#slog log

[thatcageofuncleanbirds]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61243150/chapters/156869524

this lomonaaeren chapter has some of the worst descriptions ive seen in a while, and i dont just mean the horror of your average lomonaaeren sex scene, although that was pretty bad. ("cock was a brilliant red" and "cry out his pleasure" feature, but sex scenes in her fics are always mercifully short)

i was actually surprised by how bad this imagery was because i usually like her inventions, although they tend to be very curt and straightforward.

so, like, behold:

When the Fiendfyre appeared, this time in the shape of a demonic unicorn with spikes on both its horn and hooves and the curved fangs of a meat-eater,

stupidest creature ive seen written in ages.

like, what the hell. what if a unicorn was evil and was covered in spikes and had fangs and was made of fire? wouldnt that be cool?

how are the spikes arranged on the hooves?? im imagining them like toes D:

i gotta say, though, lomonaaeren has gotten a lot better at jokes. like, thats not huge praise because her writing is famously wooden, but i did crack a smile a few times and that's new.

im not sure how i feel about her recent (aka last few years) turn into writing intimacy and codependency. like, on one hand, i love that crap, and i especially like her take on it in this fic. on the other hand, the reason why lomonaaeren has always fascinated me is because i think her approach to writing avoidant isolation and habitual secret-keeping is very unique. so i guess my question is, am i more moved by the stories that resonate with me for fantasy reasons or for personal reasons?

[joehills]

Every Saturday night, I do a "grind and read" stream where I complete the most repetitive resource-gathering or block-placement tasks while reading stories aloud! This week, I read five chapters of Moby Dick while harvesting coal!

My streamer's log of the action: https://joehills.net/slog-2024-10-19-moby-dick-73-77/

[chayannesegg]

i want to defend blue team's strat bc i feel like people are (validly) annoyed by how hard to counter it was (i really think tubbo would have claimed them even if etoiles and roier hadn't glitched bc he was so well positioned [tho we'll never know weep 😭]) but if you're annoyed, congrats! that's how blue team's felt the past 2 days lol while ~technically~ they could counter by defending spawn like etoiles and roier tried to they a) don't have that many players online at that time naturally (etoiles and tubbo having to be on a 4-5am is not healthy even if possible) and b) it's VERY easy—even without doing tubbo's log strat—to have one person run in spawn and claim them all in <2 secs in the last 10 minutes and have the countdown make it impossible to counterclaim. like REALLY easy. and if they've already claimed the contracts, there is literally nothing they can do but watch the other team win which is VERY frustrating. so it's purposefully irritating/dirty strategy that protests the late login being so op. i'm pretty sure tubbo complained on day 2 that the game rewards waiting until the last 15 minutes to claim rewards unless they balanced it better. blue then lost to the same balancing issue two days in a row. and only tomorrow, on day 5 is it getting fixed. that's the slowest any balancing issue has been implemented so far!! (the % changes daily to fit the gameplay, they gave more detail on the points breakdown the day after blue asked, they added the spawn safe zone today WHILE bad was spawnkilling) blue team simply took the late login strat to its logical extreme, and i think that it really highlights why the game is changing to avoid this outcome!! but blue suffered for like 3 days from this unfairness so i, personally, think it's well-deserved for them to use it to their advantage on the last day it's possible!!

[spock-adoodledoo]

meme with the circular self looping arrow where the task is "finish three body problem the dark forest"

[garaviel]

I am really sick of swtors HEY YOU GET ONE UPDATE EVERY 6 MONTHS AND ITS LIKE 2 HOURS OF GAMEPLAY AND NOT MUCH DIALOGUE WITH NPCS YOU DONT HAVE A CONNECTION TO THATS ENOUGH RIGHT

[ghostpajamas]

how is nicies and can u link some of their art?

nicies, like nice but said cute-style. ask me off anon please

[fenavellan]

this blog isn't abandoned, just resting!

[wizardbarf]

Hogs is Blogs

[thatcageofuncleanbirds]

once again fixated on vathara's mzds/valdemar crossover, a fic which says a lot about vathara and very little about anything else

i realized when reading this the first time that vathara fucking loved lan wangji, which retrospectively made a lot of her choices in the last few decades make more sense.

the fic is very good at handling a large cast and a lot of moving parts, and it does not suffer from quip obsession like vatharas writing did in the beginning, but it is still filled with her thoughts on family, violence, and authority.

i always enjoy vathara's approach to family. she is, like, one of the cornerstones of found family in fanfiction as we know it today. a significant number of fanfiction authors in their 30s or so were obsessed with her fic at some point. her idea is basically that your blood family can be important, but the circumstances of your birth shouldn't be, and disavowing your parents is the right thing to do if they are shit. you can't just erase that stuff, but it is your duty to fight against it if it sucks.

the more complicated part is the other side what she thinks duty should be. it's kind of hard to explain. the thing she always writes into her stories is, like, if you arent willing to use violence to protect your community, then you are a hypocrite that more special and important people will protect even though you may turn and stab them in the back. like, most people are sheep and those policing them are the tragic heroes they don't deserve.

mercedes lackey tended to write violence as a thing that hurt her heroes as much as it hurt their enemies, but you can still see why vathara likes valdemar as a setting if you've read those books. however, mzds is a bit more antithetical to vathara's usual philosophy, so it's funny to me that she wrote the mzds setting as only tangentially important to the story of her fic LOL

i have a lot more to say on this topic, but im not gonna do it right now.

i have no idea if i would recommend this fic to anyone, but i sure do contemplate it a lot.

