#rendering.... my Enemy. i conquered it though

[astronnova]

SOMEONE GET HIM OFF THE MIC!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP HIM

comm'd by anonymous for @ectoplasmranch's ywlma fic!

[cleo-fox]

Conquer

Part 2 of 5

Series Masterlist

Series Summary: The king intends to take a bride. You just never thought it would be you. (Soulmate AU where Loki won)

Chapter Summary: It’s no surprise that Loki has a gift for talking dirty and you wish that it didn’t work as well as it does. You wish that—for example—it were a little more challenging for him to talk you into letting him get you off in the limo on your way to a gala event hosted by the Swedish government.

Pairing: Loki x Female Reader

Tag List: I don’t have a tag list for this fic, sorry! The best way to hear about updates is to follow me on Tumblr or subscribe to the fic on AO3.

Chapter Warnings: Smut, 18+, Minors DNI, enemies to lovers, dirty talk, praise kink, edging, teasing, p in v sex, vaginal fingering, orgasm delay, semi-public sex, light Dom/sub. (see series masterlist for series warnings)

A/N: I realize that the GIF I'm using for this chapter is TVA!Loki, but the attitude is very much in keeping with this chapter, so I decided to forgo accuracy in favor of thirst. Also, you may be thinking "Part 2 of 5? I thought this was going to be 3 chapters!" Me too. Welcome to what it's like being in my brain: even I don't know what's going on here.

The wedding night isn’t the end of the sex, of course.

The immediate, sharp need for your first coupling is gone, but there’s a dull and persistent ache that keeps you coming back to his bed every night (and several times during the day). Loki is equally ravenous, if not more so.

While you’ve come to terms with the fact that you’re going to fuck him, you still don’t like being the one to initiate sex. It sounds silly, but it feels like admitting to a vulnerability that you’re not prepared to acknowledge, let alone act on.

The problem is that your sex drive has skyrocketed since the wedding.

You’ve heard about this happening—the saying soulbonds are meant to be consummated, but some are more thorough than others didn’t come out of nowhere. You just didn’t think it would be a problem for you, especially once you found out who your soulmate was. 

You were wrong about this, of course—you are constantly horny. Your mind is a cineplex of perversion, constantly playing memories of the times that he has fucked you, ways he might fuck you next, his hands, his lips, his tongue, his annoyingly perfect cock. It makes you want to run your brain through the washing machine, like a couple of Tide pods and an extra rinse cycle might fix this.

But the part that drives you crazy is that he always seems to know when you’re in these moods and he always manages to claim the upper hand. It is—like so many things with Loki—profoundly irritating.

It’s all physical—your conversations are limited to the mundane or the utterly filthy. It’s no surprise that Loki has a gift for talking dirty and you wish that it didn’t work as well as it does. You wish that—for example—it were a little more challenging for him to talk you into letting him get you off in the limo on your way to a gala event hosted by the Swedish government.

You can feel his gaze caressing your body as you walk down the stairs to meet him. Your dress is gold and glittery, and hugs your curves while the slit sneaks just high enough that you know the fashion blogs will call it daring. You keep your eyes on your feet and your hand on the railing as you navigate the stairs in your heels. Normally, Loki would comment on that—something about how you needed proper education in comportment, you were a queen, queens don’t stare at their feet, people expected elegance, blah, blah, blah. Tonight, though, he’s silent as he takes you in, which you know means that he’s particularly enchanted by how you look. For a brief moment, you allow yourself to feel sexy and confident, to enjoy the fact that the most powerful man on the planet has been rendered speechless by how you look.

Are you ridiculously horny? Sure, but you’ve got it under control. You can hold out for an evening and you’re pretty sure Loki hasn’t figured it out. If he had, he almost certainly would have said something inappropriate when he offered you his arm. He’s probably going to be distracted by the gala anyway. Why had you ever doubted yourself?

When the two of you get into the limo, you remember why. 

The moment the door shuts behind you, Loki is pulling you close, his hands cupping your breasts and then sliding down to your thighs while his lips latch on to the spot where your neck and shoulder meet.

“What are you doing?” you ask, as though his intentions are in any way unclear.

“You need to come. I can smell you.” He’s hiking up the fabric of your dress.

Well. So much for him not noticing.

Your cunt clenches. “We’re in public.”

“Those windows are tinted and the partition is up.” His breath is warm on your neck as the fabric of your dress pools around your waist. 

“I can still wait.”

“Oh, I don’t think you can.” His fingers slip between your legs (when did you spread your legs for him?), gently grazing the gusset of your underwear, which you know is embarrassingly wet. “Soaked already,” he breathes, rubbing your clit through the thin fabric. “You need to come.”

“I-I c-can—I can wait until—oh fuck.” 

He pushes the fabric of your underwear aside and lightly teases your clit with the tip of his finger.

“You can’t,” he rasps, lightly nipping at your earlobe. “You’re such a greedy, needy little thing. Your cunt is insatiable.”

He presses his first three fingers together and rubs your clit in a big, broad circle that makes your back arch.

“Fuck,” you breathe, your hands flexing against the seat. “Fuck, just like that.”

“I thought you said you could wait?” he says with that mocking lilt to his voice, the one that makes you simultaneously want to punch him in the face and also ride him hard and fast and a little rough.

“Shut up,” you grit out.

He laughs low in your ear. “Oh, you don’t mean that, I know you love it when I talk you through it.”

You hate that he’s right.

“You love hearing about how tight and wet you are, how hard I am for you.” He drops his voice lower. “How hard I’m going to fuck you.”

You can’t help the quiet moan that falls from your lips.

“Yes, you love it when I talk to you like this,” he purrs. “And I love hearing what an utterly filthy, wicked girl you are.”

You whimper, despite your best efforts to keep quiet. 

“Oh, I like that little noise,” he says, increasing his pace ever so slightly. “Let me hear you.”

“I hate you so much.”

You’ve said this to him before and like all the other times, he simply laughs. “Hate me all you like, darling, but you and I both know that you love what I do to you.”

You bite your lip and try to focus on the pleasure that’s rising in your hips.

“Has anyone ever made you come as hard as I do?” he muses, like he’s just making casual conversation. “From the way that you scream and beg for it, I imagine that there haven’t been very many that were capable. Your cunt has quite clearly been neglected.”

You’re going to ignore what he’s saying. That’s what you’re going to do. There’s no reason to listen to any of what he’s saying.

“The truth is that you need me, don’t you?” he says, nipping at your ear. “You need me because I know exactly what to do to sate your needy little cunt. I know exactly how to make you scream.”

You hate how close you are, hate how the impending rush of your orgasm has basically rendered you speechless, save for a few incoherent whimpers.

He brings his lips close to your ear, lowering his voice to a growl. “What would those pitiful Midgardians say if they knew their queen was such a needy little slut?”

Instead of delivering a stern rebuke, you come hard. Incredibly hard—it is arguably one of the most intense orgasms he’s given you yet, blazing through your body with a ferocity that leaves you shaking in its wake.

And he notices.

“Oh, you liked that, didn’t you?” he purrs as he rubs you through the aftershocks. “I felt how hard you came, how utterly desperate you are for me to fuck you.” 

“Loki, please,” you breathe.

He tugs at your underwear. “Take this off.”

Your first instinct is to challenge him, but the fabric is now uncomfortably damp and you desperately need him to fuck you, so you lift your hips and slide your underwear down and off your legs without any complaint. He takes it from you and sticks it in his pocket.

You expect to hear the clink of his belt buckle followed by his silky smooth voice ordering you to sink down on his unfairly perfect cock. Even though you’ve just come, you want more. You always do with him. 

(You decide not to think too much about that last part).

Instead, though, he smooths his hair and settles back into his seat, looking out the window. After a moment, you clear your throat expectantly. 

He glances at you, utterly casual. “What is it?”

Your eyes narrow. He’s playing dumb and you both know it. 

“You made me take off my underwear,” you say, biting back a sharper reply.

“I did.”

“So…fuck me.”

He gives an amused little chuckle that makes your palm itch to slap him. “Darling, we’re in public, that would be unseemly.”

You roll your eyes before you can stop yourself. “You’re full of it.”

His gaze turns smoldering and stern. “And if you want to be full of my cock later tonight, you’ll change your attitude.”

You’re not sure if it’s the absence of underwear that makes you feel more aroused than usual or if he’s awakened some latent perversion you were previously unaware of. Possibly, it’s both.

Your breath hitches and he smiles like he knows he has the upper hand.

“Do you want that?” he says. “Do you want me to fill your tight little cunt with my big cock?”

You’re so far gone that you find yourself nodding before the thought of being contrary can even cross your mind.

“Well, then,” he says, flicking an invisible speck of dust from his tuxedo jacket, “you’re going to have to earn it.”

You huff out an irritated sigh and yank the skirt of your dress back down. “You’re an ass,” you say with a scowl.

“And you’re going to do exactly as I tell you or you won’t be coming at all.”

You stare at him, lips parted in the start of a complaint.

“And however much your pretty cunt is aching right now, I imagine it will be twice as worse tomorrow with no release,” he says. “If I’m feeling generous, of course. I could always make you wait longer.”

You close your mouth, biting back the urge to scowl.

He smirks. “That’s my good girl.”

Your cunt throbs. By the end of the night, your thighs will surely be sticky with your own arousal.

“This is unfair,” you grumble, crossing your arms and sitting back in your seat.

“Behave,” he says as you approach a rather impressive set of gates. “We’re almost there.”

A flick of his wrist sends seidr racing along your skin, smoothing your hair, straightening your dress, and fixing the smudge of lipstick at the corner of your mouth.

Your underwear remains in his pocket.

You have a feeling it’s going to be a long evening.

The Minister for Finance is giving a presentation. You’re not entirely sure that you would have been able to follow it under normal circumstances, but certainly not with Loki’s hand up your dress.

The two of you are seated at your own table—it’s one of the more stupid formalities he insists on, though you suppose it’s advantageous in this instance. His actions are obscured by the table and tablecloth and probably a little magic, but your heart is still racing with the thrill of it. His movements have been slow and deliberate, and the result is that he’s effectively been edging you for the duration of this forty-five minute presentation.

It feels incredible; it’s agony. You love it; you hate it.

“You’re being a very good girl,” Loki murmurs to you at one point and that alone nearly sends you over the edge.

“You’re a jackass,” you whisper back to him.

He chuckles. “If you want me to let you come once we get home, I’d suggest changing your tone, my love.”

You resist the urge to scowl, but only barely. “You made me come in the limo over here because you said I couldn’t wait,” you point out. “What happened to that philosophy?”

“It was supplanted by a desire to see what happens when I tease you for several hours.” A wicked smile curls at his lips. “Besides, I love how tight and desperate your cunt feels when I make you beg for me.”

You always come hardest when he makes you beg for him. You’d never admit it, though.

“I’d think you’d be more concerned about getting caught,” you say. “What do you think that would do to your image?”

“Oh, I think it would do wonders for my image,” he says. “Attentively tending to my wife’s needs despite potential social embarrassment? It’s rather feminist of me, don’t you think?”

“Okay, first of all, that is not what femini—” Your voice cuts out as he rolls his finger in a particularly devastating circle.

“What was that, my love?” he asks, voice thick with faux concern, his true intent easily betrayed by his shit eating grin. “You seem distracted.”

You’re not entirely sure if you’re tensing your muscles in anticipation of an orgasm or in an effort to stave it off. “You’re awful.”

His voice drops. “But I’m making you feel so very good, aren’t I?”

You take a deep breath, trying to soothe the tightening knot in your belly, even as your body is begging you to rush toward it.

“Aren’t I?” His tone turns stern and you hear the implied order loud and clear.

“Yes,” you bite out.

“Yes what?”

You swallow. You’re starting to get close, closer than he’s let you get so far. “Yes, you’re making me feel good.”

He smirks. “You’re getting close, aren’t you?”

You nod, taking another deep breath through your nose. Keep it together.

“I could let you come,” he muses. “Everyone’s watching the presentation. You could be quiet, couldn’t you?” His pace increases just slightly, enough for you to start to feel the tempting, shimmery tendrils of release. “Do you want that, lovely?”

It’s not a good idea, but you nod anyway. 

“I had no idea you were so filthy.” His fingers are massaging your clit more firmly and you bite back a gasp because you know it won’t be long. You’re trying to keep a straight face, but you’re struggling. You are so deliciously close.

“Are you going to come for me?” he asks quietly. He knows the answer.

You nod, not trusting your voice.

But just as you’re about to start to tip over the edge, Loki’s hand retreats and the building pressure in your hips diminishes back to that steady, throbbing ache just as the Minister for Finance concludes his presentation.

Loki is smirking like he expected this. “Ah. Unfortunate timing.”

You may kill him.

“You did that on purpose, you ass,” you hiss at him.

“Oh, you’ll thank me for it later,” he says, his voice dropping low.

You scowl at him, though you suspect he’s probably right.

You get a slight reprieve during dinner, but only in the sense that Loki’s hand is no longer up your dress. Your aching arousal remains, coating the inside of your thighs. Your heartbeat seems to be pulsing in your clit, the muscles of your cunt aching as they clench repeatedly around nothing.

While his hand is no longer up your dress, Loki continues to be as unhelpful as possible.

“Shall I let you unravel on my tongue?” he murmurs to you during the main course. “Or do you need my cock first?”

“I think you need to stop talking,” you say as evenly as you can muster.

“Whatever for?” he asks with the sort of feigned innocence that tells you he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Surely you’re not concerned that I’m going to make you come simply by telling you what I want to do to you.”

You take a slow sip of your water.

“Or perhaps that idea appeals to you?” he asks, dropping his voice even lower. “Do you want me to make you come in front of all of these people?”

There’s something about the idea that’s admittedly appealing in a taboo sort of way, though you aren’t quite sure you actually want to pursue it or if you’re just so desperate that even objectively bad ideas sound good.

“Truly, I doubt you could keep quiet,” he says. “You and I both know how much you like to scream for me and I’ve been teasing you for what, three hours now? But perhaps that’s what you want. You were about to come for me earlier. Perhaps you want them all to know what a needy little sl—ah, Stefan! So good to see you again.”

Loki has seamlessly directed his attention to the Swedish official who has approached your table. His ability to be charming and personable is irritating, particularly when he’s often been uttering absolute filth to you mere seconds before. Meanwhile, your brain has completely short circuited—your thoughts stopped being anywhere near coherent when he started touching you under the table during that presentation and your cunt is pulsing. You manage a polite smile and a pleasantly vague expression that you hope hides the fact that all you can think about is Loki throwing you down on the table and fucking you until you can’t walk straight and you’ve screamed yourself hoarse.

“You conducted yourself quite well,” Loki says softly once the man leaves. “I’d never have guessed that you’re hiding such a needy, sloppy cunt under that dress.”

You take a deep breath. “What’s to stop me from slipping off somewhere and taking care of things myself?”

His eyes flash a little dangerously and you hate how much it thrills you. “If you do that, I’ll see to it that you don’t come for a week. At least.”

You are irritated with him, certainly, but you are far more irritated with yourself for being even remotely aroused by his words.

“You’re insufferable,” you hiss instead.

Loki smirks and leans in to whisper in your ear. “We’ll see how you feel a few hours from now when I’m buried in your tight cunt.” His breath ghosts over your ear and it takes everything in you not to shiver. “I suspect I’ll find you much more agreeable. You always are when you need to be fucked.” His voice drops even lower. “And I know how much you need it.”

Your legs are shaking and you wonder how you’re going to make it through the rest of the evening.

You almost come during the concert.

It was probably easier for them to set up the orchestra on the same stage as the presentation, but it means that you’re still sitting at the same table as before, which gives Loki more than enough cover to continue touching you. His hand is creeping back up your dress before the oboe even plays the tuning note and while he’s still going slowly, it’s been four and a half hours and your body is aching for release in a way you have rarely felt.

His fingertip skates across your clit just a little too quickly and firmly and suddenly, you’re poised right on the edge. One more stroke of his fingers, just one more slight movement and you’ll come.

It’s a split second decision, so quick you can scarcely think twice about it. You desperately want to come, but even though you almost let it happen earlier, you know that a stifled public orgasm isn’t really what you want. You want him to hear you scream—you don’t want to hold back.

And you want to be good for him. You want him to reward you for being good, you want to be his good girl—

You shake your head to dismiss that thought and grab his wrist in a silent warning. Quickly, he moves his hand away, sliding it to your knee. Your cunt shudders and aches, the pulsing throb of your arousal even stronger than before.

He brushes his lips against your ear. “Oh, very good, darling. You’ll be rewarded for that.”

“You could reward me now and take me home,” you say pointedly, though it would probably be more effective if your voice wasn’t so shaky.

He chuckles, draping his arm around your shoulders. Every so often, you’ve seen a candid photo of the two of you in People or one of the other celebrity magazines and you’re always taken aback by how normal you look. You imagine that it would be the same if someone were to take a photo right now—you’d look like just another couple cuddling and canoodling instead of…whatever it is you actually are. Soulmates who hate each other but fuck like it’s their job and the rent is due? There’s no easy way to classify your relationship, which you suppose is for the best: this is not the sort of thing that should be common enough to have its own word.

“We still have quite a bit to go.” He brings his index finger—the same one that had just been up your dress—up to his lips and closes his eyes like he’s tasting something divine. “Norns, I can taste how desperate you are.”

You cross your legs in the hope that it will alleviate the pulsing ache between your thighs (it doesn’t). “You’re not helping.”

“Of course I’m not,” he says. “I told you, I want you begging for me by the end of the night.”

“How have I not already exceeded that threshold?”

He smirks. “I like to be thorough.”

Five minutes later, his hand is back between your thighs.

“Let’s try that again,” he murmurs. “Do you think you’ll be able to resist a second time?”

Somehow, you do—and two more times after that. By the end of the concert, your heart is pounding, your legs feel like rubber, your cunt is dripping, and you’d easily sell your soul for an orgasm.

