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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years ago

Text

Portrait of a Dangerous Man🎨4

Warnings: (series) non-consent sex and rape; slow creep; cucking; (this chapter) only plot hehe

This is dark!mob!Clark Kent x reader and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: Your dream of having your work hung in an art show comes true but your first buyer is not all he seems to be.

Note: I’m at my tipping point, I swear. I’m dealing with everything in our household, new bed (delayed delivery yay!), cleaning, cooking, dog walking, and working. My only escape are my fics and this weekend I’m telling everyone to fuck off so I can do the writeathon... but sorry for the rant, enjoy more Clark.

Thanks to everyone for reading and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 As usual, I’d appreciate if you let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Wednesday trickled by like sand in a glass. You could hardly keep your eyes open as you typed away and a double espresso shot was the only thing that saw you through your hours at the gallery. Vanessa was excited for her next event and already asking after some new pieces from you. You promised her some from your storage unit to stave her off as you held in your yawns.

You collapsed into bed that night beside Marcus. He complained about his day until he drifted off and you followed suit shortly after. You awoke with a decision, the echoes of your boyfriend’s gripes in your head and heart. You hated how miserable his job made him, how dull your own was. It felt like there was nothing else but the almighty dollar.

You called Clark after an email to Jim, your nerves alight in anticipation of the disgruntled reply. It didn’t matter. You were done. You didn’t need to worry about the all caps messages and curt zoom calls.

“Hey,” Clark picked up, he sounded out of breath.

“Oh, hey, sorry, it’s me,” you swiveled in your chair, “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Nope, just getting in a work out,” he grunted, “you’re not bugging me if you have good news for me.”

“I think… I do,” you forced out, “I just sent in my resignation.”

“Mmm, you don’t sound… happy,” he hummed.

“I am, I think I’m just processing it,” you replied, “I said I’d let you know today so I’m letting you know.”

“Well, how soon can you be here?” he asked.

“Today?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I guess, I could leave as soon as you want me,” you said.

“I’ll send a car,” he intoned, “I’ll give the driver your number, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah,” your voice almost squeaked, “I can do that.”

“Alright, sweetheart, see ya soon.”

The line cut out and you lowered your phone slowly. You stared at Outlook and the new email icon along the taskbar. You closed the laptop and stood. You could worry about the fallout later, right now, you had to get ready for another day of painting.

🎨

It was starting to feel like deja vu every time you arrived at Clark’s house. You got out and thanked the drive, Jeremy, before he drove off. The doors opened before you got to the top of the steps and your host was already dressed in the same outfit he wore for each session. His hair was neat but his beard was even thicker than before.

“I think you can tell I’m a little antsy to start,” he chuckled, “how are you, sweetheart?”

That pet name caught in your mind again. It might just be a habit of his. Nothing more than an absent-minded word.

“Me too, honestly,” you smiled, “but I have a weird question for you.”

“Ask away,” he said as he walked with you through the foyer.

“The beard… you want that in the portrait or--”

“Oh, ha, yeah,” he ran his fingers along his jawline, “I guess I wasn’t thinking. You’re the artist, what do you think?”

“Well, erm, either way is fine,” you said, “I was just… wondering. I’m not even close to starting on, uh, you yet. I mean, right now I’m just working on the background and basic shapes.”

“I’ll let you make the call when you get there,” he said, “say the word and it’s gone.”

“Alright,” you came to the top of the stairs and he pointed you ahead of him.

He followed you as you entered and you went about filling the jar with water and resituating the set up. He sat as you mixed and chose your brush. You climbed the ladder and peered around the canvas at him. He took on the same pose as usual and you dipped the bristles into the pigment. You could make a happy life of this.

🎨

Clark shifted and cleared his throat. You rolled your wrist and glanced back over at him as you drew your hand back from the canvas. He braced the chair and pushed himself up.

“How about a break?” he asked as he shook out his arms, “back’s a bit stiff.”

“Sure,” you said, “I think I could sit down for a moment.”

You took a step down the rung of the ladder but your toe slipped and suddenly your palette was against your chest. You slid down backwards as Clark rushed over and barely kept you from toppling the entire thing over. You laughed at yourself as he righted you and looked down at your paint-streaked shirt.

“Jesus,” you muttered.

“You okay?” he asked as he kept his hand on your upper arm, “be careful.”

“Yeah, I’m-- clumsy, is all,” you carefully pulled away and set down your brush and palette.

“Come on, sit,” he pulled up the stool and planted it before you, “take a minute.”

As you sat, he stretched his arms over his head and then out to the sides. He paced around the other side of the table, long strides as he worked the cramps from his long legs. He stopped and came up to play with a brush as you leaned an elbow on the table.

“Well, I did have another offer for you,” he said, “I was thinking of waiting but might as well ask now.”

“Oh?” you raised your brows curiously.

He swished a slender brush in the air then lowered it and picked at the tip.

“I’m having a get together on Saturday, some business friends and the like,” he said as he set the brush back with the rest, “it won’t be work. You’ve earned some time off. You can even bring the boyfriend.”

“Saturday?” you pondered, “I’m usually at the gallery on Saturdays.”

“It would be great networking,” he said, “and I already told all my friends about you. They’re excited to see your work. It will almost be like a viewing and it’s only right the artist is there.”

“I could make it work,” you mulled, “Marcus would love to come back.” You snickered, “he loves this place.”

“It’s a nice house,” he said casually, “a bit big for one person… hence, the party.”

“I’ll put it in my calendar,” you stood and slid your palette closer and cleaned it off to remix the mess of paints.

“Great,” he said as he rounded the table and brushed close to you, “it’ll be nice to look at a mug besides mine, huh?”

You laughed as you squeezed out the dark paint and nodded, “ha, sure.”

🎨

The rest of your week was spent much the same. Jeremy drove you to Clark’s and you went up to the studio to continue your work between small talk and silences that grew so thick you had to break them with mindless comments. It wasn’t enough to focus on the path of your brush as the man tugged at your attention.

Marcus was excited when you told him about the party. He raved about how he needed to let loose, about how much expensive alcohol he was going to drink, and the awesome backflip he was gonna do into the pool. You reminded him, he hadn’t done anything like that since college but he swore he could still do it.

You didn’t share the sentiment. You were anxious. You were flattered to be invited but despite what Clark said, it still felt like work. His friends were going to be there and he apparently was trying to sell them on your art.

You didn’t realise until after you hit send on your email, but you put your livelihood in this man’s hands. A man, you reminded yourself, who was little more than a stranger.

On Friday, a day you were thankfully not called to the mansion to teeter on the ladder and paint, the buzzer rang and drew you off the couch from amid your YouTube binge. The man on the speaker called back that he had a delivery and you let him up. You took the box from him, the thick silver ribbon giving away the sender even before you could read the tag.

Inside you found a black dress with little gemstones set into the fabric like stars in the sky. It was nicer than anything you’d ever owned before and a pair of silver shoes were tucked in beneath the outfit. You took the shoes from the tissue paper and something else shifted in the bottom.

You reached in and revealed a velvet box from the depths of overzealous stuffing. You opened the lid and found a simple chain of diamonds. You gaped in disbelief. They were real. The fake ones didn’t look so nice.

You phone chimed before you could even think to call Clark. It was as if he could see you. You answered and your voice warbled pathetically.

“Hi, I was just gonna call,” you touched your throat as it constricted.

“Yeah? I got the notification that it was delivered,” he said, “you like it?”

“It’s too much,” you gulped out, “really, I can’t--”

“I want you to look nice. I want you to feel good and have a good time,” he said, “I feel like you’ve been working so hard. You need a chance to just let it all go.”

“Look, I…” you were uncertain how to handle it. It was more than generosity but you felt wrong denying it as much as you did accepting it, “I’ve never had a boss buy me diamonds. At least let me give those back.”

“Boss?” he mused on the word, “I suppose, but you gotta dress the part now, sweetheart. You’re gonna rub shoulders with a lot of rich dicks like me. Pardon my language.”

“I didn’t realise it was such an upscale thing,” you put the velvet box down and turned to sit on the couch beside the large box. You played with the silver ribbon and chewed your lip.

“Sweetheart, it’s nothing, you got this,” he said, “trust me, if you can win me over, my friends will be child’s play.”

“Mhmmm,” you stared at the tv mindlessly, “Clark?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you doing all this?”

There was silence and you heard him sigh then a subtle metallic click.

“Because I can. And you’re a talented artist. Didn’t all the big painters used to have patrons back in the day? You know, Da Vinci and all that.”

“Sure, I guess--”

“Look, sweetheart, I’m glad you like the dress, I gotta go.”

He hung up abruptly and you turned your phone to stare at it in confusion. You were starting to get a bad feeling and that little voice in that back of your head, that little sabotaging bitch, whispered in your ear. No, you wouldn’t let your self-doubt get the best of you this time. You either grabbed this chance or you spent the rest of your life doing menial work and painting the world as it passed you by.

🎨

Friday night, Marcus couldn’t stop rambling about the party the next day. You just couldn’t get over the tickle in your chest, the same one you got before job interviews and doctor’s appointments. You were on edge, even as you spent your stress on him, your body writhing against his as you panted and pouted. It had been a while since you fucked. All the work and the stress had just let things slip past you. Maybe with your new gig, you could get back to those early days when it was all you wanted to do.

You slept soundly. You blamed the sex and the momentous week. You got up, had a lazy brunch time meal, and beat Marcus at MarioKart several times over before he convinced you it was time to get ready.

You pulled on the gifted outfit after fighting with your make-up and hair. You gave a little tada spin to Marcus and he lifted his brow as he tried to figure out his tie.

“Wow, where’d you get that?” he purred, “fuck, let’s be late.”

He ran his hands over your hips as you neared him and fixed his tie for him. You giggled and planted a kiss on his lips.

“Jeremy’s on his way,” you warned, “I don't wanna bite the hand that feeds.”

“Oh, and it feeds you well,” Marcus chirped, “you think he’ll let me have a spin in the McClaren?”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t. I don’t need to scrape you off the side of the road,” you took your phone as the screen lit up, “come on, he’s here.”

“Fuck, babe, really, you’re gonna make me follow you out of here with your ass looking like that?”

“Stop,” you tittered, “you know, there might be more sellers tonight?”

“Oh yeah? I guess you’ll be paying a mortgage soon enough.”

“Me?” you scoffed.

“Sure, I’ll be your sugar baby,” he kidded.

“Well, baby is accurate,” you teased as you stepped onto the elevator, “please, just behave.”

🎨

You were surprised to see Vanessa at the party but reassured to see a familiar face. Clark had been distracted by his other guests and you did your best to mingle, letting Marcus take the lead until he was distracted by another guest’s Rolex and started asking too many questions. If you did start selling art to these kinds, you suspected you’d be paying for a lot of overpriced brands. That was a worry for another time.

You stood with Vanessa and a man she introduced you to. Bruce Wayne was tall and his dark-hair was combed back neatly as he spoke over the glass of wine in his hand. You were bored of the Monet-Manet argument, one you’d heard a million times from the stubborn gallery owner, and you were at your limit of socialisation.

You excused yourself and put down your unfinished drink on a table. You looked around but couldn’t see Marcus anywhere. The last you saw him, he was with Clark but you couldn’t find him either. You frowned and wandered between the pairs and trios gabbing around the room.

Just past the bar, you looked back and still no sign of either man. You huffed and your heels clicked into the foyer and to the stairs. You’d go to the studio and sit for a moment and collect yourself. You just needed to take a breath.

You climbed the stairs slowly, the din of the party floating up behind you. You came to the top but stopped as your eyes were drawn to a pair of open doors opposite the studio. You neared and stayed against the wall as you peeked inside. Marcus admired an old-six shooter and spun the barrel.

“You got everything, man, I swear,” you hid behind the door frame and listened.

“Eh, it’s all just things,” Clark replied, “I bought that from an auctioneer down in Texas. A verified antique but it just hangs here. Not good for much but looking at it.”

“Dude, what I wouldn’t do to live here? Have cool guns and even cooler cars? Shit, you know how fucked it is that my lady is making bank and I’m over here with my dick in my hands? I mean, I’m proud of her but… I mean, if I could get paid thousands for drawing, I would’ve tried to learn.”

“She’s good. Dedicated,” Clark remarked, “she’s special. Worth more than money.”

Marcus hummed and you heard the barrel click back into the place. Neither of the men spoke as you heard something shift and Clark cleared his throat. Subtle footsteps moved around the room and you pressed yourself to the wall. You should leave and let them talk but you couldn’t help but be curious.

“Isn’t she?” Clark prodded.

“Y-yeah, but… I don’t know. I just wish I had more,” Marcus said, “I probably sound like a chump, huh?”

“You can’t have it all,” Clark replied.

“Says the guy who can buy anything and everything,” Marcus moped.

“Oh?” Clark intoned, “so… how about it then? Fifty thousand.”

“For what?” Marcus chuckled nervously.

“Her,” Clark answered.

“Her-- I… my girlfriend?” he sputtered.

“If money can buy me anything, that’s what I want,” Clark said firmly, “it’s a one time offer… whether or not you agree to it, I’m gonna fuck her.”

You skin crawled at his words and you covered your mouth in disgust and shock. You inched closer to the door to hear better as you waited for the response.

“One hundred,” Marcus said.

“Seventy-five,” Clark countered.

“That’s my girlfriend, dude,” Marcus hissed.

“And yet you’re haggling with me over her. Eighty.”

You tore yourself from the wall before you could hear anymore. You felt hollow and heavy all at once. Your eyes were glossy as you scurried over to the studio doors and pushed the left one open. You unhooked the diamond necklace and tossed it onto the paint-stained palette and rolled up your brushes.

You stormed over blindly to the easel and pushed it over. It clattered to the floor loudly but you were already out the door and halfway down the stairs. You gripped your clutch and the bundle of paintbrushes tightly as you continued on outside and the blurred outlines of luxury cars passed you by.

You stomped up the long drive in your heels as you flicked away tears and pulled out your phone. You knew it was too good to be true. Any of it; your art, Clark, Marcus. You weren’t good for anyone unless they could get something out of you.

#clark kent #dark clark kent #dark!clark kent #clark kent x reader #fic #series #dark fic #dark!fic #superman #portrait of a dangerous man #dc #dcu #mob au #au #mob!au

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hrodvitnon · 3 years ago

Note

Go’s Plan

(Thanks for reminding me of it! I can only imagine this happening in the Go-turns-evil plotline, although I suppose it can also happen in the plotline where Shi apologizes..?)

The turn of events that would defeat Godzilla are, at the end of the day, borne out of a simple, very human desire. Some part of her did cheer on when Godzilla inevitably caught up with Ghidorah, but the other part…

I don’t want to die. I want to live. I WANT TO LIVE!

And her course of action, done in the heat of the moment when the other heads were grappling Godzilla and Go noticed his tail becoming to glow with atomic charging? Grab an oil tanker truck she saw - and ram it down Godzilla’s throat. She’s seen that movie Jaws, she knows what she’s doing - right?

No she doesn’t, it’s a harebrained plan she cooked up because she doesn’t want to die. But nonetheless, Godzilla’s own atomic breath detonates the gas truck inside him. Oh it doesn’t kill him, but it burns his insides - and momentarily disables his atomic breath. Ghidorah swoops in for the attack-

No! Hold back! I… think I have a plan!

Yeah she’s thinking it up as she goes, but Go’s improvised use of an explosive weapon was rather clever, Ichi thinks. He quickly looks into what the youngest sister’s plan is.

Step 2: Hide. Choose the site of battle and lure Godzilla there. A cluster of gleaming skyscrapers, with dust cover, may do the trick…

Step 3: Sneak attack. Strike him from behind but don’t engage in melee, he can overpower us through brute force! Instead, we have to

Step 4: Target his legs! Maddie’s played Fallout: New Vegas enough times that she’s a seasoned deathclaw slayer, and she knows the most efficient way to kill those lizard monsters is to first strike at their legs. Cripple them, slow them down, so they can’t run, can’t escape… it’s the same principle here. Concentrate their lightning beams at his kneecaps! Don’t focus on brute-force damage; stumble him, make him trip! The concentrated strikes to his legs force Godzilla to his knees. But don’t move in yet!