[stolligaseptember]

one of the upsides to growing up in a village so small that literally everyone knows everyone is that when a case originates there i'm instantly disqualified from dealing with it

[finniestoncrane]

Im not gonna request this as an anon because im proud to be pathetic.

Fem!reader teasing the hell out of Hector without the glasses on and then in the evening when she puts them on she's gonna pamper him like he deserves!! All the while telling him how much she'd been thinking about him that day, how whenever she felt a breeze it made her want to see him and touch him!! I NEED THEM TO YEARN FOR EACHOTHERRR

But also for the reader to be a massive tease,,,

Hector x Fem!Reader, word count: 1.1k sweet mother of god the opportunities you'd have during the day to rile that little appliance up!! good luck explaining to the repairman that he's goine on the fritz because of a weird sort of sticky substance clogging up his ducts... request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: teasing, flirting, exhibitionism kinda, masturbation

The ticky-tacky sounds of your keys against the steady hum of the PC stopped so abruptly, and you let out a deep sigh. Sitting at your desk, you shrugged off your cardigan. And then, with a dramatic flair, you ran the back of your hand across your forehead.

"Gosh, it is so hot in here today. I wish I could just shut this thing down and go get comfortable. Hell, if it gets any hotter, I might have to peel of these sticky, clingy clothes and get completely naked."

You tried to hide your smile as you heard the telltale click, the soft whirring that suggested the air conditioning system was kicking in, the temperature slowly rising.

"But I'm just too busy for that. I just wish I was a little more comfortable, then I could finish my work quickly and get back to the things I really want to do."

Another click, a slightly different churning sound as the air began to blow cold almost immediately. Hector was listening, watching, just as you hoped he would be. Your comfort was still more important to him than the lure of anything arousing. But you had more in store for him.

"Phew, that feels so good. Yes, mmh, that's exactly what I needed. It feels amazing."

Ten more minutes of typing seemed like the perfect amount to rile him up, to have him pressing his sweet nose against the grate in antiicpation of your next request, or perhaps a move at the desk that might offer him a glimpse of your skin, down your shirt, along your legs, he'd take anything, and you knew you had him in the palm of your hand, even if you couldn't quite see him without the required glasses on.

"Hm, it does feel nice to have a cool breeze around me, but maybe I should have put on a bra. It's cold enough that it's definitely having an effect on me. Luckily, there's no one around to see. I'd feel completely exposed if anyone saw me like this."

It was almost like you could feel Hector's eyes on you, a piercing gaze focused on the front of your thin shirt, nipples stiffening in the almost freezing temperature of the room, pointing outwards, your fingers grazing over them as you let your hands travel down your front. And then an exaggerrated shiver which made your breasts jiggle ever so slightly, enough though that you knew Hector would notice.

"I just cannot get it right today! If only I had someone to wrap their warm arms around me, just to heat me up. Maybe they could place their palms on the extra cold parts of my body."

The air conditioning unit grumbled, as though it were reaching a breaking point, but the temperature didn't change. It stayed the same as the little machine struggled.

"What I wouldn't give for some warm, loving hands carressing my body right now, touching me all over, keeping me the perfect temperature."

A final click as the air conditioning turned off. The room was an adequate enough temperature that you could tolerate it for the rest of the day while Hector recovered. You knew you wouldn't get much out of him now, not after you'd spent the entire morning and the better part of the afternoon teasing him like that.

And at five, when you could finally log off from the Valdivian slog, you headed to your bedroom and picked up your dateviators from the side table. You sat down on the edge of the bed and faced up to the wall, speaking to him directly for the first time all day.

"Hey, sweety, how are you? I missed you today!"

Hector choked on his first word, spluttering over it as he tried to form a sentence.

"My love... You've tortured me. I am spent. I've given my all to you, and I am afraid I am entirely drained."

You let out a soft giggle, blushing at the idea of him feeling so low on energy just from your teasing.

"You'll pick back up again soon, maybe a little rest will help you get your spirits back up."

"N-no. No, you do not understand, my dear. I've... I've been unable to restrain myself. Watching you under the effects of my doing, your skin prickling with heat, puckered with gooseflesh at the cold, the sounds you make when you are satisfied, when you are dissatisfied even. I must confess, I have indulged..."

Your teeth caught your bottom lip, biting it softly to try and stifle the moan that got caught in your throat.

"Hector... Are you telling me that you've been watching me all day? And deriving pleasure from my struggles with finding the right temperature?"

"I... I have. I apologise so profusely, but it is almost impossible to deny myself that when I long for your touch so badly. You can't imagine how it feels, to see you, so beautiful, so perfect. And to feel that ache. I had to relieve myself, in order to do my duty. But I am afraid I gave in to the temptation too many times. I have very little left to give."

Standing up from the edge of the bed, you moved to the wall directly below the vent, leaning against it with a sigh.

"That's a shame, Hector. I don't want to push you beyond your capabilities. It's just, I've been thinking about you all day too. How badly I want you, how I wish you were there beside me."

He pressed his forehead against the vent, the view a perfect one. He could see your body, down the collar of your shirt, your hands on your chest as you held yourself back.

"Oh, my love, you have no idea how badly I want that too."

"I knew you'd understand, Hector. It's not enough to feel your breezes moving through my hair, and it's just not the same to feel my skin heating from your expert temperature control. I want you to heat me from the inside, I want to feel your fingers on my body, I want the ache of wanting to have me sweating. I want you, Hector."