“You’re doing so well, darling,” says Loki. He’s been full of praise and filthy promises and you can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.

“Can we please go home?”

He chuckles. “Of course not, that would be rude.”

“I have a hard time believing you’re concerned about rudeness, considering where your hands have been this evening,” you say with a pointed look.

“You wound me.” He stands and offers you his hand. You take it grudgingly, your legs wobbling slightly. “Now. Come help me charm the Minister for Defense. I need him to be much more cooperative about sharing intelligence.”

The only good thing about schmoozing with Swedish officials is that Loki can’t have his hand up your dress while doing so. Even so, he still finds ways to be constantly touching you—a hand on your lower back, your elbow, your shoulder, your waist. These things shouldn’t be erotic, but he somehow manages to make them so. Every brush of his fingers against your bare skin is agony: you are burning for him.

You watch the clock tick through another hour and a half while trying not to let anyone on to the fact that you’re keen to leave. Time feels like it’s dragging—even when the event officially ends, it still takes another thirty-seven minutes for you to say your farewells and make your way out to the front where your limo is waiting.

Your legs are shaking as Loki helps you into the limo. He slides into the seat next to you and you find yourself leaning into him, unable to resist any longer.

The door shuts.

“Loki—” you start to say.

“When we get home,” he says promptly.

“You can’t possibly—”

“Oh, I can.” He pulls you into his lap. “I’ve been hard for you all evening,” he purrs in your ear, settling you so that the thick column of his cock presses hard against your ass. “Do you know how many times I nearly dragged you off to some empty room to take you up against the wall?” He brings his mouth down against your neck, teeth pressing against your skin just hard enough to almost hurt. You tilt your head to the side to give him better access, guiding his hands to your spread thighs.

“Do you know why I didn’t?” he murmurs against your skin.

“Because you make terrible choices?” you say before you can think it through.

His low laugh rumbles deliciously against your throat. “No.” His hands slip underneath the hem of your dress, fingertips skating along the tender skin of your inner thigh. Your hips roll forward almost unconsciously, your breath hitching. 

“I didn’t because I know that you need to scream for me,” he says. “Just as much as I need to hear you.” His fingertip grazes your slit. “And you know that we can’t do that properly in the car.” His finger strokes your clit and you moan. “Poor thing,” he murmurs, tracing a slow circle over the sensitive skin. “I don’t think that I’ve ever made you this wet.”

“Loki—”

“I’m not giving you permission to come yet,” he murmurs, adding just a little more pressure. “I need you to be good for just a little longer.”

You let out a whine that you’re not at all proud of as he moves his hand away to gently massage your inner thighs. “Loki, please.”

“Be good.” His voice promises pleasure and punishment and everything in between and you feel drunk with desire.

“I’ve been so good,” you say, bringing his hand back to your cunt. “Please just let me come.”

“When we get home.”

“Just once. Please.”

He chuckles and brings his lips up to your ear. “You know that I’m going to take care of you,” he murmurs, his voice low and soothing. “You know I always take care of your needy cunt. I always make you come. You just need to wait a little longer.”

“I need to come now.”

“Think about how good it’s going to feel if you wait just a little longer.”

“It would feel good now.”

“It will feel even better in our bed.” He rolls his fingers in a slow circle on your clit. “You know it will.”

You whimper, rolling your hips with his hand.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this desperate,” he says. “I’m rather partial to it.”

“Don’t get used to it,” you grumble.

“Oh, I’d advise you watch your tone, darling,” he says low in your ear, sliding a finger inside you, his thumb taking up the rhythm on your clit. “I don’t want to deny you, but I may have to if you keep being so pert.”

As if to make a point, he slides another finger inside of you and you find yourself once again on the edge. You grab his wrist, your breath coming in shallow gasps as you try to hold back the rising tide within you.

“Oh, good fucking girl,” he growls and the pride in his voice makes your cunt clench hard on his retreating fingers. “You want to come so badly, but you’re being so good waiting for my permission.”

“God, this had better be worth it,” you say as you wait for the pulsing ache between your thighs to recede.

“It will be,” he murmurs against your neck. “You know it will be.” He shifts you in his lap so you face him and guides your hand to his cock. “Do you feel how hard you’ve made me? I’m aching for you.”

You rub his shaft, working your way up to catch the tab of his zipper between your fingers. He looks at you, eyes hungry, a smirk curling at his lips.

Slowly, you pull down the zipper.

“Oh you wicked thing,” he purrs, a low groan escaping him as you wrap your hand around his shaft and slowly begin stroking him. He’s rock hard and throbbing, and your hand quickly grows slick with his precome.

You lean in, brushing your lips against his ear. “I want you to fuck me,” you say, flicking your tongue against his earlobe.

He chuckles. “Are you trying to flip the tables on me, darling?”

You’re a little miffed that he figured that out so quickly. “Would that be so bad if I was?”

He laughs again. “You’re adorable.” He slides a hand along your inner thigh and back under your dress. “But I think we both know who’s really in charge here.”

Even the possibility of his hand touching your cunt has your breath quickening and your hand faltering in its rhythm on his cock.

You’re not about to admit defeat, though.

“Don’t you want to fuck me?” you say, trying to keep the quaver out of your voice. You give his cock a few long, indulgent strokes. “We’re nearly there already. All I’d need to do is move a little closer.”

He chuckles, his hand sliding up to lightly tease your folds. “I would have made you warm my cock the whole ride back,” he says casually, like he’s commenting on the weather, “but I don’t think you could have done it without coming. You’re too sensitive.”

Your lips part like you have something to say, but all rational thought and the entirety of the English language has fled your brain and even more arousal is pooling between your legs.

Loki smirks like he knows all of this and he briefly strokes you from your entrance to your clit before withdrawing. “Ah, we’re nearly home,” he says, moving your hand away and patting your thigh before tucking himself back into his trousers. “Let’s make ourselves presentable, shall we?”

You climb off his lap and straighten your dress, but don’t even bother trying to fix your hair or makeup. You stumble out of the car a minute later, hoping that you don’t look like you’ve spent the entire evening poised on the brink of orgasm.

Loki, of course, is annoyingly put together. He wraps an arm around your waist and leads you forward.

“Oh, the things I’m going to do to you when we get to our rooms,” he says under his breath as you make your way into the foyer. 

“That had better be a promise,” you say.

“I thought we established that I’m the one who gives you orders—”

“We established nothing—”

One of his advisors—Sigurd, the same one who spoke to you in the hotel when he found you—is approaching Loki at a brisk clip.

“Your majesty—”

Loki barely takes his eyes off of you. “Later,” he says, waving a hand in Sigurd’s direction.

“Sire, it’s urgent.”

Your heart sinks. Loki stops and turns to Sigurd, eyes sharp, mouth pulled into a firm line. “It had better be.”

Despite the intensity of Loki’s expression, Sigurd looks unbothered and remarkably calm. “We received new intelligence on the matter you inquired about earlier, your majesty.”

Loki’s expression darkens and you realize with a sinking sensation that he has to go deal with whatever this is. “A moment,” he says to Sigurd before turning to you.

He lowers his voice so that only you can hear him. “Go to our rooms,” he murmurs. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

You nod and he leans in, brushing his lips against your temple. “Be good for me.”

A thrill runs through you.

By the time you get back to your rooms, though, you’re a little annoyed. He’s been teasing you for hours and when you finally get home, he suddenly has another work thing?

It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating.

Though admittedly, he did look pretty surprised and annoyed by Sigurd’s sudden appearance. It’s probably not fair to blame him for that.

Probably.

You take your time getting undressed, mainly in the hope that it will somehow hasten his return or trick you into thinking time is passing quickly. Not that you’re looking forward to him returning for any reason other than sex. You still hate him—you just really need him to fuck you. That’s all it is.

You hesitate for a long time over the collection of silk nightgowns in your wardrobe. Should you put something on? Should you just wait naked on the bed? A silky green number catches your eye. He’d probably like that. He’s pretty predictable when it comes to that sort of thing—put on his colors and he goes feral. With any luck you won’t be wearing it for very long, but you might as well do what you can to facilitate that outcome.

You contemplate underwear and decide there’s little point, given that tonight’s set is still tucked into his pocket.

You situate yourself in the middle of your bed and try not to think about your throbbing cunt. It would be so easy to get yourself off, but you know that it won’t be as good.

You need him.

You try to ignore the thought. It’s just physical. That’s all it is. You’re on edge from being teased all evening. It doesn’t mean anything.

You wait.

It’s late when you finally hear the door click open, followed by the tap of his dress shoes on the floor.

You sit up in bed, your eyes roving greedily over him. His suit jacket is gone and his tie is draped around his neck, shirtsleeves rolled up. You are loath to admit it, but it’s incredibly hot.

Before you can even get any words out, he’s striding across the room, eyes hungrier than you’ve ever seen them. His clothes disappear the second he hits the bed, followed swiftly by your nightgown. Seconds later, he’s on top of you, mouth seeking yours, cock pressing insistently against your stomach. Your hands are just as greedy, skimming up his back and combing through his hair.

“Have you been good for me?” he murmurs as he nudges your thighs apart.

“Yes.”

“Did you touch yourself?” he asks, his voice stern.

“No,” you say.

He knows you’re not lying and the hungry smile he gives you almost makes it all feel worth it. “Good girl,” he growls. “Do you want me to fuck you now?”

“Yes,” you say breathlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist as he drags his cock through your slickness. “Please.”

He chuckles as he lines himself up at your entrance. “I know, darling, I’m going to take such good care of you.”

Your cunt is so slick and sensitive from his hours of teasing that just the act of him sliding inside of you feels like you’ve reached your own personal nirvana. 

“Oh, fuck.” Your voice comes out in a whimper and your legs tighten around his waist to hold him in place because he feels so overwhelmingly good.

Loki lets out a low groan as he eases inside you, catching his lower lip between his teeth as his brow furrows. “Perfect.” He leans in to kiss you as he starts to move. His first thrust is slow but even so, it draws a whimper from your throat. He’s always felt good, but this is transcendent.

“Oh god, please don’t stop,” you gasp.

“I won’t, my love.” His voice is tender as he moves with an aching, slow precision. “Not until you’ve had your fill.”

For the first time this evening, you let down your guard. Every time he’s touched you tonight—even before the gala in the limo—you’ve had to hold back to some degree. You haven’t been able to give into it, to let yourself be completely unbound and unguarded. But now when he’s moving inside of you, you have the freedom to just be and feel and it’s exquisite. Every thrust of his hips, every reverent caress of his hands, every sigh or groan is an opportunity to discover a new kind of heaven.

“You were magnificent tonight,” he murmurs, sliding his hand between your bodies to rub your clit. “Even with my fingers playing with your pretty cunt under the table, you looked every inch a queen. My queen.”

He’s never talked to you like this before and it makes your body sing. You arch, rolling your hips with him as the building wave inside you rises impossibly high, as though every orgasm you almost had this evening is starting to arrive all at once. The tension in your hips is equally fantastic and unbearable, a supernova of sensation that may destroy and remake you all at once.

“Filthy girl, I can tell you’re getting close,” he purrs, tilting his hips so he hits the spot that makes you tremble. “You act so prim and proper in public, but it takes so very little to turn you into my perfect little slut when I get you alone.”

You are approaching the peak, the whirling center of the storm building inside you. “Loki—please, I can’t, I’m gonna—”

“That’s it, darling. Soak my cock like a good girl.”

You always come the hardest when he’s inside you and this is no exception. The pressure in your hips is suddenly and spectacularly ablaze with a shimmering euphoria that draws a raw and primal moan deep from inside your chest. You are a fountain of sparks, all the tension and desire of the evening finally reaching its apex. You have yearned for this all night and the resulting blaze is spectacular.

His pace is still slow, but Loki’s eyes are wild and you get the sense that his composure is hanging by a thread. Though his eyes occasionally flutter shut as your cunt convulses around him, his gaze is locked on you in a kind of wonder. 

“Do you have any idea how good you feel when you come on my cock?” he rasps.

Even in the throes of utter bliss, you need to hear his voice. “Tell me.”

“I would create entire worlds and walk through the fires of their destruction just to feel you come.”

You shudder out a sigh. “More.”

He picks up his pace just slightly. “I would flatten mountains and raise valleys and reverse the currents.”

“More.”

He’s hitting that aching spot inside you again and the rolling tremors of the aftershocks are starting to coalesce into another building wave. You moan and his hand moves back to your clit, slick fingers pressing and rolling in just the way you need.

His eyes shine, bright with lust as his hips and fingers work diligently to unravel you again. “I would take down the stars and bring the heavens to the earth…”

His words are making you dizzy and his movements are coaxing the pressure inside of you into a cyclone that you know is going to take you down.

“Loki, please.” These are the only words you know because your entire world is him moving inside of you, inevitable as the sunrise, the architect of the heavenly destruction and renewal that is building and building in your hips.

He shifts so his weight is entirely on his elbows, bringing his lips up against your ear so you don’t miss a single word. “I would lay my crown at your feet and forsake my name…just to feel you come on my cock.”

The coil in your hips snaps and unfurls into a starry, sparkling oblivion that has you crying out his name over and over like he’s your ending and beginning, the center of your universe. Your eyes are shut against the onslaught of intense sensation, but you can feel him reaching the blissful height he’d been speaking of. He groans and slurs out a few incoherent oaths before succumbing to you and filling your pulsing cunt with his hot release.

His mouth is on yours and he’s kissing you like he means it as he slows to a halt. You lie together for a long moment, hearts beating wildly against each other. 

This felt different than other times. There was an intensity there that had nothing to do with the sex. You don’t know what that means, other than it’s definitely not any kind of feelings for him. It must be something else. You’re certain it’s something else.

“I didn’t realize I’d be called away upon our return.” 

You’re so distracted by your thoughts that the sound of his voice startles you slightly.

“Oh, um, yeah, I figured…it seemed unexpected,” you say.

He lifts his head to look at you, green eyes intent. “Trust that there are very few things that could have pulled me away from you in that moment.”

He’s being sincere. It’s not what you expect and that scares you a little, though you can’t quite articulate why. The idea that he would care whether you thought he’d intentionally extended your wait hadn’t even occurred to you. You don’t really know this side of him. 

“So, it wasn’t like…making a proclamation designating June National Peanut Butter Month.” You know you’re deflecting, but you don’t know what else to do.

He frowns. “That can’t possibly be a real thing.”

You shrug. “It might be. Lots of governments do stuff like that. Maybe you should consider it.”

His smile is slight, but brief as he stretches and slowly eases out of you. “I will leave that to others.”

There’s a beat of quiet and you suddenly find yourself desperate to fill the silence. “What did they need to talk to you about?”

He looks at you sharply and you wonder if this was the wrong thing to say. Loath as you are to admit it, this conversation has fostered a flicker of warmth between you, a fact you only notice now because of its sudden absence.

“It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he says as he rolls off of you. It’s not unkind, but it’s also not warm, and the discussion is clearly closed.

Part of you mourns the loss of that little spark of closeness, but a larger, louder part is intent on pretending it never existed in the first place.

“Suit yourself.”

You’re annoyed and you roll off the bed and go about your evening routine with a little more clattering and stomping than is strictly necessary. There’s a lump in your throat that you don’t understand and you’re full of feelings you can’t define. You eventually settle on the bed with your back facing him, glaring at the wall like he can see you.

But then he reaches for you in the darkness, his arms winding around your waist, nose nuzzling against the nape of your neck as he pulls you to his chest. And instead of reading him the riot act, you let him hold you and let yourself relax into his embrace, fingers twining around his. You sleep better like this, you tell yourself. That’s the only reason you’re allowing it. It’s nothing to do with him.

You’ve told yourself that every night since your wedding and every night, it gets a little more difficult to believe.

Next chapter coming soon

[skaruresonic]

Even ignoring that, Oshima doesn't write the games, nor has been in the franchise for decades. His opinions have also definitely changed as well (from being annoyed by the Harmony Calendar art by other artists overly mascotting/cutifying Sonic, to blanket "they good" now cuz fondness of all 90s)

He's a good resource for dev of stuff in the initial games and inspiration for char designs, but is generally unaware of char writing besides basic traits

Though his view on Eggman being not evil evil might be cuz Sonic 1 dev Eggman being the main villain was an afterthought. And people pressure him to prioritize remembering Sonic 1/CD dev over others

But hey, took him 30 years to forget things. I can't say the same for certain writers...

And people pressure him to prioritize remembering Sonic 1/CD dev over others

Bruh I can barely remember my mindset when making OaS and it got published only a year ago. Demanding a dev recall their initial impressions of a character they helped create 30 years ago is insane.

...Anyway, I had to go find the original quote because unfortunately, people tend to misrepresent Ohshima's statements. Can't really take anyone else's word for it.

And, uh, yeah. Like the SonAmy tweet, there's quite a bit here that I have to disagree with.

First, we have the problem of thinking that villains who aim to destroy the world are automatically worse than Eggman, who "only" wants to conquer it.

Conquest under Eggman's rule would be absolutely horrible. In some instances, I wouldn't be sure if total annihilation wouldn't be a more preferable fate.

You could argue that Eggman conquering the world would end up destroying it anyway, thus rendering the comparison moot. But since that gives ground to the idea that instant destruction is worse than subjugation which results in destruction over time, I'm not going to lean too hard into it. Destruction is destruction.

The underlying assumption weakens even more when you consider the fact that not every non-Eggman villain wants to destroy the world in the first place.

Fueled by pain and rage, Chaos massacred the Knuckles clan. Regardless, it didn't destroy the entire clan, never mind the world.

Neo Metal wanted to build a robot kingdom. Not a far cry from his creator's aims.

Black Doom wanted to turn humanity into fuel and a food source. To which I must say, how is that qualitatively any different than Eggman turning animals into robot batteries?

---

Second, "Eggman protects the world" as part of his own self-interests when necessity demands. Yeah, obviously there's going to be nothing to rule if he allows the world to be destroyed and he doesn't want that. But he's not going out of his way to "protect" the world unless he has a personal stake in it and there's no other alternative. At which point, he can only be said to be pragmatic at best.

