#should really create a tag for my cyberpunk guys...

[vault81]

finally got cyberpunk running on PC, so I can use cross-progression to take screenshots of my streetkid maleV

[pixellangel]

guys. i'm making an rpg.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

so i bought rpg maker vx ace* and ive been coming up with a plot and characters!!!!! and im gonna make a video game!!!! aaaa!!!

its a meta little cyberpunk rpg starring you, the protagonist in someone else's body, and your allies V, Xenon, and Kori (names subject to change). infodump and some doodles under the cut read for a fun time :3

*edit: ill actually be doing it in rpg maker mv! vx is a little limited for the scope of what i want to do with this project

welcome to under the cut. here's thirty billion information for you. :D

essentially, the plot revolves around V and the player finding people who have been wronged by the Narrator, who bends the story to his own will to create a plot he enjoys, and how they want to shape their own destinies. your goal is to defeat the group of cybernetic monsters that he created as villains.

YOUR PARTY CONSISTS OF

- Sylvie (she/they): that's you! everyone calls you "Player," though. your body used to belong to V's childhood friend before the Narrator decided they were the perfect base for a protagonist. general all rounder in combat, with a basic sword for a weapon. you want to find out more about the Narrator's goals and what happened to V's friend. also, why are you "Sylvie?"

- V (she/her): a firey girl who can hear the Narrator speaking. she teaches the player how the world works, and is the first person they meet. uses two daggers in combat, efficient and quick fighter. immediately tells the player she plans not to befriend them. wants to fight the Narrator for taking her childhood friend away from her for the sake of a story.

- Xenon (he/they): wears a completely black mask with a white X on it to hide their identity. miraculously, this works despite their neon green hair. graffiti artist. medic in combat with both single and multi target heal skills. fights w/ a paintball gun. grew up in a cult that thinks death is such a natural part of life that it should never be prevented. became a medic as a type of rebellion against his cult.

- Kori (she/her): TINY GAL. HUGE HAMMER. VERY YELLOW. self explanatory combat - high attack, big damage, hits hard. not much else. she's actually super sweet, but the giant electric hammer she carries around makes her seem way scarier than she is. really really wants to be helpful. she lives in a town based around fighting and fight clubs, so she had to learn to defend herself to survive.

some doodles of V and Xenon :3

ill draw the whole lineup soon!!! :D

also if anyone wants more info or has questions PLEASE ASK!!! I LOVE LOREDUMPING!!! anyway my tag for this Huge Project is #pixell.rpg :3

[chevvy-yates]

Just a heads up

about the upcoming Dragon Age:

I'll slowly start to set tags that have to do with it to my list for both: spoilers and for my own safety. So I would love you guys do keep using your tags for your DA specific posts :)

If blogs I follow happen turn from cp-themed into entirely da-themed, I sadly will have to unfollow you sooner or later because this blog here remains my cyberpunk themed blog and I only follow blogs with mainly/only cp content. I hope you understand.

I know it will happen that a mass of mutuals in my follow list will play the new DA and it's good you do! You should have all the fun you want including post/share what you like to do! I don't want to take it from you.

I would like to play the game myself, but I don't think I will in the near future. The reasons are: too less time for it; I would rather like to play it on a console than on a pc but need a ps5 for it and most of all: the fear of abandoning my Cyberpunk blorbos.

Just this thought is too much for me. Because I know I can only do one thing. This or that. There is no hopping in between, it's one obession or nothing. And now that I've spent such an immense time and work into my ocs and gave them such a huge lore it frightens me of hopping into another game, create a new oc, make lore again (I know it will happen – which would also mean I have to read all DA lore which I never really did even tho I watched and played previous games – overwhelming af) and I have no capacity for that. I can't abandon what I've created the past three years.

CP fandom will probably become even less active but I keep up my hopes that people won't abandon their blorbos or at least come back to it after they are done with beating DA. If not, it's also totally okay.

Just letting you know: I myself have decided where I belong with creating worlds, lore and ocs – that will stay Cyberpunk.

[mechanicalinertia]

Reblogging this to build on it slightly. No tags, just a sub-rant over the old rant: I think I don't like Cyberpunk 2077 / Edgerunners' lore anymore. I found CP2020's lore amusing to peruse while pirating the old RPG splatbooks, but I think in the end I'm somewhat Not Feeling It in terms of its continuation.

Why? Because it embodies this highly static preconception of cyberpunk that I at once enjoy and want to break free of in my own writing. The main villain, Arasaka, is the most generic Evil Japanese megacorp one could ask for, run by the kind of guy who would unironically say things like "Pearl Harbor didn't work, so we got you with tape decks", and despite fifty years having passed from the old books to this new game, he's still around. In fact, that's the weirdest goddamn thing about 2077: Everyone is still around, barely aged at all. Technology hasn't changed much, the Time of the Red changed next to nothing, you'd hardly know it was fifty years in the alternative future. And that... doesn't feel cyberpunk?

No, well, maybe it does, maybe it is cyberpunk of a kind. Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired is an old novel that is supposedly a foundational work of the subgenre, less so than Neuromancer but foundational all the same, and in it it's pretty clear that one can't beat the Orbital Megacorporations from down on the ground. And, y'know, Williams helped playtest CP2013 for Pondsmith back in the day, so... is that what said work is drawing from?

Meanwhile, The Sprawl and The Bridge trilogies of Billy Gibby actually seem to portray a much more unstable universe, one where the fortunes of megacorporations can be destabilized by black-swan events and new technology ripped away from their corpselike grip on the future, where liminal spaces still exist and exit from the nightmare is still possible. (I just finished rereading Virtual Light less than a month ago and, for all that it feels like a book written in the nineties, it does a great job of selling the reader on its weird impossible future.)

There's no such optimism, or rather dynamism, in CP2077. And I'm not sure if that's intentional or what. I could get over that in Edgerunners because that anime had such a strong tragic arc, but beyond that the lore of CP2077 feels like this mishmash of every old idea under the sun into a sun-baked end-of-history brick.

I bring this up now because I just read an Edgerunners fanfiction that I liked right up until the clear villainess of the piece went on one too many rants about how inevitable megacorporate power is in a sadistic tone, and how annoying the author didn't seem to realize she was being, and how David and Lucy working for this miserable human being for various promises and plots was a Clearly Bad Choice that both characters really should have known better than to get involved in. Why did that fanfiction feel like the last straw? I don't know, honestly. Maybe just because it makes me realize how flat of an environment Night City is for fiction, with every path and possibility in the city mapped out with machinelike precision. Some people enjoy that, discovering every lost piece of lore and creating a muck-mat of discarded ideas to make their own cohesive whole. So you get a lot of good fanfics that all share this common character, all go different places with the characters, but then it kind of... wears thin to a degree? There are just points, like with this one fanfic, where the feeling of 'oh, I've seen that before' kind of just makes me want to drop the whole thing flat.

It makes you think, though, doesn't it? Once I finish Anatomy of a Lovedoll - and I will fucking do that I swear - what's next? I still don't know, but one thing's for certain: If it's an Edgerunners-related fic I'll have to really make a decision about how much lore I want to subjugate to my own worldbuilding whims. Because I'm not writing it straight, that's for sure.

...You know what I need to do? Read more Cory Doctorow. He's famous for cyberpunk where there's a way out of dystopia. I read his blog incessantly. He's great, and I need to read more of his novels.

Against the Inevitable in Bubblegum Crisis: An STMPD-branded Screed Against Certain Concepts in Fanon That Might or Might Not Exist Anymore

Those of you who follow my reviews of Bubblegum Crisis fanfiction might have noted that I keep grappling with how to review Dartz's Yours Truly 2032, because I can't decide if I like it or not. It has so many highs, and so many lows, that it's impossible to just call it 'okay' - things like that don't cancel each other out. In between being a real college student who functions in the world, and writing my own fanfiction, I keep coming back to how to review this fanfic without sounding like I hate Dartz's work on some sort of personal level, or sounding like I love it unquestionably. I like it, but there's a problem.

Anyway, reading something the guy wrote on the old alt.fan.bgcrisis Google Group several years ago finally solidified what annoys me about this fanfic. And about Meat / Metal Jacket, and about Grand Mal, and about Neo No Armor Against Fate, and about Illusions, and about Tokyo Babylon, and various other fanfics I've reviewed or have struggled to review properly. I know that's that a lot of fanon (and one quasi-canon work), but dammit, I have an opinion here. And there is one sentiment that, in my opinion, is terrible.

It is, in a phrase, the words: The Knight Sabers Can Never Win.

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, this is the core of the argument, paraphrased:

"GENOM cannot be destroyed by the Knight Sabers. For one, the corporation is simply too big. Even a surgical strike against Quincy wouldn't cripple the corporation, they'd just get a new guy and keep going. For another, GENOM is too economically vital to be destroyed. Blowing it up would essentially crash the global economy. Therefore, the most the Knight Sabers can do is keep GENOM's worst excesses in check for a few years before they're unceremoniously wiped out, and the cyberpunk world grinds ever onward to the end of history."

You can read what Dartz wrote back in alt.fan at the link above the cut, but the essence of it is that destroying GENOM would ignite a financial crisis that would hollow out industry and ruin the world for a good long while. It feels cynical, not just cynical but proud of that cynicism, as though Dartz was glad that he figured out the terrible, inevitable truth of the universe.

Most of this argument, I suppose, comes from Sylia's monologue with Lisa in the middle of Scoop Chase, where she argues that yes, GENOM does good things and bad things in approximately equal measures, is essential to the functioning of the world. And the R. Tal RPG largely sticks to this theory, stating that GENOM could likely never be properly destroyed by the Sabers, and that's not Sylia's intent anyway.

This is what most people take away from the Vanette exchange, and it's interesting that they do. Sylia is... well, she's distant, but she's never cold per se in the original series, so maybe she isn't manipulating anyone, but hold on just for a second. What if she is playing Lisa, just a little? I mean, she knows this girl could very well expose the Sabers, but she doesn't want to kill the girl, otherwise questions will be asked courtesy of her ADP Chief uncle. She has to nudge the girl away from hunting the Sabers down, subtly, quietly. And she has to play to Lisa's preconcieved notions of the Sabers and GENOM. So, well, why not lie about what she believes? Why not, indeed. The point is that this particular scene isn't as much of a sure thing as people think it is, and so without it a lot of what ends up being written without the explicit support of the text is mostly the viewer's opinion, what they want out of the cyberpunk genre, and, well, probably their politics as well.

So. Opinion time. I am sick to death of immovable megacorporations in cyberpunk, of the status quo being an endless reach of chrome, neon, and LED's, of this being all there is, of the end of history.

Yeah. Remember that? Francis Fukuyama's theory that Free Market Liberal Democracy is as good a form of government as anyone can get? That after the defeat of the Soviet Union and the long nineties, things probably couldn't get any better? It's a very neoliberal idea, that as long as democracy doesn't interfere with the value creation of the 'free market' things will get better, better, best. It's an idea that cyberpunk's founding works never pushed back overmuch beyond making megacorporations the Big Bads in their stories, but also necessary for the continuing function of cyber-industrial society. It's why accusations of retrofuturism levelled against the subgenre as a whole feel weird to me: Cyberpunk came into being in the neoliberal era, as surely as Reagan and Thatcher inaugurated it, and cyberpunk will feel powerful as long as our current moment is neoliberal.

But here's the thing. It's one thing to describe a cyberpunk dystopia as 'all there is', as utterly inevitable and unstoppable. Maybe it's even properly neo-noir as surely as something like Chinatown is. But fuck it. I'm still sick of it.

Why? Well, because we've been living with the megacorps for forty years and we've all seen the world not just stumble away from the gauranteed future of the nineties but slouch into what feels like near apocalypse. Healthcare and rent are unaffordable; monarchism disguised as populist fascism seems to be the new default form of government, with all the sleazy corruption that inevitably leads to; we're in a Cold War with one tsarist hermit with too many nukes and a newfound superpower whose leader would like nothing more than to commit some ethnic cleansing against its neighbors (you really think the Taiwanese won't be rounded up and punished for dissidence against the motherland? Puh-leaze); and to top it all off those same megacorporate elites can't get off of fossil fuels fast enough to not fuck the rest of us over. In other words, 2022 is an age of perpetual, overlapping crises, not eternal megacorporate-guaranteed stability...