You were so distracted by your own thoughts of longing, the desire for him to manually make you sweat, that you hadn't heard his whimpering, the soft, telltale groans of his arousal as he listened to your words, until that final yelp, the whine of release. And as you lifted your back from the wall to face the vent, you could see just the smallest trail of his cum dripping from one of the gaps.

"Not entirely drained then, were you?"

[wateredmelontum]

Is it too late to post about how stuffed I got at Christmas??

Last Christmas, I had an idea I wanted to try. My plan was to spend the entire day eating or drinking without ever really hitting my ceiling until the evening when I would have some time alone. The idea was that my belly would be get stretched out at my first meal, and then remain stretched out until my final meal when I would absolutely go for broke. During the day, I kept a log of everything I ate as well as took pictures. Looking back it's kind of ridiculous the amount of food I managed to eat and how round and tight my tummy got..

I started off kind of slow with a slice of coffee cake and a big bowl of fruit salad. Since I woke up kind of late, lunch wasn't too far behind. I ate huge portions of meatloaf, green beans, and potato pancakes with a tall glass of seltzer. Almost immediately after my lunch, I heated up some leftover pizza and helped myself to a thick slice of apple cake and an apple (for health! and they take up a surprising amount of room in your tummy which is a bonus). At this point, my belly was appreciably rounder, pulling my shirt tight across its fullness, and over my back and chest.

I casually mingled with my family and made my way to the fridge to see what else I could graze on to keep my tummy feeling this round and tight. There was a ton of the fruit salad I had for breakfast left, so I slowly made my way through that while I chatted with everyone. The fruit was so fresh and sweet, I was in no rush to finish. This was was a marathon, not a sprint.

I had more time to kill before we made our way to a more formal early dinner. I cracked open a beer and leaned back. The carbonation stretched my belly out even a little more, which felt amazing, as did the series of burps it brought up. I was round and content.

The only issue was that now that we were having our formal dinner, I had to change from comfortable clothes into khakis and a button down. I knew these were going to be a tight fit. The khakis were from a few years ago, and while I hadn't put on a lot of weight since then, my legs and ass had definitely gotten bigger and more muscular. The shirt, too, while a more recent purchase, I had intentionally chosen to show off my back and shoulders. It was not at all sized with room to spare for a massive food baby. Buttoning the khakis made the waistband dig into my tender lower belly. The buttons on my dress shirt were pulled tight across my swollen girth. And, as I munched on another apple while I waited for dinner, I found that the button right by my belly button where my tummy stuck out the furthest would periodically become unbuttoned as I shifted around!

Dinner was a pretty spectacular affair - prime rib, scalloped potatoes, wings, more green beans, and salad. I loaded my plate up to its limits with everything. And I won't lie, at this point I was really starting to slow down. I had dreams of going for seconds or thirds, but it was a tremendous slog to get though the first plate alone. I don't even know how many burps I tried to stifled, how many times I had to readjust how I was sitting to get more comfortable, or rebuttoned that stubborn button on my shirt that kept coming undone.

I felt like I might slip into a food coma at any moment when I finished my plate. Still, I had made a plan, and I would stick to it the best that I could. I knew dessert wasn't for a little while, so I snacked on some coffee cake and sipped another beer while I waited. I was so full and sleepy and finally a little buzzed, it was heavenly. Had someone snuck up on me with a belly rub, I probably would have dozed right off.

I overshot things a little at dessert though, crossing over from stuffed into full on tummy ache territory. There was rich tiramisu and key lime squares, both of which I took two helpings of. And ohhh boy did I regret it. I was now 100% at my limit, well ahead of schedule. None of my meals or snacks had been outrageously big, but the cumulative effect of eating and drinking for almost eight hours straight had finally caught up with me. My belly was so incredibly tender, I couldn't wait to get changed into something a little more comfortable and just lay back and digest.

I got my wish soon enough, and got back into pants with a stretchy waistband that I could push down below my aching belly and a t shirt. For the next couple of hours, I hung out on the couch watching TV and making as much conversation as I felt up for. Eventually, everyone started to leave for the night. Once I knew everyone was asleep and I would have to place to myself, and I had given my poor tummy a much needed break, I made one last attempt to fill myself back up, hoping to make as many leftovers as I could "disappear".

There were still two slices of pizza left, so I did my part by finishing those as well as some collard greens to start. I was shocked at how hungry I still was, and immediately went to heat up an absolute brick of scalloped potatoes with pulled pork and meatloaf from lunch. Eating was getting tougher by the bite, even the show I was watching wasn't helping to distract me much. Now that I was alone, I was freely rubbing my taught tummy and groaning. Dinner part two eventually met its end. But still, was I really at my complete limit, I wondered. Could I keep pushing further? There was only one way to find out..

I grabbed a plate of homemade cookies and plopped myself back down on the couch with a beer. I was starting to feel a little dizzy. My belly would weakly groan and gurgle with each sip, trying to understand what was happening to it. For some reason though, as much as my stomach hurt, I could not stop thinking about that tiramisu... I HAD to have another plate full. Getting back up to the fridge was a huge undertaking, eclipsed only by finishing my plate. The serving I took was probably the same size as both of the servings I took early in the day combined, and then some.

Anyway, this is how big I was when I went to bed. My belly would intermittently groan and creak as I lay in bed trying to soothe it. I can't even describe how tight it felt right at the top, or how viscerally I craved another set of hands to help soothe it. There was no way I could have eaten any more. Even the slightest pressure would send waves of pain and pleasure through my whole gut. It was easily at the top of the list for stuffings I've done, in terms of the size of my belly after and size of my belly ache.