He's not doing it because he thinks he can outperform Mother Nature. I feel like Ohshima is taking Eggman's god complex too literally and thinking Eggman feels he can replace nature. Science is the means, not the objective:

He doesn't really want to replace anything; he wants to conquer and have all bend to his will, and he doesn't care if things fall into disrepair.

If he was interested in supplanting nature with his own version, why is everything falling apart in CD's Bad Futures? Where are the forests full of mechanized trees? Why are the waters polluted and not replaced with Mega Mack? This argument would imply that Eggman is also responsible for the beneficial technology seen in CD's Good Futures, and that's just backwards.

Just because he wants to slap his face on every available surface doesn't mean he has some pseudo-philosophical reason for doing so.

---

"Humans are enemies for animals."

Mr. Ohshima, I respect you, but no. Not every culture believes this. Mine doesn't. Humans have the potential to be harmful or helpful, but we are not inherently one or the other.

I think maybe what he meant to say here is that humanity's greed is the driving force behind environmental destruction, which would be a valid take in keeping with the series' overall message. Eggman does represent industry, humanity's potential for great scientific achievement and for great harm.

"Eggman wants to make the world beautiful with science and technology."

Source? No seriously, source?

This might be hair-splitting to the Nth degree, but the sense I get from this particular bit is that Eggman finds science inherently beautiful and seeks to enhance the world with it, rather than finding his own creations beautiful out of a sense of ego.

---

"He is not evil in Sonic Adventure" does not mean Ohshima is necessarily saying Eggman isn't evil in other games. And even then, it's a bit of a stretch to say he isn't evil in Adventure.

Not sure why Ohshima is bringing up SA1 as if it's particularly relevant... Although I'm vaguely reminded of a manual entry that describes Eggman as possessing no real sense of right or wrong, so he may be remembering that.

The problem with Mr. Ohshima's statements is that they are not corroborated by what the games show us. Every time Eggman has displayed remorse, it was part of a ruse - which would imply that he needs to know what contrition looks like in order to imitate it. He wouldn't brutally mock Emerl's mercy as a sign of weakness if he didn't understand it. He's not lacking in comprehension; he's actively rejecting the concept. There's a difference.

Also, this interpretation inadvertently paints Sonic in a darker light than intended given his callous disregard of Eggman, and I don't think Ohshima realizes it.

It's significant that Sonic has never looked at the camera and lamented: "Alas, poor Eggman, he knows not the error of his ways." In fact, it'd be pretty fucked-up if he thought Eggman was simply walking down a bad path, and still chose to leave him behind in explosions and ignored the guy's pleas for rescue/mercy.

The games make it clear that Eggman knows what he's doing and he just doesn't care. He calls himself "evil" in Sonic Battle. He absolutely is capable of distinguishing right from wrong, and it borders on discrediting his intelligence to imply otherwise.

Eggman has a 300 IQ and is capable of self-reflection, if we're buying the whole "muh humanizing moments" bullshit SA2 and Frontiers are selling us. It therefore strips him of his agency and infantilizes him to insist that he knows no better, even in this roundabout "oh, he's only misguided" kind of way.

Shadow was misguided in SA2. We can argue about whether he heel-face turned too quickly, but the point remains that he eventually came around.

Eggman's actions, on the other hand, have proven that even if he is misguided, he's too entrenched in his goals to consider turning the car around. So there's no real point in emphasizing the "misguided" part.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't say "Eggman's finally becoming A Real Human Being(tm) through self-reflection" in one breath and "he just doesn't know right from wrong" in the next. Those two ideas are incompatible. Either Eggman knows that what he does is wrong or he doesn't. And considering how he was able to recognize his grandfather's greatness as a child, my bets are on the former.

[stoicheadaurelius]

Uncover Seneca's Timeless Wisdom on Friendship and Aging

Most Thought-Provoking Stoic Insights from Timeless "Moral Letters to Lucilius" by Seneca on Old age, Philosophy and Friendship to help you get more stoic and solid against most crucial of the life hardships: "As we hate solitude and crave society, as nature draws men to each other, so in this matter also there is an attraction which makes us desirous of friendship. Nevertheless, though the sage may love his friends dearly, often comparing them with himself, and putting them ahead of himself, yet all the good will be limited to his own being, and he will speak the words which were spoken by the very Stilbo whom Epicurus criticizes in his letter. For Stilbo, after his country was captured and his children and his wife lost, as he emerged from the general desolation alone and yet happy, spoke as follows to Demetrius, called Sacker of Cities because of the destruction he brought upon them, in answer to the question whether he had lost anything: "I have all my goods with me!" There is a brave and stout-hearted man for you! The enemy conquered, but Stilbo conquered his conqueror. "I have lost nothing!" Aye, he forced Demetrius to wonder whether he himself had conquered after all. "My goods are all with me!" In other words, he deemed nothing that might be taken from him to be a good. ... But you must not think that our school alone can utter noble words; Epicurus himself, the reviler of Stilbo, spoke similar language; put it down to my credit, though I have already wiped out my debt for the present day. He says: "Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the whole world." Or, if the following seems to you a more suitable phrase, – for we must try to render the meaning and not the mere words: "A man may rule the world and still be unhappy, if he does not feel that he is supremely happy." (c) Seneca, "Moral Letters to Lucilius". 

Enjoy the ancient stoic wisdom excerpted directly from the most famous treatises of the true sages of antiquity!

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Let's spread the light of learning and positivity!

[aylen-san]

To Die or to Return in Disgrace? Problems That Should Have Been Avoided

Greetings, bold souls and lovers of darkness! Sauron is at the helm again, and today I will delve into one of the most agonizing and instructive topics: to die or to return in disgrace? Let’s forget about minor annoyances like Lúthien, the flooding of Númenor, or Isildur who took the ring from me. These trifles are mere dust on the road to greatness. Let’s focus on the real, ironic, and dark questions that truly matter.

The first and most obvious question: who would want to die if there's a chance to return, even in disgrace? Consider how many great minds, dark rulers, and mad geniuses have wrestled with this endless choice over the centuries. To die is so dull, so banal. There’s no more chance to rectify mistakes, no opportunity to find a fitting end to your epic. Even I, Sauron, cannot ignore this dilemma despite all my dark schemes.

To die is to end all strategy, all plans, all great designs. After all, it's just an exit from the game, and no amount of grand drama will change that. Darkness, though beloved by me, cannot be complete without the opportunity to continue the struggle. Death renders everything meaningless, like tiny black dots on the map of darkness, inconsequential. You will never hear me boast of my great darkness if I simply disappear forever. That is true disgrace.

So, to return in disgrace? That sounds like a more intriguing prospect. Of course, it comes with endless mockery, insults, and tragicomedy, but it also presents a chance to correct your mistakes and prove that even darkness is capable of a comeback. Returning and rising again despite all the humiliation might be what makes the return valuable and interesting.

In this scenario, returning can become a new arena for struggle. Yes, people will laugh at you, their flat jokes will spread across the world, but you can turn it all to your advantage in your grand plan. After all, a fall doesn't matter if you have the chance to rise again and conquer. Even if the world mocks you, it doesn’t mean you can’t use their laughter as fuel for your new wicked ideas.

Moreover, returning in disgrace provides a unique opportunity to taunt your enemies and create new dramas. People always love a good story of revival. Yes, they will spew a torrent of filth and jokes, but this will only create more opportunities for dark and ironic plans. Remember, humiliations themselves can become sources of strength and motivation if used correctly.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you face the choice between death and returning in disgrace, choose the latter. Let it be a hard path, full of ridicule and difficulties, but it will give you a chance for revenge, to create new legends, and to complete your designs with even greater impact. Because darkness, no matter what, is always looking for ways to continue its endless game.

So, let’s acknowledge: returning in disgrace isn’t so bad if it means you still have a chance to change the world and make it yours. Thoughts of death and endless endings can’t be as appealing as the possibility of a restart and a new beginning. Therefore, we will continue our endless battle for darkness and shadow, despite all the hardships and mockery.

Until we meet again, and remember: every disgrace is a chance for a grand return.

[ideas-on-paper]

Gamescom 2024 résumé

It’s that time of the year again when Gamescom has come to an end after 5 intense days of playing Steam demos, and after sobering up from my "gaming beano", it's finally time for me to collect my own thoughts - or, at least that’s been my usual experience of it in the past few years (I haven’t been there in person since 2019). While I did my “mini reviews” for indie games that I tried out on Mastodon, I’ve decided to publish my general résumé on Tumblr this year, since I have quite a few thoughts that I wanted to take the time to address in detail (and frankly, I just didn’t want to put up with Mastodon’s character limit and a mile-long thread of posts). So, without further ado, here are my impressions of Gamescom 2024.

First off, let's start at the beginning: Opening Night Live. My opinion on this year's ONL is essentially the same as the previous years: pretty okay. I should mention, however, that I don't really care about modern triple-A gaming - the stacks upon stacks of open world graphic marvels with a maximum of uninspired game design just bore me to death.

The only thing that could've made this showcase potentially interesting to me would've been an announcement of the Lies of P DLC - however, since Neowiz wasn't even among the exhibitors, any hope I had for that deflated before Gamescom even started. (It's strange, actually - Gamescom would have been the opportunity to announce it if they're sticking with the release window of late 2024.)

One good thing that ONL did though was reminding me to check out Ara: History Untold. I was already intrigued by it when I heard about it during last year's Gamescom, and since the game will release soon in September, they finally showed some more extensive gameplay. It's strange that despite being such a big strategy fan, I've never played a Civ game before (except the Nintendo DS variant I had as a child where I lost horribly due to trying to play the game as a pacifist), but I'm actually very tempted to give this one a shot - a grand strategy game with environments rendered in an amount of detail comparable to Anno sounds really great. (One of my favorite things when I was playing Anno 1503 as a child was to stop for a brief moment and just look at everything that was going on.)

Also, I'm really intrigued by the feature that you can create your own leaders. I used to say “the moment I'll pick up a grand strategy game is when I'll be able to play as Vercingetorix and absolutely blow Caesar to kingdom come” - and even if Vercingetorix isn't in the game by standard, I can simply create him. I kid you not when I say that I could cry every time when I think about how the Gallic Wars were essentially just instigated by one person to gain political power and money - Rome itself wasn’t even interested in conquering Gaul, and Caesar had enough enemies in Rome who would’ve loved to see him fail in his self-staged glory campaign. A Gallic victory might have even inspired other peoples and nations to push back against Roman expansion and Romanization, leading to a more diverse European legacy as a whole (fun fact, btw: a lot of “Roman” inventions were actually just taken over from other cultures). Now, this is an alternate reality that I would love to see - plus, I’m always open to bullying some Romans. Who knows, if I’m really getting to rewrite history, maybe Carthage can join in the fun too. (Bring me those elephants, Hannibal!)

Since I've been a bit confused that they chose Nefertiti over Hatshepsut as an Egyptian leader*, I would love to play a campaign as her, too - the, according to James Henry Breasted, “first great woman in history of whom we are informed”. Not only that, her rule was so successful (especially in regards to trading and construction projects) that the patriarchal authorities of Egypt saw their worldview threatened, and because they couldn't have any records of an actually competent woman, they went out and erased her name on almost all of her monuments so she was basically forgotten by history for a long time. Well, I'd love to change that - as usual, though, I will wait what the reviews for Ara are going to be like, and maybe wait a little more until I can snatch the game at a good price.

*It's not that I'm unhappy with Nefertiti as a choice, I'm just a little surprised they wouldn't choose Hatshepsut in the light of her achievements. It’s also a little baffling that they announce Nefertiti as “pharaoh of Egypt” when she was just Great Royal Wife (albeit a very influential one) and Hatshepsut literally held the position of pharaoh. (There are theories Nefertiti ruled briefly after her husband died, though this is a matter of debate.) Also, tiny detail, but that Nefertiti starts out with Waset (aka Thebes) as a capital is hilarious to me, since she and Akhenaten demonstratively left Waset to establish Amarna as the new capital during their reign.

One novelty this year was the German Indie Showcase (“Deutsche Indie Showcase”), which took place about one hour before Opening Night Live and focused on upcoming indie games from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Although a lot of them weren’t really “world premieres” in the sense of the word - more like new trailers for already announced titles or new content releases/updates - I still found it way more interesting and entertaining to watch than ONL, in no small thanks to the commentary by German YouTubers Gronkh (whom I’ve been a long-time fan of) and PhunkRoyal.

Speaking of which, some people may know Gronkh as one of the “regular guests” of Gamescom, but this year, he actually didn’t make an appearance at the fair. This is something he announced last year, after he realized that more and more influencers who had nothing to do with gaming tried to use Gamescom as a means to gain publicity. Because of this, Gamescom was increasingly criticized for turning more and more into an “influencer convention” in the past years, which led to Gronkh clearly positioning himself and saying “I don’t want Gamescom to exclusively become an influencer event, and I don’t want my presence to divert attention from what’s supposed to be the main attraction: the games”. As a consequence, Gronkh announced he wasn’t going to be at Gamescom 2024 and instead would organize smaller events for his community. I think this is actually a very commendable move, and that he uses his range to give more visibility to local indie games is something I appreciate all the more.

The German Indie Showcase itself was hosted independently of Gamescom, featuring no third-party advertisements, show acts, or any other useless knick-knack. This is a development that I welcome a lot, not only that we get a special event with a spotlight on local developers, but also that the showcase focuses on what it’s actually about: the games.

After catching up on some of the other showcases after Gamescom (because I was too preoccupied to watch them live), one nice surprise for me was Planet Coaster 2, which I didn’t even know about before seeing the trailer (for some reason, the announcement about a month ago just completely flew over my head ^^'). Frontier Developments took some inspiration from Roller Coaster Tycoon 3's "Soaked!" expansion this time, adding water attractions as the brand-new feature. I would be interested in checking it out if I didn't know I'm 100% going to get stuck again trying to make everything as pretty as possible, which is exactly why I never got very far in Planet Coaster 1. xD

Meanwhile, in my opinion, the indie game division had a lot more interesting titles to offer. Same as last year, I checked out a selection of 20 Steam demos from Indie Arena Booth during Gamescom, plus 4 I already played preliminary. Out of the 24 games I tried out in total, my highlights were:

Moses & Plato - Last Train to Clawville

Songs of Silence

Closer the Distance

Winter Burrow

Goodbye Seoul

Steel Seed

30 Birds

Once Upon a Rogue's Tale

Awaken - Astral Blade

Bloodless

I want to thank all the devs who provided online demos of their games for this wonderful experience - the indie games are what I’m looking forward to the most every Gamescom, and I had tons of fun checking out all the awesome demos, even those that didn’t make it into the top 10. If you’d like to read my full thoughts on all the demos I played, here are my review threads from Mastodon:

Preliminary/New in August

Day 1: Strategy

Day 2: Detective, point & click, visual novels

Day 3: Action, platformers, metroidvanias

Day 4: Puzzle

Day 5: Sim, story, cozy games

In general, I had the impression that way more indie developers provided demos of their games than last year, and some even held special events in celebration. Awaken - Astral Blade, for instance, had a Gamescom Special Demo (it was essentially just a slightly more polished version of the normal demo, but it’s still nice the devs used this opportunity to show everyone how things are coming along) and Goodbye Seoul held a simultaneous Steam giveaway event.

Other games from Hall 10.2 had playable Steam demos as well, including Paws and Leaves - A Thracian Tale, Reka, and We Harvest Shadows. Even some bigger developers followed the trend, with Krafton providing a Steam demo for inZoi’s character editor.

Given that more possibilities to take part in Gamescom online was one of my biggest wishes last year (due to the online section diminishing somewhat after the Covid years were over), I am especially heartened by this development. Due to chronic illness, it has become increasingly difficult for me to travel to Gamescom myself (not to mention the noise level and crowds, which were always a challenge for me as a neurodiverse person), and it’s so great that people who can’t visit Gamescom in person for whatever reason also get opportunities to take part in it. Also, since more accessibility was a huge topic this year, I think online presence can also be used to further improve on that - and since Gamescom 2024 set a new record in regards to online reach with 310 million digital accesses, this development will hopefully continue.

Finally, I’d like to make a brief comment on this year’s “motto” of Gamescom as formulated by the organizers: One of the guiding principles was “games foster democracy”, which, understandably, has caused quite a bit of confusion among some commenters. One German journalist even humorously remarked: “As long as I haven’t formed a conclusive opinion on that, I’d rather rely on the Federal Constitutional Court than Candy Crush Saga.”

While I wouldn’t make a general claim that video games foster democracy, I would like to add that games can foster diversity. If we have a diverse range of games made by a diverse range of people - such as we see in Indie Arena Booth - it can lead to more diversity in the medium, which in turn can increase open-mindedness among the people who consume it, and thus foster democratic values.

Overall, the impression Gamescom 2024 left me with is a very positive one, and I think there were a lot of steps in the right direction.

What’s your opinion on Gamescom 2024? Do you have anything you’d like to add? Feel free to share your own thoughts!

[lexsssu]

𝑷𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓 (𝒁𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊) - 𝑱𝒊ǔ

Ao3 ver.

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“Sorry for the intrusion as always, Mr. Yanwang. But I have to clean your wounds regularly or else they’ll get worse instead of healing…”

The former proud dragon lord was silent, for his eyes were shut tightly in unconsciousness. He’d been sleeping for many moons now on account of his traitorous former confidant and younger brother who’d struck when he least expected it, injuring him until he was on the brink of death. Zhongli, better known as Yanwang Dijun, the youngest and most outstanding warlord this land had seen in centuries, was calculated by his own brother!

Now imprisoned within his own residence, he could do nothing but lie in bed and recover bit by bit while the white-eyed wolf took over his people on the pretense that he was unfit to do so due to his grave injuries.