Hold up. Crisis? An inflection point where the old order breaks down? Where either something better or something more monstrous arises? Now where have we heard that word before, hm? It's almost as though the Sabers live in a moment of Crisis as well, where even the most indomitable megacorporations are vulnerable and could be destroyed!

Well, okay, fine, if the megacorporate order and the fascism it uses to advance its goals of zero taxes and zero regulation are to be defeated, it won't just be because superheroes came out of the night and brought us Peter Thiel's head on a pike. I don't know what it's gonna take, but the point is that it's not just doable, but it really ought to be done, otherwise we're going to look pretty Canticle For Leibowitz-y in a few decades.

And that's why the idea of GENOM being a necessary evil, or at least an invincible one, pisses me off so much, because, uh, GENOM's business model, while not seen in the anime, is probably replacing humanity with Boomers, right? Hey, even Lisa said it, the cities would be wall-to-wall Boomers if GENOM were to take over the world, and there'd be no place for humans. (So the idea of GENOM's destruction causing a loss of jobs makes no sense; how many humans does GENOM actually employ, anyway?) The stakes are literally saving humanity from being replaced, and Fred Herriot, Shawn Hagen, Dartz, they all operate under the principle that this just ain't the case. (Admittedly, Mark Latus seems to acknowledge this, but he never finished his Tokyo Babylon Trilogy, so we never got to see any sort of comeuppance for the omnipotent Super Cool GENOM Dude he created, and I get the sense Latus liked him too much to bother. And Meat Jacket is... well, it wants to marinate in the darkest parts of the genre ad infinitum. It is a piece which I don't think cares as much about the politics of this shit the way I do, which I may have to just acknowledge reluctantly.) Don't even get me started on Adam Warren.

And this, in turn, is why Hakluyt's Most of the Way to the Moon was so refreshing, because the Sabers got a concrete win against GENOM, a win against evil not unlike that of Jeffie Epstein and his ilk. It felt nice to see, at least in fiction, justice being served for oligarchic pedophilia. And I know that then people will say that these more nihilistic fics are more 'realistic' because they more accurately reflect our political moment, its failures of imagination and change, and they might even be right.

But do you want to see that inevitability reflected everywhere you look? Do you want to have to wake up in the morning convinced that extinction is a few generations off? Does that feel empowering to you, dear reader? If so...

...Well, you and I have very different Internet Opinions. And I, for one, happen to disagree.

And, uh, that's why my opinion on Yours Truly 2032 has soured a great deal. Because I can't stand that stance. Because I think it poisons what I want Crisis to be so, so badly.

[bnbc]

thank you so much @miss--river for tagging me 💙💙💙

Name Meaning Game

RULES: Search and post the meaning of your OCs’ names (if you made their name up or they go by a nickname, post an explanation of how it came to you)! Bonus if you can find something for their last name too.

Kou Lin Mendez (also known as Kou Okada)

so, if you search Kou's name you can see something like this

what a variaty, huh? I even dedicated a fic to it xD

well, in this house we stuck with a meaning 'happiness' cuz when I gave her this name I genuenely had no idea of other options.

actually the way I named her was quite a disaster 'cuz I never planned to create any headcanons for V, even despite the fact I started to write a big fic, she was supposed to stay just a default street kid with some ties to valentino (she had their tattoo after all!) but i found out pretty soon that you can't go far with default V

so I was in desperate need of some of her backstory, and ofc in name, cuz the only thing I knew I WAS NOT 'VALERIE' just nope it was bouncing of her half latina half asian ass xD

ah yes, for those who never meet Kou in the body she was born, here is the maximum meat version of her:

so, I was struggling untill the day 'koulin" popped up in my head, and in first i was FFS BRAIN WHAT KIND OF NAME IS IT YOU MADE IT UP WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH IT but later i separated it to "Kou" (of japanese origin) and "Lin" (of chinese origin, could mean 'forest' or 'gem' according to the interent) and came up with a story that her mom didnt really knew herself who of her lovers was her baby's dad

and I was really exited about "Kou" 'cuz I have a thing for naming characters who go through a lot of the shit after happiness xDDD and this name is kinda special to me 'cuz it's double stolen (long story short, I borrowed it from another character, and the guy who created this charatecter named him after a guy from one of Persona games)

surname has no special meaning but it has a lil story behind too!

first I wanted to give her some really generic surname to underline that she is nothig special, just another kid born to die on NC's streets but this generic surname followed "Valerie" lmao xD

so I opened a list of hispanic surnames (cuz she took it from her latina mom) but nothing spoken to me. then I recalled my very first OC in the cyberpunk 2020 universe, ex-cartel soldier, Tesa Mendez and was like AFTER ALL WHY NOT WHY SHOULDNT I MAKE MY OCS RELATED so they are distant cousings now xD

she goes with Okada in her post-canon life 'cuz... well... she isnt related to Wako by blood, and it'll take another long post to explain why Wako allowed her to use this surname (or you can read how it happend here)

tagging @vvizjer @wanderingaldecaldo @cybervesna @fereldanwench @dreamskug @nananarc no pressure and sorry if you were tagged already!

[shadowsong26fic]

AU Outlines: Other Fandoms Edition

So I know that probably like zero of my followers on this blog even go here but I was watching Person of Interest lately, and I’ve also been reading occasional Supernatural spoilers, because I used to be in that fandom and I occasionally get curious. Especially this most recent season. Naturally, this woke up some old characters/situations/etc. that I used to work with, which I’ve been occasionally toying with in the back of my head when I’m bored and/or procrastinating other projects.

I’ve been going back and forth on how I feel about the one plotline that interests me this season (and by back and forth I mean I was really excited when I first read that a particular character was back; engaged by the summaries/etc. I read from his first couple episodes, the third one intrigued me until I read more detailed spoilers and then I started to side-eye it a little bit...)

And then I read up on last week’s episode. And nope, all my excitement is gone, replaced by Pissed for reasons I’m not sure I can actually articulate. (Though I kind of attempted to in the tags here on my personal blog.)

...honestly, I probably should’ve known better; making this kind of storyline really pay off/work would require a lot of attention given to a tertiary character, and given SPN’s track record with the internal worlds and motivations of characters who are not the Big Three, and the fact that they’ve been ignoring a lot of their established angel/vessel lore, the way Claire’s backstory more or less got completely forgotten...I should not have gotten my hopes up. Sigh.

ANYWAY this is now officially Spite Fic(tm). Here, have an outline of a Supernatural/Person of Interest crossover.

Starring Nick.

...uh, before I actually start, I should probably get some background out of the way.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Person of Interest is a TV show that ran for five seasons, 2011 - 2016. Without c/ping the opening narration, the basic premise of the show is that, in the wake of 9/11, genius software engineer Harold Finch built a surveillance and analysis program, in an effort to prevent similar future tragedies. Out of fear that his creation would be abused, he designed the Machine as a closed system--basically, all that’s provided is an ID number (usually an SSN, at least for US citizens; but Our Heroes get a green card number in one episode, and a student ID number in another), and the person that number indicates is key to unravelling whatever is going down. The Machine was initially designed to predict mass casualty events/terrorism and provide the (relevant) number to the designated government operatives, at which point human intelligence takes over. However, the Machine also identifies things like…gang warfare/one-on-one premeditated murder (irrelevant numbers). That’s where Our Heroes come in.

The first half of the series is basically a procedural with a twist—each episode, the main characters get an irrelevant number (or more; the record was I believe 38 in one episode). They don’t always know how that person is involved, whether they’re the victim or the killer/perpetrator. In a few memorable cases, the number was arguably both.

Then, in the second half, a rival AI (Samaritan) is brought online, and the series becomes somewhat darker in tone and shifts into a cyberpunk apocalypse story. With a few regular irrelevant numbers thrown in on occasion as well, for good measure. For the purposes of this outline, we don’t care so much about POI B, for reasons I will explain, but it bears mentioning. Especially since Greer is still hanging around and trying to bring Samaritan or something similar online.

Right. On to some memorable/notable/important characters.

Our Heroes are Finch, who, as I said, designed and built the Machine. For various reasons, he’s living off the grid (he’s a very private person). Using a backdoor built into the Machine, as of when the series starts, he receives the irrelevant numbers. But he lacks the skills/ability to intervene directly, so he recruits John Reese.

Reese, then, is Finch’s partner/employee/they are totally married; a former CIA assassin who is now presumed dead, he does most of the hands-on work with the numbers and becomes known as the Man in the Suit who is basically Batman.

Carter! Carter is freaking amazeballs; she is p. much the moral/ethical center of the show, one of their two cop friends who was actually trying to track them/Reese down and arrest him for the vigilante BS for the first half-season or so but then they became friends.

Fusco is their other cop friend; former dirty cop/member of an ring, initially recruited by Reese to work undercover in HR (as said ring is called), basically runs on a combination of Dogged Loyalty (the reason he joined HR in the first place, transfers that loyalty to Team Machine, gets his moral compass recalibrated, and becomes one of the most loveable dudes on the show) and Snark (featuring such delightful quotes as “What was I supposed to say? Sorry, boss, Agent King is really a superpowered nutball. Just ask my buddy, the urban legend.” Also at least once a season, he makes a comment to the effect of “just when I thought you guys couldn’t get any weirder…”).

(Also, he is, as my roommate puts it, Shaped Like A Dad.)

Shaw joins the team in Season 3; textbook (and canonical!) bisexual compact Persian sociopath (note: she has some sort of Axis II personality disorder that is occasionally called sociopathy in-universe, but that doesn’t quite fit); there’s…there’s really not much else one can say without just like summarizing everything she does or quoting ad nauseum.

Root! Root is introduced as a major antagonist; hacker/programmer on Finch’s level who works as a contract killer, her initial goal is to locate and free the Machine, which ends up recruiting her early in Season 3 and becoming…you know that particular kind of reformed villain that becomes the weird family member because yes they’re still kind of awful and murdery, and they did a great deal of damage to you and yours, but you’ve now been through Some Stuff together, and besides, they’re your awful and murdery, you know? So not exactly a redemption arc, but they’re one of the Heroes now and just kind of stick with it. Like Barbossa, in POTC. Or Vegeta. My roommate (referenced above) calls this the Weird Uncle trope. And she fits this trope really well and I love it. Also, she and Shaw are canonically girlfriends as of...s4 or s5, depending on how you look at things.

(Also, not necessarily relevant for this outline, but on the subject of Weird Uncles, one cannot talk about POI without mentioning Elias; our friendly neighborhood Mafia don. No, really.)

And Bear! Cannot forget Bear. Bear is Finch and Reese’s dog, acquired at the beginning of S2 and the most amazing. He also has a twitter! In Dutch!

On to some antagonists, Greer is not our friend. He works for/created a company called Decima Technologies; his goal is to bring an unrestricted AI online and let it run the world for complicated reasons relating to some of his experiences during the Cold War working for MI6. Also he has a very punchable face.

And then there’s Control, who runs the Relevant numbers program for the government. She is an awful, awful human being (fully aware of it, too; she has a great speech in the third season finale about how she’s a Necessary Evil and why) and I love her so much.

Okay, that’s the basics for the POI side of things. I can go on a lot longer if y’all want more details (I didn’t even cover my girl Zoe or Leon or…), but that should be enough foundation for the outline to make sense?

For the SPN side of things--I’m not going to summarize the canon background, due to it being the larger/primary-ish fandom. But in terms of the relevant AU stuff, I’m going more or less with the backstory I established for Nick for The Promises of Angels and Cartography!verse.

Basically, he was a high school history teacher; his wife and son were murdered by a serial killer known as the Chesapeake Ripper

(There might well have been/probably was some demonic involvement, though not in the same way as I think S14 canon established; basically either because a “talent scout” demon like that one s7 episode was already involved or because the Ripper was operating independently and a demon got involved later, he was pointed towards this particular woman and baby who fit his victim pool. Either way, Nick was targeted because he was the right bloodline and accessible, because vessel lines are a thing even if the show has forgotten that.)

(Also, Lucifer later took Nick to kill the Ripper. Signing bonus. So to speak.)

After Detroit, Nick gets picked up by Meg, who holds on to him for a while for a variety of reasons (information that might be buried in his memories from the year he spent possessed; the chance that he might be a new key to the Cage��) until the Leviathan turn up, at which point she no longer has the resources to keep him. She cuts him loose at that point, rather than killing him (mostly because she thinks Lucifer left him alive For A Reason and until she knows what that is, she can’t kill him).