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy October 17th Beta update has launched today on itch.io for free!

Happy Halloween! We pulled out all the stops just to get the update out in time for you to prep and play it for your group’s Halloween game! The free adventure module that comes with it, “Horror Harry’s Haunted House”, takes place on Halloween after all! In it, your investigators will solve a “murder mystery” in a charmingly spooky haunted house escape room. It serves as a sort of investigation and survival training ground for you and your PCs to learn the ropes before jumping into more Call-of-Cthulhu-esque adventures where death is around every corner. (You can even get two more adventure modules over on our patreon)

Download the new rulebook here on itch.io! Even if you download it for free, just checking it out, talking about it, reblogging this post, etc. helps us out immensely. We are a diverse, largely queer team setting out to slay a dragon, we’ve already been working on this for four years, and we need all the community support we can get!

If you’re wondering what Eureka even is, watch this trailer, or read this post if you don't wanna watch a video.

If you’ve ever tried to run a murder mystery in D&D, what you really needed was Eureka.

If you’re coming from the August beta release, which I assume you are, lemme tell you that a lot has been improved. I’ll go over some of the highlights, and post the full changelog under the cut. It’s still free, but if you could throw a bit of money out way on the itchio page, even if you’ve paid before, that would be a massive, massive help. We’re actually a bit over budget even with the relative success of the Kickstarter, plus for one of us this is their primary source of income.

Trait Overhaul

There’s a few new Traits, and nearly every single existing Trait has been redone to make them better and/or more interesting. Each Trait will now have an even more significant effect on your gameplay experience.

Combat Overhaul + World's Best Grappling Rules

Combat in Eureka is now better than ever, and it was already really good - plus, now you can actually comprehend the dang rules! The previous combat rules, I admit, were a dense and confusing slog to read through, even if they worked really well once you understood them. Now, thanks to our editor, you can understand them! Instead of being split across four chapters, it’s now just two chapters. One chapter explains weapons and is mostly just for stat reference, and the other chapter is focused on telling you everything your character can do during “dangerous situations,” which are not just combat, but really just any kind of scenario where a character can get hurt. As a special highlight to the combat overhaul, Eureka now boasts the first ever set of grappling rules that are viable, realistic, and fun to employ at the table! I’m serious when I say I have never seen them done like this before, and think they offer an actual leap forward in something that TTRPGs have struggled with since early editions of D&D! I also put a lot of my own judo and other martial arts experience to work here.

Monster Overhaul

A lot of what I said about the pre-overhaul combat sections of the rulebooks were also true of the monster PC rules. They were dense, hard to reference, and disorganized. Well not anymore! All six playable monsters in Eureka have been completely rewritten using the skills I have gained as a game designer since first writing them, and, like the regular Traits, they have all been at the very least tweaked to be more interesting and have a greater effect on gameplay, and some have been changed entirely with all new subsystems! Witches brew potions now, fairies actually have stuff to do with the names they collect, and more! Plus, speaking of Traits, every monster can have more regular Traits now, to really help flesh out their personality!

CHANGE LOG 

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 302. Half-ass copy-edited up to p. 322.

WHOLE BOOK

Stuck most of the $42+ kickstarter backer submission info into the very back of the book just to get it out of our email inbox and to allow the whole team to be able to more easily see it and work with it. Going to be doing more to integrate this stuff into the actual rulebook soon. 

Changed the headings to hopefully be more legible. Please give us feedback on what you think of this change.

CHAPTER 1

Changed the limitations on how Comfort is used to restore investigator Composure. 

Fixed a typo in the investigation example of play. 

Made it so that Composure rolls for fears in the “Ridiculous” category don’t even always need to be rolled when these things are encountered. 

Moved Character Health and Status, Grievous Wounds, Healing, and Healing Example sections to Chapter 1. 

Changed Partial Incapacitation to give -2 modifiers instead of -1. 

Overhauled the rules for injuries, incapacitation, and grievous wounds completely. A ton of it is changed. 

Added codified rules for medical facilities and what to do in the case of investigator death. 

Added “The Creeps” optional rule. 

Tweak to When is the Party “Split” section regarding how long to go before jumping between groups.

Lots of new art has been added.

Tweaks to Be Prepared to Lose section.

—---------------------------------------------------

Additions to the What is Eureka For section

Changed comforting factors and exacerbating factors for Composure rolls to be +/-2 instead of +/-1 so they make a real difference.

New snoop

Changed the font of the section headings in the Ticking Clock section. Let us know what you think of these headings compared to the other headings, because we are considering changing all the headings to be like this.  

Better clarified some stuff about how Ticks work when an adventure starts at some random time of day.

—-------------------------------------

More art has been added

Made travel take more time and matter more

CHAPTER 2

Changed the CQC skill to Close Combat, as this is more clear and obvious what that means at a glance

Made lots of copy-editing progress. Many paragraphs are shorter and convey the rules more clearly. 

Changed the way the Burnout Trait works. It now causes the investigator to lose flat Composure each day rather than affecting their Composure rolls. 

Changed the Death Wish Trait to not suck.

Changed the Elementary! Trait to use Visual Calculus instead of Social Cues.

Changed Go With Your Gut Trait to not suck. 

Added that wallets and like basic clothing and stuff have a WP cost of 0

Added glasses to item list

Added rope to item list

Added hand warmers to item list

Changed Arithmomania trait to where it only gives a +1 base bonus to Paperwork, and the bonus for having a lower Ignorance of Quantity Tiers of Fear rating is more investigation points. 