“Really, it’s simply inhuman of them to not even feed you regularly when you’re so injured like this! Not to mention that they just allowed your wounds to fester as if you’re no better than roadkill…”

Though his body made no movements aside from his slow and shallow breaths, he was more than aware of your presence and clearly heard the sincerity of your words. For he is not just a warlord in name, but his skill allowed him to maintain a spiritual body for when his physical one was out of commission. Your regular meticulous care had allowed his self-healing to accelerate enough for his consciousness to awaken despite his physical body being way too gravely injured still.

“It’s not much, but I hope this helps you even a little bit…”

Translucent amber eyes watch with rapt attention as you place the freshly boiled and crushed guava leaves upon a long gash on his arm before wrapping the limb with a clean bandage. He takes note of the gentleness you treat him with, the sweat that drips down your brow as you tirelessly repeat the same treatment for all of his other wounds.

You’ve been doing this for him ever since the day the spineless coward Zhongchun had threatened your family in order to grab you as a wife for the incapacitated him. For what would be a better show than a crippled, comatose warlord wed to a woman well past the age of marriage? Zhongli himself was only twenty-seven, still considered within the prime of his youth but already quite old to not have at least one wife, concubine, or even a bed warmer.

Truthfully however, he’d been too busy trying to expand and stabilize all the territories he’d conquered during his campaign to even think about his carnal desires and besides, he can take care of himself should the need ever bother him too much. The chance that he could also be assassinated while either in the throes of passion or if his chosen lady might be an enemy spy also prevented him from seeking one out.

“Since even the servants refuse to give me actual medicine for your wounds, I’m at least thankful there’s a lot of guava trees just outside our house. Although my family could afford to buy medicine, we usually just use all the parts of the guava tree that’s been growing at our courtyard for decades now”

The dark-haired dragon’s heart clenches in spite of being only in his spiritual form, your unwavering kindness awakening feelings within himself that he never knew he was capable of experiencing. Though you were simply used as a way by Zhongchun to make a mockery of him, the fact that you never forgot to feed him, clean his wounds, and find ways to improve his healing spoke volumes of who you are as a person.

Especially now that he’d become more aware of who his true allies are after the battle that crippled and rendered him unconscious.

He will have his revenge.

He will take back what is his.

And...he will make sure to give you a proper wedding and treat you like the pearl in his palm for the rest of your lives.

══════════════════

“...Call me Husband”

As someone who’d never had a relationship in her past 23 years of living, the last thing you expected was to find or well, had a husband forced onto you at this age. Then there was the fact that said husband was the famed and also infamous Yanwang Dijun who could slay 100,000 enemies with just a swing of his mighty spear. Additionally, the war lord had been gravely injured to the point that everyone simply expected him to peacefully die in his sleep simply because of how severe his injuries were.

So in the end, you were only expected to take care of him until he inevitably passed away.

But you didn’t want to simply give up on a great man who’d done so much to unite the scattered tribes and cities of this great land. For all the atrocities he’s been said to have committed, you yourself know that the great general never ordered or committed anything that would brand him a monster in the eyes of the gods. A mixture of admiration and pity was what pushed you to do your best to slowly heal his body despite the lack of medical supplies and ample food to help sustain him.

What you did, you did out of your own free will without expecting anything in return.

“Wife, call me husband”

So how the heck did you end up in this situation?!

Pressed against the walls of your bedroom with the general for the past year, you feel your body overheating at his sheer proximity to you. Yanwang Dijun is tall and broad of shoulder, arms rippling with solid muscle and decorated with smatterings of scales and other markings that glowed as a testament to his dragon’s blood.

And he stared down at you with such intensity that you were sure you’d melt on the spot as if you were a block of ice left upon the courtyard during a sunny day. His amber eyes shone, long and majestic dragon tail swishing lazily behind him while his arms caged you against the wall.

It’s almost like the cat that caught the canary.

You gulp down the invisible lump that seemed to have formed inside your throat, trying to look anywhere except for the dragon himself before you finally found some semblance of courage.

“H—”

══════════════════

“Honey? Are you up yet?”

Amber orbs snap wide open as their owner sits up in alarm, running a hand through his mussed up dark locks and trying to get his bearings. He feels the mattress dipping as another body gets on, sitting directly beside him and placing their soft and small hand upon his forehead.

“You okay? I was wondering why you weren’t up yet since you usually wake up just before I do,” You asked him concernedly, curious and a little worried that he was feeling unwell.

“Do you want to go to Bubu Pharma—”

Before you could finish, you find yourself pinned beneath the larger and undeniably sexy form of your husband, heated amber eyes staring into your own with unabashed want.

“Wife... MY wife…” He mutters, almost as if in a trance before catching your lips in a feverish yet passionate kiss.

Breakfast had gotten cold by the time you managed to drag him out of bed.

[glon-morski]

On Noctis’ Injury And Its Effects On His Magic

A̷ ̷f̷i̷l̷l̷ ̷f̷o̷r̷ ̷t̷h̷i̷s̷ ̷k̷i̷n̷k̷m̷e̷m̷e̷,̷ ̷I̷ ̷g̷u̷e̷s̷s̷.̷.̷.̷?̷

Anyone who has played FFXV knows that as a child, Noctis suffered from an injury that rendered him unable to walk for a while – the reason for his visit to Tenebrae as a kid, and thus his first meeting with Luna shortly before Tenebrae fell. The Brotherhood anime and Kingsglaive movie expand on it a little bit, giving more information on the extent of the injury, as well as what caused it: a daemon called the Marilith. As a reminder, I mean this thing:

The injury was severe enough that Noctis remained in a coma for an unspecified amount of time (though most likely at least a couple weeks, if not a couple months) and even once he woke and recovered a bit, he was unable to walk, his legs being paralyzed (or he was literally paraplegic, meaning paralyzed from the waist down; that’s a valid possibility as well, and an even more likely one all things considered). Furthermore, it is a widely assumed headcanon (and rather heavily implied, though never actually stated in the game) that he was infected by the Starscourge through this injury. For these reasons, he was taken to Tenebrae so the Oracle may heal him, though this led to Niflheim attacking and conquering Tenebrae as a result.

Well, fine, he was healed. That’s that then. Except it’s not, according to Noctis’ character sheet in the game’s archives.

“An injury incurred as a young boy deprived him access to the full potential of his innate power”, huh?

Unless there was another ‘childhood injury’ that we don’t know about, which is unlikely, this references the Marilith. And that injury, though healed by the Oracle, apparently left marks deep enough that it affected Noctis’ ability to use his magic. But that begs the question: how exactly was he affected? No part of the game or the anime or ANYTHING gives us any real indication on that. So all we can do is speculate. That said, here are some thoughts I had on the matter.

1 – Warping

Noctis can warp. That’s obvious to anyone who played the first five seconds of the game’s gameplay or watched the first minute of the brotherhood anime. It’s one of the basic abilities he should have as a royal, of course he learned how to warp.

Here’s the thing, though: just because he can doesn’t mean it was (or still is) easy. In fact, Noctis had experienced uncommon difficulty in mastering this skill, as stated in the book/script ‘Prologue: Parting Ways’. Ignis outright says there that Noctis actually only mastered warping recently and goes as far as to speculate that his difficulty in learning might be connected to his childhood injury, which is as much of an indication that it’s the case as we can get since the characters visibly aren’t supposed to know for sure. Furthermore, if we consider Gameplay-Story-Integration – something FFXV does in spades, far more than I think I’ve ever seen any other game do – at the very beginning of the game, warping (and warp strikes in particular) is very costly in MP. In fact, unless you’re on a New Game+ (which doesn’t count), overusing warp strikes is the best way to end up in Stasis in only a few attacks, along with aerial combat which, surprise surprise, also makes Noctis warp and phase a lot to not fall down prematurely.

The effect lessens as Noct gains levels and thus more MP, but even late game you can sometimes end up in Stasis against stronger, aerial opponents if you’re not careful. That said, while the gameplay mechanic of gaining more MP as you level up is nothing new, here it could be explained in-story as well: as Noctis grows stronger because he’s fighting nearly every day and is thus forced to practice both his combat skills and his warping, he perfects the skill he had so he doesn’t need to use as much magic for it. He may have ‘mastered’ it before leaving Insomnia in the sense that he never fails to warp when he wants to, but for most of his journey he’s perfecting it so he can do it with more ease and using less of his reserves of Magic, and thus not fall into Stasis so easily.

Speaking of which…

2 – Stasis

Stasis is something akin to a ‘status ailment’, yet different. It’s what the state of having 0 MP is called. When in Stasis, Noctis can’t attack because he can’t summon his weapons and can’t avoid attacks well because he can’t phase, much less warp. He can’t use the magic flasks, either. The only thing he can do is run around but that, interestingly, only makes the Stasis last longer. In order to recover MP and thus get OUT of Stasis, he needs to stop moving entirely (and preferably hunker down behind a rock or something of that nature). Stasis only ends when he recovers all of his MP.

There’s a few things interesting about Stasis. The first, as I already mentioned above, is how to get out of it. You need to stop and cease moving entirely – which, if you’re in the middle of combat, is of course nothing short of idiotic. But then, since you can’t do anything anyway, Stasis is something you usually need to get out of ASAP if you’ve already failed to not fall into it in the first place. Finding a hiding spot and hunkering down helps as Noctis’ magic recovers faster that way. While there’s no indication how Stasis may feel to Noctis, however, there’s a widely-accepted headcanon that it is not pleasant. The fact that you have to stop and that crouching makes Noct recover faster lead to believing he might feel dizzy and maybe even nauseous or otherwise sick, that he as a character feels the need to sit or lie down when he ends up in Stasis. Which would make sense considering that, as far as we know, his Magic is and always has been a part of him, so having it deplete to zero is likely to not feel nice. It might be similar to when you’re anemic for the exact same reason: you need a certain amount blood and hemoglobin for your body to function properly. It’s not too much of a stretch to assume that it’s the same for Noctis and his magic power.

Noctis, however, is not the only character who may have to deal with Stasis if he’s not careful about his magic use. The others are the members of the Kingsglaive, as shown in the Comrades DLC. However, even at the very beginning of DLC, you have to try really hard to get the Kingsglaive character into Stasis. Like, fighting an aerial enemy and constantly warp striking it even though you have shuriken you can throw from a distance kind of try. In fact, in all the time I played Comrades, I only managed to get into Stasis ONCE and my reaction to it was ‘wait what? Stasis? HOW?!’ that’s how surprised I was that it actually happened, even though I theoretically knew it could. Furthermore, at no point in the Kingsglaive movie was Stasis ever so much as mentioned as far as I recall. So in this case, it is safe to assume that it’s either a case of Gameplay-Story-Segregation, or in case it’s not, that most Glaives only know vaguely that Stasis can happen, but rarely-to-never actually experience it. By comparison, early-game Noctis falls into Stasis nearly all the time (or he did the first time I played the game and before I learned to watch my MP and periodically point-warp, a tactic I largely dropped late-game and barely use in Comrades).

There’s one thing, though: magic is not a native ability of the Glaives. They get the ability to use magic by borrowing said magic from the king. Their bodies are not as adapted to it as Regis’ and Noctis’ would be by virtue of magic being an energy they don’t usually have access to. This is further reinforced by the fact that they have varying affinity for magic. So since the energy wasn’t theirs and their bodies were not meant to be able to use it, but do so anyway due to their connection to the king, it would make sense if there was a limit of how much magic they could borrow before something blocked them – either because the ‘sharing’ works by them having a certain stock which runs dry or because their bodies refuse to accept more magic from the king past a certain threshold, thus inducing Stasis. The same cannot be said for Noctis. He’s of royal blood. He was born with his ability to use magic. It’s part of him. It’s his magic, not someone else’s that he’s borrowing.

Furthermore, there is King Regis, who we know is weakening due to sustaining the Wall. He’s been weakened to the point that already at the time of Brotherhood, he lost access to his Arminger – not the entire arsenal, he can still summon regular weapons, but the Royal Arms no longer appear to him because he’s too weak. Yet even this weakened monarch withered by years of using the Ring of the Lucii is never so much as implied to experience Stasis, or to ever have experienced it. Even now, when he can hardly use magic in general, there’s nothing that may imply he’s close to or dealing with Stasis. His magic is there, he just cannot use it. But if Noctis’ father never experienced Stasis in all his life, then it would mean it’s weird that Noctis does, especially as easily as he does in early-game.

Unless, of course, his childhood injury and the Starscourge play a role in it. Hence why I believe they do.

3 – Elemental Magic

Another direct ability connected to his magic that Noctis has is his Elemancy and general spell-casting. And here’s where things get really interesting in my opinion. I’ll be breaking this into two separate parts, one about the obvious Elemancy from the game (i.e. making the magic flasks) and one less obvious aspect. Let’s start with the less obvious one.

3.1 – Elemental Deposits

In order to use elemental magic in the form of flasks, Noctis has to first store the energy from elemental deposits. These are strewn about all over Eos, most notably with one of each element (fire, ice, lightning) around every haven blessed by an Oracle. However, they’re also found in different locations to varying amounts. Mt. Ravatogh is littered with fire deposits and maybe a lighting here and there, but you won’t find any ice, which makes sense considering it’s a volcano. The cave behind the waterfall, aptly named Glacial Grotto, is littered with ice deposits and you’ll be hard pressed to find anything else (though there is exactly one fire and one lightning deposit). This implies that elemental magic is part of the very earth itself, which is important when you consider another thing:

Noctis is the only character who requires these depositis. Everyone else can cast spells ‘just like that’ as far as we know. The Kingsglaive? Both in the movie and in the Comrades expansion, they just do it. There’s not even so much as a mention of the deposits. Ignis, who’s implied to be the most magically adept of Noctis’ companions? His entire fighting style when you play him relies on elemental magic, and when you don’t play as him, he has elemental techniques to use via the tech bar like Sage Fire. He can do both whether or not Noct has stored any elemental energy himself, so it’s not connected to that.

Where, then, do these characters draw the magic from?

At first, one may think that they draw from the royal family. It’s how the Kingslaive’s abilities are explained in-game, after all. They can use magic because of their connection to the king, because the king gives them access to his own magic. The same goes for the Crownsguard, though to a lesser degree, as they don’t seem able to do much more than just conjure and dismiss weapons from the arsenal. Cor doesn’t warp once the few times he’s a guest member in your party and, unless I’m misremembering, none of the Crowsguard were able to warp in the Kingsglaive movie, either. Same for the Crownsguard enemies in Episode Ardyn. Outside the royal family, only the Glaives could do that.

So they draw their magic from their sovereign – King Regis in most cases, Noctis in the case of Ignis, Gladio and Prompto. Except we just talked about how Ignis’ fighting style, particularly when he’s the player character, relies heavily on elemental magic and he can use it whether or not Noctis has any elemental magic from deposits stored. This leads me to believe that using elemental spells is actually a two-fold job. Because the magic of the royal family is bound to the Crystal. But the elemental deposits can be found literally anywhere (even in cities in odd containers) and the kinds of deposits you find in certain terrain depends on that terrain, meaning the elemental energy is something that can be found in the earth… and by extension likely the sea and the air, too, it would only make sense.

So the royal family doesn’t actually have direct use of elemental magic, but their Crystal magic gives them a way to manipulate these elemental energies to form spells. This is further reinforced by the fact that when Noctis absorbs elemental energy, it is portrayed as colorful, smoke-like wisps or something. There’s no small flame or ice particles or sparks of electricity in the energy he absorbs (though they are there on the deposit before he starts siphoning it). That only comes when actual spells are cast. Which would mean it’s possible that whoever gets access to the Crystal’s magic via connection to the royal family gains an ability to manipulate those energies as well, and is thus capable of using elemental magic. Which would also explain why some people have more of an affinity for it than others because let’s be honest, that sounds like complicated, hard work.

As I said before, though: Noctis is the only character to actually use the energy deposits. So where do other characters grasp the elemental energy to manipulate it with the Crystal’s magic to create spells? The answer is simple: everything around them. The earth. The water. The very air. They can draw that energy from those places and manipulate it to form spells. And Noctis should be able to do the same. Yet he seems to require the deposits instead.

Could it be due to the fact that, for some reason, he lacks some aspect of his Crystal magic, be it fine-tuned control or something as simple as the instinct for it, that would allow him to weave these energies from the very air around him? Could it be that in order to grasp those energies and manipulate them, he requires a higher concentration of that energy? It seems to be the case. And by that logic, unless we assume he simply doesn’t have the affinity for magic, the only other possible explanation is his childhood injury.

But wait. One thing doesn’t add up. Noctis can use elemental spells in his parries, after all. Against certain enemies, when you block at the right moment and then press the attack button when prompted, an animation will start where Noctis counters, usually with magic. For instance, he can jump onto the flat side of a Red Giant’s sword, run up to it, up its chest, jump away and throw a fire spell at it. A similar counter is possible with one of the Niflheim machine enemies of the X generation (X-Angel or something along those lines, I think). And those counters, much like Ignis’ fighting style, can be executed whether or not Noctis happens to have elemental energies for Elemancy stored.

And that’s true. But there’s a few details to consider here. First, these counters are available against specific, late-game enemies. Besides which, no matter what the enemy’s weakness or resistances might be, Noctis will only ever use a fire spell in those parries, and not an overly powerful one, either. So going by Gameplay-Story-Integration again, this can be explained thus: by virtue of fighting and using magic far more often than he ever had to in Insomnia, Noctis eventually learned to draw the elemental energy from the air as well, but still not in what can be considered an effective manner. Especially since I’d consider fire to be the easiest spell to cast of the three (even if blizzard, by virtue of being connected to water, may be the one for which the energy is easiest to draw from the air in particular). Because lightning would be difficult to conjure from the air in general and blizzard, while probably having an amplitude of water energy that can be used, needs far more manipulation because you need to freeze it and stuff. By contrast, with fire, you just have to manipulate it enough that there’s a first spark and the rest is a chain reaction because the flames use the air (or rather the oxygen in the air) as fuel to burn. Furthermore, compared to blizzard and lightning spells, fire spells have far less of an area of effect. They’re more concentrated and thus safer to use for a counter without endangering one’s comrades, but that’s another matter entirely.

