joe: that's cool Ronnie: fuck off Ronnie: you heard me say i aint 12 Joe: you know what I mean Ronnie: not very nancy drew if you reckon im that bitch Joe: we can't both be sid Ronnie: touche baby Joe: 💘 Ronnie: im gonna carve up this cunt if you dont pull me out Ronnie: & thatll make him feel too special Joe: who? Joe: I'm nearly there Ronnie: my not boyfriend Ronnie: dont waste romance like that on strangers Joe: sensible Joe: just carve anything but 💘 and he shouldn't get too clingy Ronnie: whats the symphony that gets you off fastest Ronnie: ill do that Joe: Khachaturian's Sabre Dance works as a play on words and should get him to crescendo 👌 Ronnie: hot Joe: orchestra nerds get all the bitches Ronnie: yeah Joe: you aren't a catfish, are you Joe: I mean, I'll recognize you Ronnie: look for your mas face Joe: fuck it, therapy overdue anyway Ronnie: fuck you for saying that Ronnie: making it go round my head Joe: I shouldn't have said that Ronnie: i should stab you Ronnie: all these pieces of mirror Ronnie: fuck him Joe: you can, long as you keep it shallow, or don't mind swinging by the hospital Ronnie: i dont get my kicks at a&e Joe: you'll have to play nice then Ronnie: youll get too clingy Joe: avoid the 💘 Ronnie: some other bitch can have the honours Joe: or has Joe: don't I seem 💔 Ronnie: dont need to hear how you lost your virginity mckenna Joe: noted Joe: save that trip down memory lane for private time Joe: me and mozart Ronnie: explains a shit ton if the conductor is molesting you Ronnie: but not gonna be the sister who tells him where to put that stick he waves about Joe: Mozart was pretty fucked up but I don't reckon it went that far Ronnie: i dont know him 💔 Ronnie: there was a Moz here earlier fuck knows if theyre any relation Joe: You're more a Liszt type, called it Ronnie: what the fuck kind of fuck you is that Joe: 😂 Joe: actually he's considered the world's first rock star, I was being nice Ronnie: shut up Joe: what, you ain't seen the ken russell film with daltrey in? Joe: have a word Ronnie: get a life Joe: tomorrow Joe: maybe Ronnie: i cant fucking believe it had to be you Ronnie: thank fuck i already aint showing my face here again Joe: thought you said you weren't 12 Joe: but I don't need to come in if you don't wanna be embarrassed in front of your mates Ronnie: i said my mates aint here Joe: no need to tell me why you're there Ronnie: where the fuck are you Joe: just got out, 5 minutes Ronnie: i need to get out Ronnie: move it like Joe: alright Joe: come find me then, make it go faster Ronnie: fucks sake Joe: what's wrong Ronnie: if my body would do what it was told i wouldnt need you Ronnie: cant even paint you a fucking picture Joe: right Ronnie: theres a shit load of stairs yeah Ronnie: i cant do 'em Joe: if you're fat I swear to god Ronnie: calm your tits nancy drew Ronnie: you know thats bullshit Joe: I'll trust you ain't catfishing then Ronnie: thats my next tat Ronnie: all for you baby Joe: sweet Ronnie: hurry up Joe: I am Joe: [show up boy] Ronnie: [when you're just there like damsel in distress which ain't you so it makes it more awks] Joe: [what a first meeting just having to carry her away from god knows where like] Ronnie: [just like we don't know each other but just carry me to your vehicle thanks] Joe: [just doing it silently like this is normal] Ronnie: [since I cant find a pic she should go get that tattoo now just casually drag him along] Joe: [once you get the use of your limbs back lol] Ronnie: [lbr its blatantly someone sketchy she knows the state of them all] Joe: [god bless] Ronnie: [when I know its gotta go on her face somewhere cos #triggered by looking like Tess and I'm just screaming like NOOO] Joe: [my boo is horrified and Joe too] Ronnie: [soz you're so cute bitch and you wanna look so ugly] Joe: [lowkey dread to think how annoying the heal time is on a face tat] Ronnie: [blasting that orchestra bop he mentioned earlier as loud as poss cos yeah you searched for it and yeah you don't wanna hear your thoughts or have a convo] Joe: [when you don't run like you should 'cos you too are a crazy person] Ronnie: [match made in heaven lol] Joe: [🔥😈] Ronnie: [does he have any tattoos I have forgotten] Joe: [Oh, I don't think so??? but he probably would in a self-destructive manner too, as long as they could be hidden like his self-harm like go ahead] Ronnie: [just thinking get one now if you want boy #bonding] Joe: [yolo] Ronnie: [ooh what should it be] Joe: [the real question, hmm] Ronnie: [perfect excuse to be staring at each other while that's happening though cos you can't be moving all about] Joe: [but of course] Ronnie: [Joe can move around more cos not on his fucking head but] Joe: [probably get a cherry or something for the lols] Ronnie: [love that for you Joseph]

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Take It On The Run (Part 3)

Summary: Dean and the reader realize what Emily’s up to but it might be too late...

Masterlist

Pairing: Detective!Dean x reader

Word Count: 2,700ish

Warnings: language, violence

A/N: Ah, I’m sure nothing will go wrong...

Dean was fast asleep on his bed after lunch and a quick rundown of how to use his weapon. The point and shoot part was pretty self explanatory but he showed you where the safety was, how to reload and most important, how to hold the damn thing so you didn’t cut your own skin like he did back at the academy on his first day. It was a bit silly to hear him say how nervous he was back then. He dropped his fake gun about fifty times, he’d cuffed himself by accident and he managed to get on the wrong side of the strictest instructor within two minutes of getting there. He was ranked the bottom of his class during his first week, told he’d never be a cop and he should quit and save them all the hassle.

He graduated as valedictorian six months later.

That was as far as you got before Dean hit the sack, his light snores giving the too quiet room some noise.

He was restless though, waking up after only two hours to use the bathroom. You thought he might lay back down but he simply took a seat next to you on your bed and leaned back against the headboard.

“Please tell me you got that TV to show more than just the home shopping network,” said Dean. “I can only watch this torture for so long.”

“Would you like me to lie,” you joked, Dean groaning as he slumped down. “So this robbery Emily and Derek committed...what’d they steal?”

“A crap ton of money,” said Dean. You raised your eyebrows, Dean shaking his head. “But not cash. Well...you know how they have those Swiss bank accounts or whatever that people hide their money in? She and Derek hit up a bank here in the states and dumped everything from every account they had there into their very own Swiss account. It was millions. Enough to last a few lifetimes over and then some. I’m surprised they’re still in the country honestly.”

“How the hell did they do that?” you asked.

“Your evil twin and this Derek guy are smart. Extremely smart. They didn’t rob the bank all heist style like you would think. They went to the bank manager’s house. No fancy alarms apart from the one for the house one they deactivated. The guy’s family was there. He gave them the access they wanted in under two minutes apparently. Emily was very convincing from the report I read,” said Dean.

“I really don’t like this chick,” you said. “She just steals and threatens people for fun?”

“Your dad...he never mentioned her at all? You never got a weird vibe or anything that he was keeping something from you?” asked Dean.

“Dad...he said mom died giving birth to me. If that was a lie then, alright. I have to live with it. He never...it wasn’t like he spoke bad about her but I’m not sure that he actually loved her, not the way you would expect two people who had a child together would be. He’d answer questions when I asked, show me pictures every once in a while but I don’t think he was trying to hurt me, just keep me from the truth,” you said.

“Maybe they knew you had a demon spawn for a sister and wanted to keep her away from you,” joked Dean, frowning when you turned away. “Sorry, that’s not funny.”

“She killed our parents,” you said, Dean keeping quiet. “I mean, odds are she did. Even if she didn’t, she tried to kill us and Sam.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise,” said Dean, squeezing your hand, pulling it away quickly to rest on his thigh. “Where do you think Derek is? We haven’t seen him around yet.”

“He probably does exactly what she tells him and thinks it’s love,” you said.

“Emily didn’t get her shot at us last night like she wanted. She probably figured she could handle it on her own. My guess is she called in Derek for backup to help find us,” said Dean. “We have to be extra careful.”

“Derek’s rap sheet, what was the worst thing he did?” you asked, Dean scratching his head.

“Small stuff until about a year ago. It used to be breaking and entering, minor theft, stuff like that. He upped the game the past year with a few assaults with a deadly weapon, armed robberies, ransom...” said Dean, eyes wide. “Ransom. He pulled a few ransom jobs.”

“What’s-”

“I know how Emily is going to get us to come out,” said Dean, reaching for his phone, dialing Sam. “Call Jack.”

You dialed but only got a whole lot of ringing before his voicemail kicked in, Dean hopping off the bed and pacing around the room.

“Ransom,” you said, Dean nodding his head. “Sam and Jack. You think they’re going to trade Sam and Jack for us.”

“Odds are they’ll probably kill them too,” said Dean, shaking his head.

“Why haven’t we gotten a call yet then?” you asked. Dean glanced at the window, late afternoon from the lack of light shining through and then the clock.

“They must be waiting for night. She wants to use her fancy sniper rifle again I bet,” said Dean. He grabbed his coat and pulled off his sling, reaching out a hand for you. “We have to let the chief know.”

“No,” you said, brushing past him towards his computer. Dean caught your arm but you shoved him off, opening the login to his police login. “I want to look at Derek Evans record first.”

“Y/N, we don’t have time to mess around,” said Dean, clicking off the TV and putting his gun in it’s holster. “We’re going now.”

“You had a bad feeling last night and I ignored it and look what happened. Well I have one of those now. Sam is a good cop and Jack’s new but so is he. No way Derek gets the jump on them both without some help,” you said.

“Y/N,” said Dean.

“Trust me. Please,” you asked. Dean stared at the door a moment, groaning before he walked over and typed in his password.

“You tell anyone I let you go poking around in a police database, I am so fired,” he said, pushing the computer back to you.

“I’m pretty sure you’re a softie when it comes to me, Dean,” you said with a smile, searching for the chief, finding him a few names down. His record was clean like you expected, Dean reading over your shoulder.

“The chief? What’s...” said Dean, watching as you scoured through page after page. “Wait. Go back. Yeah there. Look. He received marks for not showing up for his shift three days in a row back in the day.”

“Have you never played hooky at work before?” you asked, Dean rolling his eyes.

“Yeah but I call in sick like everybody else. He didn’t though which meant he was busy enough with something to not call. Cops don’t do that. We just don’t,” said Dean.

“I still don’t understand,” you said.

“Derek is 31, right? Take the 31, tack on nine months, tack on a few more since his birthday was a few months back and I’m guessing Derek became a bun in the oven right around those three days the chief went missing. Timing adds up. Not to mention the chief seeming to have it out for you,” said Dean.

“If that’s true, then why haven’t Emily and Derek burst through that door already? Wouldn’t they know where we are?” you asked.

“They’d know someone at the station leaked if they did. We don’t have anything but a guess anyways. A far fetched guess at that. The guy could have just gone on a bender for three days for all we know,” said Dean.

Your phone suddenly rang, Jack calling back. Dean tapped the speakerphone, waving for you to speak.

“Jack?” you asked.

“Hey, you called? Everything alright?” asked Jack, Dean’s face scrunching up. “We’ve been in a meeting. We found Derek. He’s holed up on-”

“Hey, rookie,” you heard Mike say in the background. “Let the chick talk. Something might be up.”

“Where’s Sam?” you asked.

“The bathroom. Are you okay, Y/N? Is something wrong?” asked Jack.

“No kid, we’re fine. We thought...maybe Sam might be a target and you since you’re Sam’s partner,” said Dean, rolling his eyes.

“Everyone is accounted for. The Rhoverville force got here not long ago. The chief is trying to divy up search quadrants for Emily since Derek is...sort of holding someone hostage. But we got that covered so you guys hang tight and I’m sure we’ll find Emily soon,” said Jack. “You guys need anything?”

“No, we’re just awesome. Keep safe,” said Dean, hanging up. “So they’re fine. How’d we get that so wrong? Isn’t going after Sam an obvious move?”

“Son of a bitch. Dean, we need to leave, now,” you said, grabbing his computer and shoving it in his backpack, slinging your own on and heading for the door.

“Y/N, slow down. What-”

“Us calling to check if they were okay was the obvious move,” you said, Dean pulling out his weapon and grabbing his bag. “She must know we’re close by and was waiting for us to call so she could get a fix.”

“Dammit. Come on, we need to move fast,” said Dean, his backpack on as you rushed outside, a shot ringing out just barely missing Dean’s head. You tackled him to the ground behind a truck, a hiss of air from tires all around you going off. “She’s shooting the tires. We can’t drive out of here.”

“Elk Forest,” you said, glancing over to the edge of the motel parking lot and the thick trees right beside it. “We’re on the outskirts of the county. We have a shot in the forest, right?”

“Take this,” said Dean, shoving his gun in your hands, pulling out another one from the back of his pants. “Keep your head down and sprint for that tree line. Don’t shoot me. Understand?”

“I got it,” you said. Dean grabbed hold of your hand, giving it a tight squeeze.

“On three. One...two...three!” he said, Dean and you doing your best to use the cars as cover, more shots overhead until you were sprinting across the small bit of open parking space. You felt Dean stumble, his arm raised as he shot back. You pulled him along with you until you were well into the forest, slipping down a hill and catching your breath behind a tree.

“We just have to hike back to town and...” you said, Dean grunting beside you. His shirt was stained red, splatters of blood on his face and neck, your own body covered with some of it.

“It’s just a shoulder hit,” he said, taking a deep breath. “We have to keep moving.”

“You’re bleeding. A lot,” you said, Dean cursing under his breath. “Dean, that’s a lot of blood.”

“First aid kit. Needle. Thread. Clean your fingers and dig out the bullet. Stitch it up and then we go. You got two minutes before we start moving again,” he said, dropping his bag. He pulled out a flannel shirt and wadded it up, shoving it in his mouth as you flung open the first aid kit.

“Dean,” you said, Dean nodding his head. “What if you pass out?”

“Leave me then and get out of here,” he said, quickly shoving the shirt back in. He tossed aside his jacket and unbuttoned his dress shirt, letting it fall off his torso by the time you were ready to go.

“Sorry,” you said, carefully shoving two fingers into the wound. Dean’s eyes went wide and squeezed shut, his hand shooting to your wrist, barely stopping himself from forcing it away. “S’okay. Just a little...I can feel it. I got it, just one more second...” you said, pulling it out, Dean shouting into his shirt.

You quickly stitched his wound together, Dean squirming just as much at that before you slapped a bandage over top.

“We live, you want to go on a date?” he asked, fumbling to get the flannel he’d bit down on unrolled and on with your help. “If any woman can handle me, it’s definitely gonna be you.”

“Who said you can handle me?” you shot back, Dean scoffing as you buttoned him up, helping him with his bag.

“I just took a bullet for you sweetheart,” he said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“We live, you can have as many dates as you want,” you said, grabbing Dean’s hand when he stumbled forward. “Don’t pass out on me. We have a psychopath on our tail and I am so not carrying your ass all that way.”

“Oh, you’re so meant for me.”

After an hour, Dean looked less pale and had changed out of his slacks and shoes into jeans and boots during a brief break.. He’d stopped bleeding too which was certainly good for leaving less of a trail but it was starting to get dark and you knew you’d be sitting ducks once the sun went down.

“How far until we hit town?” asked Dean. “Another few miles?”

“Probably. Less than that I’m guessing,” you said. Dean stopped to lean against a tree, staring at your feet.

“How bad do those hurt?” he asked.

“I can run,” you said. “The pain’s pretty much gone at this point.”

“Good. Take off your pack, keep the gun and book it for town,” he said, sliding off his own bag, cocking his gun.

“Dean,” you said, earning a sad smile.

“We’re both hurt and slow. She’s got the advantage. I’ll hold her off, try to bring her in while you get back safe,” said Dean.

“I’m not leaving you out here to-”

“Y/N. You’re tough. You’re a badass and I respect that. It’s still my job to protect you. Odds are she wants you dead more than me so you’re the one that has to get away. This isn’t up for debate,” he said. He was nervous, for you or himself or the both of you, you couldn’t be positive. But his eyes were hard, glancing away. “Go while you have the light.”

“You owe me a date, Winchester. You better not wind up dead,” you said. Dean chuckled, sliding down the tree to his backpack, tossing a flashlight over to you.

“I’ll do my best to stay alive then. Don’t use that unless you have to,” he said. You helped him back to his feet, Dean taking a deep breath. “In case I do though...”