Changed Femme Fatale to add a +1 Seduce bonus instead of +2. 

Totally redid the Hardy Trait. 

Added -1 modifier to I’m Okay You’re Okay Trait

Redid the Just Built Different Trait. Now it allows a character “no sell” an incoming Superficial Damage attack once per Scene, reducing the damage to 0, among a few other things. 

Added Renaissance Man Trait. 

Removed Love Me Trait. Might try to reword it another time, but it was too similar to too many other traits and wasn't very interesting. 

Completely reworked Lover Trait. 

Many new snoops have been added.

Changed the Mad Genius trait to be called Lovecraft Protagonist and changed what it does. 

Removed the investigation point cap on Man of Action Trait. Also changed the name to Ask Questions Later. 

Changed My Glasses Trait to only provide bonuses to Knowledge Skill Investigative Rolls. 

Changed Nightstalker Trait so that it provides a bonus to all Interpersonal Rolls while trespassing 

Changed None of My Business Trait to suck less.

Changed Not Finished Yet Trait to suck less.

Changed Showboater Trait to suck less.

Changed Skeptic Trait to suck less.

Smalls is now a real Trait instead of just a joke Trait. 

Removed the +1 Bonus from the Unpredictable Trait.

Changed Wicked Trait to not suck. 

Changed Wizened Trait to suck less. 

Woo-Woo Trait no-longer based on Blacked Out Skill. 

Moved “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” here and changed the title to “Disabilities are Disabling”

Changed Basic Physical Therapy on the Wealth Point Item List from 3WP to 2WP. 

Added new section “People Change”

Made Blissfully Ignorant trait immune to “The Creeps.”

Made the Technically… Trait have a +2 bonus instead of +1.

Updated the Hard Boiled Trait to work with the new way that injuries and incapacitation works.

Moved the Hardened Hearts snoop to be the Wicked snoop instead. 

Changed “Empath” Trait to be “Empathetic” instead. 

Made “Did You Know…” a better and more usable Trait

Made Hard Under Pressure a better and more usable Trait.

Changed how the WP cost of an item affects the modifier for rolling for it in-adventure. The modifier is now half the WP cost rounded down. 

—--------------------------------------------------------

Gave a proper name to the Wealth modifier attached to certain homes and vehicles, it is now called the Property Modifier(PM).

Lowered the price of firearm ammunition by 1WP

Lowered the price of desktop computers by 1WP

Lowered the price of cameras by 1WP

Combined various hand tools into one entry on the item lists and moved them to Misc.

Made hotels something that is prepaid in WP similar to food budget. 

Made Large Apartment less expensive and Tiny Apartment more expensive

Moved Baseball Bat and Axe out of Weapons and into Misc. 

Changed how Food Budget works.

Removed Net Skill Limit mechanic entirely

Edit to the duration of the bonuses for Femme Fatale

Changed Ninja Trait to a +2 bonus instead of +1

—----------------------------------------------------------

Made “Sleep On It” Trait give 1D6-1 investigation points, and still give Composure.

Added “Real Capybara Hours.” Sometimes jokes are just for us.

Added animals to item lists

CHAPTER 3

Moved the section “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” into chapter 2. 

More art has been added.

Moved Character Health and Status, Grievous Wounds, Healing, and Healing Example sections to Chapter 1. 

—------------------------------------------------

Changed the name of Chapter 3 to “Dangerous Situations.” We are planning to put all the combat and other dangerous stuff into one chapter called “Dangerous Situations” and merge combat, chases, etc. into one thing rather than splitting it up and having it in a bunch of different chapters.

Made it so that the Speed mechanic works with Theater of the Mind as well, and removed that other awkward mechanic with rolling Athletics for how many turns it takes for a character to cross a large distance. 

Complete restructure of the way the mechanics for movement and action are explained, as well as defining things as both Movements and Actions. 

Created a Chapter 2.5. In the future when we are ready to shift the chapter numbers, Chapter 2.5 will become the new Chapter 3 and the current Chapter 3 will become Chapter 4. Chapter 2.5 currently houses the statistics of weapons and other combat items. The plan is that a first-time reader will read the weapon statistics in Chapter 2.5 before they read the combat rules in Chapter 3, which will inform the way they understand Chapter 3. 

Changed damage value and special attributes of pepper spray. 

Made brass knuckles do 1 penetrative damage. 

Made stun guns do 2 superficial damage.

Made it so that bulletproof vests do protect against 1-damage weapons. 

Moved and rearranged like everything from chapters 3-6. 

Close range bonus for guns is now +2 instead of +1

Simplified Stopping Power rules (the actual way it works has not changed, we just rewrote it so that it gives the same mechanics in like a tenth of the word count)

Separated open-faced helmets and full-face helmets, and made it so that wearing a helmet along with body armor gives a -1 penalty to incoming attack rolls. 

“Single Load” is now called “Internal Magazines”

Shotguns at extremely close range now have similar stopping power to a rifle, but at 5-10 yards they still have their double stopping power. 

Changed how Rate of Fire works for guns. Just making it a number instead of distinct actions. 

Made it so that Quick Cycling affects basically all guns except automatics, meaning characters with high Firearms skill can now fire semi-automatic pistols at 3 bullets per Action.

Streamlined Stabilization. It is no-longer a roll and instead a penalty that worsens the more bullets are being fired at once. 