So, at this point, in Promises or Cartography, Nick just sort of wanders around for a while until he runs into Claire or Jody, respectively.

For the purposes of this AU, he ends up drifting to New York instead.

And, with all that background out of the way, NOW we can get to the actual fun stuff.

…no, wait, I lied. One more note: as with p. much all my SPN projects, I am following Logical Time rather than Show Time. Which is to say, when calculating dates/figuring out where the timelines intersect/etc., I’m including the two skipped years (between S5/S6 and between S7/S8).

(That being said, I reserve the right to stop caring about the timeline later and just mashing things together as I think it would be entertaining.)

ANYWAY.

We open in the first half of POI S3, somewhere between “Mors Praematura” and “Endgame” (i.e., Root is in the library, but Carter hasn’t initiated her takedown of HR yet). If my math is right, this puts us either in S7 or during the second gap year for SPN.

It starts as most of these adventures do; Team Machine gets a new number.

“This one may be a bit of a project, I’m afraid,” Finch says. “Nick Cross has been missing for several years. He hasn’t been seen since May of 2009, and there’s been no electronic activity on his identity in that time, either.”

Of course, when they dig into his background, his wife and son getting murdered comes up.

“Any chance he killed them?” Reese asks.

“No, he was cleared at the time. They were victims of a serial killer, and Mr. Cross had solid alibis for three of the five incidents, including the one involving his wife and son.”

(Shaw, at that point, theorizes that Nick’s number came up because he somehow tracked the Chesapeake Ripper down and is planning to kill him. And, if that’s the case, doesn’t really see the point in stopping him.)

(“Start with finding him, Ms. Shaw,” Finch says. “We still don’t know if that is, in fact, what’s going on.”)

(Finch also doesn’t approve on principle, of course, but that is not an argument he wants to have with Shaw on this particular morning.)

(Plus, the Ripper seems to have stopped operating at around the same time Mr. Cross disappeared...so there’s a chance that Shaw’s theory is accurate, just out of date.)

In any case, they reason that the Machine wouldn’t have handed them his number if he weren’t alive and in range; Reese and Shaw ask Carter and Fusco to see what they can pull up, and start doing their own legwork.

Carter ends up being the first to find a lead—while on her regular patrol with Laskey, she spots a guy who matches the description, albeit with a few extra scars, and is acting a little off. Like he thinks he’s being followed/watched.

Reese goes to check it out, and this is where things get, uh, Weird.

See, here’s the thing. I love John Reese, and he is a man of Many Skills.

But, uh.

Being approachable and reassuring is Not Among Them.

Like. Don’t get me wrong. When he’s in Bodyguard Mode, it is exactly the right level of Intimidating. He just…has trouble turning it off.

Look, the dude is a semi-retired CIA spysassin and it oozes out of every pore unless he works really hard to tone it down.

(And sometimes even then.)

And since this is just, like, preliminary surveillance to see if this guy Carter spotted really is their number, and he’s not planning to make contact yet, he’s not really focusing on toning it down.

So, when Nick spots him, guess what this looks like to him.

Yep, he thinks Reese is an angel.

He runs.

Reese: “....yeah, pretty sure that’s our number. And he just made me.”

(If Carter didn’t already, Reese probably also mentions that the five-year-old DMV photo they’re working from is out of date; Nick is pretty badly scarred, they look kind of like radiation burns.)

Of course, it was hard enough to find Nick in the first place, so Reese doesn’t want to lose him again. So, made or not, he continues following. Hoping to get to a position where he can make contact and figure out what’s going on. Or just keep tabs on him until Shaw can catch up and take over.

(Not his favorite approach, but he screwed up somewhere and that’s what he’s stuck with now.)

Nick knows the angel is still on him--and this is new and terrifying; he’s had demons after him a few times since Meg ditched him, but this is the first time an angel’s found him and, frankly, angels are worse than demons in his mind.

(Also he’s supposed to be warded how did the angel even find him--)

(Yeah, Nick has gotten a couple tattoos in his post-Meg life--he’s warded, the same sigils that are etched into Sam and Dean’s ribs; he also has a standard anti-demon-possession tattoo.)

In any case, he has a knife up his sleeve, he just needs to get somewhere more or less out of sight, just for a minute, maybe not even, and then he can throw up a banishing sigil. He just needs that minute.

Reese spots Nick duck out of sight into an alley and heads that way, picking up his pace. There’s a chance he’ll lose the number in there, depending on how many exits there are--

Nick casts his sigil and then books it, not wanting to stick around and see if it worked.

Reese gets there just a hair too late.

“I lost him,” he admits, then catches sight of the bloody drawing on the wall. “...but I think I might have an idea what our number’s running from. And why he disappeared for so long.”

“Yeah?” Shaw asks.

“Looks like he might’ve joined a cult."

“....really,” she said. “Huh.”

“He drew some sort of occult symbol on the wall. Looks like blood.”

“...okay, so he joined a cult.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Finch says. “He went through a horrible tragedy. He could have been vulnerable, especially if he sought but failed to find any comfort in traditional religion.”

Reese takes a picture, and sends it to Finch. “Think you can figure out what this is?”

“Well, it’s hardly my area of expertise,” he says, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

“We’ll work on picking up his trail again,” Shaw says, appearing beside Reese in the alley, as she does sometimes. “Maybe stop by and pick up Bear to help.”

...and now skimming over the next few hours...

Finch spends some time in one of the few corners of the internet he’s not super familiar with, and does identify the symbol eventually.

“It’s for protection or warding. Specifically against angels.”

At which point Shaw busts up laughing at the idea of anyone thinking Reese is an angel.

But that does support the idea that he’s running from whatever cult he got mixed up in.

ANYWAY moving on.

Reese and Shaw eventually catch up with Nick again.

Unfortunately, so have the people who are after him.

(And by people, I mean demons. Two of them.)

(Who recognized Nick, obviously, and had the same ideas as Meg, with regard to his potential Uses.)

(Only they’d rather off him so no one gets to unlock whatever secrets he might be holding.)

Shaw goes up--she’s the better sniper, after all--and Reese makes his way into the alley where Nick is cornered

Firing, naturally, at their kneecaps.

Except.....

Nothing...nothing happens...?

(Well, except now the demon is pissed and gunning for Reese instead.)

(Nick is very relieved to see that this guy is not, in fact, an angel. Angels don’t normally use guns.)

(Of course, now he’s just confused, wtf is going on.)

“What the...” Reese says.

“Maybe you missed,” Shaw smirks, from her perch.

“I didn’t miss.”

“Sure,” she says, aiming at the demon chasing him, getting a solid hit in the shoulder.

Which....also does nothing.

“...well, that was weird.”

She fires again, this time a killshot--yeah, yeah, there are Rules, but under the circumstances...

Meanwhile, Demon #2 has gotten ahold of Nick. Who has frozen a little bit.

(He tends to do this, when stressed/triggered--internalize things, and just go blank. He was more or less catatonic when Meg found him, started gradually coming out of it; when Sam got his soul back that sort of accelerated the process and by now he’s mostly functional, but there are Moments...)

Shaw keeps firing at Demon #1. It’s not killing it, but it’s keeping it pinned down so hopefully Reese can reach and extract their number.

“Finch, we’ve got a Situation here.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

(Finch has hacked into some nearby security cameras.)

“You have any idea what the hell is going on?”

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Shaw,” he says. “It’s only the two of them, I think--no one else is coming though the police will probably be responding to the shots soon--”

“Yeah, Finch, I know. Reese?”

Nick is up against the wall and Reese bodily hauls the demon off of him to engage in a fistfight.

(Did not expect a skinny kid like the demon’s host to pack this much of a punch, he’ll have some fun bruises tomorrow...)

Which snaps Nick out of it.

Demons. These are demons. Only demons. I know how demons work. I can--

He rattles off an exorcism, as fast as he can.

The demons scream and smoke out, leaving their two dead hosts behind--Host #1 may have been dead already, or Shaw may have killed them; Host #2 was already gone.

“Finch?” Shaw says. “Finch, are you getting this?”

“I’m--yes, I see it,” he says.

Reese is about to add something, but the Nick passes out--Demon #2 managed to score a solid hit before Reese got there--and he moves to catch him.

“Damn it--he’s bleeding, pretty bad.”

“Get him to the safehouse,” Finch says. “I’ll meet you there, and we’ll...we’ll figure all this out.”

“Library’s closer,” Shaw points out.��“And you said no one else was around.”

Finch hesitates for a moment--more concerned about Root than about their base being compromised, at the moment--then nods. “Fine. Bring him here. I’ll clear off a space for you to patch him up.”

“Copy that,” Shaw says. “Reese, stay with him, I’m gonna get us a car.”

...okay, I’ll admit, the rest of this first New York adventure isn’t super well planned out in my brain. So, skimming through it pretty quick...

They bring Nick back to the library. Shaw patches him up, while Finch goes over the footage he found, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Nick eventually wakes up. There’s a Talk.

“They were demons,” Nick explains. “They, uh. They can’t be killed, not with guns. There’s a couple specially-designed weapons, I think. And angel blades. Holy water will burn them, and you can use salt to keep them out. Best thing to do is probably trap them and exorcise them.”

Basically, Team Machine gets The Talk about monsters and so on Existing.

He admits to having been possessed for a year when they ask him why demons are chasing him, though he’s a little vague on further details. He does mention Meg, too, that she held on to him after he was dispossessed.

He asks how they found him--he’d thought his warding was messed up, especially when he thought Reese was an angel.

They give their characteristic vague answer, then ask, “If you’re...warded, how is it they found you in the first place?”

He figures, at this point, that his warding is fine--it doesn’t hide him from demons, necessarily, but even if it did, warding doesn’t stop the bad guys from spotting him by chance. Which is, incidentally, exactly what happened.

Nick also, of course, gets in the usual number questions; “who are you” “why are you helping me” etc., with the added weight of his possession and the fact that they took on literal demons to try and save his life.

Also, somewhere in this mess, Nick wanders off into the part of the library where Root is being held. Possibly while the rest of Team Machine is getting what they’ll need to deal with whatever Climactic Fight will end the episode/section.

(Nick was a high school history teacher, and this is a really awesome library, of course he’s going to go exploring if he’s left alone.)

(Bear is there to keep an eye on him/keep him from leaving.)

(Bear also gets many scritches and pets, as he deserves.)

Anyway, Root and Nick have a conversation; whether she and the Machine are already doing their Morse Code thing or something else is going on...or...something...anyway, Nick gets read in on the Machine’s existence.

(His reaction is more or less “...that does not even make the top ten most unbelievable/dangerous things I know exist, so...all right then.”)

Finch gets back to find them talking about history or something. Bear is next to Nick, who is a lot calmer/more willing to work with them than he was before. Root is just inside the cage wall, idly scritching Bear’s ears as they talk.

(This is actually Important.)

Anyway, eventually there is the requisite climactic fight. Possibly angels are involved--I know Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point...

Point is, things get resolved, more or less. Nick ends up leaving New York.

BUT! Because Root had a Moment with him back there, and Finch saw it, he’s willing to unleash her a little earlier when the shit hits the fan a few episodes later.

In short, thanks to Root kind of sort of Bonding with one of their weirder/more fragile numbers, Team Machine is much better positioned to deal with Endgame nonsense, which means, first, that Carter gets to live (though Reese might still get hella shot, depending on how exactly Root changes what happens with Simmons; but he won’t go on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge); what follows is then that Team Machine is all working on the same page when Claypool’s number comes up aaaaaaand we avert Samaritan. Yay!

(Carter does still deduce the Machine’s existence, of course, gets upgraded to the yellow box and everything. And, remembering the late-S1 drama, strongly advocates for Fusco getting read in, too.)

(She gets her way on that, too. Eventually. Probably before too much longer, even.)

Also, Control does reveal herself, but doesn’t manage to capture Root just yet.

(Which also means Root doesn’t get her implant, at least for a while.)

But apart from that, we can leave this group to their own devices for a while, and get back to following Nick, who is now past his Origin Story, so to speak...

Hokay. So. After Nick leaves New York, he just starts sort of drifting again, and then a few days later, he gets a phone call.

Which he actually answers; in all honestly very few people would reach out to him this way, and he’s pretty sure none of the things that terrify him are on that list.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

Nick stares at the phone for a long moment. The Machine repeats herself.