He cupped your cheek, a dirty hand grazing the skin, your nose smashed against his while he touched his lips to yours. He barely moved them, just let them rest for a moment before moving back.

“Tell Sam I’m sorry about his bike in third grade if I don’t make it back,” said Dean.

“Tell him yourself,” you said.

“You got to go. I’ll see you soon,” he said, kissing the top of your head, pushing on your shoulder to get you going. You only looked back once, Dean counting the bullets he had left, slamming the clip back in his gun.

You were a quarter of a mile away when you heard the shooting start.

A/N: Read Part 4 here!

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[thekraziesreside]

OK hopefully this will be the last sketchy post about Boku No Hero Academia / My Hero Academia Em’s background and information 

Also like help me decide who to ship her with and like idk @doodlingclown @baileythebailer am I too much? Yea? Ok I’ll bury myself k bye 

Name: Em Hyde Saiaihime  Aliases: Zentai Sato (as UA student) Pre Mo (Previous Villain before All Might injury)  Eyes: Blue (green/brown) hazel Height: 5′6″  Weight: 130 lbs  Age: 27 

Short backgrounds on her Aliases

Pre Mo:

A villain given a Premonition Qurik [functions by being able to predict one move forward of the opponent that they are looking at and can look at up to five people’s next moves] 

The villains thought the reason he didn’t get negative affects was perhaps he had special DNA that allowed it to bond without draw backs to the new quirk

His job with the “league of villains” was to gather information about heroes, rogue villains, or anyone of interest who would not be easy to fend of if they caught you following them. 

History goes that he attacked a hero (the hero ended up making up this story but most people believe the hero over rumors) 

He did kill a few people: but they were intense situations one of the people he did kill was a hero who Pre Mo tried to help but they refused and backed up into more villains who killed him but he took the blame. The others were people he was stalking and the cards were not in his or his prey’s hands because he tried to save them but still failed. 

Faked his own death shortly after the supposed death of All Might’s foe because he didn’t want to be under the rule of the villains any more. 

His death basically annihilated his body so investigations didn’t think it was strange when they couldn’t find a body. But because most of his body was annihilated the dna with the quirk was gone. 

Villains did not know his true identity, no one was ever able to tie him with the Em Saiaihime. They also thought Pre Mo was quirkless before given the quirk which he gave himself the villain name from. So no one had a second thought when he died because a blast like that, even if he saw it coming he probably couldn’t avoid it. 

It took a while over 6 months for Em’s body to regain it’s complete functionality after basically destroying it. 

Zentai Sato: 

Applied for UA saying they had an “invincibility” quirk and was put into one of the other classes (and transferred to class 1-A *see 6) 

The school did find it strange that Sato didn’t have much educational history but it was explained away by him being an orphan and it getting lost because it was viewed as unimportant. 

Even if she had solid answers for everything while she was hiding in plain sight she was so anxious and seemed pretty aloof until people started opening up with Zentai first. 

Though one of the things that made other’s more comfortable was when someone pointed out his name was basically Hentai, and seeing his react as not some scary dark dude made the other students feel like they weren’t a threat. 

Some of the teachers found him suspicious, but they thought it would be easiest to keep a watch on him at school so they let it slide. 

They were only transferred to the class due to recommendation 

The transfer date was one day before the USJ attacks 

Reasons for going to UA were to honestly try and start over, because she knew what she did was wrong, though not all of the deaths were her fault the blame was put on her and she’d take the downfall for it even if it wasn’t true. I’d say she’s kinda a glutton for punishment because of how lowly she views herself, but she just wants to do something right. 

Reveal of Em Hyde Saiaihime: 

When Nomu was crushing Aizawa Shouta Em’s instincts were screaming at her to do something but she was trying to help the other students with the villains at hand but as soon as Tomura reached for Sue’s face she snapped [ and example it would look like is this . 3:00 to 3:15 ] 

She didn’t care if she had to reveal herself and her back story she couldn’t let people die, not again, that’s the whole reason she came to this school. To do better, to do good things. 

The students were obviously probably confused, like “dude why is one of our class mates trying to fight that thing and his boss when it just crushed sensei?” And Thirteen had a bad feeling, also where did he get that power? Like he’s just invincible not super strong? 

Continuity: When Shigaraki is talking to All Might how it’s not fair that hero’s can be violent and how Midoriya was going to kill him but to Em hopefully All Might wouldn’t get involved in this weird AU way of looking at it.  Em would be the one he’s talking to and she just snarls and tells him he’s wrong. “Because I’m not some kid who is trying to be a hero who went to attack, I went to make you go down, because you’re trying to hurt the people I want to protect.” 

She’d have to go all out to beat Nomu and get the villains to retreat as the pro heroes are on the way and man is she hurt but her [quirk makes wounds heal / time and energy build up too] body had healed enough on the outside to where when the heroes came in to help clear up the other villains and help the students she ran away. 

A note about her quirk:  She’s indeed invincible / indestructible (to a point I mean) but her quirk is more so time/space so her body still takes the damage but it heals quickly. The pain does not, so sometimes the pain is enough to make her black out and half the time its just determination that keeps her up. She’s usually in so much pain and especially in battles where she get’s banged up like that, the pain only stacks, but she has to stay conscious to keep fighting. If she even relaxes for a moment she basically passes out again. Her wounds can reopen too, so like a stab wound, while it will go away in a few moments she’d still cough up blood. It’s not a fun time and she’s not really built for endurance fighting but that’s still what she does.  The extent of her physical attacks would be that in the above clip, like strong, could kill a person but not that strong that someone who is trained to fight cannot stand their own against her. 

Reveal Part 2: 

She makes it back into the school, her id still worked to get her in because they suspected she’d try to come back and play it off like Zentai. 

Instead she came back as herself and sat in the class room before class started and formally apologized to the students for deceiving them and explaining that it’s what she thought was the right thing to do for herself and that she’s going to accept any form of punishment that the school will go through with. All this before Aizawa makes it into class. 

She doesn’t resist at all when the students are asked to get help, she doesn’t want to fight. As a few students are standing off as defense and others get help from other pro heroes and teachers she apologizes to Shouta [there are tears but she doesn’t even notice she’s crying] 

Could she easily get out of being captured? Very well, like escape artist hero is something she could very well be but she looks so down on herself she’d not even try to fight to defend herself against the heroes who she looked up to and care about. 

She offers herself up to go on a trial (ok now here’s a head cannon / idea for someone to take as an OC if they want to like hit me up) by the quirk of someone else.  Their quirk is like a lie detector but rather it makes you tell the truth about what ever question is asked [also think Truth or Punishment Star Vs the Forces of Evil] but like even if you tell the truth it’s still really painful and dangerous like #bitch you could die from your injuries. And if you try to fight the truth it’s like your body being torn apart. So it’s not a fun time but she assure them that it’s the quickest way to prove she’s not lying about certain past events. And the only reason they agree is because she says that being indestructible it won’t do much damage. 

When in all reality it hurts a whole lot, like she’s coughing up blood because she doesn’t want to say anything about her past and try and excuse herself like “yeah my mother, the one person in the world who is supposed to care, hated me.” She refuses to let them know that, she doesn’t deserve their sympathy right. So she’s crying and bleeding and in a hell of a lot of pain but the trail started and she “tricked them into it” (They probably wouldn’t have agreed seeing as how inhumane it is). 

After the trial it turns out that, yeah she’s done bad things, and she’s still got a lot to learn but she’s not a villain, I mean, not really? 

She has to spend like a week in Recovery Girl’s office, the first two days she’s still occasionally spitting up blood and in so much pain that she’s crying and doesn’t notice (because the trail happens after she fights the Nomu too so she’d still be healing from that too because her quirk doesn’t make the pain heal any faster than it would for most people so she’d probably be in that pain for a month or two the most severe being then) 

Another note on her quirk:     Certain physical wounds/injuries don’t get undone (physically erased like when she gets a cut and such her skin will heal and the bleeding will stop but still holds the pain). Like a burn doesn’t threaten your life so she’d retain it like any other normal human. Same goes with if she loses an eye, her eye will probably not come back unless it’s a fatal wound. She can scar, bleed, break bones, and such as long as it’s not fatal her quirk won’t fix it.     Then again if the limb with the scar get’s cut off, and it comes back (through basically regeneration due to space rewinding/loop/worm holes) then the scars that would have been on it are gone because it’s a new limb basically.     I’m not sure if her quirk makes sense, the only reason it would be time/space correlated is like a the pause in a game or a save point would be her healthy body parts. So like if she gets an injury it’s like you reload the save but the codes still have the idea that the body is in pain. So she’s back to physical standards if she has to “recall” to it, but the pain doesn’t change and can stack. That’s why wounds that aren’t severe won’t activate her quirk to go to the “Save” because she can’t just control her quirk like that. The one thing about it she can control is ignoring the pain with her determination to protect those she cares about but her body will eventually have to face the pain and actually heal.  An Angsty Idea:     There is a point where the Villains get her, they cut her head off (it comes back, but the pain would be something kind of unimaginable, she might not be able to feel her body/ be kind of paralyzed. Her motor skills will be like a new born, trying to relearn and stuff. It might not take as long as other wounds to heal but it will be an awkward couple weeks for her and her pain would probably come in waves and make her pass out /spinal injury ya know?). They probably torture her, and end up brain washing her, she becomes a puppet, and loses her eye somehow (but not being such a deadly wound her eye would just reform and she’d have to tend the wound).     The heroes probably won’t have a choice other than killing her at some point. Or maybe the refuse to kill her but the small part of sanity she has finds a way to make them kill her. (Like someone pulls a sword away and she’d just follow through and kill herself either way, she does this in the Bleach AU). Either way, she somehow manages to get her head re-cut off. Her eye would be normal because again, “a new limb” kinda of deal, and the same goes for her brain. So she wouldn’t be brain washed anymore. But I mean, just imagine the toll of injuring your nervous system like that twice in the span of maybe a month. She’d need a lot of help, rehabilitation will probably be a must if the heroes got her back.     There’s an old myth that your birthmark is how you died in your past life, mine and hers is on the back of the neck under the duck tail part of hair. So like neck injuries scare me, but what scares me the most is like, the myth doesn’t say it would take the shape of the wound. If it did, then I’d say it was a shot to the back of the head, but if not, it could be any neck injury, like getting it cut through by a sword in the Bleach AU. 

[thelongestdamnreviews]

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (Riku)

I honestly wasn't looking forward to trying this half of the game given how the first half went.  I knew that there were some differences between the two modes so I dipped my toes in the water so to speak and kinda got into it.  And then completely misread how one feature worked and started to dislike it, only to figure out how it worked and THEN everything clicked and I ended up actually enjoying it.  It took me just under eight hours to get to the end of Reverse/Rebirth. 

Riku wakes up floating in a grey void and is told that he can sleep in darkness forever or wake up and face the light and the pain to come with it.  Naturally, he figures that floating is boring and takes the first steps into Castle Oblivion's deepest basement, arriving there somehow sometime after helping King Mickey and Sora close the Door to Darkness.  Much like in Sora's story, it's all uphill from here... 

Take that, Darkboy. 

Riku's section of the game isn't a New Game Plus given that nothing in Sora's story transfers across, other than enabling you to play through Reverse/Rebirth.  While Riku still is bound to the card-based combat of Castle Oblivion, there are a few differences that make his part of the game different from Sora's. 

The first thing is that Riku can't change his deck...at all.  You can't even change the order of cards.  His deck is set for every world, so some worlds will give you a bunch of cards, some will give you several high-value cards, some will give you a paltry selection of weak cards...so you really should check the deck list out whenever you create a new world to see what you'll be dealing with.  The halls of the castle between the floors seem to have their own deck, but you get ambushed a few times leaving a world so you don't have an opportunity to check your cards before getting thrown into battle. 

Riku only has attack cards, barring the one Hi-Potion for the 'hallway' deck.  All of the cards are the same Soul Eater too, so no needing to worry about strike/thrust/combo finish stats.  This also means he doesn't get to use summons or magic, and thus he can't heal himself in-battle.  King Mickey joins you early on and he's a great card if you can play him--he not only heals you a little, he stuns/damages enemies in a large area and he also reloads your cards!  Because of Riku's sealed deck, breaking things in the environment only gives you HP balls so this is the only other way to heal outside of save points. 

Take a drink anytime smell or scent is brought up.  Have fun!

Instead of needing to manage level-up rewards between HP, expanding deck capacity, and learning new Sleights, Riku instead increases health, increases the Attack Power of his cards, and extends how long he can maintain Dark Mode.  I could actually tell that the AP bonuses did something given I could keep killing Heartless even on later floors in a few hits, barring the final two where they get a massive jump in durability as in Sora's game.  Dark Mode is unlocked early and is triggered when you break enemy cards.  The bigger the difference between the cards, the more points given.  Get 30 total and Riku transforms, refills his deck, and enters a super mode where his attacks are faster and hit harder (and several change entirely) as well as enabling the use of Sleights, though you still lose cards in the exchange.  Riku can be knocked out of it by having his cards broken or taking damage.  The card that triggers Dark Mode won't fire, so be careful playing King Mickey cards if you're about to die! 

  There's also a 'Rapid Break' system where you get double the points if you break an enemy's card within a very tiny timeframe that it's played.  It's not something you can really take advantage of apart from keeping a high-value card ready to play and playing it as soon as you see the other card come out, but it's a big help to getting your berserk on. 

There's a new mechanic in Duels too.  Play a card that matches the value that an enemy plays and you're given a triangle reaction prompt.  You're given a short minigame where the enemy will play three/five/seven cards and you're given four/six/eight seconds to break every one.  Succeed and you trigger a strong attack; fail and Riku gets stunned for several seconds.  This was the thing I tripped on because I thought you had to match every card instead of just break them.  Duels don't even cost you cards the way Sleights do!

The red portion of his lifebar is the damage this single Duel is inflicting.  I am shredding him! 

 Riku has the reload card, but it requires zero charge time and doesn't require more time to work the more you use it in battle, though you still have to wait for the card return animation to finish before you can do anything.  A strategy I used was to trigger a Duel, mash cross to literally throw my deck at my opponent, and then reload immediately to repeat the cycle of hurting.  You're not penalized for 'wasting' cards failing to break the enemy's in a Duel so maybe this was expected behavior? 

Riku silently gets one grey enemy card added to his deck for the duration of a world, such as Defender in Hollow Bastion, but you can't keep those for other worlds.  Instead, you get to keep boss cards and can keep all of them in your deck at once.  Were there powerful effects you wanted to use in Sora's story but couldn't fit them in?  Not a problem here!  I got a lot of use out of the Dragon Maleficent card considering its downside (slower reload times) doesn't even apply to Riku...and it's the very first boss card you get even. 

While there were several gameplay improvements to me, the story is lacking.  Riku still needs to traverse the Disney worlds and all, but almost all of them are devoid of any plot content.  Riku creates a world, is given the Key to Beginnings, and slaughters his way to that door and destroys the boss hiding behind it.  Most of the story stuff happens between the halls, focused on Riku's struggle to resist the power of darkness and the machinations of the Organization, including some new faces unique to this side of the story and expanding scenes we saw earlier through Sora's run.  His worlds are really short too.  Sora had to roam around the worlds to open the Beginnings->Guidance->Truth doors while here, there are only a handful of rooms.  You still use map cards but ones irrelevant to this mode like Moogle Room and Alchemic Waking don't drop. 

This is one world...

...and this is the final.  Four whole rooms! 

I think that about covers the differences.  There are a few!

 I really did enjoy this mode.  I'm usually a sucker for customization but the fixed deck just worked for me somehow.  I didn't need to hunt down Moogle Points to buy better cards or sit through sequences that largely were the same from KH1, and the card combat flowed better for me.  I guess it's because they 'hand crafted' enemy decks as well as your own, so I didn't have to struggle nearly as hard as with Sora.  That and on top of the AP bonuses you could take, the three-card Duel had a big ground-based area of effect if you triggered it, making random battles pretty easy.  With Sora, deleting groups of enemies relied on Sleights and if I ran dry on cards before they were all gone, I was screwed.  Dark Mode Riku even gets the dash-spam move from KH1 when you fought him as a boss here as a Sleight, but I always went with Duels because they were so strong for basically zero cost.  All it took was being able to page through the deck to get the right card before the enemy's disappeared off-screen. 

There's no downside to using Dark Mode either, not even a plot-relevant reason considering Riku's trying not to fall back under darkness' sway.  Once you trigger it, you can stay in it for the rest of battle if you're careful and tear shit apart at the same time.  Combo it with Duels too! 