Made Bipods give +2 Contextual bonus instead of +1 to single stationary targets.

Changed Reactions and made them more broadly applicable and usable as a rule.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overhauled Grabs, Throws, Holds, and Escapes to make them a viable option in a lot more scenarios.

Defined “On the Ground” and made it its own section.

Made knock out blows and throws ignore Armor. Knock-out blows are still somewhat penalized by helmets.

Added A Real John Woo Film Optional Rule

More art has been added

Hastily updated the random chase obstacle tables for the new Movement/Action system.

Updated the example obstacles to be more in line with how we designed obstacles for the obstacle tables. 

Redid how Poison works. We meant to make it less convoluted but accidentally made it more granular instead. We did write it better so it will at least feel less convoluted. 

CHAPTER 4

Merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 5

merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 6

merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 7

Added “Psychological Warfare” mechanic. 

—--------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER 8

The Blacked Out Skill has been changed in two major ways. First we made it more obvious that the Blacked Out Skill applies even to knowledge of the supernatural that is not necessarily true. And also rather than working the way that every other Knowledge skill works, the Blacked Out Skill now gives leads to where answers might be found rather than immediate concrete answers. 

THE GORGON IS FINISHED AND FULLY PLAYABLE!

Added that Alt. Witches have to make their supernatural ability composure rolls at +0 instead of +3. The +3 was a typo.

Started work on the complete monster overhaul.

Vampires have been completely rewritten. Most of their abilities and themes are the same, but the way the abilities work has been overhauled and improved in many cases, as well as now being formatted and structured in a sane and easily-referenceable way. 

More art has been added. 

Changed the +2 Contextual Close Combat bonus for the Werewolf Trait to a +1 Base Bonus

Wolfmen have been completely rewritten. Most of their abilities and themes are the same, but the way the abilities work has been overhauled and improved in many cases, as well as now being formatted and structured in a sane and easily-referenceable way. 

Fairytale Witch is currently being rewritten/overhauled. 

Changed Incredible Strength Mage Trait to have a +2 Close Combat bonus instead of +3.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarified that gorgon blood does not heal gorgons.

Changed the way that monsters interact with Composure and their Tiers of Fear during the act of preying on other people. Instead of just ignoring it or having a bonus (i somehow left both of those conflicting rules in and no one told me), a relevant Composure roll is still made when a monster eats someone, but they do not lose Composure points from it even in the event of Partial Success or Failure. This keeps the narrative benefit of a Composure roll to show the monster’s emotional state, but without making hunting numerically pointless.

Finished the complete fairytale witch overhaul. 

Made the Close Combat bonus for superhuman strength be just +1 for the vast majority of instances. The only exception is wolfman forms. They get a higher Close Combat bonus because their transformations actually make them bigger and taller and this helps a lot in Close Combat.

Reduced Athletics bonus of Incredible Strength trait to +2. 

Merged the Alt. Witch with Mage, and made Mage a Misc. supernatural category instead of its own separate thing. This is going to be a really messy transition for chapter 8 so please bear with us. I am making a brief run though the chapter to clean up the biggest discrepancies this change creates, but I probably won’t get them all until the editor and I have time to actually go through and copy-edit it. 

“Mage” is now its own trait, and what were previously called “mage traits” are now called “mage powers”. Mages now have between 1 and 6 mage powers as part of their mage trait, with worse composure rolls the more powers they have. 

When they engage in their True Nature, monsters now have a chance to recoup some or all of the Composure they lost as a result of using their powers to hunt prey. 

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fully overhauled the fairy rules. Just one more monster to overhaul! Woo! 

Changed the Curse of Slumber to take effect the next time the victim falls asleep rather than knocking them out spontaneously.

Overhauled the changeling rules to go along with the overhauled fairy rules. 

Clarified something about the vampire’s In Lizard Fashion ability, they wouldnt be able to use this to stop a speeding truck.

Removed the hard limit on how many people a wolfman could eat at once, and also added rules for what happens if they shift to a smaller form with people in their stomach. Made similar tweaks for vampires. 

More art has been added 

Fully overhauled the Thing from Beyond, and that completes the full monster overhaul. All Monsters now consist of a single Trait, rather than needing a pair of Traits. 

Gave vampires’ “wearing the evening” ability a maximum distance of 50 yards and also it is a Movement now 

Made a few more adjustments to some of the monster sections to bring them up to date with the new Movement/Action mechanics. 

Adjusted all instances of poison in the monster sections to account for the new poison rules.

[whirligig-girl]

Misty Island Logging Company No.4 "Ethel"

Mr. Logan Miller --the owner-- saw a great deal, but when he returned from overseas with a 4-4-0, the mechanical engineer put his head in his hands. "How are we gonna run that," he said, and then he pointed to the 70 ft radius curve leading out of the dockyard, "on that?" "Very carefully, I expect," Mr. Miller said. Ethel's was too fast for her own good. She, Ferdinand, and Gladys have perhaps the same tractive effort, but Ferdinand and Gladys can output that tractive effort at 2 or 3 miles per hour slogging up a grade. Ethel can not run 2 or 3 miles per hour. She'll stall, or she'll go faster, but she won't run that slowly. and with a comfortable speed of 40 or 50 miles per hour on tracks where you'd be very lucky to go 20 mph, she is definitely struggling. "hoist her boiler up on some trucks and run her number one driver as a flywheel. We need another geared engine," Logan said. "No, please," begged Ethel, "I'll try harder!" "I wonder if we could just make your wheels smaller," said the mechanical engineer. "Or maybe we could use a booster truck on your pilot or tender. That rickety old yarding crane might have some cylinders we could use."