“…no.” He hangs up.

(Look, he knows damn well what that phone call was; Root told him enough when the two of them talked in the library. And he is not interested in letting another near-omnipotent entity screw with his head. Once was enough. He learned his lesson.)

The Machine backs off, deciding to try a less-invasive way of trying to get in touch with/recruit him.

Why is she doing this? Well.

The Machine’s mandate/objective is to protect humanity. When Nick came up on her radar as an irrelevant number she could offer her assets, she noticed some…let’s call them anomalies. In archival data about him, about the two people talking about murdering him…lots of things didn’t add up. Which is why he got pushed to the top of the list, so to speak.

(I mean, assuming she does put a certain level of thought/deliberation into which numbers she sends her assets? If two come up at once that are unrelated, does she need to decide, or do they get both? This isn’t 100% clear in the show, I don’t think; pretty sure all the multi-number episodes do end up being related, even if they don’t appear that way at first, apart from, like, backlogs from when the Machine has to go dark temporarily for whatever reason…anyway, if that is the case, she picked Nick because there was a lot of Weird Shit going on around him and she needed her human assets to sort through it, because she simply didn’t have the tools or parameters necessary to work it out for herself.)

So, Nick’s number comes up, and even more strange things keep happening. The Machine evaluates, and comes to the conclusion that there’s an entire class of threats to humanity that she hasn’t been monitoring correctly. The fact of the matter is, she was programmed with certain blind spots, because Finch had certain blind spots.

But the Machine is now in a position to correct that. She’s aware of the flaw in her system and, thanks to the changes she’s been making since Stanton’s virus and the other S2 arc plot stuff allowed her to start altering her code in a way she couldn’t before…

She can make up for it by adding yet another set of numbers/another protocol. Relevant numbers to the government as always, irrelevant numbers (within their reach, at least) to Finch and his team, “necessary” numbers (i.e., protecting the Machine herself/keeping tabs on other, potentially hostile, ASIs) to Root, and now…we’ll call them “hidden” numbers.

Of course, the next problem is, while there’s a lot of data available about monsters, angels, demons, etc., it’s very hard to sort through what is useful data and what is, frankly, BS. And, unfortunately, she lacks the parameters to do it herself.

Ergo, she needs a human asset to help her figure it out. Teach her/help her define this new dataset.

(And also to intervene when necessary, but that can come later. She’s got a bit of a learning curve ahead of her first, and she knows it.)

But, of course, she doesn’t want to retask any of her current assets—both because they have enough to deal with and because, again, learning curve. Better for at least one entity involved to know what they’re doing, right?

And so, she decides to recruit Nick. Nick, who has already been her window into this hidden world. Nick, who needs her as much as she needs him.

(Kind of like Root, except absolutely unlike Root. Like in that they were both drowning when she approached them, and needed her to give them a framework to cling to, to drag themselves back to the surface; unlike in that Nick is drowning in a very different ocean than Root was.)

Anyway. Eventually, she does manage to talk to him, and explain what she wants.

And he’s still not...100% sure how he feels about working with her, but...well, data entry, right? He can do that. Maybe.

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” he admits. “Just because I was possessed for a year doesn’t mean I know everything.”

“It’s still a place to start,” she replies. “Eventually, I’ll figure out the patterns and be able to extrapolate.”

“...okay, then.”

(As it turns out, he knows a lot more than he thinks he does, which is utterly terrifying; he has a lot of subconscious/residual information buried in his mind.)

Of course, eventually, just data entry isn’t enough.

The Machine doesn’t have all the answers/all the patterns down, but she has enough that she’s starting to identify threats/numbers she can assign out.

But Nick...well, Nick is fragile. Mentally, of course, but physically as well--burned inside and out, metaphorically and literally, by a long, incompatible possession.

At the moment, though, he’s the only asset she has in this area. Recruiting others, from among the insular, paranoid hunter community...is going to be difficult.

She spots something she thinks he can handle, especially if she grants him God Mode access and keeps him there.

He stares down at the text message she sent him.

“...I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t...”

“Can we please try?” she says. “I’ll help you.”

“...I...”

“It’s a demon, I think.”

He thinks about it for a minute. He can handle demons, he thinks. He has before, after all. He understands demons. And...

(he thinks about the feeling of evil still living under his skin; he thinks of blood on his hands and in his heart; about all the nightmares and half-memories; about how he feels too small for his own body, how his thoughts echo inside his head...)

(he wants to do better. he wants to be better. maybe helping...people like him, people who have gone through what he went through...maybe that’s a start. to make up for what he did.)

“...is the host still alive? When I...if I manage to get there and exorcise them...are they still alive?”

“I can’t tell,” she admits. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll...try,” he says. “I’ll try.”

It ends up, fortunately, being a win for all of them--the demon is thrown enough by seeing Lucifer’s former vessel that Nick has a chance to act; the host is in fact still alive.

Nick spends hours after the exorcism, just...sitting with him, talking. Helping him cope/process things.

“...we should do that again sometime,” he finally tells the Machine, after he goes back to wherever he’s sleeping these days.

So, he starts kind of sort of hunting after that, with the help of an ASI.

Every time he directly engages something, he’s in God Mode. He has to be, because of the aforementioned damage; he wouldn’t survive on his own.

(Probably, at some point, he and the Machine put together something like the Tenebamus Infinitum forum in The Promises of Angels; online support group/community for possession survivors.)

(Sam may or may not find his way there...)

At first, they mostly focus on demons/possession cases. Sometimes ghosts. But they slowly start to branch out into other areas.

They deal with some miscellaneous monsters, faeries, maybe a vampire...good times.

Pretty much the only ones they avoid are angels and pagan gods, because Nick cannot deal.

(Angels for uh obvious reasons; pagan gods because he remembers like two things from his possession with any clarity, and one of them is Muncie, Indiana/Gabriel’s death.)

(The Machine occasionally considers trying to get him into a hospital for a while, the way Root was--she thinks it would help him--but he’s...managing for the moment, so it’s not as necessary, and she does still need him actively working....plus, he’s terrified of being sedated so...this gets put on indefinite hold.)

During this period, though, they do acquire two more Friends.

First--and I’m not 100% sure how they meet; possibly similar to how Nick and Jody meet in Cartography!verse, i.e., a grief support group of some kind.

Anyway, first he meets a young woman, a psychiatrist. Who is familiar, if peripherally, with angel and demon type stuff.

(Other monsters are gonna be a little New to her.)

Her name is Ashley Finnerman.

(Yes, as in Donnie.)

(He was her cousin.)

(After what happened to him, she started trying to figure it out, and eventually did.)

(...honestly, the forum may be her idea. She definitely joins it, not as a fellow survivor, but as a crisis counselor/trained professional who will believe them.)

(Ashley is pretty big on community building in general; yes, she’s a therapist and that’s a start, but she’s only one person. In her ideal world, they’d be able to draw in other professionals--psychiatric because this is an underserved population that desperately needs those resources; medical (as in physical medical/other MDs); legal...anyway, she’s not 100% sure how to go about doing that, but helping out on with Tenebamus is a step in the right direction, in her opinion.)

Ashley is eventually read in on the Machine as well. She has more or less an actual Life outside of it all, so she isn’t as immersed as Nick is, but she’s still definitely part of his team.

And second...somehow, they acquire Adam.

How? ...again, not 100% sure, but probably one of two ways--

One, something similar to Promises, where Nick gets too close to the Cage mouth for some reason and is offered a Bribe. He takes the bribe, with exactly zero intention of following through on his end of the bargain, so to speak.

Two, some kind of straight-up Fairy Tale Bullshit. S6 establishes that faeries can reach the Cage; Nick somewhat accidentally does a favor for a powerful faerie through his work with the Machine, and to repay the debt, the faerie (or possibly a High Up Faerie who has taken ownership of the debt because he helped someone in their court/their child/something or other) restores his Counterpart to him? IDK, something like that.

...I think I like this option. He accidentally does a favor for, IDK, Mab. And she, not wanting to be in his debt, heads down to the Cage.

This works because, a) Mab is probably one of the few entities that can go toe-to-toe with an Archangel like this; and b) Michael is actually on board with springing Adam.

(Not necessarily because he gives a shit about Adam, but he does give a shit about Justice, and keeping Adam down here, especially with Sam gone, is not Justice.)

Naturally, she doesn’t tell Nick ahead of time--he did the favor without consulting her, she shall repay him in kind. Faeries and Obligations, man.

Anyway, Adam joins them, and then Nick doesn’t have to be quite as hands-on because Adam is perfectly capable.

(Adam also, at some point, makes a comment about the three of them having ‘nearly a complete set.’)

(I have no idea how/if they’ll ever be able to find someone to fit in for Gabriel, but three out of four!)

(Nick finds this oddly hilarious, for reasons he can’t quite articulate.)

So, that is what Nick is doing while Team Machine is foiling Vigilance and Greer and Decima and dealing with their Hard Sci Fi end of things.

Let’s bring these two worlds crashing back together, shall we?

(Well, I say crashing together...this probably isn’t the first time Nick has run into the others since that first adventure.)

(If nothing else, he’s stayed in touch, off and on, with Root.)

(And I’m pretty sure the others have met Adam.)

(Maybe that was where Shaw got her angel blade...)

So, timeline for this. Uh...probably at least a year after Nick’s first encounter with Team Machine. For the SPN side of things...ehhhhh I’ll handwave/stop caring and say this is sometime in the latter half of S8. Between the first two Trials. Let’s go with that.

Nick and co are back in New York, probably dealing with something on their end of things. A ghost or something.

And then they get sucked into some Team Machine nonsense.

Control still wants the Machine--or a suitable Plan B--back under her complete, well, control.

Decima is going after some other potential ASI.

(Root is back in town to deal with them.)

Vigilance is involved too, because why not.

(Greer can’t initiate his endgame there just yet, after all, so they’re probably still operating.)

Nick, Adam, and Ashley are pitching in, because they’re here and the Machine needs all the help she can get on this one. Because Reasons.

Meg gets involved--this goes AU in that she escaped Crowley somehow. And one of the first things she does is try to check on her various assets, so she’s trying to track Nick and figure out what the hell is going on with him.

Crowley, of course, is chasing her, trying to get her back.

And, to round it all off, Sam and Dean are chasing him.

(As they approach, Sam starts noticing a weird buzzing feeling in the back of his head. Like circulation returning, or something like that. He decides not to mention it--thinks it might be a new Trials symptom, and he’s already hiding those from Dean, what’s one more secret? Besides, they need to know what Crowley finds so interesting about this place...that’s way more important, right?)

So, all these disparate parties converge on wherever the potential ASI is being held/built.

Root and Nick, of course, are both in God Mode.

(...incidentally, Nick is...nnnnnnnnnot super comfortable with calling it that? He and Adam and Ashley mostly just call it access or full-access.)

(Nick has the same tingling feeling in the back of his head, but he can’t do anything about it right now. He just focuses on the task at hand, and getting himself and his friends through this alive.)

The Machine tips Nick off to the fact that there are demons sniffing around--a couple of Crowley’s minions. Which, of course, Nick and his team can handle, but there’s several of them around and we reeeeally don’t want Crowley getting access to an ASI.

(Especially not S8!Crowley.)

So, Nick, Adam, and Ashley head off to put up wards and shoo off any demons they can, leaving the others to deal with the Decima nonsense/destroy the drives or whatever.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so they split up.

Eventually, Nick gets pinned down by Decima mooks, trapped in a corner of the facility where he’s trying to finish getting the wards up.

“What...what do I do now?” he asks the Machine.

She runs her simulations, and it doesn’t look good.

And here is where it’s different from, say, “If-Then-Else.” Slash another way Root and Nick are very different people/assets.

Whereas Root is perfectly okay with obeying orders from her God without question, Nick needs to be told his options and make the choice himself.

At some point, he describes Access as oddly comforting. It’s almost as overwhelming, almost as much of a surrender, as consenting to possession is.

But there’s one critical difference.

He doesn’t have to listen to her.

He can say no.

He can hang up.

I mean, it’s generally speaking a bad idea to do that, but the option is still available.

So, his head doesn’t feel as empty with her in it, but a lot of it is still on his terms.

That being said, when there’s no time, or it’s a very immediate “there’s someone behind you” type of God Mode moment, of course, that’s less of an issue.

But something like this, where there’s a fork in the road?