There’s another aspect of the deposits, too, namely that they’re the one thing in the game that Noctis’ companions never point out. If you pass a shop, they’ll talk about shopping or getting curatives. If you pass a haven, Gladio will often ask if you want to make camp. If you’re near a fishing spot, either Noctis or one of the others may comment on the opportunity to fish. But elemental deposits are never commented on by anyone. Almost as if they’re not seen. (Much like mineral deposits and places where you can pick up food, but admittedly, those really can be overseen. The same can’t really be said for elemental deposits, considering their glow and stuff.)

Which… actually would make sense if you think about it. Episode Gladio and Prompto were both in locations that should have been rich in deposits – Gladio’s by virtue of being a generally magical location and Prompto’s because it’s still relatively near to Shiva’s resting place, which should make him stumble upon ice deposits all over, especially considering that there were several of them in abandoned containers on the railway where the train Noctis, Gladio and Ignis were using was forced to stop (you know, that spot right to Shiva’s corpse’s head?). Yet in neither location is even one deposit to be found. Not even in a ‘yeah, there is one here, but obviously you can’t make use of it’ kind of way. Similarly, there were a couple deposits in containers in Altissia, but when you play Episode Ignis, there is not a single one. Finally, there were even deposit containers in the ruined Insomnia. I find it hard to believe those would have been brought there by Niflheim, so they had to have been there before Insomia’s fall and might even have been lying around for years. And yet you also don’t see a single one when you play Episode Ardyn. Ardyn who, being a Lucis Caelum, has access to the Crystal’s magic as well as far as we know. Admittedly, he never uses the elemental aspect, though. Actually, all he does use is warping and the Royal Arms during his final fight with Noct. Nothing else. Almost as if… as if he’s lost access to it. Maybe because of all the Starscourge he’s absorbed.

Much like Noctis, who had been infected with it to a lesser degree as a child and who thus has issues with using it as well.

But back to the deposits. One more interesting thing to note in the case of Insomnia is that these deposits lie literally in random spots among the rubble. With the addition of the Glaive Encampment and stuff in the Royal Edition, you would think there wouldn’t be deposits at least around the encampment, right? The Glaives might not need them, but still, why would they just leave them lying around in random spots like this? Especially if it was known Noctis makes use of them. Then it would have been even more logical to gather them in a safe place for him, if only to make sure they’re preserved for him to use whenever he comes back. So why wouldn’t they do that? Why just leave them? Why won’t Noctis’ comrades ever comment on them, even when you have nothing stored and they would usually remind you to maybe stock up like they do with everything else?

Simple: no one but Noctis can actually see/sense them.

As I said before, one of the possibilities of how elemental magic is weaved into spells from the Crystal’s magic and natural elemental energy is that it’s done instinctively. It’s not that the characters can SENSE the elemental energies and decide to use them. They just go ‘I need this spell’ and instinctively reach for the energies they need for it. As the energies they need are literally everywhere around them, there’s no NEED for them to be able to sense them.

But Noctis is different in that the energies flowing all around him are not enough for him to actually grasp and weave into spells. He needs spots where those energies are concentrated. Spots which he needs to FIND. And so he may have developed a sort of sixth sense, a way to sense elemental energies when they’re concentrated enough (and possibly the Crystal magic, too, because the two likely aren’t that different; the Crystal magic could even be a sort of fourth element). A way that no one else has, because no one else NEEDS to find these places. Hence why they’re only actually there in the main game, which is from Noctis’ PoV. No other character could make use of them and because they don’t even need them, no other character can even sense/see them.

3.2 – Magic Flasks

As extensively discussed above, Noctis cannot easily cast spells, not the way the Glaives or Ignis do (and his father as well before he’s been weakened by the Ring of the Lucii, at least according to ‘A King’s Tale’). He can’t draw the energy from just anywhere, it needs to be concentrated enough. Furthermore, considering you can’t draw from elemental deposits even when you happen to be right next to one in a fight (and you can do a lot of things in the middle of combat via even the main menu in FFXV) and that it’s an ability that you can ‘level up’ via Ascension, it would be safe to assume even that is not easy for him. It takes time and he needs to concentrate. Because of this, it’s very possible that the difficulty of just drawing the energy makes the simultaneous manipulation of it into a spell nearly impossible for him (the exception being the aforementioned, tiny fire spell in counters). As a result, instead of drawing energy, manipulating it and then releasing the crafted spell simultaneously like the Glaives (as well as his father) do, Noctis needs to separate the steps.

Step one has been discussed extensively above. He draws the energy from places particularly rich in elemental energy – the deposits.

Step two, an intermediate step necessary due to the apparent difficulty in drawing elemental energies, is storage. As Noctis cannot manipulate the energy at the same time as he draws it, he needs to do something with it so he can do so later. The only logical thing to do is to store it, which he does likely in his own body (as he can do it since the beginning of the game and there’s no item or anything that’s in any way required for it).

Step three: he forges the spells. Now this one is interesting, because it doesn’t seem like Noctis has much issue with this particular step. Once he has the elemental energy necessary, spell-crafting seems to be simple, at least if one looks at it once again through Gameplay-Story-Integration glasses. As stated earlier, you can’t draw elemental energy from deposits while in combat. You can, however, craft spells mid-combat via the use of the main menu. So, going by the same rules as we did for the drawing of energy, this means that crafting spells is quick, easy and doesn’t require much concentration on Noctis’ part.

Why then does he always store them in flasks? If crafting the spells is so easy, why not cast them directly from his own energy storage?

Well, another widely accepted headcanon (to my knowledge) is that Noctis can’t control the spells that well. Not in terms of crafting them, but in terms of their power and where they land. Thus, he uses the flasks to both have better control in terms of aim, as well as actual power. This idea is supported by two things.

The first is how crafting spells works. You can decide how much of each elemental energy you want to infuse into a flask and you see what the end result will be before you actually craft the spell. This is, of course, an obvious game mechanic to avoid frustration for the players so they don’t craft blindly. But it would also make sense if this was another bit of Gameplay-Story-Integration, because Noctis himself likely doesn’t craft the spells blindly hoping he’ll get the right one, either. He can either ‘sense’ what spell will come out, or he’s practices crafting spells long enough to just know from experience.

The second thing is the difference in spells between Noctis and the Glaives. Whether you look at the Comrades DLC or the Kingsglaive movie, the magic of the Glaives is far more controlled than Noctis’. It’s more focused while being just as destructive and there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much risk of getting your comrades caught up in the cross-fire, and considering I only ever played Comrades offline (meaning with AI), trust me that the difference wasn’t between actual people knowing to get out of the way. Especially since it’s not like Comrades actually has a chatting system or anything, so it’s not like you can warn anyone ‘magic incoming!’ or anything. And yet unlike the main game, your party members are never actually caught in the crossfire.

Of course, there’s one big difference between throwing a flask (which is basically a magic bomb) and casting a spell yourself, and that’s the amount of control you have over the spell at any given moment. You need to control it to cast it, control where it lands by aiming and likely control it at the very moment of casting, so when the magic is released and possibly what it considers a target, as well. Flasks remove one-and-a-half of those. Noctis still needs to control the spells when he crafts them so they don’t blow up in his face or something before he stuffs them into flasks. But he doesn’t need to keep controlling it when he aims and he literally can’t control it at the moment of casting, because that happens on its own when the flask breaks. So while the Glaives can be assumed to control even the release of the spell (exactly when it goes off, how far it reaches etc.) this is out of Noctis’ hands. Once a flask breaks, that’s it, the energy inside literally explodes outward in a big, destructive mess. And that’s exactly how Noctis’ flasks work: a big explosion of magic that decimates everything in its path.

But then we return to the question: why bother? Why not just cast from his ‘internal storage’ where he keeps the elemental energy before he puts them in flasks?

I believe that is due to the fact that casting normally would be too difficult and demand too much concentration, much like drawing the energy from elemental deposits in the first place. As I said before, putting the magic into flasks removes two steps of casting where tight control of the magic is needed: to aim and to release (and potentially to designate the targets versus the people who are not to be harmed). And that is the EASY step, as Noctis can even do it mid-combat. It’s the aiming and release that likely pose issues, which would make sense. When it’s merely in ‘wisp-form’, the energy may be more or less difficult to manipulate, but is likely easy to contain. Once it’s crafted into the spell and becomes magic, however, the actual power/strength of it likely amplifies, since you’re combining various energies together. It’s like a chemical reaction. As soon as you start mixing stuff, a kind of reaction happens and energy is released. This is likely the same. And containing that energy, that pure power that’s created when a spell is crafted, may be beyond Noctis’ grasp on his magic. Which would mean that he does not have that tight or fine-tuned a control over it. He can manipulate it to craft spells, but anything other than that is either difficult and demands a lot of concentration, or is outright beyond his capabilities.

(Again, there’s this one little spell he does in counter-attacks, but that might be about all he can safely manage.)

4 – Healing Magic

There’s one more aspect of Noctis’ magic in terms of spell-casting: healing, otherwise known as the Cure-line of spells (Cure, Cura and Curaga, as well as potentially Raise and Arise, though the latter two don’t seem to be a thing in FFXV in general). It’s the one type of magic that’s nearly entirely unavailable to Noctis.

He can’t cast healing spells. The Glaives can and do.

On the other hand, Glaives don’t use potions. I don’t think a potion, or any other kind of curative, has even been mentionned in the Kingsglaive movie (though it’s been a while since I’ve seen it so I may be wrong), and they definitely aren’t in Comrades. Curatives are something only Noctis and his companions have access to, and the description of each points out that they only work ‘by way of Noctis’ power’. So he’s the one that makes them.

The idea here is similar and yet different to magic flasks. For magic flasks, Noctis needs to gather elemental energy first. He doesn’t seem to have any need for it to create curatives. On the other hand, he can’t just stuff healing magic into a flask. He requires a medium of sorts, apparently preferably in liquid form considering he always uses various types of energy drinks. Interestingly, the potency of the curative doesn’t seem to be how much magic Noctis’ stuffs into it, otherwise they could probably buy Hi-Elixirs for the price of a mere potion, but rather what kind of medium (so energy drink) he uses. Almost like the magic he infuses it with directly interacts with the chemical contents of the medium to determine the curative’s potency. Which is, at the very least, plausible.

Here we have another wonderful bit of Gameplay-Story-Integration in that you can buy curatives of any sort nearly anywhere, up to and including Gralea. Which makes sense if Noctis himself is the one who creates them. Surely even the empire would have energy drinks for their human citizens, right? And furthermore, with the exception of one (1) cutscene in Episode Prompto where Aranea uses a curative (which, considering she’s met Noctis and the others in Tenebrae before, she might have gotten from them; even if they didn’t have enough stock themselves, Noctis could have turned all energy drinks she had into curatives to further enable her relief efforts; and let’s be honest, it’s totally something Noctis would do) no one else but Noctis and his crew ever uses curatives, or even seems to know they exist. I mean, all those hunters you rescue in random side-quests? You’d think they’d have their own potions and antidotes and stuff on them if it was something that could be bought anywhere. Except all they can buy is an energy drink. Only Noctis can actually make it into a curative.

As for actually casting a healing spell in any form, Noctis cannot do that at all. The only thing he can do is mix a curative or some food into his elemental spells to create healcast spells. (Which, by the way, is another example of magic actually interacting with matter on a chemical level or something of that nature – though it’s likely more abstract than that - to determine an additional effect. If you use other items, you get stopcast, venomcast, failcast etc.)

5 – Sharing Magic With Others

The final point in which Noctis’ injury may have affected how well he can use his magic is actually sharing it with others, the same way Regis does with the Crownsguard and the Kingsglaive. However, at first glance, in this one point, it doesn’t seem like Noctis has any difficulty compared to his father. He shares his magic with Ignis, Gladio and Prompto easily enough and they can do everything a Crownsguard is supposed to.

As stated before, the Crownsguard doesn’t seem to have that much access to elemental magic, at least going by what little we see of them in the movie and the fact that in-game, Cor isn’t very magically inclined in terms of elemancy, either. However, they can materialize weapons from the arsenal. But they can’t warp. Cor never does and neither do the Crownguard operatives in Episode Ardyn.

The Glaives (and the Royal Guard they’re derived from) can use elemental magic and they can warp (though some are better than it than others). They can also manifest their weapons, as prove in both Episode Ardyn and Comrades.

I don’t remember if it was said in the Kingsglaive movie itself or if I read about it elsewhere, but I’m pretty certain it was stated somewhere that these differences were due to how powerful the ‘sharing link’ between King and subject is. The Crownsguard, being a ‘defense and reaction only’ kind of force and derived of what used to be the Lucian army to boot, only have the most basics of links to allow them access to the arminger arsenal. The Kingsglaive, on the other hand, was meant to basically be the new Lucian army (and yet, ironically, they’re based on the former Royal Guard). They were meant not to be a defense force, but an attack force. And since most of the magic the king can make available is more attack-oriented anyway, he bestowed those powers to them.

There’s also the fact that this more powerful link is more draining, too, which was likely another reason the Crownsguard only got the bare minimum of magic access.

Thing is, Ignis, Gladio and Prompto are all part of the Crownsguard, so they should also only have this ‘basics only’ connection. And yet Ignis can use elemental magic like no other Crownsguard member. Which leads me to believe that Noctis, being young and not yet burdened by the Ring, gave the strongest connection he could to his friends, allowing them access to every aspect of his magic.

But wait. If that’s the case, why don’t the other three warp? Ever?

Well, in Prompto’s case, that’s simple. He’s only been trained for a couple of months and while he was accepted into the Crownsguard, it’s downright said at the beginning of the game that his training was more meant for self-defense than to actually protect Noctis. Ignis and Gladio, however, don’t have that excuse. Gladio in particular has been trained in combat all his life. You’d expect him of all people to know how to warp, right?

Here’s the thing though: if you look at the Brotherhood anime, then outside of the few scenes actually set after the beginning of the game, neither Ignis nor Gladio are shown to be able to use magic. Even in the scene in episode 3 (I think?) where Gladio and Noctis trained with wooden weapons, they didn’t call for them or dismiss them with magic. In Noctis’ case, he might not have wanted to or he might still have been struggling to, since he was still a teenager then. In Gladio’s case, it’s safe to assume he hasn’t had access to it at that point. Especially since neither Ignis nor Gladio wear a Crownsguard uniform in the anime.

So that would mean their link to Noctis, and thus his magic, is relatively recent. Two, three years at most. And warping isn’t something that’s easily learned. Noctis might have additional trouble with it because of his injury, but even among the Glaives there are those who warp better (Nyx) than others (Libertus, who complains it makes him nauseous and that he needs to practice more). And these are highly skilled combatants with lots of experience and decent-to-exceptional magical affinity who have likely been training for years before being sent into the field (a lot can be said about Regis, but definitely not that he would send poorly-trained soldiers into a war). So learning to warp, whether you have aptitude for magic or not, takes time. Thus it is very likely that Ignis and Gladio could learn to warp if given the time and opportunity to do so. It’s just that once they leave Insomnia, they never do.

There’s one more thing, too: Ignis has a tendency to throw his daggers in combat and Gladio often throws his sword at Noctis during training. Both ultimately end up summoning the blades back to them in the end, but there’s always a second or so of delay before they do, as if they were originally trying to do something else. Like warping after the weapon. It’s thus very possible that shortly before leaving Insomnia, they have both begun warp training, it’s just that they haven’t had the time to finish it and actually learn to warp. And then once they leave Insomnia and then Insomnia falls, they don’t get much opportunity to train. Even during the ten years Noctis is in the Crystal, or rather especially during that time. Because daemons are springing up all over, the nights are getting longer and it’s basically the apocalypse. You don’t really get the chance to learn a new skill when something like that happens, you focus on the skills you already have to better them in a way that can make it possible for you to survive. So in the end, they never really learned. And after the Dawn, they didn’t really have the opportunity to anymore.

However, looking at everything else, it’s safe to assume Noctis allows them free, full access to his magic. His ability to do so is not hindered by his childhood injury.

In conclusion:

Noctis’ injury, sustained by the Marilith and likely made worse by a Starscourge infection, affected his magic on nearly every level. It made warping (and possibly conjuring weapons and other items) more difficult for him to learn. It immensely impacted his ability to cast spells, both of the elemental and the healing variety. It made him susceptible to falling into Stasis. Almost every aspect of his magic that we know of has been affected in some way. The only part of it that still seems perfectly fine (or at least there’s no reason to believe it’s been affected in any way) is his ability to create a ‘sharing link’ to give someone else access to magical abilities.

[rosheendubh]

WIP...art-manipulation as visual inspiration for The Elegy of Dead Kingdoms...(crossover of StarWars/revamped Thrawn trilogy, FireFly/Serenity, and the Keltiad...also, spoof SpaceOpera-RockOpera featuring anyone from David Bowie, to LED Zepplin, NewOrder, U2, Ah-Ha...etc)...

~Background

~ At the impetus of River Tam, and the Operative, the Serenity’s renegade crew defies transit laws prohibiting unauthorized access to the wormhole connecting Terran space with the quadrant of the Republic Alliance and the Galactic Empire. Having only a fragmented record mentioning a lone survivor from a planetary massacre, the crew track rumors of a psionically gifted orphan said to have come from the Terran Fringe system of New Celtica, possessing the ability of manipulating the molecular structure of organic matter. An exile once in the service of Palpatine, whose skill of biokinesis Thrawn covets to stabilize the unpredictable violence of his cloned hybrids. A woman with adversaries on both sides of the wormhole, winning a Jedi to her cause, and determined to discover the key to a secret kept hidden for a thousand years. A buried legend of Old Terra, Earth That Was, that may be the last defense between the ancient darkness wakened by Thrawn‘s pursuit of absolute dominion, and the destruction of all life throughout the galaxy...(queue *cinematic drama music*)...