Though he was a villain, I really liked the “what measure is a non-human?” as well as the “cloning blues” angle they played with Riku Replica.  Also sorry, TVTropes links.  Poor guy was pretty tragic.  

Sora's difficulty gradually grew until it spiked during Twilight Town and Castle Oblivion proper's floors, with the bosses there giving me the most trouble.  I really only had trouble with the Vexen fight because I didn't understand how Duels worked and he had a bunch of health for that point in the game too.  Trickmaster in Wonderland killed me once too because your deck is terrible, and the final Riku Replica fight got me, though I figured out using the Jafar card at the start (enemies can't break your cards no matter what value you play) and whittling him down early was a great strategy.  Oh, and Guard Armor killed me a few times because I tried to use regular Dark Mode Sleights on it and burned all of my cards.  I honestly didn't really have trouble with anything else in the game.  I took AP whenever it was available and I think I had a total of 22 DP at the end, with the rest going into HP and that was largely unnecessary.  And this was in a mode where the only in-battle heal was based on a random drop, could be broken, and a card I didn't throw into a stocked combo because I wanted my cards more. 

It helped that Duels never got old. 

So yeah, I actually had fun with this.  I won't say it redeems the entirety of Sora's story for me, but I'm actually really glad I decided to give this a try instead of trashing the rest.  Color me impressed. 

Final stats. 

[fridge-reviews]

Dead Space 3

Developer: Visceral Games Publisher: Electronic Arts Rrp: £7.99 (Origin) Released: 5th February Available on: Origin Played Using: An Xbox 360 Controller Approximate game length: 15 Hours It seems that Isaac Clarke just cannot catch a break, if its not necromorphs gunning for him its a government agency trying to kidnap him. That is until now, now a religious group called the Unitologists want him, or more specifically, want him dead. And that's just the tip of the iceberg that are Isaac Clarke's problems... Dead Space 3 is the third, and thus far final, major instalment in the Dead Space franchise. Once again you take control of Isaac Clarke, a man whose job title might be 'Engineer' but might as well at this point change it to 'Necromorph Exterminator'. This time the game kicks off on a lunar colony... actually, no it doesn't. The game actually starts you off not playing Isaac Clarke at all but a Marine (who’s name I don't remember) on a ice covered planet. This bit is short lived and is basically just a tutorial for the more basic controls as well as being a sort of premise setter.

Dead Space 3 has gone for a more... cinematic feel in this instalment, and I don't mean by limiting the frame rate, it has far more cutscenes than the previous games. Most of them are well executed and don't outstay their welcome, but at the start of the game it can start to feel a little insufferable. I quickly became annoyed when a cutscene ended and I literally was given control to walk through a short corridor (is in only a few steps) only to have control wrested from me again by yet another cutscene! Its pretty standard practice that with each new release of a game franchise that some new mechanics are brought in to keep things fresh, and Dead Space is no exception. Between the first Dead Space game and the second there were a few differences but nothing that felt out of place. Dead Space 3 however brings in a whole slew of new game mechanics, as well as something more... underhanded.

I'll start with the first mechanic that appears and was possibly the most jarring to me, the cover based shooting. That's right, yet another game with cover based shooting, which is stupid because the cover mechanic isn't used all that often and is pointless against pretty much all the necromorphs. What's more is that the crouch action is bound to the same button as the waypoint tool. It feels a bit.. tacked on, like it was more of a enforced boardroom decision than one the designers had planned. The stores that were in the previous games are gone with the Benches acting as a one stop shop for buying, selling, crafting, storing and upgrading your weapons and items. That's right Dead Space 3 has crafting elements, of course at the time when this game was originally released crafting within a game was still a somewhat novel concept. Many things can be crafted at a Bench, from weapons and their upgrades to items and ammo. This crafting takes up resources that you'll find throughout the game (or buy via micro-transaction, more on that later). What’s actually kind of impressive is that you can create custom weapons and save the blueprints of them. Its actually a fairly robust system, do you want to make a semi automatic rifle that sets enemies alight and has a underslung rocket launcher? Well you can, and if you decide you don't like the weapon anymore you can dismantle it and reuse the parts. This high level of customisability essentially fixes something that I would generally have an issue with in this game. You can only hold two weapons at a time. Of course, if you can create a weapon that’s basically two weapons in one that kind of negates the problem. Now among all this talk of crafting and upgrading the more veteran players out there may just be wondering about what is possibly one of the most important parts of the series, if not one of the most iconic, the suit. Not to worry your suit is also fully upgradable, just not at a bench. Suits are upgraded and changed at suit kiosks. Again, no sign of power nodes, instead you use materials found in the game (or purchased via micro-transactions) to make the wanted upgrades.

Another new mechanic is the Scavenger Bot, when you eventually find these you can send them off to find more crafting materials for you. It takes them a little while and there are certain area's that are rich in material. Not to worry though EA has a way to part you with more hard earned cash. You can buy a DLC to decrease the wait time, and another to increase their carrying capacity. It's almost as if EA are just trying to anger me. All weapons now operate from a single ammo type once again this removes some of the tension the Dead Space series had for me. Part of the fun was scrambling for the right ammo for your weapon when you've run out. It added to the fear of the whole thing. Now that I can just get any ammo clip that sense of danger has been defused.

Ooh! This is just egregious to me. So, while exploring the Bench system I see that I'm given the option to upgrade my weapons. Of course, I take a look and notice that my starting machine gun only has two available upgrade circuit slots. The rest are blocked off in silver (meaning they are completely unavailable), all bar one in a bronze colour. Being curious, I take a look at it and find that I can unlock this upgrade using material I find in the game. A pretty standard way to gate content and keep the game balanced, that all seems fair. I didn't have enough of the materials required but click anyway because 'why not?'. As expected I'm informed that I don't have the resources, however I do see a 'Downloadable content' option there. Still curious I go take a gander. This is where my ire started to rise. What do I see before me but an offer to purchase a micro-transaction which will give me not only the material I need to make the upgrade but also a bunch more materials plus a guaranteed super-charged weapon part and a 50% chance at a second bonus part... WHAT THE EVER LIVING FUCK EA?! YOU PUT MICRO-TRANSACTIONS IN A MAJOR RELEASE AAA TITLE! I bought this game years after it originally released and I'm angry, I can only imagine how people must have felt when they bought this game at the time of release. These micro-transactions can also be bought through 'Ration Seals' that can only be found using the scavenger bots. So I took the plunge and bought one of the 'packs' using the ration seals. As I suspected even buying just one made the game much much easier. The super-charged component that was mentioned was so powerful that once I attached it to my weapon I almost never had to change out again. I was so disgusted by this practice I quit the game and played something else for a whole just to calm down. Ok, now that I've calmed down lets get back to it... The new upgrade system has done away with the power nodes from the previous games. This time you have upgrade circuits that you can find within the levels, or craft for yourself once you have the resources. These upgrade circuits come in various shapes and sizes but they all relate to one of four stats for your weapon; Damage, reload speed, clip size and rate of fire. While this does make upgrading your weapon less straight forward than the previous games it also allows for greater variance in gameplay style. I, for one, tend to prioritize high damage and clip size but others might focus more on the rate of fire etc. Upgrade circuits aren't the only way to improve your weaponry, you can also craft attachments which can have a wide range of benefits to you (or your co-op partner).

Hang about. Co-op? In a survival horror game? Yep that's right Dead Space 3 has two player Co-op, so now you and a friend (who also has the game) can play together in this tense horror game... In case its not clear, I'm not impressed by this. To me having Co-op in a horror game removes much of the actual horror. On top of there being Co-op missions there are now optional side missions that can be completed, doing so doesn't effect the game in anyway beyond giving the player access to more upgrades and materials as well as expanding the story a little. The missions themselves tend to be quite short but challenging often ending with you being swarmed while in very enclosed quarters.

As is to be expected with a sequel within the Dead Space franchise there are even more new necromorphs to fight against. Actually in one case its not so much a new necromorph as a rehash of one. I don't know what the name of them is but in the first and second game it was a baby that fired darts at you and could climb the walls and ceiling. In Dead Space 3 the babies have been replaced by dogs. I can only assume that this replacement this was a tactical move on EA's or Visceral's part to make the game appeal more to the mass market, probably a good idea as those babies were pretty disconcerting to say the least. As you may have noticed everything I've written above is, well, its essentially just a list of mechanics with a few scattered complaints rather than discussing anything about the way the game plays. There is a reason for this which is very simple... I have nothing new to say. Seriously the gun play is damned near the same even with the modding mechanic. I may as well copy and paste what I said about it from my Dead Space 2 review.

Is this one to recommend? At the price that its at now its an easy recommendation to make, even with all the unscrupulousness of EA's micro-transactions its hard to argue that this game isn't worth a look at. I won't say its the best of the franchise, that title is held by Dead Space 2 for me. If this appeals to you perhaps try; Prey Resident Evil 4 The Evil Within

[404botnotfound]

The Line [9]

…and where to draw it

SERIES: Destiny WORD COUNT: 7,753 SHIP: Quinn/Drifter CHARACTERS: quinn leonis (AU), glyph, the drifter, ash, finn, adebole

ix. ex tenebris

phrase. from darkness

Thunder cracks, the sound lost somewhere in the perpetual storm covering Titan’s surface.

Lightning flashes and illuminates the dark, hive-infested methane rig stretched out below the building she had scaled in search of motes; stressed, rusting metal creaks, the abandoned facility pressured by both the massive waves of the methane sea below and the roaring winds.

The mote bank in the center of the rig dimly lights the raised dais it’s been fixed into, a soft glow from the vile energy contained within washing the closest buildings and catwalks around it adding to the dim lighting already provided by the irregular flickering of fluorescent lamps.

Below her comes the feral howls of enraged Hive.

‘Now!’ Glyph calls out.

She darts forward and leaps through the hole blasted into the side of the building, sheets of rain pelting her already wet coat and armor as she falls through the open air.

A wizard shrieks as the full force of her weight and velocity flattens it to the ground. The stiff, organic material chips and breaks off from its chitinous body in spots from the blow.

It surges up with a blast of the magic this breed of Hive uses to float and throws her back a few steps; she retaliates by firing a loud triplet of hand cannon rounds into its skull, shattering its arcane shield and drilling a sizeable hole that puts it back down.

It crumbles into dust, leaving the symbiotic alien worm within to drop to the deck with a sickening plop. Her nose wrinkles when it hisses angrily, then shrivels up and crumbles like its host.

Ick, she thinks as Glyph grabs the three motes it drops.

A deep howl of rage from what she can only assume is the wizard’s mate reaches her. The knight is close by and very, very unhappy.

“Duck!” someone shouts from somewhere to her left.

She drops flat to the ground without hesitation, goosebumps rippling over her skin as static fills the air above her—an electrified Finn leaps right over her and slams into the knight that had been rushing her in search of vengeance.

Ripping the stone-like sword carried by the knight from its hand, Finn swings it into the creature’s body, once, twice—until it, like its mate, crumbles into dust. Another trio of motes fly up from the felled knight and are picked up by their ghost.

Arms straining, Quinn pushes herself up off the ground. “Glyph, where are we at?” she asks as Finn jumps up onto the raised dais and deposits their motes.

‘With Finn’s deposit, fifty-five out of seventy-five. You’ve got fourteen.’

She hears a screech from behind her and ducks into the decaying building long enough to shoot a thrall in the head and grab the single mote it drops, then follows Finn’s lead.

The bloated rush of Taken power above the bank doesn’t cause so much as a flinch.

“Taken ogre to the other side!” Drifter lets out a whoop over the comm. “You fight dirty. I like it.”

Her back goes ramrod straight with heated mortification before she realizes the second half—low and throaty just as he’s unfortunately noticed earns him a particular kind of reaction—had come over a private channel.

He’s been doing that more often ever since their conversation the other day. She can’t tell if he’s tap-dancing just shy of laying it on thick or being his usual button-pushing self, and she’s having trouble deciding if she wants it to continue.

‘Can you stop? You’re distracting my guardian!’

Glyph, on the other hand, definitely wants it to stop. It closes the private channel for the third time this match just as the Drifter starts laughing at it.

Exhaling, she hops away from the bank when it beeps and retracts into its base. A pair of Taken phalanxes appear, and they’re both gone before they can even look in her and Finn’s direction.

“Guys,” she calls over the comms, “we need five more for a Primeval.”

‘I need four more for fifteen, hold on!’ Ash replies.

Quinn bounces impatiently between her feet a few meters away from the bank, watching the gray portion of the opposing team’s bar tick up another few notches. They’ll catch up if they bank before someone can jump over and cut those gains.

Her team had won the first round, trailing at first due to the other team’s coordination and speed; when she had invaded and performed a heart-stopping repeat of her first match, that coordination of theirs had vanished.

They’d won the round without the other team even managing to summon their Primeval—but more importantly, the Drifter had been right. The portal acted as some kind of catalyst. Some kind of push.

As soon as she had jumped through the portal, she’d felt that extra rush of power that she had pulled with her through the imperceptible hop through space. Those powers that she can’t identify and yet feel so familiar to her had been brought to bear.

And she had paid attention. She thinks she might know how to tap into them on her own, now.

If her hunch is correct, she has no idea how Glyph is going to react. Hell, she’s not sure how she’ll feel about it, and she doesn’t even know if she’s right.

The next few minutes will tell.

The gray bar on the other side ticks up again. Finn hops in place next to her a few times, and from a catwalk up behind the gate Adebole glides down on his light to join them.

“Will you invade again?” he asks.

“If it pleases His Majesty,” she quips blithely, and Finn snorts out a laugh at the tease. “Why? Worried you can’t handle a Primeval without me?”

He scoffs as he reloads his shotgun. “It is not me that cannot be revived. I do not want to lose on account of you making an idiotic mistake.”

Her lips twitch up at the corners. Despite the haughty tone there’s only a barely noticeable tinge of animosity; somewhere across their half a dozen matches together, the open hostility between them had evolved into some strange kind of friendly rivalry.

Emphasis on the ‘rivalry’.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, keeping the Drifter’s vote of confidence hovering in the back of her mind. 

Ash leaps down from the same catwalk Adebole had come from and Quinn sets into motion, the two of them passing each other as they cross the dais.

Behind her she hears the bank retract and Taken portals scream into existence, the smell of ozone suddenly sickeningly thick in the air—the gate flashes and pops, and she hops through without a trace of hesitation.

The other realm grips at her as she passes through, its dark power seeping into her light. She blinks, the portal having set her on a high catwalk on the other side of the rig, and she’s quick to leap off. A pulse of light lets her drop to the ground safely and break into a run towards the center of the other team’s arena. 

The tingle of charged energy threatens to burst free again, but she forcibly holds it back. This is riskier, but she needs to know for sure.

She holsters her hand cannon and Glyph drops her fusion rifle into her hands just as she rounds a group of crates twice her size.

The first of the enemy team comes into sight past the hulking form of the ogre Ash had dropped on them; she takes aim and squeezes the trigger, letting the charge build up until it fires with a piercing noise. The warlock in her sights vaporizes, leaving a startled ghost that scrambles to get its light shield up before something hits it.

One.

She’s already holding down the trigger before she sights on the next guardian, and the titan she finds goes down the same way.

Two.

Her radar blooms with red, pounding bootsteps on the ground approaching from the right reaching her ears.

‘Sword!’ Glyph cries out frantically. ‘Sword sword sword sword—’

She ducks, displaced air and a thin shing of sharpened metal cutting through the space where her head had been a split second ago, sending a harsh pulse of adrenaline through her body. Fuck. Taking advantage of her lowered position, she spins and knocks the hunter’s legs out from under him, sending him sprawling.

Shifting her fusion rifle to one hand, she grabs her hand cannon from its holster with the other and fires off two shots into the hunter’s head as he’s trying to rise.

Three. Holy shit.

Holster. Get up. Go.

No one is in sight when she pops out into the open, but the ogre is firing its powerful eye blasts at the corner of a group of large crates on the opposite side of the bank.

Lowering her gun, she hops up onto the landing and sprints ahead to pass the ogre by. Her proximity draws its attention—not ‘Taken’ enough to move under its instinctual radar, she supposes—and it rounds on her, swinging its massive arm in a flat arc.

She twists and drops, one leg bent under the other as she leans back and slides right underneath the massive limb without breaking speed.

‘Six seconds!’

Digging her heel into the ground to tip herself upright and keep moving, she jumps and bounces through the air on her light. As she passes over the tops of the crates, she takes aim below—the last member of the opposing team has his gun raised, but the charge of her rifle releases before he can fire off a shot.