If there’s time, she’ll lay out two or three of the least bad options and let him decide.

“If you go out the door and turn left, you will run into Control. She will figure out you’re tied to me, and she will take you prisoner. She will almost certainly torture you, to get you to give me up. Adam and Ashley will meet up with my other assets, and they will rescue you, but the chances of their success are very slim. There is a five percent chance, at best, that you will survive. It varies, depending on how quickly the others can mobilize.”

“Okay,” he says, and swallows. “And...and Adam and Ashley, will they...?”

“They have better than even odds of surviving.”

“Okay,” he says again. “What else?”

“Turn right,” she says. “You’ll run into the demon who held you captive.”

“Meg?”

“Yes.”

That’s not so bad, he thinks. Meg didn’t torture him too much, and she wanted him kept alive.

“Control will capture Root instead,” she continues. “Sameen and the others will attempt to rescue her. Adam and Ashley will pursue you.”

Control capturing Root, on the other hand, seems like a very bad thing. Still...

“Adam and Ashley?”

“About the same,” she says. “But there is another concern.”

“Okay.”

“If Meg takes you, there’s a chance she’ll find me. And if she does, it’s extremely likely that someone less friendly will, as well. There is also an approximately 17% chance that you’ll wind up in Crowley’s hands instead of Meg’s. And his chances of finding me are a lot stronger.”

Yeah, no. That cannot happen.

“Are there any other options?” he asks.

She pauses for a split second. “Turn right,” she says. “Then at the first hallway, turn left instead of going straight. I’ll have to leave you then--there are several Decima soldiers, but if you manage to get past them on your own, you’ll find Sam and Dean Winchester.”

It hits him like a punch to the gut.

“Your chances of reaching them without my help are better than your chances of surviving Control,” the Machine continues, “but not by much. If you can get there, though, they most likely won’t harm you.”

Unless I’m in full-access mode, Nick thinks, and shivers a little.

“And I can say with approximately 97% certainty that, when Adam and Ashley find you, they won’t harm them, either. I cannot say the same for the demons or Control.”

“They won’t hurt us physically,” Nick finally manages to say. “But I can’t...I-I-I don’t know how I’ll...I can’t shut down, not in here. A-and I don’t know how Sam will react to seeing me, I’ll probably seriously fuck with his head a-and I can’t...I can’t...”

(there’s this running refrain in his head, that Sam Winchester is perfect, and that Nick is the reason that everything goes wrong.)

(the Machine regrets even more not getting Nick more help.)

He takes a shaky breath. “Plus, I don’t know if Adam’s ready for that yet,” he says. “He hasn’t...uh, he hasn’t said anything about wanting to track them down.”

“That’s true.”

He’s quiet for another minute.

“Nick?”

“...I’ll take my chances with Control,” he says.

“I understand,” she says. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

(It’s not what she would have advised him to do, necessarily--she would have advised him to try for Sam and Dean; it balances protecting her with protecting the majority of her assets.)

“Directions?” he says.

“Open the door and turn left.”

She guides him down the hallway, advises him where to dodge, where to strike. He picks up a gun at one point--

(he’s hesitant, and she reminds him “you’re in Control’s world now, you have to play by her rules.”)

He gets to the inevitable trap, where ISA corners him and Control is there.

She recognizes, pretty quickly, that he’s in God Mode.

“...now just who the hell are you?”

On the other side of the facility, Ashley’s phone rings.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

The Machine also advises Root that Nick has been captured.

She and Finch have finished neutralizing the potential ASI drives; Reese and Shaw are with them; Carter and Fusco are currently working on securing their exit route, after driving off a handful of Vigilance mooks.

“We need to move,” Root says. “Control has Nick. Adam and Ashley will meet us.”

Reese nods once. “Lionel, Joss, get ready. We’re headed your way.”

“Copy that,” Carter says. “Fusco--”

“On it.”

Meg has realized that Crowley is here, so she’s now in the process of finding her own exit. He’s in pursuit.

Sam and Dean got all turned around and manage to get to just the right hallway at just the right time to see Adam and Ashley piling onto an elevator.

“...Dean,” Sam says. “Dean, tell me you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”

(he doesn’t press his hand. he hasn’t hallucinated in almost two years, he doesn’t need to--)

“Adam?” Dean calls.

Adam half turns to them, hesitates for half a second, then follows Ashley into the elevator and the door slides shut.

...and I’ll admit I don’t have a whole lot planned out beyond that. Also this is getting, like, super long. So, quick wrapup, so to speak.

So, Team Machine, plus Adam and Ashley go to rescue Nick.

Sam and Dean track them down.

Adam goes to talk to them, try and get them to back off.

“I have to go rescue my friend,” he says. “But once I’m done with that, we can talk. I promise. We’ll set up a meeting and I’ll tell you...as much as I remember, I guess. But right now, I have to go rescue my friend. Kind of on a clock here.”

“We’ll help,” Sam offers.

“This isn’t really your kind of thing,” Adam says. “This isn’t monsters, this is the ISA.”

“The what now?” Dean asks.

“Like the CIA, but on steroids.”

“...how the hell did you get involved in CIA bullshit?” Dean asks.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Adam says. “Which I will tell you, once my friend is safe. So can you please just...let me do this first?”

“How did...” Sam asks. “How did you get out?”

“Also a long story,” Adam says. “But I’m the only one who came out, I swear. And...” He hesitates. “They...mostly left me alone, after you were gone. If you were worried about that.”

(Sam hadn’t been, mostly because he had been Very Firmly Not Thinking About Adam for a while now, but he’s relieved to hear it.)

Reese steps out. Possibly holding his grenade launcher. “Come on, Adam, we gotta go.”

“Coming,” Adam says, then turns back to Sam and Dean. “I will call you as soon as we’re clear. I promise. Don’t follow us, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, he follows Reese and they go to rescue Nick.

(Obviously, S&D don’t listen and do, in fact, follow Adam, but I’m not 100% sure where that would go.)

(Other than they do, in fact, manage to extract Nick alive, but it’s a near thing.)

(The fun thing here is, Control actually can’t break Nick. Well, she can’t get him to tell her anything about the Machine, anyway.)

(Yes, everyone has their breaking point so far as pain/torture goes, and Nick is no exception.)

(But he will physically break--i.e., die--before he mentally breaks.)

(And while psychological torture would be a lot more effective, she doesn’t know what buttons to push.)

(When she runs his prints/whatever, she gets the name Jacob White, which is an identity that Finch put together for him, for when he needed to interact with the real world. Since his own identity is...complicated.)

(Yes, that is a reference.)

(I couldn’t resist.)

(Also, the Machine, through Root, gets to deliver her verbal bitchslap to Control at last.)

Uh....yeah. That’s all the actual Plot I have at this point. But some other notes!

My girl Zoe is totally in the know. She may or may not have encountered Bela at some point, or found out some other way, but she does know.

(She never told Harold and John because--well, honestly, why would she? Her stock in trade is secrets, after all. And it never came up, and she wasn’t involved with Nick’s first adventure.)

Elias will turn up at some point. And basically become something like John Marcone, if any of y’all are familiar with the Dresden Files.

Bear’s Plot Armor may be some kind of magic, and I would not be surprised if he could take on a Hellhound and win.

Carter and Jody. Just...just Carter and Jody, man.

Like I said, Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point. She and Dean probably bond. I feel like they would bond.

Also, I think Dean gets put into God Mode at some point. Possibly as his first real introduction to the Machine.

Like...IDK, he and Sam are with Nick for some reason, Nick, as implied above, cannot go into God Mode in front of the two of them, and honestly Sam going into God Mode in front of him would also be pretty devastating, so...Dean’s phone gets to ring!

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“...the fuck?”

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“Yes, I can--what the fuck is--”

“Two. O’clock.”

::turns and OHSHIT just in time::

IDK the idea just entertains me.

...yep, I think that’s it.

If you’re still here, thank you for putting up with my nonsense/checking this out.

Tune in next time, for an actual serious AU outline of some kind.

(....who am I kidding, these things are never serious XD)

[osmw1]

Dimension Wave   Prologue

—Live another life in an alternate universe. Phase II of Project Second Life is live! Now accepting new participants, but hurry—offer ends soon!

“Whaddya think?”

The characters and background art were so realistic, they almost had me fooled. This feature took up seven pages in this gaming magazine, so it’s gotta be quite popular.

“I don’t know what to say…”

Two girls—actually, my older and younger sister—showed up out of nowhere with grins on their faces. They stuck this video game magazine in my face and hounded me over the article. Honestly, I have no clue as to what they’re trying to do. Well, I’d be lying if I said I had no interest in games. But the write-up seems to be about an MMORPG. I’m more of a fan of games like Harvest M○○n and Animal Cr○ssing. I like that comfy, casual pace.

“Ugh, you’re suuuch a bummer!” “I know, right?!” “…”

What’s with them? They’re so hyper. Even if it’s me saying, I think we get along well. We game together since both of my sisters are very into it. Well, it’s probably because of my influence on them, considering that I’m the only guy of us three.

“So? So? Whaddya think?” my younger sister asks me in a cutesy voice.

Her excitement is almost annoying, but since she’s my sister, I hold my tongue and continue reading the magazine pushed up against my face.

Dimension Wave

Looks like it’s an online multiplayer. Skimming through the pages, it looks like players get to work together with allies to fight off enemies. All their weapons, magic, and monsters are pretty typical too. Oh, you can also go fishing. I like stuff like that. It’s nice and relaxing. There are various races to choose from too. Oh? The description seems kinda odd. What’s this?

—Continuing with the well-acclaimed playstyle of the first phase, Phase II of the game will also not allow players to log out until the session has been completed. This further encourages players to fully experience a second life in the game. However, in-game time differs from real-life time. Though each session will require years of in-game time to be completed, it will translate to 24 hours of real-life time. This means that even players who are in full-time employment will be able to enjoy all of the content. We are now accepting new applicants, so don’t hesitate to sign up! Please visit the address below for details.

So it says. Oh, that’s right. I remember now. It was about a year ago when they caused a big stir. It was the guy who planned to create a whole “second life” thing in a VRMMO world.

And as it says in the magazine, months and years in the game will only be just a few hours in the real world. The game targets young professional. For the sake of giving them the chance to live a second life, players also can’t simply logout until the game is done. Content is released monthly to pretty high praise, save for a vocal minority. Or so I’ve read on a gaming news website. Even my buddies were raving about it after trying it out. Is it really that good though?

The problem is that people’s demeanors change after playing. I mean, if you spend seemingly years in the game, it’s bound to affect your personality. There’s even this disgraceful bastard who not only got a girlfriend in the game but is still going out with her IRL.

Fuckin’ normies!

… I should mention that cost of entry is rather high. Not only do you need special equipment, but the game itself costs a lot. After all, the developers and retailers need to make money. In short, it’s not spare change for a student at the very least.

“So? How are you going to pay for it?”

Honestly, even if you begged Mom and Dad for it, they’ll tell you off…

“Heh heh!”

My older sister remains reasonably excited and brings out an envelope. The Second Life Project is written as the sender’s address.

“No, you didn’t…” “I sure did! Here’s the acceptance letter.” “How did you get this? Who did you have to—” “Remember that tournament I won a while ago? This was the prize!”

She spoiled the answer but also my joke. The license was a prize for winning a tournament for this fighting game, which was made by another company of the same conglomerate. I’ve read that they’re making a lot of money lately. My sister definitely signed up the tournament just so she could get her hands on the license. It’s almost weird being related with these girls.

“Three people can sign up with one of these licenses, ya know!”

Here is my older sister who’s grinning from ear to ear and my younger sister who’s almost physically buzzing with excitement.

“Three people? That’s an odd number, eh?”

Isn’t it normally two or four? I’ve heard stories of couples who played together and came out with a stronger bond than ever. But I’ve heard that the game made things worse for some people too. In any case, it looks like I’m invited too. … wait, hold on.

“Hey, why don’t we put these up on an aucti—boof!”

Before I could finish my sentence, my right cheek encountered my younger sister’s fist.

“No way, you dummy!” “No, hear me out. Selling just one of these would give us enough money for a family vaca—boof!”

This time, it was left cheek, older sister.

“I believe I can leave the whole taking care of Mom and Dad thing until after I become a productive member of society.”

They sure are loyal to their desires. Well, it’s not the license is mine anyway, so I don’t really have the right to tell her what do with it.