Somewhere between the battle of the Dark Force fleet, and Wayland, MonMontha offers a last ditch effort at negotiation with Thrawn. Imperial forces victorious in recent campaigns, have pushed back the RepublicAlliance to their InnerPlanetary systems. Rogue genetic scientists from the Terran quadrant, refusing to abandon their research after the PAX Hydrochlorate failure on Miranda, found a ready market amid trans-conduit Imperial war-profiteers, for their newest discovery. An archaic protogenome derived from dark-matter structures, endowing hybridized Reaver clones with real-time tissue regenerative capacity. These clones now render Thrawn’s army nearly indestructible. The scene above is merely my toying with a concept of the ethereal, and formidable River Tam crossing paths with the illustrious brilliance embodied in the GrandAdmiral Thrawn...

~scene~

On Coruscant, during Monmontha’s attempt at negotiating a peace, Rhyanon ferch Garowen (alluded to above) blatantly rejects Thrawn‘s coercive effort at bringing her to his side during a dinner banquet. B/c of this act of arrogance, Thrawn vows no mercy in the progression of his campaign, conquering and converting sector upon sector into a dark matter/anti-matter morass which becomes dubbed The Dimensional Rift, despite the valiant efforts of the Republic Alliance squadrons, directed by LukeSkywalker, and allies, to fend off the onslaught of Thrawn’s Dreadnaught fleet.

Before all that though, with the evening following the dinner still at hand, Thrawn abides by the Old Republic etiquette of host and guest, honoring civil diplomacy amongst enemies. A requisite social diversion-music or a dance-ensuing in the Palace reception hall holds no interest to him in Rhyanon’s absence. Preferring solitude, he meanders out to a balcony overlooking Coruscant’s expanse of lights, twinkling ladders of motion, reaching up to the lower atmosphere. And here, she follows after him minutes later, floating between shadows, a specter of innocence and dangerous beauty.

She pauses beneath a statue of some nameless goddess, a figure of Victory or Life, a pretension of lesser cultures. Weaker nations seeking hope in empty icons. The girl, young woman really, by the standards of human chronology, offers an entirely different contemplation.

From the sofa where he’s seated, viewing her from across the fountain, Thrawn appreciates the lithe symmetry of her form, a subtle disguise of strength and grace. Dangerous beauty. “You’re very like her, River Tam. A work of art, a living masterpiece,” he comments.

For as young as she is, not more than 20 years surely, she carries herself with a remarkable serenity. Stepping lightly around the other sofa, she leans her hip against the cushioned neck rest. Barely flickering an eyelid, she focuses luminous dark eyes on him, shining through the mottled patterns of light scattered between them.

Her voice resembles her figure, light and flowing. “A failed experiment, you mean, Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” Flawlessly, she speaks his name, though he knows they weren’t introduced at any point previous to this moment. ”I was supposed to be like them—the researchers were trying to make me like them. One of your chimeric hybrids.”

“Ah, the one who got away,“ he muses. Something at that stirs a flicker in her dark gaze. “Yes, little Albatross, I read the classified reports of your Core Parliament. About your brother, the escape. An elegant devising. And a lesson as to the deficiencies of private-contract security.“

Tension firms a line between her brows, hardens her expression as she glances away from him for a moment. “It wouldn’t have mattered.“

His derision comes out as a short, barking laugh. “Why? Because your escape resulted more from the incompetence of poorly trained guards than the alleged skill of your brigand crew mates?

Her attention swings back to him, conviction firm in her words. “No. Because my brother watches out for me. He protects me. And he loves me.”

Thrawn says nothing, stoic against her emotion, such a human flaw. Rubbing his thumb and middle finger together, of the hand draped eloquently off the arm-wrest, he continues sizing up this most intriguing amalgam of softness and mettle.

”Love is a weakness,” satisfaction grim in his tone, picking at a piece of this puzzle embodied by River Tam. Toying with it, testing how she’ll react. “It causes distraction from the warrior’s path. Makes them vulnerable to fear. And you, little Albatross, were foremost, molded as a weapon. A living masterpiece of perfection.”

Her lids slant, head tipped to the side slightly. “I dream about them still. The other test subjects. The Reavers. The dreams used to frighten me. They were worse when the scientists would be administering some new cocktail. They’re not as bad as they used to be, since Miranda. But their voices—I...hear them-“a frown ghosting over her features”-though I’ve learned to hush them.”

”I think you hear a lot more than that, River Tam.”

Challenge broods in a strange magnetism between them. ”So do you,” she says mildly, sending a wary shiver over his skin. How she knows about inoculating himself with the protogenome he can’t begin—

-of course he can. She’s a mind-reader, a telepath. What can’t she pick out of the whirl of thought composing humanoid psyches if she’s so determined?

His awareness smolders like embers in a breeze, open to the Shadow’s primordial sequences merged into his own cells. Enhancing perception, layers of reality peeled back when he channels this infernal heat coursing through his blood. Vision, smell, sound, his mind branching like light off a faceted diamond, reflecting images in a 1000 different plains. And Thrawn, glorying in the draught of fractured darkness.

River’s eyes glint in guarded scrutiny, attuned, perhaps to the whisper of power subsumed by Thrawn’s cultivated urbanity. Wandering over to where he’s seated, she lowers herself next to him on the couch. Her mind brushes against his like leaves floating upon a watery surface, remaining on the periphery without venturing into the depths.

“Chiis physiology-Stamina, strength, resilience against extremes of physical exposure. Superior reflexes and intellect inherent to your species, allowing adaptive advantages over the millennia. A robust psychology keeping you from succumbing to the deterioration of sensory assimilation, the way your clones eventually will. A perfect medium for channeling the Shadow.”

Thrawn wonders where she’s going with her exposition. She bears the full weight of his scorching gaze with nary a flinch. The fey-like curiosity alive across her youthful grace causes a rare unease, unused to be so unabashedly studied. He holds himself still, tensing at the light pressure of her hand taking his out of his lap, wrapping delicate fingers over a wrist corded by muscle.

”Everyone has a weakness,” she says. “Even you.”

Anger snarls beneath the surface of his poise, a broiling red froth that must have blazed up in his gaze. ”Whatever you think you see child, you take liberties of interpretation,” speaking in cold, controlled wrath before which she pales, breathing deep to collect herself. The pressure of her touch on his wrist, though, remains steady.

Her hand, slender fingers resting atop his own, no suggestion of anything other than gentleness. His own hand, larger, stronger, a grip that could crack her bones with minimal exertion. Strangle the air from her lungs, twist her fragile neck like silken twine. Tangling the rich brown waves of her hair in his grasp, forcing her head back till her spine might snap, plundering her mouth as he would plunder her body. Raze her mind till she was left a weeping pile of bruised limbs and torn clothes, cowering on the chill marble floor, her thighs bleeding like the rags of her mind.

Unperturbed, she shares every image coalesced in his thoughts. Each portrait of violence fading into the recess of darkness where the Shadow brews and twists like smoke above the infernal hells. As well, he’s viewed the record of her encounter with the Reavers after Miranda. Like Rhyanon, she would fight him with a skill capable of delaying the ultimate conquest. This wisp of a child, scarcely into womanhood, moving like sand and water, a song of death captured in every leap and twist. Every dive and slash as she wound a choreography of slaughter against an entire pack of beastial invaders. The outcome inevitably in his favor, if for no other reason than the greater strength of his sheer physicality would overwhelm, exhaust her eventually, compared to human anatomic inadequacy.

“A matter of minutes, to take you. An act of utility, really--to break you. Make you beg for a mercy that would never come.“

Her eyebrow crooks up, scolding or skepticism. “But you wouldn’t do that, any of those things.”

Her patient humoring isn’t what he anticipated. ”What makes you think so?” he asks out of mere speculation, momentarily forgetting the antagonizing subtlety guiding their conversation.

”Because you‘ve seen what I am. The weapon, not the woman. And,“ she says, sighing with an almost child-like assurance, looking out to the far horizon, “because seduction isn’t your weakness. She is.”

Damn the girl, for gut-punching through his composure with such guileless effort. His gaze follows hers, tracking the aerial traffic dotting Coruscant’s night skies in a flickering menagerie. He concentrates on keeping his breathing even, stilling his mind, as he considers his reply. The silhouettes of soaring towers outlined by shimmering lights blot out the sky, the glow which would normally be visible on a less metropolitan planet, of satellites in orbit, and stars far beyond.

”One word,” he says finally. “She could have changed the tide of this war for the Republic with one word.“

She turns, a searching intensity in her deep gaze. Seeing too much within him. “So could you, change the tide of this war for Republic,” she says softly, giving a gentle squeeze of his wrist.

Impatient and irritated with the poignancy in her tone, Thrawn shakes her hand off. “She has no idea, the fate to which she’s condemned the galaxy,” he tells her with a hard look, rising off the sofa. He looms over her, eyes burning across her face, so that for the first time, she shudders away from the brewing wrath. He marvels again, the steel disguised beneath the seeming delicacy of her body. Her sandeled feet tucked beneath her on the sofa, the fabric of her dress, simple design of polyfiber cotton, drapes fine curves of breast, hip, and thigh.

Despite her attention fastened upon the night horizon, nothing of intimidation colors her posture, but sadness tinges the turned-down line of her lips. He bows his head to her before heading back to the reception hall lying through a corridor adjoined to the balcony. A salute, a parting to conceal his remorse of the lost fate she chooses with her friends and allies.

“And you, little Albatross,“ he rasps in dire promise, the epithet snaring her surprised glance up at him. “You have no idea what’s coming. None of you do.”

A wasted masterpiece of living art, dangerous beauty.

—

Watching him stride away into the dim hall, the Grand Admiral’s disappointment aches like an overstrained joint. Bothersome, but eventually fading unless exacerbated. In his absence, the darkness hovers about her, the balcony esconsed, now, in transient quiet. Illusory peace.

Alive, so alive, the hum of myriad thoughts, voices, hopes, griefs—the gambit composing sentient life throughout the city. The planet. Her mind-reading truly can’t extend with any precision beyond the palace, but a general hum always persists in the background of her consciousness. The sound of living beings. A vibration silenced forever upon Miranda.

That silence had almost broken her sanity more than any experimentation. As scientists sought to harness innate hyper-sensory perception with neurochemical alterations, subjecting her to an intensive programming, molding her mind-body duplex into prime mental and physical conditioning. In the process, she was often torn, battered, abused, and tortured, her mind confused, shifting between lucidity and dissociation and nightmare. But never breaking.

The sound of death, of nothing. Emptiness like a vacuum, no thought, or feeling. Miranda had almost broken her. Miranda, it turned out, opened the road to a recovery of herself. What she is, what she’s meant to be? No one seems to know. At least not since Simon rescued her from the illicit lab which had been her prison. Hyper-awareness, sensory adepts, psychic traits expressed amongst humans were hardly uncommon through the Terran quadrant, both Core and Fringe systems. Posited by some scientists as a natural development of sentient consciousness, induced by interstellar travel over the centuries.

Among these foreign systems across the wormhole, peoples attributed such gifts to some metaphysical energy field. The Force. Light and Dark. The association, to River’s thinking, paradoxical for a property endemic to all beings, carrying no inherent morality until determined by the intent of the wielder. Perhaps she just didn’t quite grasp its intricacies as yet, conceding that nuances of intuition, emotion, passive reception, meditation still often eluded her. The Force embedded such concepts, rather than the more actualized focus of psychic traits held by the majority of systems native to the Terran quadrant.

What she is. What she‘s meant to be—*a weapon, a work of art*. *No*, she answers her own query, the feeling of defiance liberating. *A failed experiment. The one who got away.*

”And you forget,“ she whispers to the attentive night. “I can still hear them in my head. All the time. Just like you do, Mitt’raw’nuruodo.”

Miranda is not what Thrawn has in mind, that sort of emptiness. He wants something more. Under Imperium’s auspices, subjugating and assimilating one star system after another, spreading this corruption of time and reality, bleeding the Dark Entity’s ravenous, primordial substance like an oil-slick settling into the sinkholes of what had been viable Star-systems. Seeding these tortured hybrids cloned of Reavers, and whatever other mutated derangements of horror will fuse and divide in an incubator. With his enhanced soldiers, their minds a racket of incessant savagery, submission to Thrawn throughout the galaxy seems inevitable. Especially now that Intel, and Republic specialists working with Rhyanon, recently confirmed the adaptive capacity of certain hybrids to infect other living creatures with their intracellular genetic material.

They’ll never be completely hushed, even in the deepest caverns of her own mind. Reavers. The chimeric hybrids. They howl, writhe, snarl, and scream in agony beyond their comprehension. But the havoc of their consciouses, keeping the hybrids contained as a utilizable resource requires increasing concentrations of sedatives, hyponotics, and psychogenic pharmaceuticals.

She can feel their echo within Thrawn, too. Not of the violence, but his craving the Shadow’s power. It’s why he covets Rhyanon-her abilities of biologic manipulation, transforming the very backbone molecules of life. Healing, rejuvenating, reconstructing, restoring from disease, infection, deterioration and decay. Thirsting for the surcease she could provide, balancing the Dark Entity’s immersion of his own constitution. A living masterpiece, the kind of gifted elegance Thrawn desired, Rhyanon, like River, was another one who’d gotten away. Another failed experiment. Another dangerous beauty.

Rhyanon loathes him. Holding her captive on his flagship under the influence of cortical inhibitors, and hallucinogens. Trying to force her into stabilizing the synaptic connections of higher brain function in his hybrids. Dampening their insanity as the cloned offspring reached maturity. Coercing her in other ways as well, while she resisted the influence of intoxicants deluging her system. That was why she rejected his play at truce earlier during the dinner, an offer to join him voluntarily. That. And the fact she and the Jedi were patently lovers. A circumstance exacerbating the already furious enmity between the Grand Admiral and Luke.

Rhyanon would use those same graces of biokinesis to tear him apart one atom at a time, despite the danger of inducing her own body’s destruction. The price of biopsionic talents, a check limiting the potential for abuse of that power over life and death. Unfortunate, in that Rhyanon’s ability, synergized with the particular strengths shared between their small group of Force-wielders and sensory adepts, offers the only potential counter against Thrawn’s growing influence.

Finding some way of battling this Dark Matter entity. This Abaddon, commanding elemental forces dating from the universe’s origins. A being capable of destroying multiple star-systems if they resist its Seeding. They’d all seen what happened on Namsonis 4 in the aftermath of losing the majority of Dreadnaughts. A desperate evacuation. A world wrenched apart like a ball of mud crushed in a fist. A solar system facing a monstrous dehiscence of time and space, heart of chaos, blowing a hole through the core of a sun, and incinerating the other 6 planets spared Namsonis’s fate. Hours later, a festering wound across the void of black, rocky debris and ionized gas discharges the last traces of a star system no longer existing between tomorrows.

Contrary to the stillness in which she sits, River’s thoughts spin countless strands in the spreading web of her mind, her fingers running absently along the ridge of her collarbone. Picturing simultaneous star-maps, envisioning parallel scenarios of navigation vectors, battle engagements, the stratified calculations worked in trans-dimensional matrices. Always hearing the Reavers seething in the recess of her soul.

Finally, arriving at some conclusion, she reveals to the passing night, ”I do know exactly what’s to come.” And maybe, maybe there’s a chance. One distant, improbable-verging on impossible-chance they have of subverting this menace before it reaches the Terran quadrant.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #497

Top Ten PC Games No One Talks About Anymore

Blimey, Quake is rather good, isn’t it? Have you heard about it? I really hope so, because it’s only twenty-five years old. I mean, Jesus. What’s up with that? Quake is meant to be the future. It’s full of true-3D polygonal texture-mapping and real-time dynamic light-sourcing. Fancy it being a quarter of a century old. That’s ridiculous. “Old” is for things like, I dunno, Space Invaders or The Godfather or I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Stuff that our parents heard about before we were born. It’s not – it’s absolutely not – used to describe something that people bought 3D accelerator cards for. It’s not used to describe a game that popularised online gaming.

But old it is, getting silver anniversary cards and everything. No longer the angry, hungry young tiger, devouring its ancestors and growling at upstart rivals like Duke Nukem 3D – sure, you’ve got non-linear levels, interactive scenery, and toilet humour, but we’ve got grenades that bounce with real physics – Quake is now an aged beast of the forest, resplendent, battle-scarred, weary with gravitas. Quake is the game that shaped the now, but it does not represent the future anymore. In fact, arguably its greatest rival – Unreal – is the game with the lasting, living legacy, its progeny building the next generation of gaming with one of the most popular and impressive engines around, the framework underpinning everything from Gears to Jedi to Fortnite. Quake blew us all away, but arguably it ceded the conflict, secure in its status as one of the most important and influential games of all time. Quake II got plaudits for actually having a proper story and an engrossing single-player campaign (and coloured lighting!), and its immediate descendants such as Half-Life changed the nature of what FPS games could do, but in a funny way it feels like Quake has long since retired. A sleeping titan. It got old.

So it’s great that they rereleased it on modern systems! The version of Quake released last month is basically the game I remember, but tarted up a little around the edges, with texture filtering and dynamic shadows and other stuff that I couldn’t manage on my Pentium 75 back in the day. It plays great – it’s slick as anything, and you go tearing round the levels like a Ferrari with a nail gun, blasting dudes and ducking back around a corner before you get hit with a pineapple in the face. It’s the first game I’ve played in a long, long time that evokes the feel of classic PC first-person shooters of that era – which, y’know, kinda makes sense as it is a first-person shooter of that era. But that style of fast-paced run-and-gun, circle-strafing gameplay has gone out of fashion now, with FPS games usually favouring slow, methodical, tactical combat, or larger-scale open-world warfare usually involving vehicles. Whether it’s a straight-up no-frills blaster like Quake, or a game that takes you on more of a linear, narrative journey, like Quake II, or even just a multiplayer-focused arena shooter, like Quake III Arena, it does feel like a dying artform, like a style of gameplay that could do with a resurgence (and, to be fair, there are games on the horizon that look like they’re harking back to the era, so that’s cool).