Their unfilled portion of the tracking bar is empty.

“Was that all of ‘em?” Drifter asks, giddy with excitement. “That was all of ‘em!”

His delighted cackles in her ear infect her with a bright grin, and as the arc of her jump drops, she feels the pull of power dragging her back through space.

Glyph isn’t nearly as happy as the Drifter is. ‘I don’t like how good you’re getting at that.’

She tunes it out; save for the usage of darkness against the light, there’s nothing different about this than the Crucible. Nothing they’re facing here in this arena is unlike anything they’d face in the field, otherwise.

This ‘game’ is honing skills to fight an enemy that’s almost—’almost’ because they no longer have a King—as dangerous as the Hive, whether the Drifter gets a kick out of the mayhem or not.

The last of her momentum drops her to her feet within a building back on her team’s side of the arena. Her eyes flick up to the top of her HUD, noting that the rest of her team had knocked their Primeval down to half health while she was gone.

Forget her getting good at this. They’re all getting good at this.

They’d been an absolute disaster at first—a fact which she has a sneaking suspicion had been intentional on the Drifter’s part—and now they’re all working together like a well-oiled machine.

Now for the moment of truth.

Taking a steadying breath as she moves around a building towards the center of the arena, Quinn remembers the feeling of the darkness that washes over her when she jumps through the portal, drawing on the remnants of the dark energy that had seeped into her light from the last time.

Her light flares just as it had in the last round, and a turbulent surge of excitement and unease fills her at the confirmation of her theory. The theory the Drifter had helped push her towards.

She needs the darkness to draw out her light.

All three of her teammates are huddled within Adebole’s Well of Radiance and hammering at the Primeval with their bolstered weaponry. A rocket streaks towards the behemoth and cracks into the massive, dark mimicry of a Cabal centurion.

Down to a quarter health.

Operating on instinct and memory, she throws out her hand and one of her glowing orbs of light flies from it, splashing across the shoulders of the massive Taken with sparkling crystals and erupting a moment later.

The force of the blast knocks it back a step.

She twists, intending to throw her light blade at the Primeval, but pauses when a group of Taken goblins spawn in around it. The other team reorganized quickly, this time.

Adebole’s Well fades. Without it, the extra firepower from those goblins will cut through their shields and slow them down, giving their opponents time to catch up.

More Taken spawn in around the goblins, called by the Primeval, and her decision is made for her.

“Focus on the Primeval!” She shifts low. “I’ve got the pests!”

Time slows and she flashes into a warp, closing the distance between her and the swarming Taken, tearing through them in a streak of glowing light and clearing them out as quickly and efficiently as any Bladedancer or Stormcaller could.

Energy beginning to wane, she skids to a halt behind the Primeval and turns on it, drawing her blade to a point and pushing her light below her and leaping up. She phases through the center of it like an exceptionally shimmery phantom, and the creature lets out a monstrous howl as her team’s gauge empties completely.

The crystalline blade fades from her hand and she hops away from the collapsing creature as it thrashes and dissolves, flecks of viscous energy flying from it in all directions.

Two-oh. They win.

Drifter lets out another whoop over the comm and she feels light and giddy, the excitement of what she had done overcoming the upset of what that discovery meant.

Something slams into her from behind and nearly knocks her over, the arm slung around her shoulders covered in purple gear that announces Ash before the bell-like laughter does. “What the fuck was that? It was awesome!”

She shrugs, unable to answer out of both wariness and a general inability to explain. It’s as instinctual as it is calculated—if she had just unlocked her own supercharge, she imagines it’s not one that any cryptarch or warlock in the Tower had ever seen before, let alone can explain.

A dizzying, static-y sensation overtakes her as they’re transmatted back up onto the Derelict.

They have to wait for the Drifter’s cheery laughter to die down before he can give them a closing spiel, a pleased, easy going demeanor replacing the excited one. He turns to the losing team, first, as he usually does. “You all did good, just gotta be faster next time. Learn from it.”

It occurs to her, then, that he always leaves the losing team with some kind of encouragement after a match. She hadn’t paid any attention to it until now. Sometimes that encouragement is harsh, but, save for that first match when her quote-unquote nemesis had gotten pissy, never unkind.

He’s a mess of contradictions. Friendly but secretive, toying with the darkness but not shying away from the light, encouraging but unforgiving. It’s like he doesn’t give a damn about making sense or abiding by rules or picking sides, eschewing the status quo entirely in favor of trailblazing his own path.

He’d outright told her the other day that the Vanguard’s entire system of operation is too restrictive. He doesn’t like rules and boxes, and she’s beginning to wonder if he’s got the right idea.

She’d already been toeing the line of believing Zavala’s command is too rigid and cautious to be effective since returning from the Reef, and now that Drifter’s advice has paid off...it’s hard not to believe he does have it figured out.

Probably not a great thing to admit out loud.

Guardian beliefs—dogma, as the Drifter likes to call it—for years have been steadfast in the understanding that they’re paragons of the light, the absolute antithesis to the darkness and the last line of defense between humanity and extinction.

If that’s true, then what does that say about her?

She’s lost in thought once they’re all dismissed, and she and the rest of her team file out of the bay and head for the usual room they meet Drifter in for their payout.

‘Quinn?’

Glyph’s voice draws her back to the present. “What’s up, buddy?”

‘When you—did that thing and killed the Primeval, we picked something up,’ it says, sounding hesitant and very, very uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t even notice it until now. I’m not sure how that’s possible.’

“The Taken don’t exactly operate within our bounds of understanding.” It goes unsaid that the possibility of that awful other realm squeezing something through their reality right under their noses is very high.

Still, now that it’s drawn her attention to within, she can feel something...off. Something that should have faded the moment she had burned her light surge in the match.

‘I know that,’ it grouses.

Which means that this is on an entirely different level than what they’re both used to. “So, what is it?”

‘That’s the thing,’ it says, ‘I have no idea. But, it’s...Quinn, it’s evil. It’s not right.’

With no idea how to think or respond to that, she keeps quiet. If it came from a Primeval, she’s not surprised that it’s altogether wrong. The Taken, by their very nature aren’t right.

After she fails to respond, Glyph huffs. ‘I’m just going to dismantle it. It’s worse than those motes, I don’t like it.’

“Wait—don’t.” They may not know what it is, but the Drifter might, and she’s been hoping for an excuse to talk to him again. Now she has one, and she’s curious to know what he’ll say about it. “Hold onto it. I want to see if the Drifter knows what it is.”

It says nothing for a long time, waiting until they reach their destination to speak and sounding quietly unhappy as it does. ‘I don’t like the kinds of things you’re playing with lately, guardian.’

You don’t like a lot of things lately, she thinks to herself, dryly.

Her throat constricts with guilt; that’s no way to think of her ghost, least of all when it’s concerned about her. Even so, all she can think of is the conversation she’d had with Drifter in the bar and how he’d had Glyph reeling from the implication that the Traveler’s dogma may be just that.

She trusts Glyph, but she also trusts herself—and right now her instincts are telling her to keep walking the path she’s on. Carefully.

Then again, she may just be too curious for her own good.

Standing apart from her team so she can talk to Glyph, she folds her arms over her chest and tunes out their chatter along with Adebole’s studying gaze. “I’m not treating this lightly, Glyph, but he just helped me figure out how to use my light. That’s something no one in the Vanguard operation has been able to suss out for the dozen years I’ve been active.”

‘Maybe you’re better off not having it if you have to do what I think you did to use it,’ it replies.

She winces, saying nothing as it grabs her glimmer payout and scarcely paying attention to the Drifter coming and going. The rest of her team leaves, with Ash and Finn inviting her to hang out sometime, which she smiles and says ‘I’ll think about it’ to.

She hangs back. “Do you think I’m going to be able to kill the Barons with prayers and dumb luck?”

It flashes into sight after a moment with its facets pulled close around its eye in seething disapproval, the feeling radiating from its tiny shell and so virulent that her eyes widen. As though to make itself more intimidating, it demats her helmet so it can look her right in the eyes. “You have a fireteam.”

“And none of them are interested in doing what we should be doing.” Her arms fall to her sides; she shifts uneasily.

“Have you asked them whether that’s the case?” it demands, animated in its—frankly—righteous anger. “You’re not the only one that feels like you do. You’d know that if you weren’t shutting them out.”

“I’m not—” She cuts herself off with a heavy sigh, one of her hands settling on her hip and the other lifting to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Glyph, can you just...trust me? Please? I know I haven’t exactly been the best friend or even very stable recently, but I’m getting better. More focused. You can see that, right?”

Glyph stares at her, shell twitching. “Ikora warned you that if you cross a line, you might not be able to come back from it. Do you remember?”

“I do.” Acutely. Everyone and their damn mother seems to be trying to remind her of the line. Problem is, she’s not sure where that line is, whether anyone else knows where that line is, or even if she’s already tap-dancing along it considering what she’d discovered about herself today.

Regardless, she’s going to do what she has to in order to avenge Cayde. And she is going to.

The seconds stretch on while it studies her carefully; then, it bobs once as though nodding with unhappy acceptance. “Okay. Come on, roach man went this way.” She can’t help her snort at its distasteful insult. “I want to leave as soon as we hand this thing over.”

Knowing the kind of response she’ll get, she refrains from voicing her disagreement aloud. Drifter has said she’s welcome any time, and while she has no idea if he had meant for Gambit or for the kind of amicable conversation they’d shared in the Tipsy Sparrow, she’s not eager to leave.

Plus, she’s never been allowed to wander on a ship this size before—let alone allowed on one at all.

Arach Jalaal is stingy about his fleets, and she’d been no more eager to pledge allegiance to Dead Orbit than she had been to giving in to Executor Hideo’s aggressive pestering and preaching. 

Not only does pledging allegiance rub her the wrong way (the Vanguard can order her onto a suicide mission, but that sure as fuck doesn’t mean she’s going to do it), the underhanded requirement of allegience for starship travel and residence puts a bad taste in her mouth.

Many people in the City support Dead Orbit just for the potential to flee the system should humanity be threatened with another Collapse.

And that is a terrifying thought that she’s displeased with having crossed her mind; she hadn’t even been around for the first one, but even seeing the aftermath of the cataclysm is enough to stoke fear of it.

All those decaying ruins of what had once been sprawling cities and thriving human culture and innovation, spanning dozens of planets and moons, system population slashed from tens of billions to a scant few million—if even that—leave no question as to the magnitude of the threat they face.

She wonders if that’s why the Drifter has no interest in fighting for the sake of the City or the Traveler. If true, does it mean he’s just out for himself, or is he simply fighting in his own way without the restrictions of dogma?

“Hey, Glyph?”

It stops and turns back with a questioning blink.

“How bad was the Dark Age?”

Shell twitching and shifting in discomfort, it says nothing for long enough that she can feel the answer more than she needs to hear it. A coldness fills her chest, the only sound being the soft whir of ventilation fans and the near imperceptible hum of electricity.

It blinks down at the ground and then turns away, continuing onward. “Bad.”

She follows it quietly.

The Derelict isn’t exactly labyrinthine, but it still takes them a bit to track the Drifter down; the whole ship feels almost like it had been scavenged together from chunks of other ships, some halls and bulkheads completely mismatched from the rest.

It’s oddly fitting, considering its owner.

His voice reaches her ears as she makes her way up a flight of stairs after Glyph to another deck that makes a sharp turn and leads down a hallway towards a lone bulkhead sealed shut. Running all along the hall is a sheet of glass, separating the hall from a bay down below.

She pauses long enough to look through it, and what she sees makes her eyes widen and a shiver roll up her spine.

She’s seen that bay before, the length of it darkened and cavernous and filled with strange, almost icy pillars and mounds that look more like a planet’s surface rather than the inside of a ship, criss-crossed by catwalks.

More importantly, she’s seen the massive, kit-bashed vex gate fixed right into the center of it.

Swallowing, she turns away and hurries after Glyph, offering it no explanation as she passes it and its questioning gaze by. Okay, no big deal. Probably just caught sight of this at some point before, somehow. Just a weird coincidence like what he said in the bar. No big deal. It's fine.

The Drifter’s muffled voice is a distraction she’s grateful for, and she focuses on it as she approaches the bulkhead it’s coming from behind. “No, no, no, that ain’t gonna work—don’t gimme that look. You know I’m right.” A pause. “Your circuits fried? Nah, we’re not doin’ it.”

The door hisses open when she steps in front of it, to her honest surprise. She had thought it would be locked and she’d have to try and get his attention. Slip of the mind on his part?

Inside the room is a workshop, just as chaotic and disorganized as the space he occupies within the Tower. Parts and tools and scattered papers and datapads litter every surface seemingly without care, including a few she has to carefully step over.

How does he get anything done?

He’s standing in the center of the room in front of a table that’s equally as messy, his hand raised as though he’d been in the middle of gesturing animatedly before she had interrupted.

Next to him floats a ghost, its shell a dark iridescent green. Its eye glows red rather than the typical blue she’s used to, and she blinks. It blinks back, bobs once, and then flashes out of sight quickly and without a word.

Drifter looks surprised to see her.

“Nice to finally meet your ghost,” she says, toeing around a thick cable running the length of the floor and glancing at the haphazard bunch of machinery shoved into the corner it leads to. “Sort of.”

He comes around the table as she approaches it, leaning back against the surface and crossing his legs at the ankles. The smile he fixes her with doesn’t reach his eyes. “Didn’t expect you to stick around.”

“Neither did I,” Glyph mutters beside her.

She frowns at it and then at him, wondering what the frosty look is for. “You did say I was welcome any time. Giving me what counts for a skeleton key kinda implies you meant for more than just Gambit matches.

In a social sense it also implies something else entirely, but wow is she ever not going down the alley her mind just tried to steer her into.

“S’pose I did. Got somethin’ on your mind?” He relaxes, one of his shoulders lifting in a shrug and his arms crossing. She wonders if he’s irritated she had interrupted his work.

The only real thing on her mind, save for just wanting to talk with him more, is appeasing her ghost and handing over whatever she had accidentally picked up from the match. Her hand lifts, and whatever it is nearly rolls out of her hand thanks to the haste with which Glyph makes to transmat it out of her inventory.

It’s about the size of a soccer ball, but it’s oily black and wavers with wisps of pure darkness. No wonder Glyph wants it gone—like the Drifter’s motes it burns to hold, but on a different, vastly more uncomfortable scale.

She hefts it once and then lightly tosses it to him. “Brought you a present.”

He catches it, holding it out in front of him with  genuinely startled look. She’s never seen him speechless before, but the longer he stares at it without some kind of witty quip, the more curious she is about just what the hell it is.

“Can we go now?” Glyph asks her, twitching and ducking down so it’s peeking at the sphere suspiciously over her shoulder.

“I figured you’d know what that thing is. Glyph doesn’t like it, and I don’t like the feel of it, either.” Hopefully the honest statement eases her ghost’s agitation enough to allow her to stick around just a bit longer.

He laughs, breaking out of his baffled daze and tossing it lightly between his gloved hands like he isn’t handling something full of really dark and really nasty energy. Like he’s immune to it. “Yeah, I know what it is. How’d you get it?”

“Beats me. Glyph didn’t even notice it in my inventory until after the match ended,” she answers, arms crossing and weight shifting as she taps the toe of her boot on the ground.

“Well, congrats, darlin’,” he grins at her, lifting the object as one might a glass of wine during a celebratory toast before setting it aside, “‘cause you ripped out the heart of a Primeval. Consider me impressed.”

It’s her turn to be startled. She blinks at him owlishly, thinking that it certainly explains why Glyph hadn’t liked holding onto it and why she could feel its energy from her inventory when even motes don’t make a blip on her internal radar anymore.

Glyph reacts faster than she can form any string of coherent words. “She what?”

“Don’t tell me your circuits are fried, too. It’s a Primeval’s heart—pure darkness in solid form. Been a long time since I’ve seen one.”

“Taken don’t have hearts.” Glyph flits around her shoulder to fix him with an adamant stare. “They’re an amalgamation of ontological and paracausal antimatter that consumed something sentient and physical. They’re pure entropy, they’re not alive!”

Drifter leans towards it with a challenging grin. “Do me a favor, rewind what you just said and play it back again, thinkin’ ‘bout it real hard this time. Try not to blow a bulb.”

Glyph’s facets spin in an equally challenging expression of energy, but it freezes quickly, blinking and looking away as it—shockingly, considering who it came from—does as requested. Then, a spark of light accompanies its facets popping out from its eye in disbelief.