Step 5: Those skyscrapers he’s surrounded by? Topple them all on top of him. One, two, three, four buildings… pin him down with the weight of a hundred million tons of cinder and concrete. Immobilize him!

Go admits she didn’t think this far beyond that, because she didn’t think it would work as she’d imagined. But as if in miracle, it did. Now Godzilla’s pinned down by weight of rubble and damaged kneecaps, helpless as Ghidorah approaches for the finishing move…

Five gravity beams, point blank range. Two at his gills - and three directly into his mouth. Over the span of minutes, the ancient god Titan is slowly electrocuted from the inside-out. A painful, torturous way to die. When the deed is done, he collapses backwards, blazing with yellow fire, sparking all over like an insect on a bug trap. Go stares at the sight. Her beloved Godzilla, (seemingly) dead from her own “I’m thinking this up as I go!” Indy ploy of a plan.

Then she screams skywards to the heavens, in a wild battle cry of adrenaline and a victory she didn’t think was possible. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

She doesn’t expect Ichi’s nuzzle. Well done, youngest sister..!

Of course, Shi lunges for Ichi's throat in uncontrollable rage -- worse than the previous times she attacked him to trying to worm his way into Go's mind, Shi is foaming at the mouth and blinded by tears, possessed by the kind of rage that brought mythic Achilles out of his stupor. And just like with the Greek hero, it is a kind of love that spurs Shi on to rip and tear, rip and tear, Rip and TEAR...

She wanted no part in Godzilla's (apparent) death, and just when she'd regained hope that his recovery would end Ghidorah's rampage, put her out of her misery, and Go...! Blood and tears fly through the air while San desperately tries to calm his sister, Ni just cackling at her fury and Ichi smugly relishing in Shi's hatred even as she takes out chunks of his neck, knowing how she revered that old lizard.

Hate you! Shi screams in possessed, white-hot vengeful outrage. HATE YOU! HATE YOU!

Ichi laughs. Save some of your hatred for clever little Go! It was her idea that felled your precious beast!

Go's victory cry peters out at this point, turning into barks and shocked laughs -- she did this! It was her quick thinking that vanquished Godzilla! -- and that's when she catches Shi's eyes burning into her. Now that's a new experience. Aunt Vivienne had never so much as glared at her, even when their competitiveness in games got the better of them. The gravity of Go's actions dawn on her at the same time she realizes... there really is some hatred in Shi's eyes.

#tardisspacemug #shi au #oh god

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nightingaelic · 4 years ago

Note

I was reading your "Fallout 4 companions meet Arcade Gannon" reacts when I had an idea. FO4 companions reaction to visiting the Mojave Wasteland with the Sole Survivor.

"She was Boston, I was Vegas

She was Crêpes Suzette, I was pie

She was lectures, I was movies, but I loved her."

- Frank Sinatra, 1981, "I Loved Her"

Cait: "I've never been much of a gambler, but where there's gambling, there's usually a good time to be had."

While Cait finds the casinos of the Strip a little too ritzy for her liking, she rather enjoys the smaller, satellite venues: The Atomic Wrangler in Freeside, the Vikki and Vance casino in Primm, even the saloons in Goodsprings and the Mojave Outpost (the latter of which being where she foolishly engages in a drinking contest with Cass and happily gets her ass kicked). Her greatest enjoyment, however, comes upon discovery of the Thorn in Westside, with its arranged bouts between wasteland critters and the opportunity to go a round yourself if you're feeling lucky. Instead of the trapped horror she felt when the Combat Zone was taken over by raiders and she was forced to fight, Cait revels in the glory she reaps when choosing to face off against a fire gecko, a night stalker or a cazador with her trusty baseball bat. By the time the visit is over, she and Red Lucy have grown close, and the Thorn's mistress is going around openly calling Cait "my hunter."

Codsworth: "Ah, Las Vegas! Why, I can recall when you considered a quick getaway to this paradise just before young master Shaun's arrival. It appears we aren't too late, after all."

Codsworth is somewhat comforted by the lack of overt nuclear devastation in New Vegas, but that feeling wears off as soon as the first set of thugs in Freeside tries to corner him and the sole survivor and take their caps. Once the would-be muggers are laid out on the ground, Codsworth abandons his rose-colored glasses and puts his quippy, dismayed personality back on. Still, he loves the Strip, particularly the Ultra-Luxe with its refined guests, decor and hygienic practices, but he quickly sours on their hoity-toity attitudes. Instead, Codsworth turns to the presence of the NCR as a sign that civilization is creeping back into the wasteland. He's also tickled pink by the Kings and the Chairmen, but not the mobster-esque Omertas: They remind him too much of the pre-war mob activity in good old Boston.

Curie: "Excusez-moi, but what is that structure there? The tallest one, with the blinking lights."

Curie is thrilled to be out in the desert, observing the local populace and documenting their survival techniques, social structures and power struggles. She's fascinated with the area's history, and drags the sole survivor along to seek out the Mojave's most (in)famous individuals to record their stories for her research into post-war civilization. This lands her in quite a few questionable situations, but her general attitude of perseverance and wide-eyed wonder about the world open a lot of doors for her. She makes a lot of friends at the Old Mormon Fort among the Followers of the Apocalypse, though most of them assume her frustration about her own "biological reactions to extreme living conditions" is just her complaining about the heat like everyone else. Arcade's pretty sure she's a robot, though he's too polite to ask about it outright.

Danse: "We're close now, to the birthplace of the Brotherhood of Steel. This is an honor I never thought I'd experience."

Though it's boiling hot inside his power armor under the desert sun, Paladin Danse is overjoyed that he's accompanying the sole survivor on this journey into the cradle of the ideology that he's devoted to. He's heard about the Mojave from Brotherhood of Steel veterans, those who traveled with Elder Lyons when they initially came to the Capital Wasteland and those who accompanied Elder Maxson when he was just a Squire, and he keeps spouting off random trivia about the area. Any run-ins with disillusioned Scribe Veronica might leave him a bit put out, but it's overall a fun trip for him through a part of the continent that's a little less smashed to rubble than the rest of the world. He especially enjoys visiting the NCR and Brotherhood military outposts, if only to offer critiques and suggestions to any soldiers that give him the time of day.

Deacon: "Sheesh, visiting the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter, am I right?"

Deacon has been here before. Well, he doesn't actually say he's been here before, but he keeps dropping hints to the sole survivor that he's somehow on a return trip. He knows the legends of the Sierra Madre and the Blue Star treasures offhand, he has a whole conversation with the Securitrons guarding the Strip about what happened to Robert House, he even knows how to competently play Caravan. Every time the sole survivor asks him about how he knows so much, though, Deacon just grins and keeps chugging his Sunset Sarsaparilla. Obviously no one recognizes him by face, but he does have a setting-appropriate wardrobe along that includes NCR bandoleer armor, a coat-tailed tuxedo, top hat and White Glove Society mask, and a black leather jacket to go with his pompadour wig.

Dogmeat: [curiously sniffs everything]

Dogmeat can't figure out why this place is so dang dry, but he's on his best behavior for the sole survivor as they make their way over the dusty roads of the Mojave. He politely greets each other traveler on the roads, who keep asking his companion where they got "a non-cyber cyberdog." For the most part though, the trip is pretty in line with everywhere Dogmeat goes: Big rodents, big bugs, tired people and plenty of ruins to explore. Dogmeat's one outstanding adventure comes in the form of an attempted kidnapping by some of the Kings, who think their leader needs a new dog after Rex hit the road with some fool. The King doesn't take kindly to this, and graciously has the dog returned to his friend.

Hancock: "Oh, man, how does anyone live out here? I'm drying out, I feel like a radroach husk."

Hancock is having the time of his life in the Mojave, apart from constantly complaining about how he prefers the Commonwealth's weather. He's chummy with everyone, but especially with the ghouls he encounters. He buys Raul a bunch of drinks and asks him about his past, he suggests future career paths and hobbies for Calamity, and he is absolutely enchanted with Beatrix the dominatrix. He's also rowdy enough to attract the ire of nearly every casino in New Vegas: The White Glove Society seethes when the sole survivor points out that his Revolutionary War outfit technically meets the dress code, the Omertas howl when he starts encouraging the strippers and sex workers to band together and take over the casino, and the Vault 21 dwellers keep asking if he's liable to turn feral. The Chairmen, however, treat him as something of a novelty and gift him with a seersucker suit to go with his jaunty personality.

MacCready: "You know, I played cards with a guy from out here once. He tried to teach me a game called... what was it, Candyman? Kilogram?"

MacCready has the barest smattering of knowledge about the Mojave Wasteland, and he keeps injecting it into conversations no matter how inaccurate it is. He's fascinated with the sole survivor's recollections of what Vegas was like before the Great War, and his expectations are sky-high by the time they arrive on the city's outskirts. Those expectations are absolutely met once inside the Strip, even if the sole survivor's are let down. MacCready is just tickled by the existence of a city that is solely dedicated to parting you from your caps, and he settles into each new business for the express purpose of people-watching. He only tries gambling once, and immediately quits after he loses all of his pocket change.

Valentine: "Good old Las Vegas. Somehow, I'm not surprised it's still got a reputation as 'Sin City,' even this long after the bombs."

The Nick Valentine of old never visited Las Vegas, but he certainly knew about it well enough for the Nick Valentine of today to draw on those impressions. He's extra-wary about the city as a result, an attitude not helped by the many people staring at him because of his detective getup, jagged edges and golden eyes. Some people are polite enough to walk up and ask what he is: Others offer to buy him off the sole survivor directly, much to Nick's chagrin. When James Garret offers him a thousand caps for "one night of his services," Nick puts his foot down and starts glaring at everyone who so much as walks up to him and the sole survivor during their trip. The exceptions to this rule are Veronica, who is extremely polite and non-invasive with her questioning; Arcade, who is too polite to even mention Nick's synthetic state; and Raul, who finds the whole thing hilarious but admits that his ghoul status has landed him in some similar situations.

Piper: "I've heard plenty of stories about this place, and if even a quarter of them are true, I ought to get a good travel piece out of just about anyone we pass on the street."

Piper's on a mission to track down the history of New Vegas, which, like Curie, sends her on a path toward its biggest political figures. Aside from them, she's particularly interested in the services of the Mojave, like the Gun Runners, the Crimson Caravan Company, and especially the Mojave Express. Piper gets along swell with just about everyone, and she basks in the widespread acceptance that she lacks back home due to her chosen profession. She desperately tries to get Johnson Nash to ship a case of Sunset Sarsaparilla cross-continent for her, but he gently turns her down and tells her that the only courier he knows crazy enough to undertake a trip to the Commonwealth is too busy nowadays.

Preston: "They're not too friendly to outsiders here, or so I'm told, but there are always good folks to be found if you know where to look."

Preston, true to form, offers help to every little settlement he and the sole survivor come through on their journey, which delays their path to Vegas quite a bit. He makes a beeline for the Old Mormon Fort as soon as he hears the Followers of the Apocalypse have a base there, though, and spends most of his visit picking the brain of its leaders about the best ways to aid those in need in the wasteland. He and Arcade get into some spirited debates about the pros and cons of having a civil service force focused on military matters versus civilian matters, and the Minutemen leader leaves the Mojave with a lot of new ideas to carry home to the Commonwealth.

Strong: "Strong not looking for 'good time,' puny human. Strong looking for thing that make super mutants stronger."

Strong hates New Vegas, but that's nothing unexpected. The sole survivor tries to limit their time in the city and take him around the desert to locales where super mutants are more likely to be found, which brings them to Jacobstown. Surprise surprise, Strong hates Jacobstown - at first. Little by little, through talking with Lily, the other nightkin, and Marcus, Strong starts to realize that the super mutants of the town are doing exactly what he values and sharing their resources among each other for the good of the community, just minus the usual violence associated with super mutants. He struggles with this alternative way of life for a bit, but eventually comes to accept that to be a super mutant, you don't have to constantly attack those around you to show off your strength.

X6-88: "Be careful. The Institute's records about this area indicate high levels of theft, murder, and unsavory characters. It would be best to keep our guard up."

Like Nick, X6-88 greets everyone in the Mojave with open suspicion, and can hardly be convinced to leave the sole survivor's side for their entire journey. His dedication to this task leads those around him to joke about him being "a human Securitron," which the sole survivor finds amusing: X6-88 does not. Still, the ability to hire and maintain a professional-looking bodyguard while visiting New Vegas doesn't go unnoticed, and most people assume that means the sole survivor has a lot of money to spend or be separated from by force. Criminals are more likely to be ruthless, hell-bent on stealing the loads of caps the sole survivor surely has tucked away. Business owners, on the other hand, are more polite to the pair on their travels, giving them better service and goods that ingratiate X6-88 a bit more to the common people aboveground.

BONUS!

Ada: "Jackson brought us out here once, when Zoe decided she wanted to try acquiring a Securitron. The leader of the Strip turned us down."

While Deacon is playing coy about his experience in the Mojave, Ada is completely open about hers. She hasn't been to the Strip, the dam, or any of the Mojave's "fun" destinations, but she remembers the Crimson Caravan Company headquarters, the 188 trading post, and many of the small towns along the way. Her fondest memories are of scavenging around the ruins of the REPCONN test site, the Aerotech Office Park and HELIOS One. She also recalls that her caravan friends came to visit primarily to find a Securitron to take apart and repurpose, but won't say exactly what happened when they tried to do so, other than warn the sole survivor "not to invite the wrath of the House."

Gage: "Now this is a town that knows how to run a successful racket. We need to find out who's in charge, see if they can give us some tips."

Porter Gage walks right up the steps of the Lucky 38 as soon as he finds out that someone inside is running the Strip, and demands that the Securitrons let him in to "talk to the boss." The robots aren't impressed, of course, and toss him out straightaway. Gage, not one to be discouraged easily, tries to find information among the nearby raider gangs instead: Fiends, Vipers, Jackals or Great Khans, he's not too picky. The current state of the raiders in the Mojave quickly informs him that they're failing one by one against the power of New Vegas, and he renews his efforts to find the recipient of the endless streams of caps. Thwarted at every turn, he and the sole survivor retire to Gomorrah, where they bemoan their bad luck while the courier sits a few seats down from them, listening in and smirking.

Longfellow: "Just point me to the nearest saloon. If I can't cool down, I'll try to forget I'm hot."

Longfellow parks himself at the nearest watering hole and does his best to avoid the scorching Mojave heat. The Maine-born grandpa is pretty miserable during the daytime hours unless he's sitting in front of a fan with a cold beer, swapping stories about Far Harbor critters with the bar regulars. At night he's a bit more open to adventuring with the sole survivor, when the desert cools down and he can see the sights by moonlight. Although he's not a fan of the hustle and bustle of the Strip, most of the large casinos there have air conditioning thanks to the Lucky 38, so he claims a table in the back and glares at anyone who disturbs him and his drink. He gets along with most of the New Vegas crowd though, if they agree to pick up the tab.

Maxson: "We came this way, when the Elders sent me to the East Coast. I wonder if the chapter here is still persevering."

Elder Maxson is surprisingly reluctant to visit the two things that the sole survivor would've thought he'd be interested to see in the Mojave: The Strip, or the Hidden Valley bunker. If pressed, he'll admit that he's not the type to cut loose and gamble, drink or participate in general debauchery as a result of his upbringing and position of authority, but neither is he keen to drop in on the dying Western chapters of his order and become stifled by protocol and ass-kissing. He prefers to wander the desert itself, seeking solitude among the cacti and under the stars. Given the chance, he'd probably nip off to Quarry Junction and anonymously solve the NCR's deathclaw problem, if it hasn't already been taken care of. He refuses to wear his uniform for the entire trip.

Desdemona: "The Mojave probably wouldn't know what to make of our mission, which is how you know it's a good place to hide. I wonder if any of our rescued synths made it out this far."

This is by far the most relaxed the sole survivor has ever seen Desdemona, and why wouldn't it be? She's so far removed from her usual sphere that she drops her usual, tight-knit demeanor and embraces loosening up. She's still not talking openly about the Railroad's operations, but she is more likely to answer questions both personal and professional. Like Deacon, she knows a bit about the Mojave, but not so much that she can blend in completely. Instead, she embraces being a tourist and does all the usual things that go with it: Visiting the Strip, the Sunset Sarsaparilla headquarters, the Thorn, and especially Hoover Dam. When she's looking out over Lake Mead, with the sun getting caught in her hair as it sets on her left, she almost looks happy.