But it’s not just first-person shooters like Quake that I feel have slipped from gaming’s shared consciousness. Maybe it’s my age (it’s definitely my age) but there seems to be quite a lot of games that were a big deal twenty or so years ago that are utterly forgotten now, whereas some – Doom, Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires – are often namechecked or rebooted (even before the full-on 2016 reboot, Doom must have been one of the most re-released games of the last thirty years). But there are lots of others where sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that remembers it. And that’s where this list comes in: inspired by the excellent re-release of the Quake franchise, here are some other great PC games of that general era that I feel still need shouting about, even if I’m the only one doing the shouting. Maybe they don’t all need a full-on remaster or whatever, but it’d still be nice if they got a bit of modern gaming love.

No One Lives Forever (2000): coming at a time when most FPS games were still Doom-style blasters with little in the way of real plot, NOLF was different: stylish and funny, genuinely well-written (as in the dialogue), with interesting objective-based missions and a cool female protagonist. It skirted similar ground to Bond and the then-white-hot Austin Powers franchise. Two games were made and then, as far as I’m aware, it evaporated into a mess of tangled rights, hence no sequels or remakes. A shame, because it was great.

MDK (1997): the next game from the people who made the multimedia phenomenon that was Earthworm Jim, MDK was a really cool slice of sci-fi style, all sleek level design and intriguing features. It had a supremely bonkers plot which bled through into a game with a sense of humour, but mostly it was the run-and-gun gameplay and innovative use of a scoped weapon – possibly (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a videogame. An even wackier sequel followed, but despite its cult status, that was it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honor Guard (1998): it’s probably fair to say that Star Trek has not had as many great videogames as Star Wars, perhaps because Trek’s historically straightlaced earnestness just didn’t translate as well as bashing someone up the chops with a laser sword. Honor Guard shook things up by casting you as a Klingon, showering levels with pink blood and going Full Worf. It was the first game to licence the Unreal engine, and had a cool level where you walked along the outside of a ship like in First Contact. Also: shout out to the Voyager game, Elite Force (2000), which was another really good FPS set in the world of Trek, with intriguing gameplay wrinkles as you fought the Borg. It also let you wander round the titular starship between levels. Trek deserves more quality action games like these.

Earth 2150 (2000): the nineties on PC really saw RTS games come down to those who liked Command & Conquer or those who liked Warcraft, but as the decade drew to a close other titles chased the wargame crown (including Total Annihilation, which would have made this list, except I feel like the Supreme Commander franchise is a sequel in all but name). 2150 was notable for its Starcraft-like mix of three factions with contrasting play styles, and its use of 3D graphics and the ability to design and build weapons of war that could lay waste to armies and bases with spectacular results. I think the genre has ossified into something more hardcore, and this was probably an inflex point where idiots like me could still get a handle on things.

Midtown Madness (1999): Microsoft has a history of building up great racing franchises and then abandoning them, but their “Madness” line of games in the late nineties/early noughties was terrific and much-missed. Back when tooling round actual 3D cities was still new and exciting, this was a no-holds-barred arcade racer, with some gorgeous shiny chrome effects on the cars, and very nippy handling. It was great fun smashing up VW Beetles and the like. It was surpassed, I guess, by Project Gotham on the Xbox, and sadly the whole franchise was then forgotten, despite the ascendent Forza franchise mostly shunning city driving.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998): part tactical war game, part puzzler, Commandos was famous for its gorgeously intricate graphics and its difficulty – I mean, it was way too hard for me. But its beautiful top-down design and its slow, methodical gameplay was compelling, as you evaded Nazis and solved missions with a team of unique units with special skills. Sequels followed, and western spin-off Desperados, but there’s not been a true follow-up for quite some time, despite promises; and few games have echoed its style or look.

The Pandora Directive (1996): okay, so really this is just a placeholder for an entire subgenre of game that appears to have been forgotten: interactive movies. I know, there are flirtations with this from time to time; and many of these games featured obtuse puzzles and relatively little gameplay strung between FMV scenes. Pandora was great though; a first-person 3D game with loads of old-school adventure aspects, as well as FMV, it was a noir-tinged detective story but set in the future. The Tex Murphy series (of which this was the fourth instalment) has had sequels – the most recent one was sadly cancelled only this year – but many other games of a similar ilk, such as Phantasmagoria and even Wing Commander – have fallen by the wayside. With in-engine graphics now allowing the fluidity and expression of cinematic renders of old, shooting movie inserts doesn’t seem like it’s worthwhile; but I still always loved a point-and-click game that featured digitised actors milling about. Toonstruck, anyone?

Marathon (1994): before Halo there was… Marathon! Back when I used to lug my Pentium round my mate’s house so we could play different games on different machines side-by-side, he’d bang on about this Mac-first series of games, like Doom but better, with an intricate plot and complex levels. And y’know what? He was actually onto something. There’s a style and an earnestness to the Marathon franchise, along with many concepts that would be refined in Halo years later. With Bungie now seemingly committed to Destiny, and Halo in Microsoft’s hands, I’m not sure what could possibly become of this, their forgotten FPS forebear, especially as it shares so much DNA with its offspring.  

Outlaws (1997): LucasArts are famous for two things, really: their Star Wars games and their adventures. But they made loads of other stuff too – including this intriguing Western shoot-em-up. Back when Western games were rarer than Western movies (which were rare at the time), this quirky and difficult cowboy-em-up saw you rounding up outlaws in typical oater locations such as saloons, trains, and mines. It had great music and a really intriguing set of weapons, including (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a game. Sadly Outlaws’ success could be described as “cult” and it never got a proper sequel. and, weirdly, despite the success of Red Dead Redemption, we’ve never had a bit Western-themed FPS again. Which is really odd.

Soldier of Fortune (2000): I pondered whether to include this one, as if I’m honest I’m not sure I want this licence brought back. But I can’t deny the game was a huge deal and has seemingly been forgotten. A relatively gritty and realistic combat game with a huge variety of excellent real-world weaponry, its big hook was its incredibly detailed damage modelling, that could see you blowing limbs off enemies, or splitting open heads, or disembowelling them. Whilst its OTT violence made headlines, the granularity of its systems meant you could be more tactical, shooting weapons out of hands. But really its biggest controversy should be its association with a big old gun magazine.

There are many, many other games that nearly made the list - I almost had a Top Ten of just FPS games, for instance. Little Big Adventure was here, till a sequel was announced the other day. Hexen and Heretic I think still have a place in FPS history. Toonstruck, although without a sequel, was only really a cult hit at the time, and I feel the people who’d love it already know about it. I do tend to overthink these things, y’know.

So maybe not all of these could make a comeback, but all the same I don’t think they should be forgotten, and it does make we wonder what games will fall by the wayside twenty or more years from now. That game about the big green space marine dude in a mask – what was that called again…?

[michaelbogild]

Quotes by Mahatma Gandhi

A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness can be spread without diminishing that of yourself.

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.

An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Distinguish between real needs and artificial wants and control the latter.

Don't talk about it. The rose doesn't have to propagate its perfume. It just gives it forth, and people are drawn to it. Live it, and people will come to see the source of your power.

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

Everyone holds a piece of the truth.

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.

Friendship that insists upon agreement on all things isn't worth the name.

God has no religion.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.

I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.

I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me I am

I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.

If we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

invincible.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.

It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.

It seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.

it's easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.

Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.

Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.

My Life is My Message

No one can ride on the back of a man unless it is bent.

Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.

Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.

Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment.

Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.

The future depends on what you do today.

The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.

The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is.

The path is the goal.

The seeker after truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of truth.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.

There are no good-byes, where ever you'll be, you'll be in my heart.

There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

There are two days in the year that we can not do anything, yesterday and tomorrow

There is force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.

There is no 'way to peace,' there is only 'peace.

There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.

There is no such thing as ‘too insane’ unless others turn up dead due to your actions.

There's no God higher than truth.

To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that one that must be loved is not a friend. There is not merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

True beauty lies in purity of the heart.

True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.

True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.

What barrier is there that love cannot break?

When asked what he thought of Western civilization): 'I think it would be a good idea.

Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.

Where love is, there God is also.

Where there is fear there is no religion.

Where there is love there is life.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

You yourself as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve love and affection.

[miloscat]

[Review] Zelda’s Adventure (CD-i)

At last, my white whale of Zelda games has been conquered.

You can’t be a connected Zelda fan for too long without hearing about the infamous trio of games released under begrudging licence from Nintendo for the Philip CD-i, a failed early 90s multimedia console. They’re widely derided but not many people bother to play them, preferring to take at face value the sneering of reviewers and Youtubers and write them off pre-emptively. I try not to be so dismissive, and the nichest corners of a franchise are often the most interesting to me, so I’ve always wanted to try Zelda’s Adventure for myself. Especially as it’s even more overlooked than Animation Magic’s paired sidescrollers, with their meme-ified cartoon cutscenes.

Part of the problem with playing it is the real hardware and game are prohibitively expensive, and the CD-i is tricky to emulate. Support for this game in particular was broken in later updates of MESS. I believe I followed the terse instructions in this post, and with much tinkering and finagling was able to play it in tinycdi without the game softlocking on the first screen. This method unfortunately lacks support for savestates and crashes if you die, so the opening sections can be very frustrating to get through, requiring repetition to regain lost progress; if you do manage to save and quit in time though, you will retain all items and rubies. However you are able to map a fast forward button, which can greatly accelerate you through the console’s initial bootup, reduce load times between screens, and more easily navigate the slow cursor around the menus.

I was also aided in my monumental quest by a helpful overworld map by Dadaph (the dungeons weren’t complex enough to really require external maps) and the recently created but unquestionably essential and comprehensive written guide by Mundy. I used these extensively as a crutch, to help fight back against the game’s high difficulty, awkward design, and confusing progression.

Yes, it’s fair to say that many criticisms of this game are warranted. The template for the game’s structure is The Hyrule Fantasy, the original Zelda title: a top-down view of single-screen rooms, an overworld and a handful of dungeons, useful(?) tools to acquire, debatably helpful NPCs. It’s just all so messy; the hit detection is way off, there’s no music—ever—and sound effects play sparingly and at a remove from actions, your inventory is flooded with items and spells that have situational or even no use at all. The oddballs that populate the world are often of little help. The worst of it is the graphics, which are all made with the then-cutting-edge techniques of digitising photographs; let’s just say they haven’t aged well, and at worst can affect navigation and playability.

Despite the deeply flawed design and thorough jank, I find I have a soft spot for this train wreck of a game. That early FMV culture it emerged from, with its crunched live action cut scenes, bizarre and ugly pre-rendered sprites, copious amateur voiceover, and characters made from sloppily photoshopped “actors” is morbidly fascinating from a game history perspective. It’s cool to build up a vast arsenal of spells, even though most of them work the exact same way and the best strategy is invariably to stand in one place, swinging your basic wand and waiting for enemies to approach. I liked the boosts in power and defence each mystic sign gave me as I clawed my way up the food chain of monsters. Although clumsy, the universe of the game has a sense of mystery and worldbuilding to it thanks to the chatty villagers and dubiously menacing voiced bosses. Also, having Zelda as the playable hero is an immensely satisfying flip that Nintendo are still too cowardly/boring to do themselves in the now 35 year-old series.

I’m left to assume that the game’s female director and co-writer Anna Roth is to be thanked for that, and it was also nice to see other women’s names in the credits under art, production, and casting roles. Speaking of development, there are some illuminating and baffling anecdotes about the game’s production out there, such as a preview shared here in which the co-designer claims the game would contain 600 rooms, 300 hours of gameplay, and 160 NPCs. This interview (also containing fun tidbits, like how the staff included a model maker who constructed the buildings and interiors that were photographed and included in the game) talks about the testing process at Philips that ran for an exceptionally-long two years while the programmer had moved on, implying that problems discovered could not be easily fixed. This may explain the item cruft, the existence of purposeless areas and NPCs, or suggests a large amount of cut content. Although I’ve critiqued their work, I have no contempt for the developers, who were doing their best to make something new and interesting under all sorts of pressures on unsuitable hardware; I appreciate their work on this, and it’s a shame it didn’t all come together perfectly.

Whatever the case, I’m pleased I could get this working. It was worth it to me to play it for myself and having done so, develop a kind of liking for it. The kind that makes you grimace as much as smile. Zelda’s Adventure is... unique. It’s got a strong and consistent style to it, you can’t deny that. And I’ll be defending its dubious charms for the rest of my life, I’m sure. Oh and by the way, judging by Zelda’s outfit I’ve decided that it should fit into the timeline shortly after A Link to the Past. This is important.

[sasorikigai]

"from the depths of your heart" / @frozenbreath bi-han

send in " from the depths of your heart " for the receiver to tell the sender's muse something that they've always wanted to tell them, but has never had the opportunity to do so. || @frozenbreath || accepting

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Scorpion was sure Bi-Han was holding onto the glimpse of light with such fierce silence, that the infected wraith too, wished hold onto with fervent love. Whether under the thundering skies of the Shirai Ryu grounds or among the dreams of eventide as their singular gaze would linger on the glow. That the stars shuddered and the sun hiding low revealing the coalesced silhouettes of once mortal enemies pinned in deadly, fatalistic kombat. Even as the ravaging maelstrom of his clashing emotions and sentiments become acute, somatic pain, permeating through his sinew and bones, engulfing Scorpion in deafening silence, Bi-Han’s infernal splendor piercing his unassuming heart, and makes itself home in his blackened heart. 

If he was to be lost eternally to ambiguity, Hanzo Hasashi would have been nothing. Obstacles with no substance nor logic conquering all. Circumstances are conspiracies itself, and his anger’s self-righteousness must win the war perpetuated. The world will continue to revolve with his demise; with the tragedy of life he had known under the protection of Shirai Ryu, as he protected the hardened mettle of the clan as Hanzo Hasashi became the epitome of such caliber. A house divided against itself cannot stand erect, and yet - Scorpion somehow finds strength and certain beauty in chaos, losing grip, no control without a way to predict what will happen next. That human depression because of fear, anxiety, disappointment, any other feelings that come after the fire burning in his heart and mind, in despair, though proverbial passion and stubbornness will get him back on track as he would strenuously and tenaciously brave and endure through the pain. The pain of vicious thunder ravaging through his veins, the whispering torrents of flooding trauma capsizing Scorpion’s withering sanity in heavy lashing storms and pressure that will grab him by his throat, burying him twenty thousand leagues under the crimson sea. 

“My emotions and sentiments are already flooding gutters of my ripped heart, spilling shards of broken glass that will sparkle under the feverous heat of my hellfire. Is what I bestow you not enough? You both exacerbate and abate my torment, knowing that I bed my own tormentor and yet - the fact that we have this kind of ill-fated relationship takes the bitter care of my mind in ephemeral comfort and tranquility,” For the Lin Kuei, that’s the last phrase the Shirai Ryu heard before he succumbed and relinquished his life to Netherealm’s sweeping fury of hellfire. Hanzo Hasashi still recalls the blitzkrieg of splitting light that rendered the Shirai Ryu Compounds a slaughterhouse. Scorpion could sever the chain reaction of unbound rage and vengeance, to be the witness of Bi-Han’s absolution. Perhaps that’s what he could bestow upon Harumi and Satoshi.

It was a cruel entanglement of fate, an inseparable and insufferable destiny that they were meant to penetrate one another in the triad of body, mind, and soul. “You are the moment of time ripped from an hourglass and choked under the surge of my firestorms. What you did to me and the others still break and splinter me to no end, but your decisive fate is not my own to condemn. That is why I spared your life despite still having the onslaught of urge to pluck your bloody head from the sockets of your spinal cord, or simply watch you macerate and mangle beneath the flurries of my blade. The injunction of my discipline and honor calls for both resuscitation of the Shirai Ryu and Lin Kuei - and I have decided to oblige to this for the better future not only for both of us, but for the precarious fate of Earthrealm.”

There sempiternally will be a silent war without vicious violence and paroxysm that will end with one, or both’s inevitable plunge towards death. But Scorpion knows such one-dimensionality of thought will only widen the unknown possibilities of both of them being lost in the abysmal void of darkness. Despite being damned to become a wraith wielding inferno and wildfire, his heart is not obsolete; it still knows how to beat with such visceral, poignant emotions. And Hanzo Hasashi will bleed in exsanguination. That was a dualistic dichotomy of his blessing and a curse, and Scorpion will treat it as if it was a bestowed right in his destructive hand, lest it may go against his nature to magnanimously nurture and see it recover under his guidance. ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || 

[zedecksiew]

“Exotic Warrior”

(Am writing this because it’s been bubbling over in my mind. This post is an exorcism of bad vibes over bad ideas that have held me hostage, the past few days.)

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There is now criticism on Twitter arguing that the “Exotic Warrior”, one of Troika!’s d66 Backgrounds, is racist because it is coded as Orientalist / Asian.

I would like to respectfully disagree.

(There are other arguments in the initial complaint. I am commenting the “Exotic Warrior” specifically. Because by being actually East Asian -- part of the diaspora, living in Southeast Asia -- I feel I have some standing to comment.)

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When I encountered “Exotic Warrior” in the book it stood out as a neat background and helped sell me on Troika!.

As I read it, the Background is a deft piece of work: it references the “adventurer from a foreign land” thing, but occludes said trope’s usual Orientalism -- an attempt at deconstruction.

A foreigner, in Troika!, can be anybody. This isn’t just a platitude; it’s supported by the book’s implied science-fantasy setting -- is essentially Spelljammer, but on more acid.

It is similar to Electric Bastionland / Planescape / etc in that it features a melting-pot, nobody’s-local “city at the centre of creation”-type deal. (I have Thoughts about RPG setttings that focus on metropoles, but that’s a separate post.)

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Here’s the “Exotic Warrior” ’s text, in full:

24 EXOTIC WARRIOR No one has heard of your homeland. Your habits are peculiar, your clothes are outrageous, and in a land jaded to the outlandish and new you still somehow manage to stand out.