“That’s not possible,” it says, flatly.

Alright, she’s lost. That had been a whole lot of words that make sense individually, but she’s no Asher Mir, and she’s unashamed to admit that every time he or Luke or any other warlock with an inclination to start talking jargon her brain has to crash and reboot.

She likes to think she’s wise, street smart, and adaptable, but she’s not particularly intelligent as far as finer sciences go.

It’s also never been an inclination of hers to try and understand the Taken beyond knowing that she hates them and they scare the shit out of her. Less so, these days, due in no small part to the man in front of her—still, every time Asher starts ranting about neutrino particles and something something spatial disruption, she tunes it out.

She knows to point and shoot and how to do so effectively, and as far as the Taken go, that’s all she cares to know. “Um?”

“You think the Taken give a damn about what you think is possible, ghost?” He snickers at Glyph, head shaking and hands settling on the edge of the table behind him. Then, he nods at her. “What d’you think? Is the talkin’ pinball right?”

She glances uncertainly between the two of them. “I...have no idea?”

“Yeah, you do. You wouldn’t be so afraid of ‘em otherwise.”

Her back straightens. “I’m not—”

The look he gives her, head tilting and lip curling just enough to let her know he’s not buying her denial, shuts her up. Still reading her like a fucking book.

“You’re not scared of them.” She scoffs lightly and looks away.

“Anyone with any ounce of sense would be,” he replies breezily.

“Are you saying you’re insane?” Glyph’s tone has gone dryer than Mars sands. “Because that would explain a lot.”

The insult earns her ghost a bark of laughter. “Yeah, guess it would. Maybe I am! Everything I say and do, maybe it’s all a result of a guy gone whackadoo. Would that make you feel better, ghost?”

Glyph doesn’t answer.

She studies him with a furrowed brow; what kind of a person doesn’t challenge an accusation of mental instability? Especially one that’s clearly as intelligent as he is. Eccentric or not, there’s a difference between eccentricity and insanity in this kind of context, even if that gap is pretty gray.

Asher Mir is proof enough of that.

Drifter is weird and walks to the beat of his own drum, and there’s definitely a few things that can be said about using the Taken as chess pieces in a sport that falls just shy of the spectator variety, but it’s not insanity—he obviously knows how dangerous they are and understands them on a level she’s not sure even Ikora or Asher do.

What’s the point of his Gambit if not for reckless amusement? Does he actually get something other than entertainment out of guardans blurring the line between light and dark, detached from the dangers of it?

Maybe he’s not insane, but it’s not difficult to assume there’s some touch of madness to him.

“How’d it happen?”

She blinks, looking up and realizing he’s been watching her while her mind traveled. “How’d what happen?”

“Your fear,” he clarifies, the amused edge in his voice gone. He sounds more curious than anything. “The way you froze up that first match. Your reaction when I was givin’ your team the run-down. How’d that happen to a force of nature like you?”

Lost for words at the glowing compliment from a man who doesn’t seem too eager to hand those out freely, something warm and appreciative fills her chest. 

His implication doesn’t go unheard, either—most guardians come out of their first experience with the Taken shaken, but not traumatized to the point of freezing up in terror. He considers her tough-skinned enough to not respond to the enemy as she had.

Still, nice compliment (that makes two) or not, she’s not giving that story up without reciprocation. With a sigh, she joins him in leaning against the work table. “We’re not doing that.”

“Doin’ what? I’m just curious.” A shrewd smile appears on his face.

“Yeah, and so am I,” she replies, ignoring the blip of aggravated protest Glyph gives her. “If you want to get to know me, then I want to get to know you, because I don’t know a damn thing about you save for the fact you’re a prickly bastard that makes a hobby out of being suspiciously friendly.”

And the inexplicable ability to drag a genuine smile out of her at a time when they’re not coming easily. She’ll keep that one to herself.

His eyes, surprisingly blue now that she’s close enough to notice them, watch her quietly. It’s the same kind of studying gaze he’s given her every time he intentionally tests her will, but at the same time feels completely different in a way she can’t describe. “Alright,” he finally says, “ask somethin’.”

Damn. She hadn’t actually expected him to agree to the quid pro quo. “What’s your name?”

He snorts. “Ask somethin’ else.”

“That’s not how it works,” she huffs, punching him lightly on the arm.

“I say it is. You already got a name. Ask somethin’ else.” The aloof reply sounds forced even to her, like he’s trying to maintain the devil-may-care attitude and is falling short. There’s a warning hidden in it, too.

Frowning, she watches him lift a hand to scratch his jaw in a display of body language that she can’t decide how to interpret. It’s almost like discomfort, but that seems horribly out of place for him.

She ultimately decides against debating him on the demand; it’s tempting to point out that ‘Drifter’ isn’t a name so much as an occupation of sorts, but something in the set of his shoulders and the tick in his jaw under his smile stops her.

Acquiescing, unfortunately, leaves her without an idea of what to ask. He’s such a blank slate that there are a dozen different things she could ask, with every quirk and mannerism either contradictory or devoid of a telling nature, that leaves her aggravatingly indecisive.

Luke would know what to ask, if not for any other reason than his mouth tends to run faster than his brain sometimes.

She ends up shrugging in defeat. “Just tell me something about yourself?”

It looks like he wants to comment on the vague request, but he gives her a wry smile instead like he knows exactly why she had asked it.

Head tilting back and eyes lifting to the ceiling in thought, the seconds tick by in silence as he considers what she imagines is the least informative information he can give. “You ever been so hungry you’d settle for just about anythin’ to ease the ache?”

“Once or twice.” A fact which she’s thankful for. Glyph usually keeps small provisions on hand for her just in case field operations keep her out longer than planned because she’s got far more human-like physical requirements than her peers.

Ikora suspects it has something to do with the unusual circumstances of her existence, but, as with pretty much everything about her, the ultimate answer remains an open book and unsolved.

“Back in the Dark Age,” he says, and she makes note that he doesn’t or won’t look at her while he speaks and looks particularly sobered, “wasn’t a whole lotta food to go ‘round. Lotta people dyin’ left and right from starvation. Gettin’ killed over rations and supplies. Dog eat dog, that kinda thing.”

At this, she glances at Glyph, her earlier question and its simple but hauntingly poignant response thrown into an even sharper light.

Few guardians remember their life before being risen, even if they’re brought back into the world of the living with a personal item to identify themselves. Does he? “Were you one of them?”

“Probably. Only explanation I’ve got for why I’m so hungry all the damn time.” He sounds disgruntled, like it’s not the first time he’s gotten aggravated over the idea.

What would dying of starvation have to do with being alive as a guardian, though?

Her silent confusion draws his attention back to her, and he cocks his head to the side at the open bafflement on her face. “What, don’t you know how those things work?” He emphasizes the question with a nod in Glyph’s direction.

Its shell spins grumpily like it’s insulted Drifter has the gall to call it a ‘thing’. She’s a little insulted, herself, but she doesn’t voice it aloud.

Glyph can’t revive her, so she’s never thought to ask exactly how revival actually works for guardians. She has no idea what the answer to his question is, or if there even is one.

Under her scrutiny, Glyph tilts and drifts slightly, reading the request for clarification in her eyes and blinking in thought. “The Future War Cult,” it says, “they once hypothesized that ghosts can tap into alternate timelines like the Vex and that’s how we revive you. By pulling a template of you from a timeline where you didn’t die, and reassembling you from it.”

Oh, that’s not a hypothesis she imagines the City factions and leaders were pleased with. It makes her wonder if Lakshmi-2 isn’t the first head of the Cult.

“Provided their educated guess is right, there isn’t a single timeline I didn’t die of starvation,” Drifter adds with a slow drawl completely devoid of humor.

Her lips part with horror at the thought. The idea of dying like that as a human and not being free of its consequences as an immortal guardian, hundreds of years old… “I’m sorry, that sounds—”

“—you start pityin’ me, any kinda friendliness we got goin’ here ends,” Drifter cuts her off, gesturing sharply and giving her a hard look that makes her snap her mouth shut. “Got over all that hundreds of years ago. I’m alive. I’m gonna stay that way, any means necessary. That’s all that matters. Got me?”

He’s a lot more expressive when he’s alone, she realizes. The smug tone of voice is less overbearing, the mask of aloof cheer dropping for genuine emotion rather than a mask of indifference.

Maybe that, in and of itself, is a mask. She can’t tell.

He eyes narrow on him in contemplation; he mirrors the expression, leaning away from her as she continues to stare. “What?”

“Maybe it’s psychosomatic?”

He stares at her, then barks out a laugh as he catches up to where her thought process had gone. “Did you just call me psycho?”

“You said it, not me,” she points out with a smile.

The easy response, something she’s been getting better at where he’s concerned, has him sniggering. “Alright, brat, your turn.”

A quiet, choked noise sticks in her throat; that term had almost sounded fond to her ears. Like with the flirting, she’s got to be imagining it or it’s got to be him just trying to get under her skin.

The return to his initial question keeps her from thinking about it for too long, and her smile drops, boots shifting uneasily on the ground. The memories rolling about in her mind are different than voicing it aloud—every time she tries, it feels like she comes within a hair's breadth of summoning the dead Taken King just by association and sending herself into a panic.

But this time, it feels like she might finally be able to manage it.

“Botched mission on the Dreadnaught, before any of us really knew what the Taken were capable of,” she says, her fingers drumming on the edge of the table to alleviate the mild agitation building within her. “My fireteam was swarmed, team leader was killed…”

His eyes as well as Glyph’s are on her but she can bring herself to meet neither gaze, the heel of her boot on the deck replacing the tapping of her fingers. 

“I don’t know if it’s because of how different I am from other guardians or if it was just a fluke, but I got...a knight grabbed me and dragged me into the Ascendant Plane. I was stuck there for…” way too long. The quiet statement trails off, and she returns to the present when Glyph settles on her shoulder in an offer of comfort.

“And all the nasty things you can find there wanted a bite.” It’s not a question, but she nods anyway.

Silence surrounds them after that, oddly comfortable; it’s surprising he’s so patient considering his usual active and outgoing—in a sense—demeanor, but it’s like he can tell she needs the time to gather herself. The unease melts away as the seconds stretch on, and once it does she offers him a weak smile. “Thank you.”

He blinks at her. “For what?”

“Gambit’s helping me get over it. I don’t feel like a kinderguardian when I see them anymore. And—” she waves a hand vaguely, starting to mention that he’s also giving her an outlet for her anger and frustration after losing Cayde but holding it back and replacing it. “For listening. Or being willing to.”

Just like that, the obnoxiously smug grin is back in place, and he pushes away from the table. “Hey, what’d I say? You’ve got grit, it’s somethin’ I can appreciate. Somethin’ I’d hate to see you lose ‘cause the Vanguard wouldn’t know potential if it bit ‘em in the ass.”

She snorts, twisting to watch him as he moves back around to the other side of the table and returns to work on his project, muttering a mocking ‘sometimes ‘and how does that make you feel’ don’t cut it’ as he goes.

Glyph abruptly moves around to hover directly in front of her, making her recoil. “What’s your game, Drifter? What do you want with my guardian?”

“No game, ghost,” he replies, grasping a part of the cylindrical device and grunting as he rips it off, unceremoniously tossing it aside after. “Just happen to like her is all. She’s different from the rest.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re always up to something—you seem like you’re always up to something,” Glyph insists, the last part coming out quickly like a last-minute correction.

Huffing, Quinn lifts a hand under her ghost and it obediently follows as she coaxes it out of the way. “What do you mean I’m ‘different’? Aside from the obvious.”

“Among other things,” he says, without looking at her, “you’ve got what it takes to survive what’s comin’.”

The answer surprises both her and Glyph, for more than one reason in her case; what does he mean ‘among other things’? Their silence doesn’t prompt him to elaborate, and she stands, leaning forward on the table to force Drifter’s attention onto her. “What’s coming?”

“The Taken are kittens compared to what’s out there.” He tilts the canister upright and leans on it, giving her a long look.

For a moment she thinks he looks haunted, but it’s wiped away quickly by another friendly smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. She always gets the sense he’s hiding something—a lot of somethings—but this time he’s openly, deathly serious. His gaze flickers over her, and she holds her breath.

Then he returns to working on the device in front of him.

“Didn’t stop at the first Collapse, darlin’,” he eventually says, the cold certainty in his voice leaving her feeling chilled. “Another one’s comin’. I’ve seen it. Just a matter of when, and the Traveler’s light ain’t gonna be enough to stop it this time. Not sure anythin’ will be.”

[wyre-interactive]

Devlog - August 2017

I just can’t do one of these on time can I?

Note: Another change in the way GIFs/GFYs are handled, but this should be the last one. You should be able to now get a high quality .gif version as a preview, but it’s still recommended that you view the GFYCAT version linked under each gif for higher quality playback.

So as you might expect from us being a small indie team struggling to actually release a game, we’ve done a bit more work on the game we didn’t originally intend on doing much work on. A vast majority of the work we’ve done is on our still yet-to-be-named asymmetric FPS. For now we’ll just call it Asymmetry to make things easier. Also that’s always been the code name of the project from the start.

Asymmetry

Where do I even begin with what we’ve done with this game. How about I begin with where I began? With gameplay elements slowly expanding in what I needed to test, it was only obligatory that I made a map for the game. Now keep in mind that while this is definitely a concept for a map, it’s not final at all. Also some of the lighting hasn’t been properly built yet, so ignore the weird dark lines that you might see over some things. The map has been slightly altered as the month has gone on, so sorry if there’s not a huge amount of continuity in that regard.

The map is based in a warehouse, slightly inspired by that one Half-Life Deathmatch map with all the crates.

Here’s the shipping container model I needed to make for the map.

Overhead view. The overhead is shown whilst shit is loading in/inbetween rounds.

Also, as networking became more complex, it became obvious that I needed a menu to make everything work. I want to make sure it’s not like some games where you start a server and there’s a dice roll whether it’ll actually work or not, and I want to use a server browser as the main method of finding a server, but at the same time, I don’t want switching from a matchmaking system to a server browser too daunting.

I have a concept for the background which I’ll leave until later because it’s not super important, but for now, this is what it looks like;

Yes, we have a donation button in the top right at the moment, I’ll get to that in a bit.

Here’s the server browser system (this is a slightly earlier version but it conveys the concept).

(GIFV)

And yes, it goes up to 100 players. I’m not going to make it as encouraged in the final version, as I think 100 players is just going to be stupidly tedious. I’m probably going to have five different match sizes; 6 (tiny), 12 (small), 24 (normal), 32 (large), and 64 (massive), then I’ll have a custom option.

Now, let’s talk buisness model.

At the early release, I’m thinking of making it pay what you want on Game Jolt, with the recommended price being $3, just to cover the server costs (the Patreon should help too, good thing is the more popular it gets, the more people will pay, the more money can go into server costs). Then by full launch, probably on Steam, I’ll make it somwhere between $10-$20, depending on the amount of content by that point. And you might be thinking, “it’s a multiplayer game made in the last 10 years, what about all the cosmetics and shit?”. Well, whether you like it or not, you’re right, that’s probably a necessity. My theory is that people just won’t be able to stay invested in the game without that sort of aspect being involved. Also, with a small number of weapons it’ll become boring, so I’d like it if it got changed up a little. Here’s all you need to know on weapons and skins in the final game:

Firstly, all regular, unskinned weapons will be free and drop normally, and it will be impossible to obtain normal weapons in any other way.

Drop rates will be predictable. Probably something like one match a day.

You won’t be able to get a drop of a weapon you already have.

There will be seasonal weapons and weapons added every now and then, and these will just get added to the drop pool. The idea is that if you’ve played a lot and already have every weapon, you can just play for a few hours and get all the new ones without wasting time.

New players will automatically get an amount of randomly chosen weapons after their first match, the amount depending on how many weapons we have in the game and what feels balanced.

The only 100% confirmed cosmetic idea I have is weapon skins.

I’m also thinking about some other concepts, like “super skins” which would change the entire model, and animation packs to make the animations fit a style you like.

To begin with, we’ll sell the skins at a set price (probably under 60 cents each, because seriously any more than that and it’s getting ridiculous in my opinion).

Eventually, we may open the floodgates for people to sell their skins, etc. on the community market.

Fuck loot crates. I mean who wants to get a theoretical box for you to spend $2.49 on just to maybe get something you might want but probably something shit.

You can ask any questions through any of our contacts, or suggest shit in the same way.