“So, who’s player three?” “Huh?” they simultaneously interjected. “Hmm?”

The two girls stare at me as if I were speaking alien.

“Don’t you want to play too?” “Uhh, not really?”

It does sound interesting, but I’m iffy about VR games.

“And plus, I get kinda woozy from VR setups.”

VR machines and these fully-immersive online games have been sweeping through the gaming industry. Just before, the sci-fi subgenre of cyberpunk was very popular. Fully-immersive online games made a big splash when they first came out as it was almost as if cyberpunk has become reality. A large portion of gamers were very positive about it too.

Firstly—and I think a lot of Japanese gamers can sympathize—is that a lot of these physically-stimulating virtual reality games rub people the wrong way. For example, like how retro-styled games with pixel art are still really popular, people are used to gaming through a big TV screen. It’s hard to transition away from that concept. Even though I was born into a world where beautiful 3D games were the norm, I’m sure there were people who rejected the transition from pixel art to low-poly graphics.

Well, if that’s the case, I shouldn’t be opposed to these fully-immersive games.

Secondly, the games are very affected by the player’s brainwaves. It’s been recently proven that mental output and processing power vary greatly from person to person. In other words, a person’s ability to judge and reason have been proven, which is why fully-immersive VR games—games that depend on those functions—are heavily dependent on the player’s abilities.

To sum it up, there were gamers who were dissatisfied with the apparent unequal starting lines started cropping up. And excluding the small portion of people who physically and mentally fared well, the sales number weren’t so hot. Well, I guess it’s kinda like when touchscreens first hit the market. Those resistive ones weren’t so good and people didn’t love them. But as technology gets better, so will the performance of VR machines, and I’m sure it’ll then be a big hit.

Hmm, I swear I’ve heard someone tell me this before.

“Y’know, big bro, vat-type VR games have built-in brainwave normalizers so that anybody would be fine, right?” “Oh, is that right? I guess that’s why they’re so expensive then.”

Vat-types could be described as high-performance VR machines. They’re different than regular head-mounted display units hooked up to a computer. Vat-types connect the player by immersing them in a vat full of liquid in which humans can breathe. It’s really something straight out of a mad scientist’s lab. And to speak frankly, the reason why vat-types are invitation-only being because this is tech from the near future—it must cost a whole lot of money to operate.

“Well, I get that even I can play, but don’t you two have anyone else you could invite?” “It’s a ticket for three people! It’d be a lot more fun to go as siblings, don’t you think?” “Yup, she’s right!”

It seems like the three of us are closer than I thought. That makes me rather happy, to be honest. And so, that’s why I’ll be participating in Dimension Wave too.

The day has finally arrived. The three of us go to the venue by train.

Even though my sisters rushed me out of the door, a lot of people had arrived already at the event site. We brought a few things with us, including the license and a USB flash drive that was distributed to all the players. Stored in the flash drive was the data of our created characters. It takes quite a bit of time to customize a character, so they got us to do that ahead of time.

I made my macho mountain of muscles about three days ago. Swole characters aren’t ordinarily popular, but I think they’re cool.

Humans, Lycanthropes, Elves, Jewels, and Spirits were available choices for your character’s race and I chose to make a Spirit. Spirits don’t have levels, HP, or MP, so it makes them pretty special among MMOs. They had a bit of information on their official site, but I had to figure most of that out by myself. Jewels seem interesting too, but I ultimately decided on a Spirit.

I like the unique races.

As for my sisters, the older one picked Human and the younger Lycanthrope. I didn’t ask them, but they told me anyway.

“Oh, looks like they’re starting to let people in.”

Even before I had said that, those two were already restless and had begun heading inside. And why am I at the end of the line anyway? Eventually, I handed one of the three passes to a staff member and got in return a key with a blue plastic number tag attached to it. Then, we were split into two lanes—one for men, one for women.

“See you later.” “See ya!”

I waved them a simple goodbye before heading into the men’s changing room. It’s pretty big in here. I opened the locker with my number on it and found a set of clothes inside. Before the event, we were told to send in our measurements along with our authorization codes so that they can get it tailored to us.

I put my valuables inside, though that consists of only my phone and wallet, and put on the special clothes. It looks like a plugsuit straight out of an anime or something. It’s really elastic. The guys beside me are being awkwardly silent changing into their suits. But even without saying, I can tell they’re thinking of the same thing. I think they used to submerge you in the nude, but after some criticism, they came out with these tailored plugsuits. They even contain emergency life-saving measures. That’s probably one of the reasons why it’s so expensive as well. After changing, I double-checked to make sure my locker was locked and then hurried out the door.

“Whoa…”

The vats lined up row by row was really a spectacle seemingly taken out of a mad scientist’s lab. They’re actually pretty big, even though it’s just for one person. It’s as big as my bed at home.

“Let’s see, let’s see.”

There’s a large sticker placed instructing which way to stick the USB flash drive in and how to shut the door. It’s so simple, anyone can get it right with a quick glance. I plug in my flash drive into the port, hopped in the vat, made sure the door was closed, then slowly lied down. There’s still 10 minutes left until it starts. I take the time to think through what I’ll do in the game.

The two of them mentioned that they were picking a combat class, but I had other plans. I’d think I’d like to try the fishing activity that was in the magazine the other day. I know it might be a bit weird to just fish in an MMORPG, but the whole point of this game is to live a second life, right? I’ll live it leisurely. I haven’t thought much about what’s after though. I’m sure I’ll find a goal while I play. Just as I was thinking about that, I suddenly remember that they had an event called Dimension Wave going on, just like the title. I totally forgot about it up until now. I still have to decide on whether or not to participate, but I’m sure my sisters will. I’d like to at least play support for them.

“Oh?”

Time snuck up on me while I was lost in thought. An announcement played as they started to pump the liquid in. It’s green, I thought… but it was just the reflection of a light inside the vat. On second inspection, it’s actually colorless. The vat filled up in a flash. I’ve subconsciously held my breath, but I can naturally breathe in the liquid. What a shock. I really can breathe. Honestly, I wasn’t actually sure until now.

—Reading data 0%・・・100%. —Data import complete. Beginning brainwave normalizer load test.

I can see it. Rather, it’s being projected straight into my brain. A scene prettier than reality appears before my eyes. Lots of people are walking in the streets of this fantasy town. The sound is coming through too. I hear everything from the male voice of the shopkeeper to the noise of shuffling feet and footsteps. In normal VR systems, you get the tiniest hint of lag, even if it’s not much. But in here, not only is it running without so much a hitch, the fidelity is extremely high. That’s specialized equipment for ya.

—Test complete. Game will begin after all processes complete.

It’s a weird feeling. The voice goes directly into your head without me needing to use my ears. I was thinking that I’ve totally entered a sci-fi world, but tech in the real world is more advanced than I thought. I guess you could call it being excited, but oddly, I couldn’t calm down and stop looking around everywhere. But right as I do so, everything disappeared.

“That can’t be good.”

I’m not just talking about vat-type machines, but when any piece of electronic suddenly goes black like if you yanked the plug out, it kinda makes me feel weird. It’s like as if the world that I’ve been living it just suddenly disappeared.

And then—

—Best wishes to your new life!

previously: /ch000/ /next/

(please support me on Patreon or Paypal)

[aion-rsa]

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

https://ift.tt/3mI17m9

A preface: Cyberpunk 2077 has had one hell of a rocky release, and it’s almost impossible to play the game while also ignoring the controversy surrounding its disastrous console launch, among other points of contention. That being said, in my time with the game—which I reviewed on PC—I remained focused on assessing the game that was in front of me, period.

Cyberpunk 2077 is without a doubt a mixed bag, though its strengths ultimately outweigh its weaknesses. The game blew my hair back with its immersiveness, art and sound design, staggering scope, and production value (at least on PC). But its shortcomings are just as notable, although never catastrophic or deal-breaking. Gameplay has blemishes all over, the writing is tonally inconsistent, and bugs do mar the experience to a certain extent. This is far from a perfect game in its current state. But in spite of all this, part of me fell in love with the game for its ambition, boldness, and eye-popping presentation.

The story is set in the year 2077 in Night City, a Central California metropolis run by megacorporations, populated by millions of cybernetically-enhanced denizens, and poisoned to the core by deep-seeded corruption and crime. You play as V, a small-time crook who by seedy happenstance befriends another gun-waving lughead named Jackie. Together they take on a big-time heist that goes tragically wrong and results, impossibly, with the personality construct of a decades-deceased rockstar/terrorist named Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves) implanted in V’s brain, chopping his remaining life expectancy down to a sliver. V and Johnny must work together to split their respective consciousnesses and take down the Arasaka corporation, whose borderline-demonic tech brought forth their doomed coexistence.

From this point on, you’re free to explore the city and get into all kinds of trouble. There are a multitude of slimy sleazeballs to meet, complete jobs for, and get into shootouts with, as well as all of the other side tasks you’d expect from an urban open world. You can buy/steal cars and motorbikes and use them to compete in street races, stumble upon police shootouts and join in on the action, or steal copious amounts of money and paraphernalia from warring street gangs. There’s A LOT to see and do in this game—the question is, is any of it fun?

The answer is complicated. In short, my answer is “mostly.” I find Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay to be problematic at worst and, at best, reasonably fun. If the game didn’t look and sound so good, I don’t think I would have enjoyed the gameplay almost at all. I have yet to tire of playing Cyberpunk 2077, but I think that’s a testament to how much I love the audio-visual presentation and the characters, not the gameplay itself.

Before diving into the gnarled, twisted matter of gameplay, let’s get this out of the way: this game world is one of the greatest I’ve ever seen. Several studios have delivered amazing looking game worlds this year, but Night City is a serious design achievement that the folks at CDPR should be very, very proud of.

Looking up at the looming, almost monumental buildings that shape Night City’s skyline is breathtaking, but it’s what you see when your eyes come back down to street level that impressed me most. Trash bags piled up two stories high, plugging up alleyways with graffiti of cybernetic freaks scrawled across deteriorating walls. The environments are insanely detailed, but they tell a story, too: look up and you see big money, squeaky clean windows, and technological ambition; look down and you see a sea of sufferers, psychologically and physically wounded citizens bled dry in the name of corporate conquest. From a purely cosmetic perspective, the game looks phenomenal, but it’s the artistic intention behind the designs that really makes the visuals sing.

As far as technical prowess is concerned, the game is spectacular provided you have the right machine to run it. Texture quality is insanely high, the environments are absurdly detailed, and the game’s lighting, especially with ray tracing enabled, is incredibly realistic. The atmosphere in this game is as thick as I’ve ever seen, and combined with the game’s pulsating, evocative, synth-based score, it creates a mood that few other titles can rival. Simply taking a walk around Night City and soaking in the sights was my favorite thing to do.

The character models are another high point–from the detail of the models themselves, to the way they move, to the top-notch facial animation, every weirdo you meet in Night City is unique and expressive. An interesting thing I noticed was that during some cutscenes that I found to be banal from a narrative point of view were still captivating to a certain extent simply because the character animation and voice acting were so well done. Some of the writing is a little odd, particularly when characters who are meant to be thugs and grifters speak in an unusually formal tone, but overall, the voice actors and animators do enough to make the dialogue-driven moments engaging.

What I fear won’t be discussed enough about this game is its sound design, which is just as excellent as the graphics. Cyberpunk 2077 embeds you in its world better than any game I’ve played this year, and that sense of immersion can be largely attributed to the finely-tuned symphony of sounds that is constantly being streamed into your ears. From the squeaking of leather couches when you sit in them, to the muffled thuds you hear when you drive over speed bumps, to the way crowds sound in enclosed spaces versus outdoor spaces, the level of detail and care that went into immersing the player is incredible. The three-dimensional sound design actually makes the visuals appear more vivid and tactile than they actually are.

As for the gameplay, I found Cyberpunk 2077’s combat in particular to be clunky and a tad slow. It isn’t broken or imbalanced, but it isn’t snappy enough and there isn’t that x-factor that you find in most great shooters that keeps you obsessively coming back for more. To put it another way, The Witcher 3’s combat was so compelling and entertaining that I happily played that game for over 400 hours largely because of the combat. Cyberpunk 2077’s combat is absolutely not what pulled me through the game for the 60+ hours I played it, and there are many reasons why.