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omegas-spaghettios · 4 years ago

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Ranking MCU Captain America figures

Before I begin, I want to clarify this is about my enjoyment of these characters and NOT who i think are the best morality or power wise. I specify because I think my first two entries will upset some people and I want to say, this list is NOT in order of how much I agree with these characters' values. I have a heavy favoritism towards theme and character interaction and that is where a lot of my enjoyment from media comes from. So, let's begin.

6. Captain America: CW, IW, and Endgame

I'm separating Steve into two because around CW he starts making decisions that really frustrate me.

Now I do think there is a lot to like still! His conviction to his morals during the Accords and continuing arc about government distrust is great, his stand against Thanos in IW is amazing, he is a lot of fun to watch during the New York part of the time heist, and lifting Mjolnir was legit my best theater moment ever and i will NEVER forget it.

However, in CW he starts making some awful decisions. In CW, he kisses Sharon like, days after Peggy's funeral. While on it's own it's already kinda creepy, Endgame retroactively makes this even worse. It goes on to also have grave consequence because he and Sam asked Sharon to break the law for them and never followed through to help her, which was pretty awful of them. At least Sam tries to make it right in TFATWS, but since Steve left that wrong on Sharon never gets reconciled from him.

I also think that his decision to keep Bucky and Howard's history a secret from Tony was really, really stupid. While I side with him during the fight, the fact that Steve "doesn't like when his teammates withhold information" Rogers didn't tell Tony this then walked into a Winter Soldier facility with Bucky and Tony during the most strained time of their relationship was just begging for that conflict.

He is barely in IW and while his stand against Thanos is a great moment, his decision to not let Vision kill himself is very frustrating. "We don't trade lives" then he goes to Wakanda to let thousands of soldiers die while they try and get the stone out, really dude?

I don't think going back in time in Endgame was inherently a bad ending but things he does to make it happen really frustrates me. He shows no signs of mourning Bucky or Sam at all. And then for the sake of surprise for the audience, he never tells Sam what he's doing and that is so awful. Sam dedicates 4 years of his life helping Steve with a good portion of it being on the run. Sam was with Steve more during the present than ANYONE else. Then Steve just leaves without telling him and shows back up to drop a ton of responsibility on Sam that he didn't ask for. Now Sam is an amazing Cap but it's frustrating to see that a lot of TFATWS is fallout of Steve's bad decisions in these three movies.

5. Captain America: John Walker

Now hold on, I hate this man. I think he does some awful things, so why is he above anyone else? Just because he isn't frustrating to me, he fits thematically and has good interactions with others in TFATWS.

His character really adds to the themes and discussions of white privilege, Supremacy, as well as how the US military treats their soldiers like shit, and I think he is an interesting character to watch as he starts out edging the line of evil and by the end of episode 4 crosses it. While I think Bucky was overall a bit too chummy with him in 6, I think it was all mostly in character for them. Sam and Bucky were up against 6 super soldiers and Batroc in a highly crowded city with lots of important people, it makes sense to me that they take his help in this scenario. They also never leave him alone which indicates distrust.

I also really like the moment where he drops the shield to help the truck. He is a shitty person but he is shown as a person who at least wants to do good, even though any challenge to that he goes off the rails. It is such a black and white scenario, help the truck of innocents, and I like that he does it. It also adds to the hatred of him as a person because it shows he clearly knows better but chooses to ignore it, which makes him even more despicable.

I think it is very important that a man like him bore the title of Captain America because it reminds us all that yes, it is very easy that a man like him represents America as it is and that we need to do better than him.

I like watching him and that's why he's above CW on Steve because he isn't making aggravatingly out of character decisions all of the time and he works very well within the themes of the show.

With me loving him in the context of TFATWS, in later appearances he does have a lot of potential to drop to last pretty easily, but as of now when he just is in that show, I appreciate his character a lot.

4. Red Guardian

I kinda like this character and idk how to feel about it

He doesn't fit Black Widow very much so he is kinda low but I mean, he's just kinda fun. His story about Captain America and the USSR is pretty non-related to the others and rather undeveloped which is frustrating, and he does very little plot significant things. He leads Nat and Yelena to Melina and that's about it. He distracts Taskmaster for a while but he kinda is just getting tossed around until Melina shows up. He isn't very important.

But I do like what I see and do hope we see more of him. They never pretend he's a great person and I do appreciate that he gets called on it constantly. His knuckles having Karl Marx on them kills me and overall he's pretty humorous and fun to watch. He also has a few great moments thematically that I love. When he comforts Yelena after the dinner scene and sings her favorite song as a kid? So heartwarming. When he took Taskmaster's shield when fleeing the Red Room I laughed at his ridiculousness but it lead to a pretty great moment, when he throws the shield through the windshield without hesitation to save Melina. It's a great moment to show how he's letting go of his past and obsessions to be there for his family.

I hope we see more of him, his overall lack of importance and stereotypical behavior kinda holds him back but I see so much potential in him.

3. Agent Carter

As of today she has been in exactly one 30 minute episode, but what I see I really like. Her laughter of surprise when she takes the tesseract is really endearing, her sword and muscles and height make my wlw heart patter, and I do like the difference in her relationship with Steve in this universe, where they both are of incredible capabilities but neither are given any respect for how they were born. We get that in TFA too but I really like that it is a constant theme in this iteration while in TFA it gets dropped a bit after Steve receives the serum.

There is very little of her so I can't really put her higher yet, but given more time she very well may rise up on this list but she had an excellent first showing.

2. Pre-CW Captain America: Steve Rogers

This man is a joy.

He is such an endearing scrappy little guy in the beginning of TFA and I love his commitment to doing the right thing. He still very much acts like a guy who just gained 120 pounds of muscle during that movie and it's endearing. The way he grows into his own skin in TWS is amazing as we see him really step in to what he can accomplish physically as well as his authority and leadership.

His Whedonisms in the first two Avengers films kinda bug me, they treat him like an old man when he isn't. Biologically he's like, early 30's at most here. He grew up as a fighter in Brooklyn then served in the military, he wouldn't care if his teammates swear, but overall it's tolerable.

I LOVE this man's commitment to transparency. He struggles when allies are not transparent and he shows nothing but transparency and I love that that is a constant for him (which is why I separate him from CW on)

Everyone loves this guy and over 90% of criticisms I see for him come after AoU, and that's for good reason, this guy is so loveable.

1. Captain America: Sam Wilson

He's so good, guys

I want to talk about Sam before the suit because he is amazing before it. He runs counseling for veterans, a profession very becoming of a superhero and it speaks to his incredible empathy and compassion that is on full display. I also think the fact that he dedicated 2 years to finding Bucky is not appreciated enough. Sure he was following Steve but he still spent 2 years trying to find Bucky, a person who tried to murder him. Yet he understands it isn't Bucky's fault and tries to help him anyway. I also really like that he is the first to speak out against the Accords. He doesn't wait for Steve or anyone else, he sees red flags and he is out and I really, really love that about him.

Then I love how long it takes for him to choose to become Cap and how much he contemplates it. He has to contemplate the legacy of Steve, if he wants to wear the symbol of this country, the pressures of being a black man as Cap, the legacy that John added to it, the pressures from Bucky and the pressures from Isaiah, and also his own legacy he carved for himself as the Falcon. It's a huge decision with a lot of weight and so many people pressuring him but he takes his time and chooses what is right for him, and I really love that about him. These other characters are all Caps from near the start but he transitions into one after years of knowing him as the Falcon and I love that he doesn't take this decision lightly.

Also as Cap he's just really cool. His decisions to not take the serum as well as try like hell to get Karli to step down speak to his humility and compassion. And while many describe his speech as bland it's still uniquely him. Yes the speech doesn't solve any problems but that isn't what he's doing, he's asking America and the world to get to actually solving them and that is an aspect of him we don't see much since Steve's propaganda days, his direct relation to the public.

Also his suit and wings are just awesome, I argue his action is the most fun to watch out of any of these characters.

Anyway yeah that's the list, I know people won't agree with me so let's try and keep discussion civil, alright?

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rpmemedumpster · 3 years ago

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Unraveled: Absurdly Comprehensive Game Lore Starters (pt.4)

Feel free to change pronouns/phrasing

Calculate your pet's HP with my 100% legitimate formula:

“Is life quantifiable? Every breath, every beat of a heart...Do they count as tallies etched tirelessly into the stone of our existence, until one day, that stone is returned to dust? Is there a number, an algorithm, underlying the spark of life?”

[sarcastically] “Haha.......war.”

"Animal abuse is wrong. And if you needed me to tell you that...I’m glad I told you that.”

“I'm not teaching you how to calculate human HP, because that power is too great to wield, and it could easily be used for evil by some of the most wicked forces on Earth...like health insurance companies.”

“We're also including bug, because I love bugs!”

“If you have bugs in your house and you make the conscious decision to WANT those bugs in your house, they aren't pests, they're pets...s.”

"God, we all need a distraction sometimes.”

“Your value is not defined by the size or shape of your body, it’s about what you do with the body you’re given.”

“What are you doing here? Go cast spells with your turtle.”

“Does your zucchini plant produce too many zucchinis? A.K.A. Any amount of zucchinis? It's a paladin.”

“Ask yourself, am I holding my pet rat back from their true ambitions?”

“It may seem challenging, but science shouldn’t be easy, it should be correct.”

“He lives in my apartment but he doesn’t pay rent and he eats my bagels if I leave them unattended.”

“I’ve been dealing with this small bastard’s antics for so long, I need to remind myself why he’s here by quantifying his value.”

“After explaining why I needed it, my time off request was denied. So instead, I ate some gas station sushi in order to induce illness, and I took a sick day.”

“I’m not a scientist, I’m a gamer.”

I fixed Fallout's music by creating a totally new genre:

“You're telling me that humans figured out how to make a gun that turns you into goo, and yet they haven't made any new music?”

“War never changes. But music should.”

“Ooh! This is a new dance move for me. I don't know if I like it yet.”

“What I’m saying is that if 80% of humans died today, in 100 years, we'd still have Old Town Road, but it would have a few more remixes.”

“Do you really think that if the world ended in 1997, our culture would linger over "Barbie Girl" and "Tubthumping"? That we would be complacent with the cultural detritus of euro-techno, manufactured pop, and third-wave ska?”

“Even in the apocalypse, you can’t escape the guy who will bring his guitar to your party.”

“We need art because of its fundamental importance to human expression.”

“What is the "Star Spangled Banner" if not America’s jingle?”

“If you can carry a gun, you can carry a tune.”

“Background music? NO. This is FOREGROUND MUSIC.”

“I've never skanked so hard in my life.”

Find your Kojima name with my simple 11-page form:

“This process is extremely simple. All you need is a full set of RPG dice, and an easy to fill out 11-page worksheet.”

“What's your most embarrassing childhood memory?”

“In 7th grade I was in a production of Beauty and the Beast, and at one point our Belle missed her costume change, and so I had to stand out and basically ad lib for what felt like an hour. Earlier that week, I had heard my more mature friend say a joke that I did not realize was sexual, and so I said that joke while I was on stage, and I saw a whole crowd of middle school parents all go *uncomfortable noise*”

“What is the object you'd least like to be stabbed by?”

“How many carrots do you believe you could eat in one sitting, if someone, like, forced you to eat as many carrots as possible?”

“If you had to define your personality in one word, what would it be?”

“Pedant is a very good word.”

“What is something you'd enjoy watching Mads Mikkelsen do?”

“I'd enjoy waking up one day and coming out to see Mads Mikkelsen in my kitchen just sweeping up, uh, some, some spilled cheerios. And then he, he looks up at me and he gives me that "Aren't I so clumsy?" smile.”

How to tell apart all 596 Fire Emblem characters

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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10 PS4 Games to Play Instead of the Still Broken Cyberpunk 2077

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Cyberpunk 2077 is finally back on the PlayStation Store, but the game comes with this warning that makes it clear that the PS4 version of the controversial title is still surprisingly broken:

“IMPORTANT NOTICE: Users continue to experience performance issues with this game. Purchase for use on PS4 systems is not recommended. For the best Cyberpunk experience on PlayStation, play on PS4 Pro and PS5 systems.”

It’s not often you see a digital store tell you to not purchase a version of a game made for one of the best-selling video game consoles ever, but that update is really just the latest chapter in what has proven to be the shockingly strange Cyberpunk 2077 story so far. While you could wait for CD Project Red to update the PS4 version of Cyberpunk 2077 enough to finally make it playable on that platform, it could be quite some time before that actually happens. Instead, consider playing one of these PS4 games that each offer something that will help you forget about Cyberpunk 2077 (if only for a little while).

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided isn’t quite as good as Human Revolution or the original Deus Ex, but if Cyberpunk 2077 left you dreaming about this franchise, you should know that Mankind Divided is the most accessible modern Deus Ex title available on PS4.

What Mankind Divided (mostly) gets right is the feeling that you’re able to solve any scenario pretty much however you’d like. While your choices sometimes come down to the old “stealth, charisma, action” decision paths, Mankind Divided excels at encouraging you to find unique solutions to complex problems. It then rewards you with the feeling that you may have solved that problem in a way that nobody else quite has (even if that obviously isn’t always true).

Even better, Mankind Divided doesn’t push too hard for an open-world setting it can’t quite handle, which means that it arguably does a better job than Cyberpunk at showcasing its stylish settings filled with little world-building and storytelling moments.

Fallout: New Vegas

Technically, it’s easier to play Fallout 4 on PS4 than Fallout: New Vegas, but considering that Fallout 4 shares some issues with Cyberpunk in terms of ideas that don’t quite land, it might be worth a month’s subscription to PS Now just to play this gem.

After all, Cyberpunk 2077’s best feature is the quality of its side stories and missions, which also happens to be one of the things that Fallout: New Vegas excels at. The difference is that New Vegas’ side missions are arguably better and often help expand New Vegas’ faction-driven world in a way that Cyberpunk seemingly strives for but rarely achieves.

Yes, New Vegas is an incredibly buggy game, but it’s also an example of how video game bugs are easier to forgive when they’re acquired in the service of crafting something quite special.

The Outer Worlds

The Outer Worlds is a (nearly) perfect modern RPG for fans of developer Obsidian’s style or even those looking for a tribute to the best RPGs from Bethesda, BioWare, and other legendary studios.

The Outer Worlds offers a more methodical RPG experience than what you’ll find in Cyberpunk 2077, but if you love great dialog, interesting character-building options, and memorable companions/side characters, then this is absolutely one of the best sci-fi role-playing experiences of the last console generation.

The Outer Worlds isn’t even an especially long game (unless you’re really trying to see and do everything), so you could even pair it with one of the other titles on this list.

Ghostrunner

While Ghostrunner’s October 2020 release date and “cyberpunk” style caused some to initially dismiss it as an indie cash-in on the Cyberpunk 2077 hype, this game is actually closer to a more action-oriented take on Mirror’s Edge.

Actually, Ghostrunner is one of the most fast-paced and creative action games in recent memory. It rarely offers you a moment to slow down, and the skill required to overcome its most devious roadblocks invokes that “zen” state you only get from certain games.

Ghostrunner is a sneakily good Cyberpunk 2077 alternative for those who loved that game’s genre trappings and are on board with this underrated game’s pace and style.

Invisible, Inc.

Truth be told, one of these spots really should go to one of the modern entries in the Shadowrun series. Since those games aren’t available for PS4, though, then let’s take a slight detour into something a little different.

As a turn-based stealth strategy game, Invisible Inc. doesn’t share a lot of gameplay DNA with Cyberpunk 2077. What the two do have in common, though, are fascinating sci-fi worlds run by corporations and the operatives who oppose (and assist) them.

If you enjoy tactical gameplay at all and want something with Cyberpunk 2077-esque style, then Invisible Inc. could just be the gem you’ve been looking for.

Cloudpunk

Here’s another smaller game that got mixed up in the Cyberpunk 2077 hype despite offering a completely different experience.