---

"How have you been?" Edward said, kindly. "I've enjoyed running your branch line an awful lot. Y'all really know how to treat locomotives here on Sodor. I'm almost... sorry to go back home," Ethel said. "I'm sure Bernard and David have missed you. I know Bill and Ben missed me when I was away," Edward said. "Bash and Dash are quite the handful these days," Ethel said. "And rumor has it you're expecting a new one?" Boco said. "A new one, an old one, it's not clear. Before I came to the Company, there was Alice and Belle, and now the Scenic Railway wants to make a new engine from their leftover parts. I don't think they'll have finished building them by the time I get back." Ethel was quiet for a minute, and pensive. Edward quietly trundled forward to get a better angle on her face. BoCo respectfully reversed away to give the steam engines some privacy. "Ethel, is something the matter?" "I don't want to go back. I'm scared, Edward." "Ethel, my dear, whyever not? Does the Scenic Railway not take good care of you? I'm sure The Fat Controller can--" "No, no, it's not that. The Scenic Railway people have been wonderful. But it's the Misty Islands. It's like, I think of all the places I used to go, all the things that happened, and it's like my firebox turns into a block of ice and my lubricant turns to grit."

[notchedwhip]

☥ World of Darkness Meetcute Event ☥

Art by @belthegore, who owns Gabriel. The writing and Belmont can be blamed on @bonecraftprodigy. This was posted on a co-admined sideblog.

Belmont just wants to get through the workweek without his new coworker finding out he's a vampire. But he's not the only one hiding something.

Content warnings: canon-typical violence, brief Christian fanaticism

Nick, night manager at Quik'N'Go Gas, waited in cheerful ambush at the store’s timeclock. “Hey, Kevin, say hi to the new hire!”

Kevin Belmont typed the remaining digits of his employee number with slow. Emphatic. Jabs. Of his forefinger. Deep breathing, he reminded himself. Just like that YouTube video said. In-two-three, out-two-three.

As a vampire, breathing exercises didn’t usually work well for him.

“You said I could trade shifts with Andrew to handle that family business and we both confirmed with you that’s what we were doing. So if I’ve got no call/no shows on my record, it's not my fault, and making me train my own replacement–”

Nick had the decency to look genuinely appalled. “God, no, Gabriel here is replacing Andrew ‘cause Andrew’s the one racking up no call/no shows. Show him how to clock in and open a register, would you? I set up his PIN already.”

Belmont pictured all the tension and anger draining down, down, through his body, down to his feet, dissipating into the floor. When that didn’t help either, he moved on to visualizing a training bonus on his next paystub. Something reasonable - fifty cents an hour? Ooh, maybe seventy-five….

Nick cleared his throat.

“Uh, right. Sorry, third shift sleeping problems. I’ll be fine once the RedBull kicks in.” He finally turned to face the men and size up this Gabriel person. The kid matched his height, give or take an inch. Long face, bad haircut, a scar carved from hairline to jaw. He stared back at Belmont with sullen tension. Well, that was fine. Belmont didn’t plan on getting too friendly either.

He showed Gabriel the nightly cleaning checklist, the supply closet with its broken door lock, how to wiggle the register drawer loose if it jammed. The kid didn’t make small talk and Belmont heard his teeth grinding when they paused beneath a buzzing fluorescent light.

“My old boss hated those things too,” he said, pointing at it. “Almost as much as he hated scented candles and admitting he screwed up. Do you smoke?”

Gabriel nodded.

“So do I. Take your smoke breaks whenever you want, as long as we aren’t busy and it isn’t midnight or three AM. That’s when I take mine and I’ve got seniority.” Belmont watched for any reaction.

The kid nodded again.

“Any other questions? …And you have worked a register job before, right?”

“None right now, and yes, I have.”

“Cool. Once you’re logged in, I’m gonna go restock the coolers. It takes forever even if you know where all the inventory is so you get to stay up front tonight.” That was tonight’s real gift, Belmont decided: someone else to park at the register so he didn’t have to deal with every kine who waltzed in smelling like dinner.

Five nights later Gabe and Belmont still hadn’t said a word to each other that wasn’t directly work-related. The kid kept his mouth shut and head down, although his eyes rarely left Belmont’s back when they were alone.

It made Belmont’s fangs itch. He watched Gabe right back, tracking him out the corner of his eye when Nick wasn’t busybodying around.

Six nights later, Belmont slogged back from his break to an old man a head taller and half again as broad as either of them getting in Gabe’s face about– rising chocolate prices, or something equally stupid. The poor kid was backed against a shelf clutching a pricing gun like it was his only salvation, his whole body so tightly wound that fight or flight would be equally disastrous.

Wuss, sneered Belmont’s nasty little inner thoughts.

Be nice. Poor kid’s about to crap himself, said his second thoughts.

Should probably do something before Nick checks the camera feeds and calls the cops, his common sense pointed out.

“Hey,” Belmont snapped, jogging closer. “Hey, he’s new, let me see if I can–”

The man wheeled around, face red and hand raised, the moment Belmont touched his shoulder. Everything in the vampire’s mind screamed FIGHT. Vitae surged through dead veins. Fangs pricked, threatening to emerge. Cold black malice crystalised the air.

Belmont caught the man’s fist before it was halfway to connecting with his face. Very quiet, very deliberate, he said: “You should leave. Don’t argue,” he added, slowly squeezing his grip tighter. “Just go.”