Now, other than that thing, I have been doing/thing about some other things (what was that sentence?)

New reload animations, because they’re always fun;

(GFY)

(GFY)

I also did some work on dual pistols, but it was scrapped because it looked and worked like shit.

Here’s what all the reload animations look like ingame;

(GFY)

Yeah I’ll improve the hud shut up.

Now, I also now know what the base weapons will be in the final product.

On the attackers (the side with lots of people), you’ll have the following;

Pistol (what you’ve seen so far)

Shotgun

Assault Rifle

On the solo side, you’ll have these things;

Dual pistols (twice the ammo + fire rate of the regular pistol)

Double barelled shotgun

SMG (fires twice as fast as the Assault Rifle)

I’ve been thinking of having melee weapons eventually as well. Anyway, these will be in a simple groups. Namely;

Attackers

Pistols

Shotguns

Rifles

Solo

Akimbos

Heavy shotguns

Automatic weapons

These are placeholder names, they’ll probably be better by the time the game’s out. You’ll be able to equip one weapon per group before a match, then you’ll be able to choose what weapon you want each round in a match.

Oh yeah and hit detection works now mostly, but we’ll have two modes to choose from. The easilly-hacked-but-low-latency client side networking, or the difficult-to-hack-but-higher-latency server side networking. With two options, you can play with low latency if you’e playing a match with your friends, but you won’t have to worry about hacking when you’re playing with randoms. Now, for the record, we will try and implement some basic anti cheat on client side mode, like the server will pick up if the player is moving too far in a few seconds than what should be possible, and it’ll check ammo usage, etc, but there’s only so much you can do.

Anyway, moving on from that;

Side quests

Behold! The new section for updates on things that aren’t games, like the website, which just recently got a design update that you can see here! We also fixed some issues with Shift’s site here, so now it uses YouTube to host the video. Now while you’re on the newly updated site, you’ll notice some new buttons. That is all.

I also did some conceptual stuff for the story and mechanics of Overwritten and Reformatted, but that’s not the sort of thing I want to release.

Game Spotlights

Now, because I sometimes want to show off “AAA” games, I’ve renamed this to Game Spotlight(s). I still want to try to always have an indie game. Now, keep in mind indie means indie, not hidden gem. I can’t find a hidden gem every month.

First, an indie FPS by Pixel Titans published by Devolver earlier this year:

STRAFE

This game got slightly mixed reviews at launch, but I think it’s pretty great if you get it. Just leave a GB of space for this little game to play when you’ve got to pass a period of time too long for you to spend playing some casual game or browsing Reddit, but not long enough to spend playing a game for an hour or so. Actually that’s a terrible idea because you can’t save it although if you could it would be perfect for those times.

Next, and I’m not sure if this classifies as a AAA game or an indie game, but fucking hell I haven’t stopped playing it for months. Like months and months.

(Steam)

Killing Floor 2

A bit of an older one but fuck it I didn’t say I was going to provide new games monthly did I? I played a bit of this when it was early in early access (so early) and it wasn’t great. It had balance issues, didn’t have enough perks, was too far from the original, some perks didn’t have very streamlined upgrades (in fact Demolitions still doesn’t really). But now, it’s pretty brilliant. It doesn’t have the unmatched teamplay or combos from the original, but of all the wave based zombie-like-thing shooters on the market at the moment that aren’t dead, this is the best. Yes, better than L4D2. I reckon L4D2 isn’t all that great to be honest but hey.

(Steam)

[Also, not sponsored, but it’s on Humble Monthly this month for $12 along with 5 other unknown games if that suits your fancy]

Also, shout out to the minimalist Chrome theme which I made a while ago, but I never really said much about. I was sick of using darkish themes, so I made my own. Some call it stubborn, I call it Dark.Green. Get it here.

Anyway, that’s it for this month. See you next month, probably late.

Meanwhile I’ll keep playing Killing Floor 2 and stuff. cough cough probably spending money on the Bethesda sale on at the moment cough cough.

Thanks,

Dec_bot

[abandonedshoppingtrolley]

Okay for real on Mass Effect Andromeda

I’ve been digging at the game a lot lately and I know for die-hard fans they’ll defend it to the death but for me it’s just... it’s not up to standards. By no means is it a bad game, it is a good game with a good idea it’s just been executed so poorly. I have my moments in game where i genuinely enjoy playing, listening to the conversations between Vetra and Draack as I’m driving the Nomad you know? But little bits like that are supposed to be the icing on the cake, they’re not supposed to make me grip hold tight of them in hopes that’ll it’ll make me like the game or enjoy it.

Bioware is a good company they’ve made some good games through the year, with bugs here and there no denying it but they’ve been good and they’ve had a steady improvement over the course of their games too, slowly improving past bad decisions as they’ve gone on. (Still with glitches but mostly hilarious and just fun to laugh at). But this is a huge leap back for the company and I MEAN huge.

I’m not going to go into detail and all about it I just want people to understand that yes I think Bioware is a good company and yes I think ME:A is a good game and I don’t agree with people being personally attacked over this game. (SERiously over a freaking game?? Grow up). But this isn’t acceptable? They released a game that’s far from complete and continued to charge full price for said game. This game is full of bugs, glitches and unpolished textures from beginning to end and that’s unacceptable.

It’s like if a musician released a single and then decided to stop singing halfway through leaving on the instruments in the background, yes you’re getting the full 3 - 4 minutes of the music but you’re not getting the whole song. In a professional line of work it’s unacceptable to release work that’s unfinished, incomplete or not up to at the very least the average expected standards. This game is to the point where if it was any worse it’d be unplayable. I’ve been disconnected 3 times to do due to an error in game, lucky enough I already know the games bugging out so I save often (because i’m also aware there are a lot of points they don’t let you save in game).

I’ve had to reload because certain quest characters wouldn’t load, I’ve had enemies become completely invisible when they’re not supposed to and I’d still have to kill them (And they’re bodies wouldn’t reappear?) I’ve even had enemies load in later than they’re obviously supposed to when i’ve already entered their encampment, looted the place and let my guard down and die almost immediately. Honestly with most games I’d find that kind of thing hilarious, if it didn’t happen so often.

And yes there’ll be people who’ll say “well that didn’t happen to me” well count your blessings son and hope that continues cause there’s a bunch of other people who are pissed it keeps happening.

This isn’t a completed game and yes the company is trying to fix it through quickly pushing in patches but that’s still not acceptable. This should’ve been sorted out before we all paid £50 or what $60 for the game. These patches SHOULDN’T have to happen, heck if there are patches it should be most video games which involve increasing loading times or fixing the odd bug. Not having a company receive lots of emails/tweets telling them of all the bits they need to fix which they should’ve already been aware of. Yes it’s good they’re fixing it now and i commend them for doing so but for a big game company like bioware to release a title this unpolished is unacceptable. It would be for any big game company. I’d understand if it was made by a small team or it was an indie game but it’s not. It’s been in the works for 4/5 years now, it’s been made by a professional company but it’s not a professional up to standards game. That to me is unacceptable. It doesn’t show commitment, it doesn’t show drive and it doesn’t show they have the best interests at heart.

Running a company is hard, making a game is mega hard but they’re paid professionals. If they don’t do the job at a professional standard then they shouldn’t be paid at a professional standard like any job. Even if it’s difficult, even if it’s tough it’s their job.

[mistralrunner]

Trespasser Liveblog, Part 1: Ruins and Reunions

I decided to post my reactions to playing Trespasser with my Inquisitor, Menel Lavellan, cause why not. I watched @inner-muse​ play Trespasser with her Trevelyan when the DLC first came out, so I’m spoiled for a good portion of it, but considering I forgot things, didn’t read many of the codices, didn’t have the context at the time to notice some details, and my Inquisitor is rather different from hers, I’m hoping to be surprised by some things.

The game starts out swimmingly as Menel Lavellan’s face isn’t fully loaded and looks derpy for the opening scene. I reloaded.

Negotiations at Halamshiral are always a kind of punch in the face for a Lavellan

I’m so powerful and yet I still can’t get a Dalish homeland.

The march parade thing is two competent diplomats and Cullen, but his whining is very useful for exposition and probably getting the general Inquisition member pov.

Ahh the theme. Ahh the anchor. It’s really happening.

Mother Giselle: The Dales are finally recovering Menel: *knows he should be happy the shemlen aren’t suffering and somewhat is but considering their homes are on land stolen from his people* *is polite and gracious anyway*

I am so happy I get to reference that conversation about the Inquisition putting down their swords in game yesss. I have a fondness for that sort of thing.

Varric you are the best for negotiating a deal with Wycome’s council, especially with cities like Starkhaven around.

I’m honestly surprised they referenced Clan Lavellan’s fate since Inquisition did such a poor job of tying in character origins. Happy, but surprised.

All hail Viscount Varric he who does not wear the silly pointy crown

I wonder what happens if your Hawke took the Viscount position in DA2 though. Cause Tamara Hawke avoided that route like the plague.

I hesitated re: where to go next and then headed over to the tavern cause new songs. Who are these diplomats that I should probably be speaking to first?

I do not regret making Cole more human cause it made sense to Menel and also fit with Menel’s character arc but I do not ship this ship. It came out of nowhere and the implication that romance is a part of becoming human kind of rubs me the wrong way. It’d be nicer if they were just buddies roaming about making people happy. At least Menel’s reaction mirrored how weirded out I am.

Hehehe Menel you nerd distracting Bull are you even taking this seriously. The Veil as a vibration repelling the Fade part is interesting though given what’s to come.

I just realized Dalish and Menel have the same hairstyle. Huh.

Serraaaaa <3

Menel is no Jenny but he is there to be a friend always.

Sera’s journal is a mix of humor and feels as always. I do wonder how obvious Menel’s pain is to the general populace, and not just observant people like Sera. I headcanon Vivienne and her tailor fashioned formal attire for Menel that cloaked the glowing to some extent.

Josieeee my diplomat buddy

I’m so happy she takes a break and that she considers me enough of a friend to invite me.

Glad to see it’s still Leliana despite the silly new hat. Wanting to borrow Scout Harding to find more nugs, and not hiring anyone without first observing them in a room of baby nugs.

Why is there floating cheese?

It’s just hanging in the air near the palace entrance.

For context I should mention I headcanon that Menel was already in talks with Ferelden about disbanding the Inquisition and relocating members and Ferelden is covering it up by acting buffoonishly belligerent cause the Orlesians will absolutely believe that. Of course things are still tenuous cause the Inquisition has power and Ferelden is probably concerned they’ll be betrayed.

Arl Teagan: Redcliffe remembers its savior. Me: Which one?

Aww I can read Alistair’s letter in his voice wait what how dare you

"Someone, presumably His Majesty, has drawn a stick figure weighed down by an oversized crown at the bottom of the page."

I wonder if that letter is different with a warden romanced Alistair, since technically my canon is that @inner-muse’s Cousland and my Mahariel were wardens together and her Cousland becomes queen.

Oooh the landscape is so pretty.

And that makes Menel sad. Cause Halamshiral.

Fitting the journey ends here at the place named for journey’s end

DORIAN

PFFT CYRIL'S THE NEW DUKE OF CHATEAU HAINE PFFT

All references to Chateau Haine amuse me.

Ugh I really hate the reuniting Briala and Celene option. All the options stink but maybe I should have gone for the triumvirate instead. It was out of character to put a warmonger like Gaspard in power for Menel and I headcanoned that the romantically reuniting dialogue didn’t really happen and it was more like Menel and Briala cornered Celene politically but ugh. The commentary is disgusting even without what I know of The Masked Empire and is hard to listen to.

A fountain with Orlesian lions is such a great commemoration for a Dalish elf

Leliana's right next to a chessboard wow

That Leliana conversation was so good on so many levels. Bonus points for the hand focus

"You and I have come so far through the darkness together. It is time for us both to live in the light."

Thanks Leliana I didn't expect these feels

Now can you please please repeat this speech to Rhovan Mahariel

Pupppyy

I'm still angry we didn’t get a mabari. Menel respects the mabari's intelligence and finds it typical of Orlais to abandon one but doesn't understand my resentment

The line about how the mabari should know where they came from is so Dalish

I forgot the dog treats gave you a constitution bonus!!

My initial reaction to said bonus was tied between “Scary mabari magic” and “Honestly Menel will need it”

Dorian needs a hug

Aaaaah creepy purple smoke things even before the Eluvians that spooked me

Okay there are chessboards everywhere. Even more fitting considering who we’re seeing at the end of this DLC.

Spa day with Vivienne! Admittedly I headcanon Menel has full body vallaslin so seeing him in the swimsuit is weird. .

Hehe Sera in the background steals the show.

Glad to know Vivienne still ships Cassandra and Menel

Love how Leliana has her own guard, nice helmets too, oh they still have the same weird face belt thing as Sebastian

I had a weird feeling about that guy and he vanished right in front of me in creepy smoke like the last one

Saved talking to Cassandra for last. I know what Varric tells her in the case of other romances, but would he really lie about a proposal in this case?

Probably

Casssaaaandraaa she’s so adorable when startled and would probably kill me if I said so

Seriously Varric. Not surprised at all, but seriously.

The awkward silence was excellent.

I really like how this was handled. Cause this is not the right time, they’re busy with their respective duties, Menel is increasingly concerned about the state of his hand, and an Orlesian council isn’t really that romantic to either of them, and they both recognize it and accept that.

But her line about not even the Maker can keep her away coming from Cassandra

You know, Varric technically wasn’t wrong. Cause a quasi proposal did kind of happen in the sense of a conversation about are you okay with a proposal sometime in the future

Okay meeting time, which is clearly not going to be interrupted.

Really Teagan those comments about the wardens were unnecessary

The exile meant that there were very few wardens to combat the Blight, which by the way nearly destroyed your country about a decade ago as opposed Sophia Dryden messing things up hundreds of years ago.

I get we have a tenuous secret arrangement but slandering the wardens is not the way to cover it up.

I kind of just want the Hero of Ferelden to barge into the Council cause that would be hilarious.

Also Menel seriously in pain and struggling to cover it up during these tense talks and Josie's look of concern

Nice, this time they actually have guards blocking off the area rather than just no one noticing the obvious bloodstains in the Winter Palace

Eluvian!

*Rhovan Mahariel’s furious screeching in the distance*

*touches the glass and it makes a fun splooshing noise and pretty light effects* *touches again*

Rhovan “DON’T TOUCH THE GLASS TAMLEN” Mahariel is so done right now

The Crossroads is so much prettier as an elf all the colorsss

I don't have to fight the guardian spirits I am so happy. I could only parse some of the elvish but I feel like it’s cheating to look up an official translation if there is one?

We can't imagine why the Qunari think the Inquisition is in cahoots with Fen'Harel it can't possibly be because the Inquisitor talked to the spirit guardians activated by an agent of Fen'Harel and they attacked the Qunari but let the Inquisitor pass

Huh Vivienne is the first to suggest the Fen'Harel as the deceiver thing is propaganda, fitting considering she knows courts

Constant glowingggg Anchor yes

Sera: The Dalish. Are going. To shit themselves. Menel, a Dalish: ...

Cullen shut up Josie's job is important

I'm so sorry Josie. Our plan is falling apart and I'm not helping. You’re so talented but you should not be carrying this weight alone.

Where is the Tirashan where elves like Sentinels supposedly are

I forgot how much I love Cole’s cryptic lyrical statements. All the alliteration makes me happy.

“Your hand hurts. A heartbeat, not yours, hammering the beat of a song in its final verse. I’m sorry.”

“The spirits have fled, flying, fluttering, fast to the farthest Fade. They’re afraid of the Veil tearing again. ”

Also not concerning at all, nope.

Glad to see Sera still ships Menel and Cassandra, even if her humor is admittedly crude.

"Elf-loovians" pfft

Sera: Are you all right with it? The...Creators? Menel: I don't think I am, Sera. Sera: I...don't know words that fix things. But you have friends. We're real. Please remember that.

Excuse me as I cry

Aaaah Sera says the Jenny near Wycome says my clan is doing well aaaaah

Eluvian, part II!

I already know it’s the Deep Roads, so looks like I’m bringing Varric along!

I am really intrigued by this Dalish elf writing these notebooks, and also the fact that there was another misplaced Dalish in Kirkwall besides Merrill and Feynriel’s mother. Admittedly Merrill didn’t really engage much with the alienage community until much later.

I really do appreciate the Qunari ingenuity in finding people who know things and extracting information and then building upon it. The independence and unwillingness to cooperate with anything they don’t control not so much.