You won’t find a lot of Cyberpunk 2077-style action in this game about delivering packages, but in terms of world design and lore, I’d honestly put Cloudpunk above CD Projekt Red’s controversial epic. Cloudpunk may not benefit from a fraction of that game’s budget, but its Blade Runner-like world is so easy to lose yourself in.

Cloudpunk is just one of the best ways to spend a little time in a sci-fi dystopia.

Watch Dogs: Legion

Watch Dogs: Legion generated a little buzz when it was first revealed, but the talk around this title died out a bit too soon.

Watch Dogs: Legion’s “play as any NPC” gameplay gimmick isn’t quite as deep as it maybe could have been, but it ultimately serves to enhance what is otherwise a very good open-world game that still features many of the best qualities that defined its also underrated predecessor.

While not a 1:1 replacement for Cyberpunk 2077 by any means, I’d still argue that this is one of the best ways to explore a large and hostile sci-fi environment while enjoying some clever gameplay.

Prey

I freely admit that I was initially somewhat disappointed by Prey. At the time it was released, I just felt like the game didn’t quite do enough to improve the games that clearly inspired it.

Some of my reservations about the game remain, but what I can tell you is that Prey features one of the best “atmospheres” I’ve seen in a video game in the last 15 or 20 years. Prey’s world falls somewhere between Robocop and a really good sci-fi horror movie. It manages to keep you wanting more of its corporate dystopia setting despite regularly giving you reasons to worry about what’s behind the next corner.

Even better, Prey’s gameplay features enough of that Deus Ex/BioShock style to occasionally offer Cyberpunk 2077 kind of moments.

Dishonored 2

I don’t think it’s possible to sing the praises of the Dishonored series enough. That being the case, let me use this time as an excuse to remind you that you really should play Dishonored 2: one of the most underrated games of the last console generation.

Cyberpunk 2077 occasionally does a very good job of offering multiple solutions to complex problems, but even at its best, it just can’t match what Dishonored 2 achieves in that arena. Not since the glory days of the Thief franchise have I played a game that does such a great job of using level design to sell a world while encouraging players to constantly explore new solutions.

Honestly, you should play Dishonored 2 even if you couldn’t care less about Cyberpunk 2077.

The Witcher 3

Maybe it’s because it’s the game that arguably contributed more to the Cyberpunk 2077 hype than anything else, but I feel like there’s a sense of hesitation when it comes to recommending The Witcher 3 as a kind of Cyberpunk 2077 alternative. Granted, it’s a different game in many respects, but I feel that some of that hesitation is based on the currently low public opinion of developer CD Projeckt Red.

However, it’s fairly easy to separate the two games and elevate The Witcher 3 with one hand while dismissing at least the PS4 version of Cyberpunk 2077 with the other. The Witcher 2 proved that CD Projekt Red was one of the most exciting studios in gaming, but nothing could have prepared anyone for the ways that The Witcher 3 addressed nearly all of that game’s issues while advancing the art of video game storytelling and world-building.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Maybe it will make you just a little sadder than it used to, but The Witcher 3 is obviously still a truly great game.

The post 10 PS4 Games to Play Instead of the Still Broken Cyberpunk 2077 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3gTXclo

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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lilacflamesss · 7 years ago

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Shattered (Chapter 3.5)

Summary: Hinami tries to deal with her sorrows through seeking Ayato out. Ayato can never turn away the girl he loves far more than he should. Two people with unrequited feelings, dealing with them in very different ways. Human AU. (1.7k words)

Warning: This fic contains unhealthy copic mechanisms, heavy sexual content, and plenty of problematic/ dubious things which I absolutely do not condone at all. This is a work of fiction that takes on a more mature, physical take on Ayahina’s relationship as opposed to the typical conventional one. Please feel free not to read this fic if it’s not your cup of tea!

A/N: I ended up writing this mini-scene to at least give some insights into Ayato’s head about the events that went on in chapter 3, though not too in-depth as well to maintain the intensity for subsequent chapters. Mainly it’s because I wanted to write a morning after where Ayato wakes up first HAHA. Please do reblog this and feel free to leave some comments!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 3.5 | Chapter 4

Preview:

Another blatant lie, another terrible attempt at hiding it. He winces at the sound of his voice, turning away from her, using the need for sugar as an excuse to hide his expression. He’s not going to see his sister. He knows he won’t go at all and even if he makes an attempt to, he’ll only turn back midway. He can’t face her, not after acting like a huge ass kid, not after hurting her and definitely not after endangering her child. Honestly, what would he even do if something had happened to that kid-- his own niece or nephew-- and what if it affected Touka as well? He can try to continue being the biggest asshole around; he can try to convince the whole world he hates his sister more than anything. But there’s more to their relationship that just that. A mere fallout isn’t enough to erase every second they’re spent by each other’s side; a mere argument isn’t enough to make him forget what she’s done for him.

His stomach falls. Being an ungrateful piece of shit is one thing, but it is incomparable to actually hurting her and even though she seemed to have walked out unscathed, he wonders if that’s truly the case. How frighten must Touka have been when she’s falling? Her hands had immediately gone to her belly, her face had gone ashen white and she had totally stiffened. She was terrified, not for herself, but for her baby-- the poor, innocent foetus that’s barely even given a chance to live, yet was almost destroyed by someone of its own blood.

He wakes up smelling lavenders and strawberries, nose buried in a head smooth hair. He stays in that position for a while, basking in the scent and the comfort of being curled up against her, under the duvet during the cold winter morning. It’s been weeks since he’s been able to hold her like that and while rare due to him always waking up after her, he’s woken up to her curled up against him more times than he can count already. Sometimes it feels like she has practically moved in. But even if this is the case, it always feels so surreal that the first thing he sees in the morning is her and that the first thing he’s made aware of when he wakes up is the fact that they’re pressed against each other, limbs tangled and holding each other tight. It’s a dream come true for him-- a fantasy which he wishes will never come to an end.

Hinami is burning up beside him. Ayato feels the heat radiating off her skin from the hand he has pressed against her tummy under the shirt she’s wearing. Clearly, they made a dumb choice the previous day. He feels like hitting his own head. Why did he think a dirty alley in the middle of winter was even a good idea?

Even though he’s slept over it, the gnawing in his abdomen has yet to fade and it continues eating him from within. He longs to just forget the previous day, but Hinami will start nagging at him if he starts to chug down the remaining beer he has in his refrigerator or if he even dares to pull out the pack of cigarettes he has in the drawer by his bedside. She’s so naggy. She reminds him of his sister in the past, always forcing him to continuously do something about the mess his room is in or his terrible eating habits. It’s a pain but it’s a kind of pain he craves and loves to experience even more.

His head spins as he recalls the sister whom he once followed behind like a puppy would after its owner-- the same sister he had yelled at and hurt, almost killing the child growing within her. It brings a bitter taste to his mouth.

He had forgotten she’s pregnant; he didn’t realise she is; he hadn’t pushed her that hard, she’s just weak. His mind scrambles to form justifications, to defend himself from the guilt that’s threatening to wear down on him. But every justification is as good as a styrofoam board, the logical condemnations he has of himself smashing through it like a martial artist’s fist. The fact remains that he made a mistake, an utterly terrible one, and he can’t do anything about it.

Hinami coughs and Ayato gets up, leaning over her to feel her forehead. She’s seriously burning up, not too much to the point he has to worry, but enough for him to know that she’ll really fall ill if they ignore it. She’s still asleep, so he decides to continue letting her rest. But he gets out of bed anyway, adjusting the comforter to cover her body properly before he heads to the kitchen. He’s sure he has some tea somewhere and he’s read somewhere that tea helps with soothing the body down.

He finds the tea bags pretty fast, but water still needs to be boiled. Ayato makes a quick work of filling a kettle with water and heating it up, but he leaves it to boil by itself as he starts to fill a small basin with water. He brings it back to his room, places it on the side-table and searches his closet for a piece of cloth. The best he managed to get is an old bandanna, and he decides to make do with that. His movements seemed to have woken Hinami and she rolls over to lie on her back. She opens her eyes, looking at him in confusion.

“Ayato?” She had sounded a little different the previous night, but her voice is completely weaker and more strained right now. She tries to sit up completely, but Ayato’s at her side in a matter of seconds, pushing her to lie back down.

“How do you feel?”

“Pretty bad,” she admits. “My body hurts.”

He feels partly responsible. No, he feels totally responsible. It’s because he was acting like an idiot that she fell sick. Of course there’s going to be some kind of bug or virus in that disgusting alley-- what did he expect when he was pushing her down onto the filthy floor? He dips the bandanna into the basin of water, before wringing it a little. After folding it slightly, he dabs it on Hinami’s forehead and cheeks.

“This should help you feel better. I’m making some tea as well,” he says. She smiles while she looks at him, watching him as he rises the cloth before pressing it against her.

“Thank you, Ayato. It does make me feel a little fresher.” She attempts to sit up, but he pushes her down again.

“Just stay in bed and rest. I’ll get you some tea when it’s ready.”

“You don’t have to do this. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“You’re not a bother… I do enjoy taking care of you.” That’s not a lie, honestly. When he does that, it feels like he’s closer to her in a very different way from when they’re having sex or cuddling up in bed. But he also admits that there’s a lot more to this than just that. The guilt for forcing her down in such an environment probably has more to do with it but there’s no way he’s going to tell her that.

Hinami coughs again, bringing her hand up to her mouth. Ayato’s vaguely aware of the whistling of the kettle from the kitchen and he knows he has to turn to it. He dips the cloth in water again, squeezes it, though he leaves it much damper than it was earlier on, before he places it on Hinami’s head. Hinami is looking up at him in confusion but he simply offers her a smile before turning to leave the room to walk into the kitchen.

He’s pouring water into the mugs when he hears footsteps and he’s about to turn to her to nag her into returning back to bed when she winds her arm around his waist and presses her body against him, peeking at what he’s doing.

“What did I do to get treated like a princess?” she murmurs, nuzzling her face against his chest. He swears he feels a brief peck.

“You’re sick. You need to be in bed.” She sniffs as he speaks, as if to prove his point, but before he can really say anything else, she’s lightly rubbing her hands against his bare skin, distracting him for a moment.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Yeah… but maybe it’s better to stay away from dirty alleys. Definitely not a good idea to fuck there in the middle of winter,” he admits.

“Are you trying to say you hadn’t known it’ll be a bad idea?”

He did, but not for this reason. “You learn something new everyday.”

“You’re so stupid,” she complains, slapping him lightly. He pushes one of the mugs towards her and Hinami detaches herself from him to pick it up.

“There’s a reason why you’re the one who’s on a scholarship while I’m here struggling with my GPA,” he sighs.

“Your GPA will be a lot better if you stop spending all your money on beers and cigarettes and ending up having to take up extra shifts to make up for that…” Hinami grumbles, taking a sip of her drink. “Enough about that… Ayato, are you feeling better?”

“Me?”

“Yeah… because you know… about yesterday. I wonder if you’re feeling better now.”

His first instinct is to deny it and be honest, but he smiles at her instead. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Hinami stares at him, brows furrowing at his words. Ayato has always prided himself on his ability to keep what he truly feels at bay and lie easily to deceive others, but even he has to admit that he sounded like a croaking toad when he answered her. He shrugs, took a big gulp from his own mug and grimaces at the bitterness.

“Are you gonna see your sister?”

“Yeah, one day.”

Ayato doubts he’s able to stomach any more tea and he’s flushing everything down the sink before he realises what he’s doing or that Hinami is watching everything.

“Ayato? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he murmurs. “I guess I’m not that big of a tea person.”

He turns to her and smiles, just like he always does with her. Hinami seems concerned, but she also seems really conflicted about it, tiptoeing on whether to push the issue further or not. He doesn’t want her to bother to much about it, definitely doesn’t want her to bother too much about him, so all he can really do is keep her mind off it. He walks over to her and wraps his arms around her waist, gently pulling her closer so that she doesn’t end up spilling the tea.

“I’m going to take a shower… Wanna join me?”

It’ll cool her fever down at least.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this! Once again, please please do reblog if you like this! It’ll really help me out. Feel free to leave comments in the tags/ reblogs/ replies or through asks!

It’s exam period now and I’m going on a vacation immediately after that, so Chapter 4 might take awhile! I’m sorry for that. I hope you guys enjoyed this! I debated whether to include that last line, but I decided I might as well give you guys some spoilers for the next few chapters that’s not Touken and sub Ayato :) I’m gonna sleep now, so good night everyone!

#tg #tokyo ghoul #ayahina #kirishima ayato #fueguchi hinami #far writes stuff #tg fanfic #my fic: shattered #omg guess who finally proofread

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sweetbroloveit · 8 years ago

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The 100 Season 4 Finale

Holy shit y’all! I watched it this morning and I wasn’t quite able to process it all so I watched again it tonight. It was really intense and I pretty much scream-sobbed the whole way through. And then I cried even more on the second viewing.

Thoughts and feels under the cut. (LOL, this is 3 pages y’all, so grab a bottle of wine first)

The Blake Siblings moment was BEAUTIFUL! I love them so much. I loved the mythology callback and how he teased her for ruining his Prometheus metaphor! I’m thrilled she finally said ‘I love you’ and even though his reply was cut off, at least he said it in 4x11 so she knows. And them both saying ‘May we Meet Again’ to the dead radio also killed me in the best way.

With regards to Wonkru in the bunker, I’m kind of bummed we didn’t get to see more of the fallout from Kane and Jaha’s choice last week, but there really just wasn’t time. I saw a review suggest this should have been a 2 hour finale and I actually think that would have been awesome, maybe then they could have spent the first half focused on the bunker, and the second half with the time crunch space race? But anyway. Just to touch on the Octavia as commander story: I’m really glad Indra specified that this wasn’t the same as being Heda/The Commander as we’ve known it. Octavia isn’t taking the Flame, she’s not trying take on a spiritual role or be blessed by the Faith, she is their champion and their leader in her own way. The forehead charm kind of bugged me in season 3 for edging on cultural appropriation, but I think giving it its own symbolic importance has helped. So it’s not just decoration or someone playing dress up, it’s a symbol of the leader – much like Skairkru’s chancellor’s pin.

Now on to the best part – the remaining Delinquents and friends:

I really wish those scripts hadn’t been leaked so early in the season. Even though I never read them, they obviously influenced people’s speculations and fandom discussion so you couldn’t help but know Clarke would be left behind. And the promos showed her on a post-praimfaya Earth, so that was dumb. It took some of the fun out of it, but the mining colony prisoner transport landing instead of the Space Delinquents was a cool twist at least.

I was really looking forward to a season of the Delinquents in space and the adults in the bunker on earth, that would have been a great callback to season 1 but… that’s exactly why they wouldn’t do that storyline, because they have done it before. So I can understand their choices based on the story they seem to want to tell next season: going back to 3 factions returning to earth – Space People (Mining Colony Prisoners), Grounders (Clarke and Madi) and Mountain Men (Wonkru underground). I really hope the Space Delinquents get back to Earth soon and that everyone in the bunker is okay. I’ll be excited to see the leadership triumvirate of Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia take on the Mining Prisoners (assuming they will be the new antagonists).

The scene where the space gang was suffocating, while trying to connect the oxygen up, was incredible. I felt like I also couldn’t breathe. And I absolutely loved how they all cared for each other, sharing their oxygen and pulling everyone closer to the vents. They felt like a real team, Emori and Echo included (bless you Echo for pulling off Bellamy’s helmet when his oxygen finally gave out!)

I loved Monty and Murphy’s scenes on the ground – Murphy has grown so much. Monty hugging him and saying maybe he doesn’t hate him anymore was amazing!

I also really loved Bellamy’s scenes with Raven and Echo. At first I thought Echo was up to some sabotaging shadiness when she put on her white face paint. Her ritual was so similar to the Azgeda assassin’s when they blew up Mount Weather, I really thought she was going to fuck everything up. Her suicide plan took me by surprise since the whole reason she saved the Delinquents last week was to secure a place in the lighthouse bunker and survive. But I guess the idea of living in space was rather daunting and just reminded her of how isolated she was from her own people. The look on her face when she saw the rocket was quite telling. I liked how Bellamy talked her down, he was super honest about how he may never trust her but he was still compassionate. It reminded me of how he talked Raven out of running away in season 1, by pointing out how the group needs her.