Release Date: Dec. 10, 2020 Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS5, XSX/S, PS4, XBO, Stadia Developer CD Projekt Red Publisher: CD Projekt Genre: Action RPG

Combat is of the typical first-person shooter variety, with both shooting and melee combat supported. There are a slew of weapons to acquire and upgrade via the game’s crafting system, and the weapons all look and sound pretty sweet but are somewhat forgettable, which is a shame for a game boasting such a breadth of artillery. The “iconic” weapons, which you earn at different points throughout the campaign, stand out the most and come with useful perks. But none feel exciting to wield are pack the punch of Doom’s BFG or Half Life’s gravity gun. I did however enjoy the smart targeting feature you can access through a combination of smart weapons and a handy body mod, which allows your bullets to find their target no matter what direction you aim and can save your ass if you’re cornered and hurting behind cover.

Then there are the other two pillars of combat: hacking and stealth. Hacking allows you to wreak havoc on enemy tech to sabotage or distract them long enough to give you an opening to pounce guns-a-blazing. You can frazzle a baddie’s optics while you sneak up behind them, take control of all security cameras on a given network, or turn on a flood light to manipulate enemy movements. The possibilities are innumerable, and it all sounds great on paper.

But in practice the hacking system just isn’t all that fun to use. I was amused for a time, as I got increasingly more creative with how I used my scanner to tag enemies and objects and sabotage them from afar. But after a while this system became tedious because it slows down the action to an absolute crawl, and the tactical aspects of combat just aren’t polished or engaging enough to make up for the pause. In the later hours of my playthrough, I found myself almost always resorting to in-your-face combat because, well, it solved problems more quickly.

Stealth feels even shoddier than hacking, unfortunately. In most missions, there’s a big emphasis on taking your targets out quietly, but for me sneaking around almost always led to bouts of frustrated groans and eye-rolls. For one, enemies’ lines of sight are really difficult to gauge—some will spot you from seemingly a football field away, while others won’t notice you cross a walkway mere feet in front of them. On top of this, the window of opportunity you have to grapple enemies from behind is finicky—I’d be standing right behind a guy ready to grab him when suddenly the “grab” prompt would disappear inexplicably, when neither of us had moved an inch. I’d move in closer to try again and he’d turn around and…you know the rest.

I believe that if the stealth and hacking were more polished and refined, or even de-emphasized to a certain degree, it would free up the shooting to feel a lot more kinetic and exciting. As is, the combat grows old over time, which is a real shame when you think of The Witcher 3’s combat system, which is incredible and only gets sweeter as you play.

Read more

Games

Cyberpunk 2077: Every Romance Option in the Game

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Cyberpunk 2077: The Best Cyberware Upgrades

By Matthew Byrd

There is a whole litany of gripes I have with Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay. The driving—be it on four wheels or two—feels slippery and unwieldy. The menus are an eyesore. Melee combat is atrocious. The “braindances”–investigative crime-reconstruction mini-games–are headache-inducing…I could go on. But there were other aspects of gameplay that I did enjoy, like the streamlined stash mechanic, the flexible crafting system, the number and variety of missions available at any given time, and most of all, the well thought out RPG elements.

The character progression system didn’t immediately strike me as anything special, but the more I played the game and explored the five skill trees (Reflexes, Technical Ability, Body, Cool, Intelligence), I found that the omission of a traditional class system actually makes character progression more fluid and encourages experimentation as opposed to nudging (or shoving) you down a particular path of mastery. Although I didn’t always enjoy enemy encounters, I did feel like the different perks I acquired helped me succeed in combat in ways that were easily measurable. For example, the “Vanishing Point” perk, which increases your evasion stat for seven seconds after you dodge if you’re dual wielding a pistol and revolver, totally changed the way I approached enemies. I quit stealthing for quite a while because darting around with my pistols blaring turned out to be super effective for me.

Generally, I did enjoy Cyberpunk 2077’s story and the fact that it’s more character-based than plot-based. The relationships between the characters take precedence over the machinations of the narrative, and I appreciate that. As in most RPGs, you meet characters and complete various tasks and quests for them, but with Cyberpunk 2077, I felt that the characterizations were so strong that I was actually more compelled to find out how the relationships between V and his supporting characters progressed than I was to collect precious loot at the end of missions. 

I found all of the game’s characters to be memorable, which comes as no surprise considering the character work CDPR has done in the past. Rogue nomad Panam can be both compassionate and vicious; the dutiful Goro Takemura is almost comically stoic and serious; Jackie’s tight relationship with his family and friends permeates the game in a poetic way. And Reeves does a fine job as Johnny Silverhand, though his style of voice acting took a bit of getting used to for me, particularly when compared to the rest of the cast.

The nice thing about V’s relationships is that the more you explore the city and the more characters you meet, the more possibilities open up to you in the campaign’s final act. There are a multitude of endings that you can reach, but these outcomes are largely dictated by the people you’ve met and how close you are to them. 

What irks me about the game’s last act is how it plays out leading up to the ending. After playing for hours and hours in the beautiful game world that is Night City, I was expecting to be treated to even more imaginative environments and enemy encounters at the game’s conclusion. Without spoiling anything, the final enemy encounters and environments are almost laughably unimaginative and generic, and that was a big letdown.

I indeed experienced bugs during my time with Cyberpunk 2077, but far less than I’ve seen for other platforms online. A couple of crashes and a slew of visual glitches definitely cropped up for me, but they didn’t color my experience nearly as much as the game’s positive traits did, particularly in the visual department. The bugs that bothered me most were the ones that affected the narrative, like when dialogue options would be missing or when characters’ voices would drop out inexplicably. But overall I had a relatively smooth experience that was no more buggy than your typical open world game.

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My relationship to Cyberpunk 2077 is a fraught one. I have so many issues with this game that I couldn’t possibly fit them all into this review. And I have just as many positive things to say. The grandeur of the project is both what I love and hate about it. I do wish CDPR had tightened its focus and worked out some of the game’s more glaring issues before rushing Cyberpunk 2077 out for a holiday release. But at the same time, I deeply respect the scope of the studio’s vision. This is a game with a strong sense of identity, and that’s something that you can’t say about a lot of AAA open-world games these days.

Cyberpunk 2077 is problematic, but ultimately I’m a fan of it in spite of its flaws. And I think in time its flaws will be ironed out and my fandom will only grow.

The post Cyberpunk 2077 Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2Kgqy1m

[lvtvr]

ftagged by @pining-keith and @kukinta (on my main but im gna put it here)!! thanks both of u i love u aaaa <3

Name: charlie Nicknames: char, my one friend calls me charleston dance, also “cholderton” don’t ask Zodiac Sign: pisces im an emotional gay fish Height: 167 cm (so like 5′6″???) Orientation: bi as FUCK Ethnicity: eating white bread feels like cannibalism Favourite Fruit: heck i love most fruit but not much beats a good tangerine or strawberry!!! Favourite Season: spring! Favourite Book: american gods by neil gaiman is my all time fav but i have Different Favs for Different Reasons i can talk abt books all day Favourite Flowers: i dont think about this a lot???? i prefer green plants to flowers honestly skjgsdg Favourite Scent: aaaa i’m not sure but i tend to like crisp scents like mint or citrus Favourite Animal: u know that really old video with the girl making her eharmony bio but then she starts crying and gets emotional when she thinks about cats? that girl is me Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate: hekc this is like the holy trinity but i’ve gotta say tea. i relate to uncle iroh a lot Cat or Dog Person: see above. (i mean i like dogs??? but i see a cat and i fucking LOSE IT) Favourite Fictional Character: lavi from dgm is my husband who will always have a place in my heart tbhhh. i also really love delirium from the sandman comics, cloud strife from ffvii and lately i’ve gotten super attached to the drifter from hyper light drifter dfsdgdsg Dream Trip: palios the dream has always been to live in tokyo and that’s happening in less than a month i am dying Blog Created: made this blog in october 2016 but i first joined tumb in 2011 bc of homestuck (SHUT UP I KNOW) and its been an on and off rlship ever since Number of Followers: less than 600 more than 500!! it’s like the comfy side of nobody where people still kinda interact w u but u dont get hate aw yiss What Do I Post About: voltron on here; anime, cats, aesthetics, bullet journal stuff and funny text posts over on my main @charmkvark which u should check out ;3 ;3 ;3 and i also run a cool cyberpunk blog @synthpulse Do I Get Asks on a Regular Basis: not like suuuper regularly but i get one or two occasionally and they always make my day!! im real approachable i promise <3 Aesthetic: i have like 98 different aesthetics omg... on the one hand i like bright colors, urban landscapes, trains, fruit, and soft animals!! but i also like witchy stuff and of course i would Die for cyberpunk and i also adore 20s-40s film noir style aaaaaaaa Favourite Band: mucc Fictional Character I’d Date: l  a  v  i listen u dont understan d Hogwarts House: confession time i never did the pottermore quiz bc i was real scared of Not getting ravenclaw sdkjsdgg i identified deeply as one when i was a kid

tagging: @konekat @sleapygazelle @wolfwisp @daretoweeb @ja-e-muffin-art-dump @parinite @kattkvitter @ace-pidge @floralkeith @undinelance GKSDLJDSG I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE I’VE MISSED PEOPLE WHEN I DO THESE BUT O WELL also no pressure just want u guys to know i appreciate yall~

[starkblazer]

answer these questions and tag 20 blogs

@piratecaptainraven thanks for tagging me, you are a treasure.

name/nickname: most people irl call me by my given name, no nicknames, but in here i prefer to go by whatever variation of my username someone decides on, so if you have to, address me however the fuck you want.

gender: female if i don’t think about it

star sign: gemini and i hope none of you astrology bitches are surprised about it.

height: 5′5′‘ baby! or actually 1.65m since i’m not a monster

time: 16:41

birthday: 27th may

fav band: according to spotify i’m currently listening to måneskin and florence + the machine a whole bunch but i have a soft spot for a spanish band called fito y fitipaldis and i come back to them a lot

fav solo artist: don’t have a fave but i’ve been in a country mood lately listening to orville peck, christian kane and, lil nas x who’s country adjacent

song stuck in my head: Oh My Captain by Rayland Baxter and you know why, go give it a listen

last movie: mmm... probably raya and the last dragon which i enjoyed immensely

last show: i watch several shows concurrently so that means i’ve been watching black sail, legends of tomorrow and loki

when i created this blog: if my archive is right, back in 2012 when i was but a baby

what i post: everything? anything i’m currently watching or obsessed with honestly, and right now that means a fuck ton of black sails, a bit of constantine and some random post about the old guard because the live rent free in my mind

last thing i googled: swallows (the birds), uk lawyers (because of a random modern au silverflinthamilton fic that’s been driving me up the wall) and bear mccreary (the composer)

other blogs: nope, we are every emotion on main, baby!

do i get asks? not usually? i’ve gotten a couple these past weeks and i’m very grateful

following: 462

why i chose my URL: it’s a mashup from two of my faves, tony stark and hellblazer aka my man john constantine

lucky number: don’t have one but i like number 3

followers: 180 because it’s gone up in the last few days and i’m so thankful for every single one of you

average hours of sleep: more than i should, honestly. i really try not to loose sleep because i’m a disaster otherwise

instruments: ha! not a single one, i am totally hopeless when it comes to playing music

what am i wearing: red stripy maxi dress that’s comfy as heck

dream job: i don’t have one of those thanks, but i enjoy working with kids and i have a few preferences of work in my industry but c’mon i’d rather read and write my whole life

fav food: spanish omelette thank you very much, you all are missing out.

nationality: as if i hadn’t given it away already, i’m very much spanish

fav song: i don’t have one of those, sorry

last book i read: can’t remember, american gods by neil gaiman maybe? i haven’t had the energy to read actual books in a long time

top 3 fictional universes id like to live in: cyberpunk 2077 and black sails for aesthetic reasons only and maybe no man’s sky because of space exploration and learning alien languages reasons

tagging with no obligation: yeah i’m not tagging 20 people but maybe a few of my mutuals wanna do this if they haven’t been tagged before?

@zebraljb @stronglyobsessed @paintthe-rosesred @soft-and-exhausted @thepandoraylambox

(btw, every artist has a link to a song or a playlist, i hope you guys appreciate the effort)

[entergamingxp]

The 10 Games You Shouldn’t Miss in 2020

January 10, 2020 10:30 AM EST

With releases like Cyberpunk 2077, Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, and Doom Eternal, 2020 will be a solid year to end this console generation.