Yeah the Fen'Harel and Mythal in cahoots thing is unnerving to Menel. Also it’s been two years and the Well of Sorrows failed to mention anything about that until now? And elfy ruins underground feels so wrong.

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 344: Bandor II (1992)

That’s a lazy title graphic.

                Bandor II

United States

Magic Lemon (developer and publisher)

Released as shareware in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 26 October 2019

Date Finished: 28 October 2019

Total Hours: 14

Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

           I was willing to give some credit to Bandor: The Search for the Storm Giant King (1992) for at least having the originality to try to clone the Gold Box instead of Ultima, Dungeon Master, Wizardry, or any other title that we’ve seen dozens of times. All that good will is gone with Bandor II, which differs so little from Bandor that it feels more like a remake than a sequel–albeit a remake in which very little is actually remade except trivial graphics and interface changes.             

And let’s not over-emphasize those graphics upgrades.

         In the original Bandor, you controlled a party of four adventurers set loose in the titular city to take quests from the council and its chief wizard, Osi. Both games draw heavily from Pool of Radiance in the nature of the plot and quests; for instance, a mysterious warlord organizing monsters in the slums, and someone poisoning a nearby river. In the first game, the city’s woes were revealed to be the machinations of the Storm Giant King, whose defeat ended the game well before I’d completed all the side quests. Here, the game begins with new ills facing the city, including word that the Storm Giant King has returned. Bandor II is subtitled “The Wrath of the Storm Giant King” on some external sites, but the subtitle is never given on a game screen or within the game files.            

Bandor is having more problems.

          I tried to import my characters from the first game but couldn’t figure it out, so I created brand new ones. Classes are warrior, thief, mage, friar, rogue (warrior/thief), and jack-of-all-trades (warrior/thief/mage). Races are human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, and half-dwarf, with only the mongrels able to be jacks-of-all-trades. Attributes are strength, magic, and luck, given as percentages from 0 to 100. Everyone begins with axes and leather armor. Spellcasters have spellbooks that (annoyingly) must be swapped into the weapon slot when you actually want to cast a spell.             

I was uninspired during character creation and chose an uninspiring name.

            The game re-uses the three 40 x 40 maps from the first title: the city of Bandor, the forest, and the underworld (slums) to the city’s east. The underworld has a teleporter to a fourth map, titled “Landthi’s Lair,” which makes no sense until you reach the final encounter. The city map is entirely wasted. The huge space has only a few shops and no special encounters.

This was a huge waste of time.

          A large city council building in the center doles out quests. There are only 5 in the game:             

Retrieve a bottle of Elixir of B’Tet from the Fortune Teller in the slums; bring it back to the wizard Osi. The Fortune Teller has you rescue her brother, the guildmaster, from a group of bandits before she hands over the elixir.

          The Fortune Teller has a sub-quest.

          Investigate unexplained deaths in the city slums near the old Temple of B’Nah. This turns out to be former acolytes of B’Nah attempting to resurrect him. One combat clears this quest.

            Getting rewarded back at the city council chambers.

            Find out who’s poisoning the River Quoth. It turns out to be a dragon.

Investigate the return of the Storm Giant King and find out who is behind his return.

             The council issues the main quest of the game.

          Only the last quest is necessary to win the game, and depending on your exploration pattern, it’s entirely possible that you’ll stumble on that quest first.

Bandor featured three major problems, none of which is fixed in Bandor II:

1. No inventory improvements. From your starting axes and leather armor, you can use your gold to buy slightly better items like long swords and plate armor. Once you have those, there’s nothing else. No upgrades are found during adventuring, or as quest rewards. This means there’s no purpose to the economy except healing and resurrections.               

There’s hardly anything worth buying here.

           2. A horrible mouse-only interface. I hated the mouse-driven interface of both games. Actions require too many clicks; there are no alternatives to clicking; and clicking even slightly away from the center of your target produces a question mark, a pause, and a noxious noise that made me want to punch a kitten. The worst part is that this game was supposed to feature a keyboard interface, and it technically does. But it’s bugged and broken, failing to read your input about half the item. Worse, you have to choose one or the other during configuration. Good games have redundant commands active at the same time.             

Graphics haven’t improved. I don’t know what this was supposed to be.

             3. Too many combats with too few tactics. Bandor tries to emulate the Gold Box combat system but only offers a handful of spells (admittedly, its “Fireball” analog is about as much fun as “Fireball” without being quite so over-powered) and eliminates useful features like backstabbing, delaying, and guarding. Worse, it often puts the party in extremely narrow corridors where only one character can fight and spellcasters can’t cast over their heads because they must have an uninterrupted line-of-sight to the enemy. Random combats are programmed to come along something like every 20 moves, and I found it less annoying to save the game, quit, and reload (which restarts the counter) than to fight all of them.              

Fighting bandits in confined conditions.

          To these inherited problems, Bandor II maddeningly introduces another:

4. No ability to level up until late in the game. If you visit the guild early in the game, you can’t get in. A message on the door indicates that the guildmaster has gone into the slums to investigate the problems there. You have to rescue him from bandits before he’ll return to the guild and train you. But the bandit encounter is so deep in the slums, you could easily do this quest last, or not at all.           

This doesn’t happen until it’s so late you hardly need it.

         The only thing to unarguably improve is the automap, which no longer forgets your progress and clearly annotates physical features like doors and uncrossable foliage.             

A growing automap of the final area looks a bit like Ultima Underworld’s.

            Of the maps, the outdoor forest is the most annoying. It is essentially linear, with trees, bushes, and water blocking any attempt to create your own exploration pattern. In short order, you find a magic staff, talk to a druid who is only able to contact you through the staff, and then fight a dragon to destroy the threat to the city’s water supply. Random battles against ogres and giant rats are more dangerous than the “boss” battle in the area.             

This time, it’s a three-headed dragon instead of a sorcerer named Yarash, but the idea is the same.

           The slums serve up more giant rats and ogres, along with bandits, fire beasts, and “black servants.” (Nothing like a message saying, “You hit the black servant” to test my liberal sensibilities.) Buildings within this area hold the encounters necessary to solve all quests except the Storm Giant himself.              

Threatened by Benson.

            The undead Storm Giant King is found through a portal. He attacks after a bit of exposition with two black servants, and again the combat is easier than some of the random ones found in the same area.          

The Storm Giant King, just like Tyranthraxus, doesn’t know when to stay dead.

            After he’s defeated, you can enter an inner sanctum and find the wizard Landthi, brother of Osi. He takes the credit for raising the Storm Giant King and then attacks with no minions, making the final battle one of the easiest.

The villain delivers his exposition.

The final battle against Landthi in a corner.

            Once you defeat Landthi, Osi apparates in and says that Landthi still lives . . . somewhere. He thanks you for your service and ends the game.            

Maybe we’d like to be heroes of some other city next time.

         I gave the original Bandor 26 points on the GIMLET. Since its sequel uses a near-identical interface, mechanics, and plot, I’m inclined to give it the same thing–minus 2 points for “character creation and development” since you can’t develop for most of the game. I guess I’d also subtract a point for “encounters,” since this game had the same unmemorable foes as the first but without the handful of non-combat encounters that I noted in my review.

If I can say one good thing about Bandor II, it’s that magic and physical combat are well-balanced. You can’t win with just a melee party, but spells aren’t quite the deus ex machina that they are in the Gold Box series. There are only a few of them, and while none of them ever stop being useful (e.g., “Sleep” doesn’t stop working against higher-level foes), they also have logistical concerns that prevent the mage from wiping the floor with every enemy party. For instance, enemies have a chance of dodging spells, you have to be in a line-of-sight to cast them (no other party members blocking), and the spellcaster cannot be in melee range of an enemy.

           Blasting the Storm Giant King with a “Fireball.”

      ��    Still, unless Bandor III (1993) offers a significantly different experience, I won’t be sad if it never surfaces. We’ll see author Don Lemons’ other work with Shadowkeep I: The Search (1993) and The Infernal Tome (1994).

We’ll check in with Camelot next, after which I’ll either take another stab at The Magic Candle III or move on to Challenge of the Five Realms. 

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-344-bandor-ii-1992/

[backslashn]

Cultist Simulator, Day 3

Continued from Day 2

12:26 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Got my complaints about Cultist Simulator's user experience, but I'll say this: it hasn't crashed once in 25 hours of play.

12:57 PM - 3 Jun 2018

RIP Elridge. The Lanterns will guide you beyond the Mansus.

Elridge, skilled in the Edge aspect, had seen us past countless enemies on expeditions, and captured or dispatched at least half a dozen Hunters who imperiled us. But this time he never returned, and the Hunter remains.

1:08 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Oh no, we're fucked. After Elridge failed, I sent Victor after the Weary Detective too.

Victor has not returned.

Fuck.

1:16 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I am hiring Professional Muscle now to deal with this tenacious Hunter. I ought never to have risked my Disciples on such mundane errands.

I have learnt this harsh lesson now, but too late.

1:37 PM - 3 Jun 2018

And now the Professional Muscle also has failed to return! Has the Weary Detective defeated him too, or merely bribed him? Does it matter?

I, too, am Weary: of this Hunter and his seeming imperviousness. But I have no more earthly forces to send after him.

And so I shall have to use Unearthly force.

I have summoned a demon of Edge and Winter. This detective will not survive. Of this I am certain.

3:05 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Did the demon seek to twist my words and subvert my commands? The detective still lives. But captured, now. I shall leave him sweltering in my dungeons.

3:07 PM - 3 Jun 2018

While one weary detective lies shuddering and forgotten in a blind cell, another has arisen to trouble us.

What ardour drives these fellows? Why do they recklessly ignore the fate of their forebears? With a sigh, I send my demon out on the errand again.

This one did not survive. My demon returned grinning, matched by the rictus of the detective's corpse.

3:33 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I have rearranged my cards so I can see what Lore I am missing, and what Lore I can upgrade or subvert. And also to align the many Tools and Ingredients I have with the Lore of the same Aspect.

And only now do I realise that they are colour-coded by their Aspects.

Another thing I've learned recently: send demons away on expeditions, they're really good at dealing with obstacles 😅

3:44 PM - 3 Jun 2018

But not quite good enough.

O my arch-demon of Edge and Winter! O slayer of Hunters and devourer of shins! O ice-cold eyes and frozen heart! You have vanished in the forest, and gone wherever lost demons go.

3:58 PM - 3 Jun 2018

And what became of the detective I imprisoned? I woke one night whelmed in exotic cravings. An urgent need to speak with the prisoner. All through the night we talked: debating, reasoning, arguing. When dawn came my mind was once more at rest—and the prisoner no more to be seen.

4:06 PM - 3 Jun 2018

And the second demon I sent on the expedition? It also failed to return. These vertiginous blundering diaboli are as useless as my feeble craving disciples. If they had not already perished, I would vent my wrath upon them now!

The funniest thing about that is I only sent them on the expedition because it was there, and because I could. I didn't have any need compelling me to. 😂

4:10 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I have now learnt a fifth dead language: Phrygian. Three books written in it are awaiting translation.

Meanwhile I dream through the Stag's Door in search of powerful Influences; and continue my slow and painful exegesis of the lesser Lores in search of the key to the next door.

4:43 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Another weary detective is dogging my steps, somehow tirelessly. I hired a hulking fellow to go bother him, but without much hope of success.

Yet the fellow returned, bearing a body.

4:45 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Now I begin a newly-learned rite: I am calling on the Cartographer of Scars to animate the thing into shambling half-life. Perhaps it will be useful for odd jobs around the house.

4:53 PM - 3 Jun 2018

The rite failed. The corpse arose, but could not be controlled. Not allowing myself to panic, I used my intellect to banish it.

The rite was a failure, but nothing of value was lost. Perhaps my next attempt will succeed better.

5:09 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I tried to summon another Maid-in-the-Mirror to take on dangerous tasks. The ritual wavered; I continued the invocation more passionately, but to no avail. The creature is loose. It seeks something mortal to devour. I may have only seconds left.

5:13 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I am spared! It whispered past me, fluttering through the air in search of sustenance. Of all the disciples it could have taken in its jaws, it has chosen the most powerful, who was deepest initiated into our mysteries. It has taken Cat Caro, my Seer, and is devouring her.

I shall have to get the health and safety inspectors in to see if there's a better way of containing these demons. I can't afford to lose disciples like this: what would become of my cult without followers?

(This is actually a very significant loss: there are very few followers who are able to be promoted to Seer. Cat Caro was one; another perished in an expedition before I had discovered the ceremonies to uplift Seers. There is one more: my last Seer. I hope he lives.

5:21 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Wait, what is this? The demon has been entrammelled again, and banished. And Cat Caro lives! What occulted power does she wield?

And here I was thinking "Seer" was not much more than a ceremonial title.

6:12 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Grinding, grinding, grinding.

Upgrading and subverting lore to try to find the one I need.

Passing the time by summoning more demons and hiring more thugs, and sending them on expeditions.

It's all quite tedious.

Who'd have thought being a cult leader would be so unglamorous?

6:22 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Have I said much about the writing in Cultist Simulator? It's rich and intense, even though it's not drenched in words as Sunless Sea was. Not a full buffet, but a platter of delectable treats.

6:48 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Cultist Simulator protip: if you ever feel stuck and don't know what to do next, do the ritual to summon one of these:

It won't actually give you any clues, but maybe the summoning will go wrong and you'll end up with a different problem to distract you 😈

7:36 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I have uncovered a new source of vitality that had hitherto been hidden. It's of uncertain reliability and takes a somnolent quantity of time to pursue, but may be of value if utilised on top of the usual fresh air and exercise.

At around the same time, I chanced upon a marvelous, delicate technique that can preserve a little vitality far beyond its normal duration!

Using all these things in concert, I have succeeded in increasing my health to a robust five. I fancy I can increase it at will in future.

Even more vital than that, I have—after long and arduous research and cross-referencing—discovered the entrance to the Spider Door. I wonder what biquadrupedal revelations are preserved beyond it?

9:23 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I have found my way from the Spider Door to the Peacock's Door. "The Peacock's Door does not open, exactly." What, exactly does it do?

I am afraid to find out.

9:47 PM - 3 Jun 2018

I've encountered a bug in Cultist Simulator about five times: if autosave happens to kick in while a window is being opened or closed (it was Talk this time, but happened with many), then the game stops responding to mouse clicks. Have to save then reload to fix.

In more detail: when the bug happens, the window (if it was opening) disappears. And the game doesn't stop responding to mouse clicks entirely: it just thinks every mouse click is for info on something in the window, so just shows an info window.

So I can't click on any cards, or pan around the desk, or anything like that.

The HUD still works, so I can save & quit. Then when I reload the game, it loads with the window in question visible, and everything's back to normal.

9:56 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Anyway, bugs aside…

I've got a pretty strong team for this expedition, although it seems they forgot to bring matches.

10:07 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Odd. My hireling and my demons came back from that expedition with their timers rounded up to the nearest minute: two of them were back to their full 180s timers, one at 120s, and one (that had been close to expiry) at 60s.

10:20 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Oh no. I'm fucked, aren't I?

10:30 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Maybe… maybe not? "I Am Seeing Things" finishes collecting the third Fascination in 3.6s. Meanwhile my desperate dreams of Reason have led me into nightmares, which will deliver a Dread in 6s. Will that be what I need?

And right this instant the Moth principle has served up a Restlessness for old unhappy far-off things: which in another 60s will decay into Dread too.

Maybe, just maybe, I can survive the Visions? I am about to unpause and find out.

10:33 PM - 3 Jun 2018

In 1.9 seconds my Dream will end, delivering the Dread I need just in time. I'm not dead yet, thank the Hours.

I will still need to find at least one more dread. Time for more reasonable dreams—and hope they don't end in Fascination. It was one such not very long ago that supplied the second Fascination for those visions, in fact! 😱

10:41 PM - 3 Jun 2018

The crisis is over, but the danger is not yet abated.

Even as I dream, I continue my translations from Fucine (the sixth dead language I learned, the language of witches) as my minions pursue their expedition in The Rending Mountains (three thousand mile—or was it years?—away).

I guess I should count myself lucky that this was the first time my Visions had encompassed three Fascinations.

And even more lucky that the Moth principle turned up (I'm not sure where from) with that Restlessness while the Visions were rising, and that my Dreams rolled the Dread I needed.

All in all, that's the closest I've come to death in about 35 hours of play (yes, this is still my first game of Cultist Simulator).

From what others have told me of their games, death usually comes much more often, and much sooner.