Bellamy and Raven had some great scenes as well. I loved their final scene when he asked if she was with him and she said “always”. That was really special. I personally have never seen any romantic chemistry between them, their sex scene in season 1 still makes me cover my eyes, but I like their friendship. And I’m pretty sure they’re going to hook Bellamy up with either Raven or Echo during the time jump (since he thinks Clarke is dead *sob!*) and I would rather it be Raven than Echo tbh.

BELLARRRRRRRKKKKKKE!!!! MY BABIESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I’m so sad they’ve been separated for 6 fucking years! But again, we knew it was coming. I thought at first, I would rather them be separated than have them hook up during the 5 year time jump and us miss all the development. But really they have had 4 seasons worth of build up so as a shipper I would have been happy if season 5 started with them being all cute and domestic up in space, like ‘Boom! We’re canon now!’ But I digress…

The overly-optimistic part of me thought maybe he would give up his spot on the rocket and stay with her, but that really wouldn’t make sense since he’s not a nightblood, and they needed to show him making the rational choice rather than the emotional choice to further his character development. I think Bellamy’s growth as a leader is going to be a big feature of next season, but in order to push that they sadly needed to separate him from Clarke, his partner, for a significant period. My hopeful shipper side also kicked in when she started their heart-heart (or rather heart-to-head) and I thought for a second she might make a love confession. But alas… we have yet another season to wait for canon romantic-Bellarke. But we really did get some amazing scenes with them this episode.

THAT HUG! OMG! The way he rushed to her and pulled her into his arms, and the way she squeezed him so tight she linked her hands behind his back, and when he put his hand in her hair at the back of her neck… I AM CRYING AGAIN. They love each other so fucking much!

SO many touches this episode! I screamed for their entire scene up on the balcony. The way he gently caressed her face and later she put her hand on his chest/heart and touched his temple… I CAN’T! They are not platonic. Those were not friend touches. They are in love.

*Ahem*

Fangirling aside, their conversation was beautiful. I loved the role reversal from 4x06: This time Clarke was the one who wanted to have the feelings talk and Bellamy was the one trying to shut down any notion that this was goodbye; he was convinced they were both going to make it. But she really thought there was a chance Abby’s premonition was true so she was trying to prepare him for leading without her. Just like 4x06, she told him how special he was. And she was 100% right, she has always seen who he really is and admired his heart. When she told him he needed to use his head sometimes too, the way he said “That’s what I have you for” absolutely fucking broke me.

As for Bellamy leaving Clarke behind, it had to be done. He was right, it’s what Clarke wanted. After their conversation, Bellamy took on the responsibility for their people – sacrificing Clarke is part of that (season 1 finale parallels anyone?). He has to make sure their people survive and that means not only getting them safely off the dying planet, but also being there for them and leading them for the next five years in space. The way he kept glancing at the doors, hoping she’d make it just in time, his quiet “May we meet again”, and then “I left her behind” when he thinks he sacrificed the person that he loves for nothing – It was not an easy decision to make, but it just shows how much he has grown as a leader since season 1. We save who we can save today.

But now he thinks Clarke Griffin is dead that that hurts me like you have no idea. But he won’t let her death be in vain. He is going to make damn sure every one of those space delinquents thrives. He’s going to be the best leader he can be, to honour her. I loved him looking at The Baton bottle at the window on the Ark (the Ring?). So technically it was Jaha passing on the baton, but I think it’s obviously also a symbol of Clarke handing the sole leadership to Bellamy (for now).

Oh and my girl Clarke Griffin! So brave! So strong! The worst part of her staying on Earth for me was the idea that she would be by herself for 5 years. I really didn’t want that for her. So I’m glad she found Madi. I’m not wild about the sudden Clarke-as-a-mom storyline. It feels like a cheap way to “soften” her? Like she adopts a child and now she’ll be a very different person and make completely different choices? I don’t know. I’m probably wrong. I’m sure they’ll make it work. I thought they’d go the Heda Clarke route this season and they proved me wrong (and called out the shittiness of it) so I’m willing to keep an open mind.

AND SHE’S BEEN RADIO-ING BELLAMY BLAKE EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 6 MOTHERFUCKING YEARS!? The thought of him keeps her sane, reminds her of her humanity!? I mean!?! Even when he is millions of miles away HE STILL KEEPS HER CENTERED. I really don’t know if the show will ever go full-on romantic Bellarke, but they have already proven that they are soulmates. I really hope they let them make out and get married etc. but I’m willing to wait for it as long as the show keeps giving their relationship the attention and care that it deserves.

Gah! Is it 2018 yet?

#The 100 #Bellarke #Bellamy Blake #Clarke Griffin #The Delinquents #Octavia Blake #Raven Reyes #Echo kom Azgeda #Monty Green #John Murphy #Emori #Cath has thoughts and feels

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fannishcodex · 8 years ago

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SVtFoE Theory: Rasticore and Ms. Heinous

For an actually pretty hilarious character with a cool design and some interesting worldbuilding implications so far, there’s something that keeps bugging me--like, something that keeps occurring to me, and it’s led me to a theory that kinda disturbs even me. (I may also be reading into this too much, but thinking about this still interests me, even with the dark turn it took.)

In the first Heinous episode from season 1, briefly shown are these attack/guard/security dogs Heinous uses, that have a gem embedded in one of their eyes.

Fast forward to season 2, and we have Rasticore, also serving Heinous like the dogs, and also with a gem embedded in one of his eyes.

Something about that kinda eerie similarity with the eye-gem between the dogs and Rasticore keeps giving me even more unsettling thoughts. It even seems like the dogs and Rasticore have the /exact/ same type of gem. This similarity between them seems very specific, making me think it could end up being relevant.

Basically it all makes me wonder this:

What if Rasticore isn’t operating entirely under his own free will? What if that gem in his eye is another form of brainwashing Heinous uses to control others, like the dogs and Rasticore?

More about my reasoning for this theory, with more background speculation/implication, and analysis of more present-time scenes:

1) The history of conflict between Mewmans/Mewman rulers and the Monsters. To sum up, Mewnipendance Day basically shows the Mewmans conquering the Monsters’ homeland, then revile them, and celebrate their violent victory over them. Other episodes in the series imply the Monsters’ poverty and generally mistreated status, and Mewmans’ active contribution to this or basic apathy to it. Major figures in this Mewman system oppressing the Monsters are the female Butterfly royals/*nobles, who can inherit the royal wand that was instrumental in conquering the Monsters long ago and seems to continue to keep them oppressed, and are marked by physical stylized symbol marks on their cheeks.

(*”Game of Flags”* and a few other episodes seem to indicate there’s some assumed-to-be Mewman nobility--or noble-looking women outside of Moon and Star, who have a direct royal lineage and direct inheritance of the wand--that also get cheek marks.)

Ms. Heinous does have club marks on her cheeks, and it’s still a mystery as to what her exact relation to the Butterfly family is--but the marks are a clear indicator that she does have one.

Also, besides her screentime, status as a recurring character and one of the more threatening and disturbing antagonists, implications of a larger vendetta, the fact that her school played a part in the very first episode, and the mystery surrounding her, the inclusion of the club marks in the tapestry room indicates Ms. Heinous may be even more significant later. (I think this is the first time the classic card suite symbols have all been literally gathered together in one place, a.k.a. the cheek marks of Star/heart, Moon/diamond, Heinous/club, and Eclipsa/spade.)

Heinous is pretty much associated with the royal Butterflys, and thus can be associated with their oppression of the Monsters. This opens up the possibility that she could be in fact engaging in that oppressive behavior too, by literally stealing a Monster’s/Rasticore’s free will and making him essentially her slave.

2) There is a shadowy figure in Moon and Toffee’s tapestry that does seem to resemble Rasticore.

See also here and here for more discussion on this resemblance.

The tie-in book, “Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension,” says Rasticore was in violation of the Mewman-Monster accord like Toffee, and the fight pictured in the tapestry could be related to those violations. If Rasticore was there, it implies he too could fall along the traditional Mewman v. Monster lines--that Rasticore too fought against Mewman control, even alongside Toffee. (While Heinous may represent Mewman control.)

If Rasticore fought against Mewmans, why is he really working with one? There’s the possibility that Monsters’ poor status can drive him to serve her because he needs the employment, he’s desperate; it could be something else; or it could be that he’s not serving her willingly at all. The tapestry shows things went wrong for Toffee, as they likely did for Rasticore, and whoever else they fought with. Things could’ve gone /really/ wrong for Rasticore; what if during fallout from the loss against Moon/the Mewmans, his rebellion was ruthlessly stamped out by enslaving him with an enchanted gem to brainwash him, putting him under Heinous’ control?

3) Heinous and her school for wayward princesses ended up being very focused on brainwashing, forcing her idea of perfection on her students while trying to eradicate their free well. It’s possible Heinous may use brainwashing to an even greater extent than we first realized, using it on those who work under her, such as the dogs and Rasticore.

4) Back to Heinous’ dogs--actually the first time we see someone serve her while having a gem embedded in their eye. Again, the dogs and Rasticore both have a gem in one of their eyes, and they obey Heinous. A little observation on appearances/terms: the dogs seem heavily coded as guard dogs for Heinous; Heinous does refer to Rasticore as her bodyguard, and he can be believably seen as serving in that role too.

Only recently did another thing occur to me about this. There is possibly a little of this in “Gift of the Card”, but much more of it in "Heinous”: what seems like affection she has for Rasticore. It just occurred to me that how it’s shown, her dialogue and actions:

-What seems like terms of endearment she uses for Rasticore, and even cutesy/baby talk.

-Caressing/stroking/petting his arm, the way she holds it close.

I just realized, more and more, it reminds me of Heinous treating Rasticore as if he were her pet.

“ Come now, Rasticore. There's my baby bounty hunter. You're growing back so fast. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. “

“ He's my dear, sweet Rasticore. This is just his arm, but he's part lizard, so his whole body will grow back soon. And then he'll be a big boy, won't you, sweetie? [kisses Rasticore's arm]”

“ Why, Rasticore! You've grown an elbow! You'll be a big boy again soon. So very soon. “

Bolded my emphasis. (x) Such dialogue above keeps making me think that Heinous’ apparent affection for Rasticore can be seen as specifically the type used for a pet, even a pet dog, like the guard dogs she used before. (Calling him “baby, big boy, sweetie;” the specific repeating message “yes, you are” that can be typically associated with pets.)

Also just realized, when she launches Rasticore’s arm at Marco and the others, orders him to attack even like that: it reminds me of her ordering a guard dog--even exactly like her one-gem-eyed dogs in season 1--to attack.

“ Now, Rasticore, bring me Princess Marco's bones! “

“Gemini, Rasticore, attack! “

It does even sort of remind me of someone ordering their summoned creature/trained animal to attack. How Heinous treats Rasticore makes me consider the possibility of this theory; like if Heinous treats Rasticore like a pet dog, that strengthens his link to the guard dogs with gem eyes, it’s another thing they have in common, and all together this could indicate a larger case of brainwashing going on.

So, because of this, I keep thinking Rasticore is not acting entirely of his own free will. That he is in fact under Heinous’ control and is pretty much like her other guard dogs, who have a gem eye like him, which is actually the main tool that keeps them brainwashed under Heinous’ control.

P.S. Bonus:

I literally just remembered this guy:

Ms. Heinous’ assistant who’s been with her since her first episode. I just really noticed how there’s something up with his eyes too. It even looks like he has one eye--but the only thing he has close to one eye left looks like a false one, while the other is more visibly scarred/destroyed. In fact, the case could be made that what could be his false eye can slightly resemble a gem too, with the way its segmented within the device frame. (But looking significantly different from the gems embedded in the eyes of the dogs and Rasticore.)

I also remembered that his name is Gemini.

And then there are Heinous’ robot guards, likely only working with her because they’re programmed to do so. And the brief look at what looked like a senior princess and/or alumni teaching a new student, and again likely only working for Heinous because she was brainwashed to. Now I’m just getting more interested in the idea that Heinous is so fixated on brainwashing, practically everyone working for her isn’t entirely doing it of their own free will (from possibly Rasticore, to the guard dogs, to programmed robot guards, to brainwashed princess students, to Gemini).

Anyway, again, I think the guard dogs and Rasticore both have gems in their eyes as a way to keep them under Heinous’ control.

(Thanks again @lemonadesoda for support on this.)

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #rasticore #miss heinous #ms heinous

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surveys-at-your-service · 8 years ago

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Survey #97

gaming survey.