POSSESSIONS - A WEIRD & WONDERFUL WEAPON. - STRANGE CLOTHES. - EXCITING ACCENT. - A TEA SET or 3 POCKET GODS or ASTROLOGICAL EQUIPMENT.

ADVANCED SKILLS 6 Language - Exotic Language 3 Fighting in your Weird Weapon 2 Language - Local Language 2 Spell - Random 1 Astrology 1 Etiquette 

Honestly? None of the above reads as particularly problematic. It’s a legit, characterful beginning point for a player-character.

Sure, my Western-media-battered brain jumps to Samurai Warrior -- 

But immediately also to Sufi Missionary or Varangian Guard. And indeed comes to rest at Indeterminately White Gentleperson Naturalist -- the kind of exotic visitor Southeast Asia got, a lot, those scouts of European imperialism.

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These readings are possible because of the illustration the entry is paired with. Here they are together:

Setting aside the surrealist stylisations:

The shape of the costume, the belt, the “skirt” -- these look like Europeanisms, to me. And the figure’s laughing abandon opposes the standard Orientalist tropes of wise inscrutability or red-faced savagery.

The choice to run “Exotic Warrior” with a decidedly non-Orientalist-coded illustration isn’t an unintentional piece of art direction.

(PS: any critique of an illustrated text that only focuses on the words is incomplete. Image is half the text of an illustrated text.)

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The nondescript-ness of the entry plus its accompanying image is an open door. Opening this door isn’t without risk: whatever assumptions you make about your particular “Exotic Warrior” are drawn from your own biases.

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Regarding “Etiquette” and “Astrology” and “Tea Set”?

With my biases: I don’t read these things as uniquely East-Asian. (When I first encountered “tea set” in Troika! I genuinely thought: “English tea service”, instead of: “temae”.)

The one that I did read as real-world Eastern was “Pocket Gods” -- but many human cultures had this, pocket gods are a part of Troika!’s wider fantasy setting, and “Exotic Warrior” isn’t the only Background to start with them.

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A note on “exotification”:

The criticism of “Exotic Warrior” fundamentally seems to be: “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”.

I fundamentally disagree with this notion.

I have no lived experience of a society where being other-ed (in terms of culture, race, class, gender expression, etc) isn't an ever-present thread in the fabric of one's life -- and therefore a crucial and profound source of conflict and insight into the human condition.

(The ethnic fault-lines in Malaysian society have become so unbridgeable today primarily because it was official policy to sweep all that other-ing under the rug of “Malaysia Truly Asia”, as opposed to working through our ugly whispered prejudices towards understanding.)

We are not all the same. Cultural, geographic, and material differences exist. The mismatch in knowledge and understanding this creates? It matters.

In fact: To insist on universal cultural-knowledge parity; To push for “nobody’s born here, everybody belongs” melting-pots as the default framing; To nudge questions of difference and arrival into ghettos (to paraphrase one of the tweets I saw: “you can only explore issues surrounding the Other in a game specifically designed to do so”);

All that comes off to me as a very neo-liberal position, designed to safeguard and disguise the privileges of “mainstream” metropolitan melting-pots.

I read it as:

“Post-modern cosmopolitan societies want to be inclusive but don’t want to pay the admission price of history and discomfort, so they generally opt for erasure instead.”  

+++

Throughout this post I have been careful to speak from my particular context. Because context matters.

More context:

I like Troika!. Like, a lot. I think its creator, UK-based Daniel Sell, strives and succeeds at making thoughtful work. I consider him a friend, whom I’ve had personal (albeit Internet-bound) interactions now and again.

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I have BJ Recio to thank for the following insight. Talking to him about “Exotic Warrior”, BJ brought up a crucial point that I’ll paraphrase here:

Roleplaying the outsider can be bad, especially when it is used as an excuse by the West to do fucked-up shit. But it is not default bad. Assuming it is default bad centres the discussion on “Will White people fuck this up? (Yes.)”

Essentially, the argument against “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD" assumes two things:

(a) Western participants as default; (b) harm (because of ignorance or bad faith) as default.

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If your context -- your Background, hah! -- prompts you to experience Troika! with those assumptions; and therefore read “Exotic Warrior” as necessarily Orientalist, and racially-charged?

Your context is your context; I’m not going to invalidate it.

If you are located in a society where the binary of White / non-White overpowers everything, I certainly understand the whys and hows of your position.

Your context matters.

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So does mine.

+++

I think I’m reacting badly to this because I personally feel turned away by this RPG Discourse Around Representation (tm), supposedly done in the name of my East-Asian ass.

I resent the idea that “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”. It threatens to render verboten the entirety of my RPG work.

I am a SEA creator trying to explore and be true to my context. If there is one constant throughout SEAsian experience, it is difference.

Our peoples have ever encountered and glamourised and hated each other, all of us simultaneously Us and the Other:

Japanese and Malay enclaves in Ayutthaya; Mongol invaders in Java, who never left; Luzones mercenaries, employed by both the Sultan of Melaka and his Portuguese enemies; The reputation of the Ilanun / Bajak Laut; White conquistadors (aforementioned above); The entire history of diaspora Chinese identities (my identity!) in SEA, generally;

Foreigners from foreign lands -- feared, not fully understood, not fully understanding, simultaneously conquering and settling and finding modes of belonging, becoming a part of the land.

Always arriving.

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That the background music of my geography, discordant though it may be, is somehow so harmful it may only be meaningfully depicted in the hermetic context of a “game specifically designed to explore that”?

This feels bad, and extremely unwelcoming. It feels like a shut gate instead of an open door.

I refuse to be turned away.

+++

(Hopefully I can finally stop thinking about this shit.)

[germanicseidr]

Chatti

 The Chatti were a Germanic tribe located in modern day Hesse and southern Saxony, Germany. They were one of the largest and most powerful tribes of Germania, only the Cherusci were as large as the Chatti tribe. I have written a post about this tribe last year but I wanted to add more information and of course this group has gained so many new members since last year, that most probably missed my previous post on this tribe. Also thanks to Netflix’ new show ‘the Barbarians’ the Chatti has gained more attention. Somewhere around 100BC, there was a huge internal conflict in the Chatti tribe, this conflict resulted in the split of the tribe. Two groups of Chatti tribesmen/women migrated towards the lower Rhine area in modern day Netherlands, this is how the Batavi and Cananefates were born.

The meaning of the tribe’s name isn’t 100% certain but most theories lead to the following meaning: ‘the angry’ or ‘the haters’ from the Proto-Germanic word Hataz. If this is the correct meaning of their name, it is quite a curious one. Why would a tribe call themselves like that? It might have something to do with a conflict that they experienced with another tribe or the conflict that caused the tribe to split back in 100BC. Perhaps the tribe’s name isn’t Germanic in origin at all. Another theory suggests that the word Chatti comes from the Proto-Celtic word Cat which means ‘battle’ or ‘fight’. If this is the case, the pronunciation is also different ‘Khatti’. Yet again these are just theories and nothing is 100% certain. The modern day region of Hesse, where the Chatti once lived, has most likely been named after the tribe.

The first written records about this tribe came from Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, the stepson of emperor Augustus. After Germanicus was appointed as the governour of Gaul, he launched a series of campaigns into Germania in an attempt to conquer Germania just like how Gaul was conquered and added to the Roman empire. The first of his campaigns started in 12BC and was very succesful for Germanicus. He crossed the Rhine with his army and subjugated the Sicambri tribe. Germanicus was also the first Roman to reach the Weser river in northern Germany, close to modern day Denmark.

During a later campaign in the same year, he also subjugated the Batavi and the Frisii and defeated the Chauci at the river Weser. In the following year, 11BC, Germanicus defeated the Marsii, Bructeri and the Usipetes. From 10-9BC Germanicus also defeated the Chatti, Cherusci and Marcomanni. It seems as though nothing could stop him from conquering all of Germania, he almost succeeded at this until a fall from his horse during his fourth campaign killed him. It is likely that Germania would have become a Roman province if Germanicus didn’t fell off his horse.

It was during Drusus Germanicus’ campaigns that the famous Arminius of the Cherusci was sent to Rome as tribute by his father, together with his brother Flavus. Relationships between the Cherusci and the Romans continued to sour in the following years after their defeat by the Romans during Germanicus’ campaigns. This eventually led to Arminius revolting against the Romans in 9AD. The king of the Chatti, Adgandestrius, was quick to join Arminius. The Chatti also haven’t forgotten Germanicus’ campaigns in Germania. The revolt led to the famous Teutoburgerwald battle during which three Roman legions were completely destroyed

This battle would be the biggest military defeat for Rome. While Germanicus almost succeeded at conquering Germania, this battle led to the abandonment of all plans to expand the Roman empire into Germania. Permanent borders were established along the Rhine river which kept Germania free. Interestingly enough, Adgandestrius turned against Arminius in 19AD. He even went as far as to ask Rome for help in assassinating Arminius with poison. This request was denied by the Romans as they saw this as a dishonourable way to defeat Arminius, the Romans prefered to meet him in battle. Arminius died two years later, betrayed and murdered by his own people who thought that Arminius was getting way too powerful. (Hope I didn’t just spoil the show for you guys, I still haven’t watched it)

Almost half a century later, another conflict broke out, this time between the Chatti and the Hermunduri in 58AD. Both tribes fought for control over a river that was rich in salt that flowed between the two tribes. This whole conflict has been recorded by Tacitus who described that this river was also very religiously important to the Germanic people. It is not certain which river is mentioned by Tacitus, it is either the Rhine or Main (a river connected to the Rhine). The Germanic people believed that this river was closely connected to the realm of the Gods. If you would make a prayer at the banks of the river Rhine, it would be directly received by the Gods. Both tribes also vowed their enemies to Tyr and Wodan before the battle started. This vow meant that the defeated party was sacrificed to Tyr and Wodan, unfortunately for the Chatti, they lost this battle.

Another revolt broke out in 69AD, this time the Batavi revolted against the Roman empire. The Chatti also joined this rebellion, even though the Batavi were once part of the Chatti and left due to a conflict. The Batavi were able to destroy two Roman legions and several Roman fortifications before the revolt was put down. The Chatti laid siege to Mogontiacum, modern day city of Mainz. Even though the Romans lost their trust in the Batavi, they recognized their strong fighting power and are named the strongest of all the Germanic tribes, not in number but in skills.

20 years later in 89AD, the Chatti joined another revolt. This time two Roman legions under Antoninus Saturninus revolted against emperor Dominitan. Unfortunately all documents describing this event are lost or destroyed so we can sadly never know what event led to two Roman legions revolting against their emperor. There is a theory that the revolt was caused by Dominitan’s strict moral policies for the officers of the army. The revolt however failed before it could really begin. It would have been interesting to observe this revolt if it had succeeded, a curious sight Romans and Chatti warriors fighting side by side.

In 98AD Tacitus published his famous work the Germania, in this work he describes the Chatti as following: “Beyond these dwell the Chatti, whose settlements, beginning from the Hercynian forest, are in a tract of country less open and marshy than those which overspread the other states of Germany, for it consists of a continued range of hills, which gradually become more scattered and the Hercynian forest both accompanies and leaves behind, its Chatti.

This nation is distinguished by hardier frames,  compactness of limb, fierceness of countenance, and superior vigor of mind. For Germanics, they have a considerable share of understanding and sagacity, they choose able persons to command, and obey them when chosen, keep their ranks, seize opportunities, restrain impetuous motions, distribute properly the business of the day, intrench themselves against the night, account fortune dubious, and valor only certain, and, what is extremely rare, and only a consequence of discipline, depend more upon the general than the army.

Their force consists entirely in infantry who, besides their arms, are obliged to carry tools and provisions. Other nations appear to go to a battle, the Chatti, to war. Excursions and casual encounters are rare amongst them. It is, indeed, peculiar to cavalry soon to obtain, and soon to yield, the victory. Speed borders upon timidity slow movements are more akin to steady valor.

A custom followed among the other Germanic nations only by a few individuals, of more daring spirit than the rest, is adopted by general consent among the Chatti. From the time they arrive at years of maturity they let their hair and beard grow and do not divest themselves of this votive badge, the promise of valor, till they have slain an enemy. Over blood and spoils they unveil the countenance, and proclaim that they have at length paid the debt of existence, and have proved themselves worthy of their country and parents. The cowardly and effeminate continue in their squalid disguise.

The bravest among them wear also an iron ring (a mark of ignominy in that nation) as a kind of chain, till they have released themselves by the slaughter of a foe. Many of the Chatti assume this distinction, and grow hoary under the mark, conspicuous both to foes and friends. By these, in every engagement, the attack is begun: they compose the front line, presenting a new spectacle of terror. Even in peace they do not relax the sternness of their aspect. They have no house, land, or domestic cares, they are maintained by whomsoever they visit, lavish of another's property, regardless of their own till the debility of age renders them unequal to such a rigid course of military virtue.” – Tacitus

 Not much is further known about the Chatti besides the fact that they raided Roman territory between 160-170AD. Eventually elements of the Chatti, together with the Batavi, Cherusci, Tencteri, Tubantes, Chamavi, Bructeri, Sicambri and the Ampsivarii formed together in a confederation called the Franks. They settled in modern day southern Netherlands and Belgium around 300AD and were first of the Franks who eventually founded modern day France. The remaining Chatti remained in their original location and continued raiding the Romans wherever they could, by 300AD the Roman western borders were severely weakened by internal conflicts.

Eventually the remaining Chatti became the Hessi during the early medieval ages, this was first recorded in 782AD. Hesse itself has a long and rich history but that is not a topic for this group, feel free to explore this topic further if you are interested in Hesse’s history.

Here is a map which shows the location of the Chatti, a map showing Roman campaigns into Germania before the Teutoburgerwald battle and a depiction of Germanic warriors from the game Rome 2 total war.

[ratsoupee]

(About for your Demon Slayer x My Hero Academia AU) Why does the Fire Dragon quirk get weaker after being passed down? Is Nezuko's Demon quirk is combination of multiple quirks that have demon qualities like not being able to be in sunlight?

Oh my god I’m so sorry I didn’t reply any sooner, ahhh

Okay so, I think the point I made for Tanjirou’s Fire Dragon Quirk wasn’t well explained, because what I meant to say was when the quirk gets passed down from generation to generation, it does get stronger, much like how OFA functions. However, when the user gets older with time, the quirk gets weaker. Thus the need to pass it on to another successor before it gets extinguished forever. 

As for Nezuko’s quirk, it’s honestly sort of iffy to describe. My original idea was that Muzan developed a rare mutation, called Demon Blood. His quirk essentially allowed anyone who drank his blood to possess demon qualities, mostly super strength and unpredictable extra quirks that mostly related to the human psyche (e.g, you want to crush your enemies? You literally grow boulders for arms). However, it rendered the possessed unable to regain human thought and empathy, relying heavily on blood, and most of the possessed including Muzan couldn’t stay under the sun. 

Nezuko is one of the few exceptions that while unable to keep human thought, kept her human empathy, and later conquered the sun. Muzan’s quirk is definitely an anomaly, and very reliant on a person’s state of being mentally and emotionally.

@mabeljonesrock Let’s go lesbians-

. In this universe, the Demon Slayer Corps is a dedicated, independent group that is unknown to the government that specifically seeks out demons to kill them. Most of the people there either joined under their family names that have long since been part of it, or had their families killed by demons.

. Tanjirou’s family once ran a bakery, but has since been abandoned after demons killed all of them except for Tanjirou and Nezuko. 

The ‘breathing techniques’ are instead fighting skill sets that are specifically taught to Demon Slayers in companion to their quirks to better fight and incapacitate demons. The most used is the ‘Water Breathing Style’ because it’s the easiest and most versatile to people’s quirks.

. Sometimes, Demon Slayers can evolved a breathing technique along with a special quirk they have, most of them being the Pillars, Zenitsu, and Inosuke.

. I have literally thought of every single Pillar’s hero names and quirks LETS GO-

. Giyu Tomioka (Water Hero, Giyu) has a quirk called Water Manipulation, in which he can.... manipulate water. Its with his quirk that he created the move Dead Calm. 

. Shinobu (Poison Hero, Swallowtail) Has a quirk called Poison Blood. Her blood is capable of paralyzing one’s whole body, and even disable their quirk. But it’s only effective when the blood enter’s the other’s system. She has a sword to aid her quirk

. Rengoku (The Flame Hero, Ignite) Has a quirk called Flaming Skin, where his skin can ignite on fire. It doesn’t burn him, but he can’t produce it when he’s exhausted, physically or mentally, and continuous production of fire while exhaust him. 

. Tengen Uzui (The Flamboyant Hero, Festivity God) Has a quirk called Score. He’s able to analyse sounds, rhythms and noises produced from his surroundings and himself, to the point of being capable of predicting moves and able too counteract it instinctively. Of course if his opponent is unpredictable, he gets lost.

. Mitsuri Kanroji (The Love Hero, Romantic) Has a quirk called Dense Muscle. It’s literally the same description as Demon Slayer’s Mitsuri. She can make sharp precise moves while delivering deadly blows.

. Muichiro Tokito (The Fastest Hero, Mist) Has a quirk called Mystifying Speed, where he can run so fast, he practically disappears like a mist. It obviously tires him out if overuse happens, and will slow down.

. Gyomei Himejima (The Rock Hero, Stonehead) Has a quirk called Hard As Stone, where his body is as hard as stone, and able to withstand multiple attacks and has impeccable strength. He is however, vulnerable to fire, and too much power dealt to one spot will break his skin and eventually, can pierce him.

. Obanai Iguro (The Serpant Hero, Viper) His quirk is Snake. His body can contort and slip through things like a snake, making him flexible enough to turn mid air. People tease that because of his quirk, he makes quick friends with snakes he meets.

. Sanemi (The Wind Hero, Whirlwind) His quirk is Wind Control, though he can;t control the wind, he uses the wind to predict moves and use it to attack.

. BIG WHEEZE

This is all I have so far, I haven’t explore BNHA!Demon Slayer in a while, but I remember writing avid notes for it :)