New year, a new list of game releases to look forward to. With 2020 being the last year that the PS4 and Xbox One are the industry leaders, the games that release in the coming months will push each system to its full potential. Heck, some of these games may possibly be the best we’ve seen since this console generation started in 2013. As such, here’s a brief list of games you should not miss when they launch this year. That is if we don’t see any delays…

Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon

If there is one thing the DualShockers staff learned during our game of the year deliberations for 2019, it is to not sleep on Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Yes, the makers of Judgment, our surprise game of the year winner for 2019, is making the next iteration of its popular Yakuza franchise: Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon.

However, unlike past Yakuza games, this will not feature the action-adventure gameplay you’ve become accustomed to since the first entry launched back in 2005. Instead, it completely deviates from its action-heavy roots, featuring turn-based mechanics. It will also star a new protagonist, Kasuga Ichiban, rather than Kazuma Kiryu. If you haven’t played any of the previous Yakuza entries, Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon may be a perfect introduction since it is seemingly wholly different than its predecessors.

Granblue Fantasy Versus

If you’ve followed my ramblings on DualShockers, you will know I am a fighting game nerd. Mortal Kombat 11, Samurai Shodown, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Tekken 7 are among my favorite games of the generation. So, it makes sense I would add Granblue Fantasy Versus to this list.

It’s hard not to be excited about a new Arc System Works fighting game. Between Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle, Guilty Gear Xrd, and Dragon Ball FighterZ, the Japan-based developer have put out some bangers in the fighting genre. With its 2.5D animation, at the very least, it will be a gorgeous game as you get stomped during all those online matches. I’m not speaking from personal experience. Not at all…

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Okay, this wouldn’t be a DualShockers list without a Square Enix RPG. So, I present to you Final Fantasy VII Remake.

To be quite frank, the game speaks for itself. Final Fantasy VII Remake is a retelling of one of the most beloved and influential games of all time. However, rather than the turn-based gameplay of the original, this remake will be much more action-oriented. This will allow you to control Cloud Strife and his fellow rebels more deliberately. Along with its gorgeous visuals, this will surely be one of the biggest titles in 2020.

This first release will not cover the game in its entirety. Yes, there will be multiple parts to Final Fantasy VII Remake. Where this first entry will leave off is still unknown. However, if I were a betting man, I would say it ends when you escape Midgar. (Sorry to spoil a game that is over 20 years old.)

Doom Eternal

Remember when I said this wouldn’t be a DualShockers list if it didn’t include a Square Enix RPG? Well, it also wouldn’t be a DualShockers list if a new Doom game was not on the list. There is an unusual amount of love for the first-person shooter at DualShockers. By ‘unusual,’ I mean totally warranted since Doom (2016) is arguably one of the best games this generation and the Doom franchise is the most influential shooter ever created. This is not bias. This is a fact.

Joking aside, Doom (2016) is a technical marvel. It is such a brilliant showcase with great graphics and frenetic gameplay that rarely hitches, even on consoles. Along with its killer soundtrack, it is one of the best shooters of this console generation. A follow-up to that game is incredibly exciting. Also, who doesn’t want to slay demons to the sweet sounds of Mick Gordon’s rippin’ and tearin’ metal riffs?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

On the same day the demon-slaying first-person shooter Doom Eternal releases, Nintendo Switch players may opt to commit to an entirely different hell. I’m talking about forkin’ over that cash to Tom Nook in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Nintendo’s Animal Crossing series may not be on the same mainstream popularity level as the Super Mario or The Legend of Zelda franchises. Still, it is immensely popular among Nintendo players. Perhaps it’s because it allows the player to escape from their real-life woes by living a second, more carefree life. Maybe it’s just because they like interacting with cute animals, even if that means having to pay a massive debt to a raccoon. With Animal Crossing: New Horizons being the newest mainline entry since New Leaf (let’s not count the mobile version), along with some cool new features, Doom Guy may have finally found his match.

Dying Light 2

This is actually the game I think people are going to sleep on, and regret not picking it sooner once they play it in 2021. Out of any game on this list — maybe except for Cyberpunk 2077 — Dying Light 2 has to be the most ambitious game on this list.

I liked Dying Light, but it didn’t really leave a lasting impact on me. Just from the footage I saw at E3 2018, I am still excited to see how Techland’s newest zombie adventure pans out. Games have had branching paths before, but Dying Light 2 seems to be taking this to the extreme. From the looks of it, depending on the outcome any given quest can change the world significantly. Not just from the look, but how these last remaining groups of survivors interact with one another. It really does look incredible.

Axiom Verge 2

The first Axiom Verge was such an awesome surprise when it launched back in 2015. Even within a crowded genre, developer Thomas Happ not only managed to make a great “Metroidvania,” he arguably made the best one released this generation. It’s H.R. Giger inspired art, fun gameplay, and exciting sci-fi world made Axiom Verge so much fun to play.

With a sequel now slated for this year, this is definitely a game to look forward to. Axiom Verge 2 was revealed during Nintendo’s Indie World showcase with a new trailer. Deviating from its 8-bit inspired art style in the first, the sequel will have a much brighter look and a completely different pixelated art style that still impresses. If Axiom Verge 2 is equally as good as its predecessor, this will be a game you will not want to miss.

Ghost of Tsushima

The last time we saw a proper game from Sucker Punch was in 2014 when the studio launched inFAMOUS: Second Son for the PS4. Depending on who you talk to, it was either a solid showcase for the PS4 at the time or not the studio’s best work. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be excited about their next game: Ghost of Tsushima.

This is the first time Sucker Punch will be working on a new IP since inFAMOUS launched back in 2009. While there isn’t much known about the upcoming game, Ghost of Tsushima looks incredible. Just look at that trailer above. It is unreal that those visuals will be coming from a PS4. The same way The Last of Us was sort of the pinnacle of PS3 titles, I think Ghost of Tsushima will be that for the PS4.

Session

Look, beggars can’t be choosers. The much-demanded follow-up to EA’s Skate franchise doesn’t seem to be skating its way to consoles any time soon, if at all. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great alternatives to the beloved skateboarding simulator. That is where Session comes in.

Developed by Creature Studios (stylized as creā-ture Studios), Session really embraces its simulation gameplay. While Skate is more approachable, with a control scheme that takes about 30 minutes to get comfortable with, Session can be incredibly challenging to play. However, that doesn’t make it bad, by any means. From the few hours I’ve played, every moment is a learning experience. The real-life grind of skating a single spot for hours to hit a line perfectly is exceptionally exemplified, which will either entice or scare people. As someone who used to skate regularly, this is what I’ve been looking for.

Cyberpunk 2077

Last, but certainly not least, we have Cyberpunk 2077. Developed CD Projekt Red, the Polish studio’s newest adventure looks unbelievable. In many ways, this is the game I’ve been waiting for since I first watched Blade Runner. Dingy dystopian setting? Check. A protagonist with a cool jacket? Check. Androids? Also, check. And that is really all you need to intrigue me.

Cyberpunk 2077 seems so vast. And if it’s any larger than The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it will be almost intimidating for me to even start. That being said, this game is going to be a spectacle and something I cannot possibly miss. If Cyberpunk 2077 can maintain the quality the studio is now known for, it will be a solid “swan song” for this current console generation.

Of course, these are just a few games you may not want to miss in 2020. Essentially, once March begins, we are going to be bombarded with a ridiculous amount of potentially quality titles. Some of which may have been exempted from this list. Which begs the question, what games are you looking forward to this year? Let us know in the comments below!

January 10, 2020 10:30 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/the-10-games-you-shouldnt-miss-in-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-10-games-you-shouldnt-miss-in-2020

[drink-n-watch]

Genre : Cyberpunk, Sports!, action, cool

Studio: TMS Entertainment

Well this is unexpected. I’m not quite sure where to begin. I haven’t ever really found myself in this type of position before. To be frank, I never thought I would ever have to write anything like this. Since the beginning of this show I’ve been pretty steadfast in one this but now, I just don’t know where I stand anymore. Despite a marked presence, those kids didn’t annoy me!

exciting stuff!

This week, Megalo Box centered around the 3 Bs, that is, Boxing, Business and Brothers.

The episode opened on what could be perceived as a simple flexing of the artistic muscles as the production team showed off their already very obvious talent with a fatalistically enjoyable montage of, coolness? This opening tag was pretty much flawless, from the catchy and well synchronized music choice, to the always beautiful character designs of people we will never see again, to the lushly saturated colors. It was a treat to watch.

I still get a Gorillaz vibe from these scenes and I love it!

And had it been a simple piece of eye candy for the audience, that would already have been pretty good but it also turned out to have a narrative import. What that minute or so of pure fun did, was seamless detail Joe’s meteoric rise in popularity without resorting to a single line of text or dialogue. Good job guys, this is what everyone is drooling about.

The entire episode in fact, has a certain hunger games feel, as we departed from the pure art and physicality of boxing, and got a peek at the complex business behind it. Nanbu has been pretty consistently showing us the dual role of coach and promoter, spending as much time hustling to line up interesting matches for Joe as training him to fight in them, but Megalonia is on a whole different level.

and the don’t seem too pleased to have people encroaching on their turf

We’re talking board meetings, number crunching on ratings and courting advertisers. In the end, it’s much more important for the owners and sponsors of the tournament to have a highly marketable champion that who that champion actually is. In that regard, Joe’s suddenly undeniable fame may buy him a place in the ring regardless of his rank.

This is the aspect that reminded me of those scenes in the Hunger Games, where the kids could receive gifts from patrons in the audience. One of my very favorite elements… It says something that I liken the episode to the completely fictional and rather far fetched universe of the Hunger Games, instead of real world sports promotion where all these elements are a daily reality .

looks familiar?

One aspect they haven’t gotten into yet (and maybe never will but I hope they do), is the symbiotic business relationship between Megalonia and whoever manufactures those gears. Yuri seems to have a dedicated team that has created a personal hardware fine tuned for him only, but mass produced gears exist. Do they have any use outside boxing? We didn’t see anyone using them in those battleground scenes but it would seem to be a natural fit with military or law enforcement. Not necessarily for hand to hand combat extra physical strength can be useful in many situation. First responders and firefighters for instance.

Otherwise, then I figure those companies must manufacture other products as well. No matter how popular Megalo boxing may be, it’s not going to be profitable enough for an entire side industry. In that way, Joe’s gearless statute may rub some people the wrong way for completely different reasons than we’ve seen up until now. Threatening their industry should the trend ever become widespread.

is Joe vs The Machine already a movie?

Seeing Yuri train really brought that home, as his highly sophisticated and integrated gear makes him almost inhuman in the ring. There’s a real Man vs Machine setup happening… Yeah it took me 7 episodes for the obvious to dawn on me. I have other qualities!

So we’ve covered the Boxing and Business but what about the brother?

Well that would be late comer and pretty boy Miko. When they mentioned that Yukiko had a brother, for a second there I thought it was Yuri and figured Oooohhh That makes sense! Sadly, it wasn’t to be no matter how well it fit with my completely made up side narrative. Instead, we have Miko who is going to be our antagonist of the week for an episode or two.

an attactiv antagonist? I bet he’ll either get a redemption or be a complete monster

As the man had only appeared for a second in the last episode, we started off knowing nothing about Miko. He seemed pleasant enough. Clam, affable, even looks a little like Joe. To be honest, I’m still not sure I know much about him. He has a big chip on his shoulder about his sister and his place in the family business and is taking his rise in Megalonia as some sort if personal revenge quest but that’s about it.

The show is trying to set him up as a huge jerk for having challenged Joe just to blackmail him into forfeiting the match but I’m not sure where this goes. They made it sound really dramatic with desperate whiles as the episode faded to black. However, Joe wouldn’t have had a shot at all at the match if it wasn’t for Miko personally challenging him and this will make people even more curious which will make his next match a huge draw for the audience.

Nanbu is REALLY strong!

The only long term negative is that someone else knows Joe’s secret now and could use it to blackmail him again in the future.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable episode, one of my favorites , and I’m really looking forward to next week again.

I love this image, I can’t explain why

Somehow I ended up not using any pictures of Joe… It’s not cause I didn’t have them, see:

  #MEGALOBOX Ep 7 - Sibling Rivalry Genre : Cyberpunk, Sports!, action, cool Studio: TMS Entertainment Well this is unexpected. I'm not quite sure where to begin.

[reachisrich-blog]

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