let's start with the classic: what's your favorite game? why? "silent hill 2." it is so fucking well-thought out and went places no one ever thought a game would go. it was psychological as fuck and absolutely terrifying in that sense. it had such an intricate storyline and was positively heart-wrenching. the characters were very unique, and oh boy, don't even think of forgetting the soundtrack. it was so, so immersive. the monsters were incredibly symbolic, and it really, really got you to question your own conscience. i could literally go on about how wonderful this game is for hours on end. least favorite game? probably "eleusis," whose name i don't care if i spelled wrong. i know it's an indie game, but holy fuck, it's horrible. the puzzles make legitimately no sense and literally requires a walkthrough. what's your favorite gaming genre? psychological horror, easily. least favorite gaming genre? probably first-person shooters. what's your favorite childhood game? "spyro the dragon: year of the dragon." i loved the entire series, but that was my favorite. when did you start gaming, anyway? literally as soon as i could hold a controller and had the coordination to understand the buttons. scariest game ever? "scp containment breach." i couldn't play it because the first scp scared me so much lol. however, i've watched my favorite youtuber play it many times. despite it being in the indie scene, it's an incredible game and should really, really cost money. hmmmm... actually, "parasite eve" may overthrow it. not in terms of jumpscares, but in terms of, "what if that really happened?" scientifically, maybe it's possible. it explains why so very well. it's the only game that ever resulted in me having to take an anxiety pill. oh yeah, fun fact, we actually had a demo of the game on a demo disc, and mom hated the preview of it so much that she refused to let my sisters and i play it lol. favorite comedic game? oh that's easy, "five nights at fuckboy's 3." it is sooo fucking funny. i love all of them, but the third's the funniest. favorite action game? "resident evil 4." it was one of my first action horror experiences. saddest game in the history of ever? "silent hill 2," again. i fucking cried so hard and my week was ruined lol. that game legitimately changed me and made me ponder my decisions much more. favorite game based off a tv show or movie? probably the first season of "the walking dead." the characters were very unique (kenny is the Love of my Life), and the plot was phenomenal. i wasn't much of a fan of the gameplay (or lack thereof), but i was there for the story. the ending had me sobbing. i've never actually watched the tv show, but man i love that game. season three hasn't been that good imo, but i enjoyed the second one, too. game with the most interesting concept? the entire "silent hill," obviously. the idea that our biggest regrets and demons exist in multiple layers of reality is cool as fuck. "soma" is a close second. the philosophical debate of "if you move a human's conscience to a machine, is it still human?" is incredible. game with the most fucked-up storyline? "silent hill 2" or "silent hill 3." sh2 was more psychological in how screwed-up it was, but sh3 was very brazen abut it. it also has the only scene ever in a video game that made me gag. like i had to walk away from the controller because i literally almost puked. favorite gaming otp? that's p hard. actually, wait, i like tyrande and illidan from "world of warcraft" a lot. their story was sad as fuck. jaina and arthas from the same game, too. favorite video game protagonist? i have two: heather mason from sh2 and leon kennedy from the "resident evil" series. both are just total badases. heather mason reminds me a lot of myself, and leon is just super fucking cool and gives zero shits. favorite video game antagonist? does pyramid head from the sh series count? i mean in ways he's not really an antagonist, so. if he's not included, maybe claudia wolf from "silent hill 3" (LOOK I KNOW I'M TALKING ABOUT IT A LOT BUT THE SERIES IS MY BABY OKAY). she is a prime example of how religion can absolutely destroy a person, and i think it's really cool that she truly thinks she's doing what's good for the world. i also really like walter sullivan from "silent hill 4" because he is just sooo incredibly fucked up with a really tragic story. arthas menethil from "world of warcraft: wrath of the lich king" is also amazing and i pitied him so much. favorite video game monster? pyramid head, bar none. he is so mysterious and terrifying in his concept. sequel that disappointed you most? hmmm. i'm not sure. i mean, if i absolutely had to pick, maybe "silent hill: origins?" i mean don't get me wrong, i enjoyed the game, but it's my least favorite in the series. most under-rated game? "AMNESIA: A MACHINE FOR PIGS." oh my GOD. i do NOT understand why people thought it was disappointing to the title. that is one of the most fucked-up, greatest games i've ever played (it's my second favorite game) i've ever had the pleasure of playing. it is way, way better than the first game. it's another game that had me depressed for days and questioning my life. most over-rated game? probably "call of duty" and the like. i just don't see the appeal. favorite quote from a game? "i have stood knee-deep in mud and bone and filled my lungs with mustard gas. i have seen two brothers fall. i have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. i have dug trenches for the refugees; i have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws and starved the masses into faith. a child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. a house of skulls in the jungle. the innocent, the innocent, mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. this is your coming century! they will eat them, mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat your hearts!" - "amnesia: a machine for pigs." i get literally covered in goosebumps every single time i hear it. it's about how absolutely horrid the world is today from the perspective of the past. i also really enjoy "the only me is me... are you sure the only you is you?" from "silent hill: p.t." game you want made into a movie? "SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS" OH MY GOD. CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE. game you currently most want to play? "the last guardian." the story and trico are so fucking cute. what do you think of revamping classic games to "improve" them? eh, i've never been too into it. don't get me wrong, it works sometimes, but imo, it takes away the charm of the game sometimes. ex., with "crash bandicoot" being remade. i loved that game as a kid, but i think its graphics just added to the charm. favorite movie based off a game? the first "silent hill." did you ever get those old demo discs as a kid? did they ever influence you to buy a game? yes. i think we had three. i was first exposed to "shadow of the colossus" by a demo disc. i was totally into it and only played it a thousand times before buying it. were you ever or are you into the "final fantasy" craze? not really. i used to play "final fantasy viii" on a demo disc; my sisters, brother, and i loved it. my bro was the only one who could beat the final boss (the spider thing) of the demo; he and ashley used to play it a lot. i really liked it, and when i was young, wanted to buy it. we all used to think squall was sexy as fuck lol. the summons were super-duper cool too, especially rinoa's (i used to make her do her water dragon limit break constantly ha ha). i did, however, have "final fantasty vii," and i got all the way to the second disc, but i eventually just fell out of playing it. i think it was too long for me personally, although i really did enjoy the story. i'm sure you've heard of the "five nights at freddy's" one, too. were you into it? i've never played it myself and i personally wouldn't, but i've watched youtubers play it and i enjoy it. the story and characters are cool (especially springtrap), and the story is quite frightening. hardest game you've ever beaten? i am not even remotely kidding, "the legend of spyro: the eternal night." it took me over a fucking year to beat that game and i rage-quit a lot. hardest boss monster? jesus fucking christ. there are three that top the list. the ultimate being from "parasite eve" is probably number one, though. he was hard as FUCK and took me like a whole goddamn day to beat. his multiple phases were annoying, and the fact he could trap you at the VERY END if you picked the wrong door was a cardinal fucking sin. basaran from "shadow of the colossus" was also horrific. even malus wasn't that bad. getting onto his back was a goddamn nightmare, especially when he got back up and if you misjudged your jump, you'd go flying. ripto of "spyro the dragon: ripto's rage!" was also a childhood nightmare. his phases were also annoying and he was just overall difficult. i felt like a fucking god when i finally did beat him lol. memory of alessa of sh3 was also hard for me, although she herself isn't that much of a difficult boss. it was just that i had no ammo so had to melee her the whole time. i got so fucking angry. how did you feel about "silent hill: p.t." being cancelled? it was probably one of the most anticipated games of 2014. want my honest opinion? i'm glad it was cancelled. that series is my fucking child and i would be legitimately furious if they fucked it up. i had many issues with it. one, the fact that norman reedus was made a model of the main character. it just pissed me off that they designed him to look pretty much exactly like daryl dixon. i don't want people to think "oh hey a guy from twd went to silent hill." i also had a problem with them changing the name to "silent hills;" i really don't know why since it's such a minor thing, but it irked me regardless. it also really, really bugged me that kojima openly said he's a bit of a wuss with horror games. dude, you can't be like that when you're working with what is well-known to be one of the scariest series of all time. i had full faith that del toro would be great for the series, but not kojima. it also pissed me off that it was said that aliens might be involved in the game. just... no. that's not what silent hill is. i get that it's a joke in the series, but to make it canon? if they actually went through with that and made it so extraterrestrials were involved, i literally would've broken something. ultimately, i'm glad it didn't work. favorite running joke or something of the like in a series? the "i'm totally gonna stick my hand in this filthy toilet for a wallet" joke that the "silent hill" series has, rooting from when james sunderland did so in sh2. i love the references. favorite side-kick? uhhh. cynder from "the legend of spyro: dawn of the dragon." she not only looks super fucking cool, but she has an interesting story and is just overall really rad. saddest video game death? well that's hard. prepare for spoilers. the one that hit me the hardest personally was probably vol'jin from wow. he was my favorite character out of like the billion wow has, so him dying sucked. not to even mention his death was super anti-climactic to where it pissed off the whole damn fanbase, despite being one of the most important characters. lee from twd was also absolutely horrible. ha, what a coincidence... they have the same voice actor. #stopkillingdavidfennoy favorite plot twist? spoiler warning once again. my favorite and to me the most shocking was the fact james was responsible for mary's death in "silent hill 2." it rocked my fucking world. best soundtrack? "shadow of the colossus." ko otani is a musical genius. sh2 is a very close second. what's the first gaming console you ever had? the original playstation. favorite setting in a game? that's super hard considering so many games are absolutely gorgeous. but i suppose lakeside amusement park from "silent hill 3." i love the blood & rust, macabre feel to it.

#survey #quiz #questions #asks #answered #gaming #video games

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idlemusingsofalex-blog · 8 years ago

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Fallout 4, A game critique

An amusing critique of Fallout 4 and Bethesda as a whole, as written for entertainment purposes, a foray into nostalgia and because of a college deadline that almost killed me.

Fallout 4 is a Lie, and this is why you should be mad.

Fallout 4, the acclaimed 2016 release of Bethesda studios, was a popular game upon its release, selling 12 million units on its first launch day. But don’t let the numbers mislead you, Fallout 4 is intrinsically a cheap lie to consumers, players and the franchise itself.

Let’s start at the beginning. Fallout, the core game, classifies itself as an Adventure RPG and harkens back to the days of tabletop RPG’s like Dungeons and Dragons, specifically a variant known as G.U. R.P.S, and is a creative DOS adventure created by Interplay and Black Isle Studios in which you can use many skills to determine your own path through the Wasteland. Fallout 2 follows much the same mechanic, though set about two decades after the first game. Around the time of development for a third game from Interplay, the cancelled Project : Van Buren, Interplay went bankrupt due to bad business practice, and sold all rights of the game franchise to what is now Bethesda Studios. Years passed until, what can only be described as Bethesda’s game devs sitting at a table thinking “we can’t make another goddamn Elder Scrolls game, what do we do?”. They get an intern to dig through what I hope is the proverbial dumpster of rights deals Bethesda had made and found the small gem of Fallout.

From this, we can see Fallout 3, a failure in its own right, much less for the franchise, emerge. Amidst the cries of praise from paid off reviewers (this was when this was legal, and usually not frowned upon), you could hear the dissent of fans watching their loved franchise devolve into a hellspawn of first person shooter and RPG, with callous writing and boring plotlines at best (don’t even begin to talk about the issues with core game mechanics either, because any reviewer worth their salt would probably hit you).

But, somehow, possibly from the hype surrounding the astoundingly good trailers which were accelerated well beyond what normal consoles and machines could handle at the time, they made enough money from that steaming garbage dump to scrape together a “sequel”, and I say sequel because Fallout 3 changes so much of the 20 years of established lore that calling it a sequel to even Fallout in general is a reach. With its overpriced at release DLC, not to mention the base game itself, littered with pre order “exclusives” and being such a buggy mess on certain platforms that it was rendered unplayable, Fallout 3 set the low standards that Bethesda continues to follow, even to this day.

Now of course, the engine itself is more or less sound. It is, of course an updated form of the Skyrim engine, known as the CREATION Engine, and its physics are about what you’d expect from a Bethesda game. Not unplayable but buggy nonetheless, events not triggering, textures incorrectly loading, entire system crash when all you did was move three inches to the left. Truly, a game engine couldn't be that hard for a major company to nail down. But oh, Bethesda is so synonymous with game engine failure that the internet has coined it’s own saying, the Bethesda Bug, in which a bug or glitch in a game is so bad that a player is unable to tell whether the game was bugged, or whether developers simply hadn’t implemented certain parts of the storyline.

Now, this wouldn't be such an issue, you’d think, right? And in truth it wouldn't.

If they bothered to patched the game after releases.

We’ll cover that further on.

It’s particularly telling, of course when both of the most downloaded modifications for your third and fourth installments to a series is an alternative start ability to the game, which allows you to completely bypass the pretty much set in stone character “creation” introduction, which basically sets your entire character's backstory (something that in its own self destroys the player control aspect). When your customers have to resort to MODIFYING THE CORE GAME, and I don't mean implementing a few graphics fixes, which they do anyway because Bethesda has a wonderful knack of never patching bugs in their games ever, and genuinely leaving it up to their fanbases -who already paid up to £60 for a completed game-, but instead scripting and voicing full alternatives to the main storyline and plot hook to turn the game into a semblance of an RPG, you’ve failed to create a game worth playing. This is made much more insulting when your main mantra is “It’s all about player choice”.

In regards to that choice, we are offered very, very little when it comes to the overall storyline and plot. The first major sin of poor writing is almost blase, and that is the game insists on piling exposition on you as soon as you start it up, with a narrated mini movie explaining the events leading up to the game’s events. To be fair, this is a staple in Fallout games, and it’s namely the way every previous fallout game has indeed started. Except, in those games, they changed depending on the title, none went into excruciating detail of the world, namely gave a short introduction to the world as it is, and where you begin, allowing the player to begin building an immersive character will some

The Fallout 4 opening does none of this. It instead asserts that you, the player, has the backstory of being a male veteran of the war that results in the Apocalypse, taking leave incidentally before the bombs fall to spent time with his wife and newborn child.

I’d like to remind you this is supposed to be a Role Playing Game.

In only 5 minutes, the game has locked you out from your own character, telling you that this is not an RPG, this is a shooter with poor story hooks and a half baked plot. The game then moves on to the character creation, arbitrary, allowing you to set how you want your character to look, name them and set traits and-

Oh wait, that's right.

There are no traits. No skills either. Something that has remained at the very forefront of Fallout’s past lauded character creation. No, now everything is determined by basic points in each S.P.E.C.I.A.L Category, that is Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. These set points determined how a character interacted with the world around them, but also imparted certain inborn traits such as higher speech skills, barter, gunmanship and so on. With Fallout 4, this is dumbed down to practical stupidity, and unfortunately renders the nuanced creation destroyed, something that has been a mainstay and in fact a reason the franchise became popular in the first place

But, I digress, while the world of Fallout 4 (and it’s interlinking stories tying into Fallout 3) is made well, saying it is a fallout game is practically unsubstantiated. It feels like a sham, a game made without the franchise’s core aspects, a skin thrown onto a generic game to appeal to nostalgic gamers. The storylines lack the genuine emotional value and investment players can input, and tells a story, rather than letting experienced players create their own, something that has been a major point to the success of previous titles. Fallout 1 and 2 had such fantastic writing that it seemed almost natural, plot movement wasn’t nearly as dependent on long exposition or explanation in game, it simply flowed because those working on it did not know whether it would sell well, all they knew was that they wanted to make a finely crafted game, regardless of units sold. Todd Howard, the head of development in those days, had essentially turned to his investors and said “Give me all this money to gamble on a game that we’ve been working on for months” and, to quote himself, “It just worked.” Namely, this is a wonderful example of the Zeitgeist of Bethesda in those times, during which quality games were produced and placed the developer into the forefront of video game development. While people cannot deny they have made some definitive games of a generation, a good example being Morrowind. Bethesda used to set the standard, be the one entrepreneurs would aspire to be, to work for, to succeed.

Nowadays, Bethesda doesn't need investors, it has its own budget, it’s own productions, and as a result have found that if they continue to vaguely lie to their players, take out content and resell it, build up a hype train so wild they crash their own website on launch day, then they can continue to beat that dead horse, so long as it keeps spitting out money.

#fallout 4 #fallout #video games #writers on tumblr

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beccabug · 8 years ago

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A Positive Review

I’ve seen a lot of people being really negative about Mass Effect:Andromeda and I gotta say, I am absolutely pleased with this game. After replaying ME1 through 3, I was expecting their to be thousands of glitches in the game on day one that would never be dealt with. I saw maybe 3 through the whole game and none of them negatively affected my play through. The scenery was more than i hoped for and really quite nice. The ability to use the omni tool to get information was awesome. Lip sync was weird but I just like to imagine that the characters are a foreign film with voice over and that solved that problem. I feel like compared to other open world games, like fallout 4, this game had a lot less bugs. And the best part Bioware has already fixed some of the issue 2 weeks after launch. And they are planning to make many more changes in the coming months. I enjoyed the game without these cosmetic changes and I’m really loving my new play through with the changes. But just looks aside, there are great story moments and great romantic moments too. Where before you just chatted to your love interest and then got that bedroom scene, there are now sweet romantic scenes. It feels like your actually dating your love interest. Not just hit that one flirt option with Garrus so you can bump heads later. I played on normal and I felt that the combat was rewarding and exciting. It reminded me of mass effect one where I had to be careful that the enemy didn’t circle behind me, while I was concentrating with someone else. I love just being able to walk up to cover and be in it instead of pushing a button. The action was fast paced and I loved that. The fact we can now change the color of our casual outfits, I definitely want a few more of those. The fact that it went back to it’s mass effect 1 roots and gave us planet exploration was fantastic. Just the fact that we had so much freedom, which had been stripped away in me3 due to it’s story constraints was great. There are a lot of people angry about the inequality in the romance scenes, which is completely understandable, but bioware has already released a statement that they plan to fix a few of those and willing to listen to what we want changed. The humor in this game really made me feel like I was a Galaxy away from Shepard’s Story. The Trilogy was always a very “go, go, go!” story, we are rushing against time. I feel like I can stop and listen to a Angara and Asari talk about gender pronouns and not feel bad that a human colony may be currently being abducted some where. the few things I didn’t like seem to be getting taken care of by the developers so I really am quite pleased and look forward to the dlc that is to come.

#ME:A #mass effect andromeda #my opinon #my review

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myflowerfriends · 5 years ago

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Final Blog Posts

Blog 7: Unsaturating the World

Figure 1: Saturation in boardwalk photo, https://www.adorama.com/alc/0008627/article/100-in-100-Dont-be-a-super-soaker-saturater

In photography, to saturate an image is to edit it so that all of the visible colors are intensified against the white; the right side of Figure 1 is saturated to bring out the vibrancy in the greens and blues. The lowest form of saturation is greyscale, where the photo loses all colors and becomes simple variations of white and blacks. I kept thinking of this term, saturation, while doing the readings for this week. It feels like humanity has taken hold of the saturation scale in Adobe Photoshop and is steadily turning the world greyer. This week’s post looks at the causes of biodiversity loss and extinction, particularly in chapters 9 and 10 of the textbook.

One of the first times I really felt a deep empathy for the environment was when I must have been about eight years old, and I was flipping through a magazine in my dad’s dental office. On the cover there was a polar bear, and on the inside there must have been an editor’s note that stressed how sad and absurd it was that the editor’s children might live to see a world where polar bears go extinct. It completely blew my mind. Polar bears going extinct?! But they’re such iconic animals!

Figure 2: Polar Bear on Time Magazine, 2006. Not sure if this was the exact magazine I was flipping through, but it carries the same energy. http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060403,00.html

What I didn’t realize then was that every twenty-four hours, between 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird, and mammal go extinct.[1] And according to Miller and Simmons’ text, “20-50% [is the] percentage of the earth’s known species that could disappear this century primarily because of human activities.”[2] The guilt on the shoulders of humankind should be there, but it is not. There is hardly any action being taken to preserve these species, or at least ease their suffering—and hardly any action being done to do the same for our human sisters and brothers.