10:59 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Well, I'm still trying to get more Dread, and meanwhile another Fascination has turned up. So I'm back to two! 😢

11:01 PM - 3 Jun 2018

And another Moth has flown by, delivering another Restlessness. There is something more than chance at work here, I am sure of it.

11:06 PM - 3 Jun 2018

While I was working on the Visions crisis, yet another Hunter turned up on my tail. I ignored him for a while, since my minions were busy and I had more important things to worry about.

But he's still there now, and I was about to send a nasty demon after him—but first I looked up other ways to get Dread [yes, 35 hours in I'm okay with looking up the odd tip], and turns out—I'd even done this earlier in the game but forgotten!—that talking to a Hunter about Winter lore has a chance to terrify them. And doing so will always produce Dread. Bingo!

11:14 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Oh dear. I was so caught up with the Visions, that I failed to pay attention to my Affliction getting worse. It has now matured into Decrepitude, decreasing my health.

Fortunately I know of a ritual that can help here…

11:15 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Haha, my latest dream of Reason has also descended into a nightmare which will produce Dread. I'm going to have too much of it 😅

At least the odd Dread is easy enough for an artist to deal with.

Right, that's enough talking specifics of the game. Back to vagaries!

11:34 PM - 3 Jun 2018

So I managed to dispel those Visions, but more have arisen. And the rite to defeat my decrepitude is feeding them.

Whoops.

Maybe that excess of Despair I have is also lucky! 😂

11:35 PM - 3 Jun 2018

Oh wait…

These new Visions are of a different sort. Something I've never encountered before. Something I don't begin to understand.

1:03 AM - 4 Jun 2018

I have passed the Peacock's Door. I have seen the Worm Museum and the Red Church. I have learnt a sixth dead language, although perhaps one that does not die: "Before gods arose from blood, before ever ape stood upright, this was the language heard in the House of the Sun."

1:10 AM - 4 Jun 2018

The slowest and painfullest grind in Cultist Simulator is the Lore upgrade. Six 30-second stages, three of which demand a perishable resource—Erudition or Glimmering—or Reason. If you can't meet the demands of each stage as it arises, you usually fail and must start over.

It's definitely easier to obtain Lore from books, if you can find them, and if you can read them. But high level Lore is rare even from books.

And it's never been clear to me which Lore I'm actually going to need: so I'm trying to get the highest level of each. Perhaps overkill.

2:43 AM - 4 Jun 2018

Whoa whoa whoa! I have just discovered that you can PREDICT when things like Despair and Visions are coming up in the next minute.

Click on the Time tile and the next thing due is shown on the right hand side! My mind is blown.

And it only took me 40 hours of playing to notice!

5:12 AM - 4 Jun 2018

I just summoned my first Percussigant, and its description made me laugh aloud.

I'm not telling you what it was: you're going to have the joy of discovering it for yourself. 😄

5:22 AM - 4 Jun 2018

I've hit another huge plateau. For I-don't-know-how-long I've been pretty stuck. I've passed the time with expeditions and upgrading Lore as much as I can, but I'm not making forward progress towards anything.

I want to try to find the Tricuspid Gate, but haven't a clue how to get there. The Peacock Door doesn't seem to lead there, cause the only cards I can use with the Peacock Door just take me to the Mansus.

There's two other hints of something I'm missing: I have discovered just one book in yet another dead language, but no idea where to learn how to translate it.

And I found a Gold Spintria, but have no possible use for it. Oh, except as a mediocre ritual ingredient I guess.

I can't believe this is still going on in Day 4

[swipestream]

Celebrating Memorial Day… With Zombies!

On this Memorial Day, when we stop to pay our respects to the fallen, I think it’s apt to remember the veterans of a wholly different war, a war in which the fallen got back up and began wandering around, looking for people to eat. I present to you: THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

Z Nation is yet another low budget SyFy series, this time about a group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse who wander the country fighting zombies. Well, what the hell were you expecting?

The most surprising thing about Z Nation is that it is better than The Walking Dead. TWD might have the production values, and better actors, but Z Nation doesn’t have the luxury of wasting time for an entire season. It has to entertain the audience every episode, and by gum and by golly, that’s what they try to do. The plots are sometimes ludicrous, the new zombie breeds which pop up are occasionally eye rolling, but they kill zombies every episode and work their asses off to make it entertaining.

One episode features a caravan of vehicles being attacked by a new breed of fast zombies while bandits try to steal one of the convoy’s vehicles. The main characters crawl along the outside of the tractor-trailer in the vanguard, shooting bandits and zombies, being forced back as the zoms jump on the truck and come after our heroes. As should have happened, many a zom is splattered by the 18-wheeler’s wheels. The action is clearly shot, and the chase suitably entertaining, so it works.

Then there’s the episode that features multiple mercenary groups having a shootout in a small town, all the while creating new zombies from their competitors or releasing old ones someone wisely locked away behind closed doors. People get blown away or blown up, eaten by zombies, or just turn zom and start chomping on those what done them in. The main characters have to sneak through the mess, pursuing the same target as the mercenaries, a man they’ve dragged across the country, just to have him escape.

Every episode is packed full with a maximum of zombie killing action, or other kinds of kinetic entertainment, and a minimum of talky-talky bits. Zombies get shot down, blown up, piked by a spiked aluminum baseball bat (later upgraded with electricity), or just stabbed in the cranium. After each kill, the survivors say “I give you mercy”, a small reminder to honor the person the zombie once was.

I’m not claiming this is great or legendary television, it’s no Justified or Firefly, but it is earnest, entertaining, and for fans of the zombie genre, well worth watching.

State of Decay 2 is not nearly so entertaining. A sequel to 2013’s zombie apocalypse open world sandbox base management game on Xbox Live, the developers have gone the unusual step of listening to fan’s complaints and fixing nearly every one. Tired of playing on the same map over and over? BAM, SoD2 gives you three! Tired of people in your settlement running off every five minutes and getting themselves et by zombies? BAM! Now they stay in place, doing useful things back at base. Tired of getting charged “Influence” to pull out a few bullets to save the entire settlement from a zombie horde? BAM! Now there’s no charge to fill your pockets with sweet zombie killing lead.

They removed most of the annoyances, but they also removed most of the heart. State of Decay had a story. A thin story, but it ran through the entire game and made all your searching for supplies and building bases and killing zombies mean something. Your actions saved people. People you hated turned into allies, people you thought friends became bitter enemies, and through it all more and more secrets of the zombie plague killing the citizens of Trumbull Valley were revealed.

State of Decay 2 has no story. Most of the main quests are procedurally generated and quickly become highly repetitive. Each type of leader—Warlord, Trader, Builder, or Sheriff—has a unique series of events culminating in an epic final showdown, but none of them feature recurring NPCs, either as allies or protagonists. They’re pretty much just another set of procedurally generated missions, not notably more involving than those that were actually generated at random.

The gameplay can be fun, but usually it’s just kind of grindy. Here’s why it can be entertaining:

I’m on a routine mission, like the dozens of others I’ve already completed, and I’m running zombies over with my truck (preparatory to dismounting and killing a special zombie). Then something goes wrong with the truck, and I’m stuck. Zombies start tearing doors off my vehicle. I get dragged out of the driver’s seat by a zombie and dumped on the ground. Just then, another mob of 8 zombies show up and surround me. “I’m dead,” I say. Then I dodge away from a score of grasping hands, and start running backward, pot shotting zombies in the head with my last 10 bullets. I kill all but three, and have to take them on with my sword that’s already breaking. It breaks while I’m chopping limbs off the zeds, and I have to kill the last zom with the screwdriver in my pocket. (This really happened during play, exactly as described.)

These kinds of chaotic moments are nerve-wracking fun, but for all its flaws, the original State of Decay was better at providing them. Most of the fun of the first game was in sneaking across the city, avoiding zombies because even one could prove a difficult fight that might draw in more and more, quietly entering buildings and rummaging through boxes, drawers, and crates to scavenge a handful of bullets or a packet of potato chips. It was tense, and that’s why it was fun.

At any moment your character could die without hope of restoration (no reloading previous saves), meaning all the time invested in leveling up his skills had now gone to waste and your settlement might be forced to depend on a different character who might be injured or falling asleep on his feet, hence simply incapable of fighting a zombie or fleeing from one. Yet they’re the only character you have, and your base is short on food and meds, meaning the people are starving and getting sick, so someone has to go out into the ruined city crawling with Z’s…

The second game is just not as tense, just not as nerve-wracking, and that leeches most of the challenge and enjoyment from the game. I played State of Decay a lot, and unfortunately its successor doesn’t seem to have the same staying power. Even with the Legacy bonuses (permanent bonuses provided to later settlements, if you beat the game) and persistent characters (you can pick up to three survivors from previous games to start a new game with. Of course, if they die they’re gone forever.) These do add replay value, but not enough to compensate for flat, uninvolving, and repetitive gameplay. (Or the bugs. So many bugs, but not as much as the first game.)

Z Nation is consistently entertaining, State of Decay 2 only entertaining in spurts, and then only for a short length of time. In a zombie to zombie deathmatch, Z Nation wins hands down.

Jasyn Jones, better known as Daddy Warpig, is a host on the Geek Gab podcast, a regular on the Superversive SF livestreams, and blogs at Daddy Warpig’s House of Geekery. Check him out on Twitter.

Celebrating Memorial Day… With Zombies! published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[thelongestdamnreviews]

Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol is a game I've had for a while.  I bought it through Gamersgate several years ago for I think $3 and it's been a little cheaper on Steam in the past.  Due to not having it on Steam, I can't really guess how long the game took me to finish, but it felt pretty long.  Despite recommendations to use keyboard and mouse for hacking, I used an Xbox 360 controller for the entire game, puzzles and all.  True to it being an Obsidian game, I had a few issues with it, but nothing severely got in the way of my enjoyment of the game.  I went with a focus on pistols and hacking with a little bit in stealth.  

You're Michael Thorton, secret agent of a government facility that doesn't officially exist.  Let's go to Saudi Arabia to disrupt a terrorist plot and ultimately kill their leader!  Don't worry, it's not as easy as it sounds.  True to spy fiction, not everything is as it seems and there's a lot that a rookie like you aren't privy to.  At first.  You get to visit Rome, Taipei, and Moscow too if you’re fortunate enough to survive the Middle East.  

Perfect!  You can even make a proto-Jensen with the limited options, like...

...this.  

AP is much like Deus Ex in that it tries to blend RPG with another genre, this one being third-person shooter.  As you complete objectives and deal with enemies, you get EXP and level up, gaining points you can put in a number of skills.  Each skill costs a specific amount of points to level up, and there isn't a gradual increase--Shotguns will always take 5 to increase, while Toughness will always take 4, for example.  Each point on the skill list confers some bonus so there aren't 'empty levels' of a sort.  You might cut the time to focus a Critical Hit down in one level, increase the damage in another, and gain a new power in a third.  Though you are given a small list of histories as prebuilt skills, you are actually able to put your points however you see it...and the game will actually acknowledge your chosen history at points during the game.  There are a variety of perks to earn too, such as minor ones granting an additional point of damage to hand-to-hand because you've used it so much, to having cooldowns on your powers reduced due to how you talked to a specific individual. 

 Powers work on cooldowns as opposed to being tied to energy.  Overclock boosts the damage and area of effect of the next grenade you use, Room Sweep makes the shotgun crit on every shot for a few seconds, Shadow Operative makes you literally invisible so long as you don't attack or start jogging...  Investing in the trees further boost the duration and reduce the cooldown of these powers, sometimes adding additional benefits too like Master Shadow Operative letting you jog and takedown enemies without breaking stealth.  

Hacking #1:  Actual hacking.  All but the string of letters that match what I need to find constantly scramble.  And this is actually an easy example.  

Alpha Protocol is also "Event Flags: The Game" because of the number of things the game keeps track of through the course of your adventure.  Not only is your history mentioned, but how you've treated characters in the past, and when the game opens up, the order you take your missions has an impact too.  The game won't dramatically change, but there is potential for replay value.  I largely got on the good side of most characters and spared almost everyone when I had the option to kill them (but not mooks because screw them), so on a future run, I'm going to do the opposite as best I can.  Piss off as many people I can while killing them when I have the chance.  

Hacking #2:  Alarms.  Trace the connectors to the nodes and clip them starting from 1.  This example’s a medium-difficulty puzzle.  

The game takes a unique approach with dialog.  Because Michael is something of a manipulator, you are given three response choices during specific points--Suave like Bond, Aggressive like Bauer, or Professional like Bourne.  What's unique is that you have only a few seconds to react--you cannot pause and you cannot stand there for two minutes mulling over what to say next, and you are not given samples of what Michael will say other than something that fits the vague descriptor on your choices.  There are times when there is a fourth option, or times when there are only two.  Characters supposedly hear about your personality and react if you deviate from what they know, but I never noticed that since I tended to stick with only one type of response.  

Hacking #3:  Lockpicks.  Squeeze the trigger to line the pin with the line and lock it into place.  This example’s apparently hard difficulty.  

As for gameplay, it wasn't too bad.  Pistols are overpowered because its power basically stops time and lets you plug a number of shots anywhere you want (like in someone's head), but even with Master-level Critical Hits, I found them very hard to use in close-quarters and I didn't train up my Martial Arts at all.  Because it's more RPG than TPS, you'll have situations like standing in plain view of an enemy while he wildly fires at you with an assault rifle so your crosshairs close and you score a crit on his unarmored head.  The body armor and its upgrades you wear influence the noise you make, and I did a lot of sneaking around too to play to the strengths of my weapon.  There are a number of minigames of sorts to hack computers and alarms.  With alarms, you have to clip circuits in a set order, and you follow the node lines to know where to clip.  With safes, you push one tumbler at a time into the lock with the pressure of the controller trigger and set them when they're lined up.  Hacking gave a lot of people trouble--you have a field of constantly-switching letters and numbers, and you need to find two sets of characters that are not scrambling, line up the fields, and lock them in before the bar on the bottom switches the fixed fields somewhere else.  Not a favorite.  Thankfully, you can use an EMP Grenade to completely skip the puzzle, and with the right upgrade, you can still get the rewards as if you put forth the effort.  

Chain Shot in action!  These three guys are about to get knocked out in a split-second.  Good thing I’m using tranquilizers on civilians.

There are some boss battles, so it is recommended you invest in weapons in some way--it's Human Revolution pre-Director's Cut again.  I hear there were weapons put around the boss arenas to assist poorly-specced characters, but I never went looking for any.  Depending on your armor, you have regenerating shields that need to be worn down before your health gets damaged, and some mooks and all bosses have that same feature, so there's a need for burst damage else you'll never get through their armor.  I didn't invest in the tree that reduces how long it takes for your shields to regenerate, so I had a little bit of trouble with a couple of areas.  That moving your crosshairs at all would seriously disrupt your aim was kinda bad.  Having a pocket sniper in a pistol and being unable to track a target's head for that kill shot didn't make much sense.  You couldn't focus your aim where he was going to be because it only shrinks when you're looking at a target!  But at the same time, I never used any pistol other than the starting one and I dunno if having a more stable one would've given better performance there.  

The game ran poorly for me before I tried some ini tweaks, and I honestly thought the game froze the first few times it brought up the loading screen because everything does stop and become unusable for a moment.  I had the game black screen on reloading a save a few times, several times during the last mission (helicopter).  There are only checkpoint saves and the game kinda works weirdly with them.  More than once I'd clear an area and die, reload a save and the mooks I fought were gone...or I'd come back and some would be hostile even though they haven't seen me yet that attempt, and so on.  At least you're not tied to one save file, but checkpoints only kinda bites.  And there weren't cutscenes you repeatedly had to watch after dying, and you're even able to fast-forward through some of them, so that was nice.  

Turn Up the Radio I need some music Gimme some more

For $3, it wasn't all too bad.  It's not perfect by any means, but this was apparently the game where Obsidian decided they would stop making good but woefully buggy games, so it has that going for it.  The gunplay wasn't all that great, but I really liked the way the dialog system was set up and I'll see how different a second go-through is soon enough.  It's pretty easy to compare it to Deus Ex Human Revolution, though it's third-person instead of first-, modern day versus near-future cyberpunk, and you can very slightly customize how Mike looks.  There's potential for replay value given the choices you make and how and when you make them, on top of making different builds.  It's lacking in polish and it's one game where I'd really strongly suggest a controller, given how many people I saw have issue with hacking and so on using keyboard and mouse.  I know I didn't try it myself, but just chiming in.

  We'll see how my opinion changes with another go.  

Final skill allocation.