“Given the pace and scale of change, we can no longer exclude the possibility of reaching critical tipping points that could abruptly and irreversibly change living conditions on Earth.” [3]This quote comes from the World Wildlife Populations Down 50% in Last 40 Years video, which explains just what the title says. There are critical tipping points that are coming closer and closer to being reached each day, and very little being done to reduce the strain of these.

One way to remember the reasons that are causing this biodiversity loss is through HIPPCO: Habitat destruction, degradation, and fragmentation; Invasive (nonnative) species; Population growth and increasing use of resources; Pollution; Climate change; and Overexploitation. Habitat destruction is at this time the most common damaging action being taken, and is a difficult one to stop. It can be difficult to realize too; people in industrialized parts of the United States took great pity on the wildfires being burned in the Amazon Rainforest in late 2019, but were hypocritical to the land that was destroyed so that their city or suburb could be built.

This also reminds me of an interaction I saw on Instagram the other day. There was a post by National Geographic on how salmon are being overfished and losing their wild habitat. One of the top comments stated something along the lines of, “this is why we need to farm salmon! Stop fishing in the wild, it’s the only way to protect them!” And it made me think, because if the problem is that isolated—salmon in the wild are disappearing, so just eat the ones that are farmed—then that would work, maybe. But the issue with salmon, or any species, is that they do not exist in a vacuum. They are an integral part of ecosystems in their natural habitats; farming salmon would eliminate a lot of the benefits that salmon have in the wild.

I was just having a discussion with my brother about this too, and we started making a list of things: what if cows were wild? Would they look the same or had hundreds of years of domestication made them softer and bigger, as chickens have become? Farms make evolution work differently.

As do zoos. Is there any real chance of zoos integrating animals back into the wild? I support animal education, and I get that it’s easier to study animals in zoos than in the wild sometimes.

Figure 3: A photo I took in February, 2019 of the South African Lion and Safari Park website where they acknowledge that they do not feel comfortable with their own lion-petting exhibits but continue to have them for economic purposes. The website has since been renovated and this page was completely removed.

But zoos tend to really get me questioning their ethics. Are they necessary for people to understand why it’s necessary to protect them, or is watching high quality documentaries enough to give humans a change of heart? I had a huge fallout with some friends of mine while we were studying abroad in South Africa because they went to a Lion Park where lions are bred and adults are euthanized. I heard lots of, “but you connect with the animals! You learn to respect them for their conservation! They do scientific research there!” And then the question is, how different is using horses for entertainment? Is it not practically the same as breeding lions for human entertainment? This isn’t the section of the course dedicated to philosophy, but the unanswered questions remain, bring the choice back to whether we will keep the turning the world grey or work on brightening its diversity.

The Critical Thinking Question #5 on page 218 is a tough one: what would you do if a wild boar invaded and tore up your yard or garden?

Currently my dad is having an issue where these strange moth-type bugs build cocoons on the pine trees separating our house from our neighbors. They’re killing the pine trees, because when they make their cocoons, they eat the needles. My dad asked me, as an environmental studies major, what the best option would be: let the bugs take over the trees and once they turn brown, cut them down? Or use pesticides to kill the trees?

Critical Thinking Question # 5 on page 250 asks: Are you in favor of establishing more wilderness areas in the United States?

To that I say: YES TO MORE WILDERNESS AREAS!!!! More old growth forests means more biodiversity! Any disadvantages would just be hidden advantages; for example, less room for suburban sprawl would give more space for the earth to heal.Less private space allows for more public space, which can be used by humans, vegetations, and wildlife.

WC:1189

Question: It is interesting too, that some species are considered accidentally introduced/invasive. Are humans accidentally introduced to places, or do we make possible the ability to sustain life on any corner of the earth because we were designed to do that?

Blog 8: Eat or Be Eaten.

Aquatic Biodiversity Loss and Extinction

Figure 1: Lake Erie, 2015, https://www.nps.gov/piro/learn/nature/images/Waves-on-shore_1.jpg?maxwidth=1200&autorotate=false

Unless you have seen one of the Great Lakes with your own eyes, you cannot fathom what they are really like: vast, powerful bodies of water, with big waves and long stretches of sandy beaches; comparable to an ocean. I grew up living about a block away from Lake Erie, and when I was younger, I really hated my hometown. I wanted to live in a big city. My parents countered my arguments by emphasising how lucky we were to live in the Great Lakes Basin. It wasn’t until I attended a March for Science that I realised how important it was to protect the lakes — see me pictured below with my generic sign, and my friend Max holding a sign that my mom crafted; she’s the one taking the photo.

Figure 2: Cleveland’s March for Science Protest, 2017. Photo by author.

Part of my love of the Great Lakes, and of open bodies of water in general, comes from me living so close to them. But as Sylvia Earle is quoted in the beginning of chapter 12, “With every drop of water you drink, with every breath you take, you are connected to the sea, no matter where on Earth you live” (253).[1] Even if you live in a desert, every decision you make can in some way affect aquatic ecosystem services. Take, for example, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Figure 3: Eastern Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 2019.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowden/2019/05/30/300-mile-swim-through-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-will-collect-data-on-plastic-pollution/#4b2a7f36489f

There are actually two large garbage patches with some connecting debris in-between them; the greater of these patches is just off the coast of California, and is about 600,000 square miles, and in some areas, several feet deep. It is an island floating on the surface of the water, made up of plastics and microplastics. Because plastic is not biodegradable, the Garbage Patch continues to grow, and many animals, such as the albatross pictured below, die due to ingestion of these plastics, which Chris Jordan documents hauntingly well in the film Albatross.[2]

Figure 4: Albatross Bodies with Plastic, 2018,

https://www.albatrossthefilm.com/ourstory

One thing that I think could have been better written about in this chapter is water distribution. I stumbled through this very briefly in my presentation while explaining biophilia and the damaging effects of trying to make Las Vegas into an oasis in the desert. I understand that this chapter is focused more on the biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems, but I still think that concept 11.5 of this chapter could go more in depth with the ownership rights of water sources, or perhaps the section on the Great Lakes in the previous section could explain how although the Great Lakes are the largest collective body of freshwater in the world, water diversions are pretty much limited to regions within the Great Lakes Basin, and why it is important that it stays that way.

Critical Thinking Question #2, p. 280:

Three Greatest Threats to Aquatic Biodiversity

1. Ocean Acidification

2. Plastic Pollution

3. Coastal Wetland and Watershed Protection

4. Overfishing (if there are fish left after the above 3 are increased!)

The list above is my answer to the Critical Thinking Question for this chapter. All of them are caused by humans on the land. The greatest threat according to me is that of ocean acidification, or the increasing amounts of heat and acidity in the oceans. This stems from increased Co2 in the atmosphere. One of the main factors contributing to that, is animal agriculture.

Soil, Agriculture, and Food

Figure 5: You Can Smell the Methane in This Photo, 2014

https://www.wilderutopia.com/health/cowspiracy-animal-agriculture-despoils-land-water-and-climate/

Chapter 12 in the textbook discusses the effect of food production on the environment. I act like I know a lot about this when people ask me why I’m a vegetarian, but this chapter was full of great information and details that I didn’t fully understand until now.

The issue with animal agriculture is not only that Co2 is basted into the atmosphere through gasses released form the animals and humans which eat them, and the clearing of land for the animals. With the depletion of biodiversity to allow animals grazing land, vital natural habitats for other species are lost, as shown in George Monbiot’s brief video on rewilding the countryside and rural areas.[3]

Truthfully, I expected the chapter to be much more focused on animal agriculture alone. But other forms of farming are nearly as bad, as pictured below.

Figure 6: Effects of Food Production of Any Sort

https://slideplayer.com/slide/6187595/

I’m also glad that the chapter covered a comparison of overnutrition and malnutrition. I found the quote: “We live in a world where, according to the WHO, about 795 million people face health problems because they do not get enough nutritious food to eat and at least another 2.1 billion (29% of the human population) have health problems stemming largely from eating too much sugar, fat, and salt.”[4] The greed of modern civilization never ceases to amaze me.

Critical Thinking Question #1 p. 320

Figure 7: Vertical Harvest of Jackson Hole, 2013.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2056017617/vertical-harvest-of-jh-a-growing-system-for-change

If I were a member of Growing Power Inc. and in charge of turning an abandoned shopping center into an organic farm, I would begin by getting a perfect team together; potentially including some of the students in this class (networking!). I’d do my best to dismantle the concrete and debris of the shopping center, and reuse whatever I was able to on the spot. As it is in the Case Study, my farm would be powered partly by solar electricity and solar hot water systems, and would be structured like a green house to keep the produce supported year round. As it is in Jackson Hole’s Vertical Harvest organic urban farm, my employee positions would first be open to disabled peoples who are working on communication skills, training in this center for jobs elsewhere.[5] We would be deeply integrated into the community, selling our produce locally and donating to food banks and soup kitchens whenever possible. That sounds too good to be true, but we’ll leave it at that.

Question, and I think about this every day: which is better for the environment, to be vegan and avoid animal products entirely but eat non-local tofu or other forms of meatless protein; or to eat only locally sourced food which would make animal products more of a staple to the diet?

WC: 1156

[1] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Chapter 11: Sustaining Aquatic Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

[2] Jordan, Chris. Albatross. https://www.albatrossthefilm.com

[3] Smith, Peter. “George Monbiot on reqilding countryside and rural areas” YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1KW-0YbO3Q

[4] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Chapter 12: Food Production and the Environment, p. 286. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

[5] “Vertical Harvest Jackson Hole,” Vertical Harvest, https://www.verticalharvestjackson.com/our-mission.

Blog 9: Fight the System by Appreciating Soil and Supporting Local Farmers !

Symphonies of the Soil

Figure 1: Cover Artwork, 2012, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2229397/

When I began watching this documentary, I braced myself for what I thought was going to be a long, boring hour-and-a-half. But by the end of it, I think it may have changed the trajectory of my summer plans.

The first half of the documentary is an almost meditative description of different types of soils found across planet earth, backed by an orchestral score. Ironically, one of the first phrases of the narrator is: “most of the planet is non-living.”[1]And it is. As my sister pointed out, even humans are mostly CHON: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Yet plots of land are not 100% soil; half of it is the compounds that make up soil, and half of it consists of spaces for air, water, and microorganisms which use soil to survive.

Figure 2: Andy Foraging for Mushrooms in Washington, 2019, photo by author.

This point leads to another: you cannot grow good produce in a void. If you were to strip a type of soil down to its purest form and attempt at planting anything in it, it likely would not be successful. This seems to be the thesis of the second half of the documentary: farmers need to feed soil the natural ingredients it needs to be nutritional.

As I don’t have a very strong science background, some of this went over my head, such as the part about the lupines and nitrogen fixation. This summer, as long as the pandemic settles down, I hope to get an internship or job working in permaculture or vertical harvesting. It’s very odd to me that I can talk so much about the environment but know so little about it in a physical way. Although I try to shop mostly locally or from farmers markets, the development I grew up in didn’t allow gardens aside from flower beds, so I have had very little connection to soil or the ground I live on.

A critique I have of this film is that they paid very little attention to indigenous practices of cultivating soil, or hunter-gatherer ideas. They looked at how the harmful processes began, with civilizations in Europe flattening out the hillsides and beginning monocrop farming during the agricultural revolution, and they did discuss the Law of Return, but I thought there might be more references with how the soil had been used in previous human populations, and perhaps a discussion on primitivism. The discussion that was had in the film was more focused on finding a structured form of rewilding agriculturally, which I support, but still I thought the film could show the other side, and give more credit to the indigenous groups that have been pushing for this rewinding for centuries.

Figure 3: Stone Age Reenactment Group, http://www.jutulskinn.no/stone-age-gathering.

No matter how far you think society should dive into with a return to primitivism, the message of this video is clear: we can do a better job at how we farm, in order to produce healthier more sustainable products. It feels as though this shouldn’t be too difficult—but with the rigid constraints set forth by the corporations involved in the agricultural industry, farmers have very little say in how their crops get produced, and animals have become far removed from from the agricultural process, removing a great source of natural fertilizer as well. The next film explains that a bit more.

Food, Inc.

Figure 4: Food, Inc. Cover Image, 2008, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/mediaviewer/rm3514966016.

Food, Inc. uses various segments to explain the systems put in place to produce food, and how rigid those constraints are within the law-and-order system of the United States of America. These segments range from showing statistics, interviews, and video clips of what the world of agriculture is really like.

I found the Polyface Farms clips to be fascinating, because it was so difficult to watch and listen to, but was still the best possible scenario for meat farming. The cattle fertilize and mow the variety of greens they eat; there are no shipments of corn that have to be made. As Joel says, “it’s all real solar dollars….we’re every bit as efficient, especially if you plug in all of the inefficiencies of the industrial system.” [2]

Figure 5: Joel at Polyface Farms, http://www.temeats.com/polyface-farms/.

I think this will be the hardest connection for people to make, especially because we need food to sustain ourselves. Someone can be addicted to nicotine and cut it out of their lives, or can choose to avoid it altogether. But they cannot simply ignore food. People can ignore bad food, but the temptation is always lingering as a possibility, and if you grew up like I did—eating processed foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until I was about sixteen and realized I needed to be healthier—breaking away from those habits can feel like the single most challenging thing to accomplish. And when fast food is the only option due to income levels, the cycle gets even more challenging to break.

Figure 6: Elk in Wyoming, https://content.osgnetworks.tv/petersenshunting/content/photos/bull-elk-bugling.jpg

I am reminded of an argument that put me on bad terms with my boss at my summer job as a waitress at a guest ranch near Jackson, Wyoming. Elk lived in the meadows just outside the property and were hunted and sold locally. One of our most popular items on the menu was elk tenderloin, and once I had a guest ask how local the elk we served was, a reasonable assumption as our website says that our kitchen sources locally and is as sustainable as possible, even though the menu does not specify what is or is not local. Upon speaking with the head chef I learned that the elk was actually shipped in, frozen, from Austria. The more getting-into-everybody-else’s-business that I did, the more I realized that the only ingredients we used that weren’t shipped in from Sysco were a weak amount of herbs from the farmers market. That guest was from Philadelphia and could have had fresher elk had he shipped it from Austria to Pennsylvania rather than Austria to Utah to Wyoming.

Along with that, our menu was incredibly meat-and-potatoes based, following exactly the prediction that humans are hard-wired to crave salt, fat, and sugar.

Something my mom makes fun of me for saying all the time is “it’s supply and demand!” as if all the problems in the world could be that simple. But in truth, they can be. And I hope that just as my generation has severely damaged the tobacco industry, the next generation can put an end to big corporations controlling the food industry, so that 30% of the United States’ land base will not be corn, and the choice between medication or buying vegetables will be unfathomable, and local food companies will overrule the 4 major meat companies in charge now.

A critique I have of Food, Inc. is that there is very little said about the dairy and fishing industries. I felt that there could have been an additional segment on those in the film—perhaps they aren’t as bad as the meat and corn industries, but I do not feel as though they are righteous enough to be counted out of this conversation.

I also am a bit confused by the Monsanto segment and hope to discuss that in our class time.

Question: Food, Inc. is very focused on the United States of America. What are food systems like in other parts of the world? Is there a correlation between colonized places having more fast-food?

WC: 1257

[1] Garcia, Deborah Koons, director. Symphony of the Soil. YouTube, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZVKMe2FTg.

[2] Kenner, Robert, et al. Food, Inc. 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smk2xq2l3Ig

Blog 10: The Health of the Environment, The Health of Humans

Figure 1, COVID-19 illustration, https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/11/disease-caused-by-the-novel-coronavirus-has-name-covid-19/

This week’s focus is on hazards and waste on human health and the environment. Chapter 17 in the textbook begins with a discussion on diseases stimulated from biological and chemical hazards and how these can be linked with environmental causes. The chapter ends with a discussion on risks, and how decision making can affect the world around us.

One of the most frustrating, common, and powerful diseases is cancer. Cancer’s direct cause in an individual is unknown. The title of the article “Breast Cancer: prevention or Cure? Why Is Breast Cancer Awareness/Cure Run By Major Chemical Companies?” gives good insight to the confusion around cancer research. The article goes on to explain the intricacies behind cancer research and bring to light the distrust that many people rightfully have towards corporations that are in control of cancer funding and research. Again, I see these problems tying so deeply into capitalism: individuals finding ways for their own selves to be as successful as possible without working towards the greater good.

Ethics always comes in to play and is very noticeable in this chapter. If malaria is such a murderous disease, and malaria is spread by mosquitoes, how bad would it be to just completely wipe out the mosquito population? I admit that I will appreciate any bug that lands on me, or gently flick them off, unless they are a mosquito. I do not like the inconvenience of mosquito bites, and killing mosquitoes gives me a weird sort of satisfaction that I could not achieve from the death of any other living being. In my biology class last semester, we looked at a case study of several scientists who were considering wiping out mosquitoes entirely in areas of the world susceptible to malaria. After long debates, no conclusion was reached. It feels wrong to eliminate a species that is annoying to us—if this is possible, then who’s going to stop the wolves in the western United States from eating cattle on ranches encroaching on their wild territory? At the same time, this could be a heroic achievement and an extreme stress-reliever for humankind.

These things seem like such simple solutions: page 455 of the textbook lists some ways to avoid exposure to hormone disrupters. Yet the article of the man who eliminated plastic from his life yet still got microplastics from his milk which was stored in a mason jar but filtered through a plastic lining proves that even when trying desperately to follow that advice, it is still just about impossible to be rid of them completely.

Figure 2, Microplastics Diagram, https://www.java-biocolloid.com/event/the-threads-of-microplastics-in-food-8721

I recently read the chapter “The Indian Healer” out of The Indian Giver, a book by Jack Weatherford in which he goes through the various ways that Native American peoples have contributed to modern medical technology or found the basis for medications. Native American practices of healing should be can be used to encourage well-being in medical practices, so as to put into action ways that advance views on the interconnectedness of community, the environment, and medicine overall.

I can’t help but think of what it felt to be alive before the industrial period began. I generally do feel better when I have spent some time in fresh air—but any fresh air in this day and age still has toxins in and around it, and no food nor water is completely free of microplastics or

A quick critique I have about all the extra informational videos and articles is that although they are very interesting, they are quite outdated. In other classes I am not allowed to cite articles older than five years old, and all of these are from the mid 2000s. I understand needing to learn the history of how we perceive chemicals in the body, but there was no range for that either. I’m curious as to what research has been put out within the last few years—or months.

CTQ #7 on p. 468 asks to name some risks that I face and how to eliminate or reduce those risks. This causes me to check my privilege once again; even when I come across pollution, I will likely have access to the best healthcare to heal me from whatever risks may concern me. There are risks that I can avoid, but that I still choose; I have chosen to live in Manhattan, with all its pollution, instead of living in a pristine area out west. Yet perhaps my education in New York will allow me to strengthen my ties with academia so that I can preserve those lands out west.

Solid and Hazardous Waste

I also recently read Waste Seige: the Life of Infrastructure in Palestine by Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, who’s covering the discussions behind environmental, economic, and social issues that in occupied Palestine. Through illegal occupation, Israeli settlers are forcing neo-capitalist practices in the area, leading to more forced consumption, leading to more waste in an area that cannot contain it, and does not have the finances nor the leadership to create more sustainable waste options, such as those shown in the textbook. Palestine has become a literal dumpsite, and the effects of the toxins in the various wastes infiltrating the area is murderous. There is an ironic “Polluter Pays Principle” in use, where the governmental organizations have Palestinians pay higher taxes because technically they are the ones who are polluting—it is their sewer systems overflowing, their land that has the burning dump sites, and their people who are being cheap, non-sustainable products. Ironically, the sewers are flooding because Israeli-settler waste flows directly into them as well; landfills in that region are almost all located in designated Palestinian areas; and the suffocation of the economic process in Palestine keeps their people from having any upward mobility.

Figure 3, Landfill in Palestine, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel-s-solution-for-expelled-bedouin-between-garbage-and-junkyard-1.6158225

CTQ #1 p. 600: List three products you use and make them cradle-to-cradle.

The past two years I have begun having an immense feeling of guilt if I purchase something that isn’t made sustainably, or that isn’t able to be recycled or composted. When I need to buy something new (key word: need), I spend a lot of time looking into which company I can trust. I get most of my products from Package Free Shop. But as I keep saying, it goes back to economics. I’m sure anyone who uses their shampoo and conditioner bars and natural face oils would prefer it over whatever drugstore brand they use currently, but that price difference is what makes it so unreachable. To circle back, this is highlighted in Chapter 17’s discussion on HIV: lifesaving drugs are expensive, and simply cost too much to be used widely both in less-developed countries and in impoverished areas of industrialized countries.

Question: With marijuana becoming a much more common recreational and medicinal drug, I would have appreciated an unbiased discussion of it in this chapter, instead of it being left out completely. Does smoking marijuana affect your lungs as badly as smoking tobacco? Are there any studies being done on dab pens, which include THC but don’t include nicotine like traditional vape pens?

WC: 1105

Blog 11: Water (cont.)

Had I been patient with blog 8, I may have realized that there would be a whole other blog dedicated to water, filling in the gaps that I felt were left out in the previous readings—chapter 20 really digs into the inefficiencies of Ohio water treatment. This is that blog post, looking at chapters 13 and 20 in the textbook.[4]

Figure 1. Water Dispersal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources

Chapter 13: Water Resources

Water is stored in many ways in the earth’s surface, but only 0.024% of the earth’s water is readily available as a liquid freshwater. Due to climate change, areas that are dry are becoming drier, and areas that are oversaturated are becoming wetter and with saltwater, not freshwater. With that small percentage of water that is usable to humans, about 70% is used to irrigate cropland and raise livestock.

Industrialized nations in particular treat water as if it is free; Miller and Spoolman note that “we have no substitute for this vital form of natural capital” (325). Things that don’t seem to be made of water need large amounts of it in order to be produced, such as blue jeans and lettuce; producing a quarter-pound hamburger takes about 2,400 liters of freshwater. “About 66% of the freshwater used in the world and about 50% of the freshwater used in the United States is lost through evaporations, leaks, and inefficient use” (342). Water really is our most necessary resource, and we absolutely take it for granted.

The United States has lots of freshwater resources, particularly in the eastern states. The book reads, “the United States has more than enough renewable freshwater to meet its needs. However, it is unevenly distributed and much of it is contaminated by agricultural and industrial practices” (329). Freshwater shortages are becoming more common and will continue to expand as climate change increases. Aquifers are losing their water faster than the rain is refilling them—in some parts of the United States, four times as fast—and much of this water being taken out is going to waste. There are other frightening results that come from too much groundwater being pulled out of the earth, such as sinkholes, as pictured in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Sinkhole in Guatemala City, 2007. https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-sinkhole-photos-2014-9

There is an option of tapping deep aquifers that lie beneath the surface of the ocean, but this is dangerous in that they are nonrenewable on a human timeline, little is known about what effects doing this may have, no international treaties govern these areas yet, the costs are unknown, and the water is likely still contaminated with some salt, arsenic, and uranium.

Dams are also not an ideal way to increase water supplies, because even though they help humans in many ways, they can destroy the natural environment in many ways, which in turn brings destruction to humans after a matter of time. Desalination is another option, albeit a costly and perhaps inefficient one, though more research is being done in the search to find better desalination technology.

The 4 R’s of recycling (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle) may be the best way to work with water. Refusing unnecessary amounts of water, and reducing one’s usage of necessary water, are two prime first steps to take when trying to heal water issues. Part of what will make this easier for people to remember to follow is if water is treated by society as a necessity, through higher prices of freshwater (and perhaps a Universal Basic Income – style user pays approach) and redirecting government subsidies to being more efficient. Simple household changes, such as installing low-flow toilets, fixing leaks as soon as they are noticed, and redesigning lawns and outdoor spaces with vegetation that suits the ecoregion can also help limit the amount of freshwater wasted. Vaster options can include incorporating infrastructures in communities that reuse greywater in areas that are able.

Water has no substitute. Sure, you can drink LaCroix or Coke Zero and treat that as your liquid intake for the day, but freshwater is at the base of those items. Without some form of h2o in our systems, humans would not survive for more than a few days.

Chapter 20: Water Pollution

The previous chapter had its focus on freshwater, and how to be efficient with it. This one focuses on what happens if that freshwater gets polluted. In some parts of the world, mercury, pathogens, metals, and other nutrients can kill people drinking the water if it is not treated properly. In some areas, this does not directly affect humans intake, but can affect humans lives in other ways—for example, all of northeast Ohio becoming a laughing stock when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire in the late 1960’s (see Figure 3).

Figure 3, Cuyahoga River fire recolored, June 1969. https://1960sdaysofrage.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/burn-on-big-river-cuyahoga-river-fires/

But in the textbook, Miller and Spoolman start this discussion of as saying that the Cuyahoga River fires were a success story. I rode my bike by the Cuyahoga River just the other day and it was not ablaze—there were fishermen and ducks in it. Still, most of the world’s major riverways are heavily polluted, with “80-90% of the raw sewage in most cities in less developed countries [is] discharged directly into waterways” (548). Yet there is hope that these rivers can heal, though it will take a tremendous amount of strength from the humans who have caused this incredible pollution in the first place.

Balance is another important factor into keeping water clean. No water, not even the “clean” water humans drink, is pure h20—that would kill us. We need small traces of other elements in it too. Too many nutrients, though, can lead to eutrophication, which is when a shallow body of water has too many nutrients, causing dense growths of organisms which decompose and suffocate the body of water, giving it a greenish-teal color.

Question: Why are some mountain lakes so brightly colored? Does it have to do with eutrophication, even if they are pristine?

WC: 1112

Blog 12: Future, No Future

Figure 1: Protestors rally against pipelines being put into Wet’suwet’en land in Canada

First off, I would like to disagree with Justin Trudeau’s statement made at the Houston Energy Conference in 2017 where he says that “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.” I would like to believe that I, and many people with unselfish morals dedicating their lives to environmental justice, would let those oil barrels STAY IN THE GROUND.

I was surprised that Trudeau was the one to say it, as when I was younger, I thought he could do no evil; I was quite a little liberal. But now I see his desire for economic greed showing through his attempted democracy, just as I thought the Paris Climate Agreement was exactly what the world needed, and now see that there’s a lot of flimsy rhetoric in there. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, the reading:

Chapter eleven of Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin’s The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocenetells how there are three possible future for the world: continued consumer capitalist development, collapse, or a new mode of living. [5]

Continue

Figure 2: Consumerism, http://links.org.au/node/1972

I think it’s interesting that they even gave continued consumer capitalist development a chance—I feel as though they could have just grouped that with collapse. I recognize that not many people (ie. My family who I am quarantined with) think the way I do, so I am glad they gave the explanation. Business as usual cannot continue. We are heading for collapse.

I suppose in some kind of sense, you could say that it can continue. But that’s because what’s continuing isn’t really capitalism in the first place. The small changes are already being had. For example, our right-wing president is dishing out monetary stimulus checks to bolster the economy, which smells a lot like socialism to me (delicious).

Lewis and Maslin explain our current economic system as being driven by positive feedback loops which end in fundamental changes. The factors which underlid all human societies are changing faster and faster as time moves onwards—it is true exponential growth. It is consumers acting as though we have infinite resources even while living on a finite planet. It is contradictory. But even in it’s core, our current system is one of change.

Perhaps the change requires all cars to be electric, but the increase in demand for electric cars requires an increase in demand for the lithium mined in Bolivia. Maybe there is no realistic, futuristic plan to put in place that will efficiently and sustainably save the world. Maybe I just need to read up more on this. Lewis and Maslin do offer some good suggestions, though, including Universal Basic Income and Half-Earth.

A New Way of Life?

Figure 3: Half-Earth website screenshot, https://www.half-earthproject.org

Universal Basic Income (UBI) and the Half-Planet theory are the two most clearly stated pathways for success of our planet that we have studied thus far.

UBI: I know a lot of professors don’t like to talk about their politics, but I was trying to figure out where yours lie as someone who knows so much about the interweaving’s of politics and the environment. A few months ago you dropped that you were a big proponent of UBI, and I thought, “aha! so Andrew Yang is the one who will save the environment!” But my impression of Yang’s UBI felt more focused on Artificial intelligence—I really just didn’t know a lot about UBI in general. (side note: I am REALLY excited for it to be summer so I can stop having deadlines and start just immersing myself in the random topics I want to learn more about. This course gave me a lotta suggestions.) After reading about it in this chapter, I think that UBI is really promising. Lewis and Maslin state that, “[UBI] breaks the link between work and consumption; we could work less and consume less and still meet our needs…those working in the fossil fuel industry would have the security of income to retrain” (406). This sounds incredibly promising, but there are still questions involving culture (some people feel more “manly” working in a coal mine) and how this would play out with refugees and non-citizens residing in the United States, etc. Still, I think a solid attempt at integrating this into our economy would help the world in lots of ways.

Half Earth: I am very interested in the idea of giving half the earth to other species, and perhaps indigenous groups as well. Again, I look at the suburbs and think of how seemingly easy it would be to develop rewilding techniques. All it would take is one popular suburban mom changing her front lawn from monoculture bluegrass to being a large garden—or whatever a local environmental rewilding consultant would suggest—and the rest of the neighborhood would follow suit. Half-Earth may seem like an enormous task to take on, but I genuinely have faith that it is possible.

Collapse

Figure 4: Quarantine Meme That My Mom Thought Was Real, https://www.boredpanda.com/nature-healing-quarantine-jokes/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

As an environmental studies and anthropology double-major, people would ask me where those two overlap. I even felt that I was choosing two very different subjects because I was so scatter brained—I’d study a little about the environment, a little about humans, and figure out what I was going to do with that somewhere along the way. I let myself feel belittled for choosing two of the “easiest” subjects—no intense economics, no organic chemistry to work through. Just a lot of thinking too much about things which some people may consider completely irrelevant, a task which I am very good at. So it made me feel a lot better when, I believe it was you Dr. Kindervater, who said: “These two scientists think there is time for economic and political changes to save human kind. Culturally, though, do we believe it?”

For a long time I really thought that collapse was the only path our planet was headed towards—that Jane Goodall was bullshitting us all with her Reasons For Hope, and that if Bernie Sanders didn’t become president and begin balancing out the wealth gap and making changes to environmental legislation, then we might as well all be dead now and let whatever remaining species reclaim the earth before we make them go extinct too. I guess, if you’re someone who prefers life over death, (and I suppose we are all those types of people as even if we want to kill ourselves, we haven’t done it yet!) the we might as well have hope for the future, and continue working towards the new path.

“With great power comes great responsibility” is a quote from Uncle Ben in the Spiderman series, which Peter Parker/Spiderman keeps close to his heart as he begins to realize his powers, and is constantly questioned with the choice to use them selfishly or for the greater good. With increased technology, humankind collectively has the power to transform the earth or destroy it. I hope that soon we recognize what is at stake with our planet, and learn how to efficiently reduce the destruction being caused. It might not bring dolphins into the heat ponds of Washington D.C., but it would certainly allow for a lot of other miracles to happen.

Question: My concern with UBI is, how can you make sure that people aren’t spending it irresponsibly? Would it be better to just raise the minimum wage, or expand the amount available for people to get food stamps and free healthcare? Would UBI allow people to get their basic needs met, or would it provide for spending money on sustainable/fair trade products?

WC: 1251

[1] Vidal, John. “UN Environment Program: 200 Species Go Extinct Every Day, Unlike Anything Since Dinosaurs Disappeared 65 Million Years Ago,” Huffpost May 2011. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/un-environment-programme-_n_684562

[2] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Chapter 23: Economics, Environment, and Sustainability. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

[3] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x26ybub

[4] Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott Spoolman. Living in the Environment . 19th ed. S.l.: Cengage Learning, 2018.

[5] Lewis, Simon L., and Mark A. Maslin. “Chapter 11: Can Homo Dominates Become Wise?” The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene, Yale University Press, pp. 367–416.

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