The man left.

Gabe stared bug-eyed at him. Belmont shrugged away the lingering Presence. “Sorry about that. You want to take your ten now? Clear your head?”

“You don’t look like someone who could do that,” Gabe blurted out, still staring.

Aw, fuck. “I used to do full-contact combat LARP stuff, live action roleplay? Once someone dressed like a dollar store Uruk-hai clobbers you often enough, you figure out how to stop getting hit. Had to quit when I left college but I guess the reflexes are still there, heh.”

“I see.” Gabriel’s tone indicated that he did not.

“The Uruk-hai are a kind of orc,” Belmont offered. “From The Lord of the Rings?”

“Oh.” Gabe faintly shrugged. “I was told that book had witchcraft in it, so I never had a chance to read it.” He turned a dial on the price gun and resumed applying stickers to bags of chocolate-covered pretzels.

“Oh,” Belmont said, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

On the seventh night everything went wrong.

Gabe always let Belmont empty the big outdoor trash bins, which he was in the middle of doing when some jackass with a lifted truck parked at pump 5 decided the guy who pulled up to pump 6 dinged his paint. Six Guy matched Five Guy’s volume while denying the allegations. Five Guy got up in Six Guy’s face. Six Guy stood on tiptoe like a bantam rooster ready to throw hands. Wings? Whatever roosters fought with.

Belmont called over to them, “Hey, sorry, yeah, if you’re going to fight can you do it about twenty-five yards away so it’s not on Quik’N’Go property?”

“Fuck off,” came the response from Six.

“I really do not care if you kill each other as long as you do it somewhere that won’t make me fill out an incident log.”

Six chose to punch Five in the nose. Five retaliated in kind.

Belmont’s teeth ground together so hard the enamel squeaked. He set down the roll of garbage bags. He stalked closer. He warned them, “Break it up. Now.”

They did not break it up.

Well, Belmont decided, they asked for it.

He wrenched them apart by their shirt collars. Five threw himself at Six anyway, fabric tearing free. Belmont dropped Six and shoulder-rammed Five. Old reflexes flared along with his vitae. He snarled in the man’s face, fangs bared, eyes bloodshot. Five went rigid and printer paper white with fear.

Good. He should be afraid. Fucking kine. Belmont wheeled around to tackle Six who was crabcrawling away, also terrified. He pulled a fist back for a bone-cracking fight-ending blow–

“Kevin!” Gabriel yelled, barrelling out the door.

Belmont’s blood flashfroze like a cold Pepsi slammed on a table. Fuck. Oh, goddammit shitfuck. He’d blown it. He’d have to vanish, move cities again, start all over from nothing a-fucking-gin….

He let Gabriel yank him off Six and drag him back inside the store. Mental alarms didn’t start ringing until he realized they were headed for the giant beer cooler in the back. The one with no view of the front windows. And only one security camera because the store owner was too cheap to rework the system.

Uh oh.

“Hey, can we just talk about–”

Gabe shoved him against a wall of Bud Light 36-packs. “Devil. Demon! Unclean thing, tainting the earth wherever your poisoned blood takes you! Our paths were meant to cross so I could save those mortal lives from you,” he spat the final word, “Vampire.”

Belmont kept his hands raised. “Gabriel. Gabriel, you’re not wrong about that, but we need to know how much time we have here. Did you call the cops?”

“‘We’? Your time, stolen from others, is reaching its final moments. You may make your peace now.” Gabriel fumbled a boxcutter out of his back pocket.

“Gabe, respectfully, fuck that.” Belmont grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and yanked. The boxcutter clattered to the floor as they switched places. The kid’s skin was cool under Belmont’s fingers. “Listen. You’re obviously not from one of the organizations, and if my old boss sent you he did a really shit job choosing a hunter to–” He frowned, adjusted his grip to feel for a pulse.

There wasn’t one.

“You’re shitting me. You’re fucking shitting me. You too? Since when?!”

“The whole time, you blind beast!”

“Oh, my god.” Belmont adjusted his glasses with one hand, keeping a squirming Gabriel scruffed with the other. “Okay. Look. I know we probably have about thirty seconds left before the cops show up and bust both our covers, but since this might be the last teachable moment we get, maybe don’t try to kill the Brujah with twenty years of Sabbat experience using a utility knife.”

“I don’t bring my rifle to work,” he snapped, clawing at Belmont’s arm.

“That might work. What is it, a deer gun? AR-15? –Never mind. Christ, this is just my fucking luck.”

“Stop taking the Lord’s name in vain!”

“If I stop, will you tell me what sect you’re with? I’m guessing Anarch.”

Confusion flickered in Gabriel’s zealous eyes, just for a moment.

“...Do you know what the Sabbat is? Camarilla?”

“Vampires are vampires,” hissed Gabe. “All of you will burn in Damnation where you belong.”

“Fucking hell. Your sire ditched you or something, I bet. Okay. Look.” Belmont weighed his directions of conversational attack. “I really don’t want to kill you. I screwed up, I get it. But those two guys are still alive because you stopped me, and now that we know a little about each other I can help you save more people. Twenty years in this rodeo, remember? I know things. Hell, by Sabbat standards I was basically a career academic. The clans, tricks of the blood, legends about where we came from - I’ll teach you. But we have to get through tonight first, okay?”

Gabriel scrutinized him as if deciding whether or not to feed his heart to a crocodile. “Every night that you want to live, you’ll tell me something that will help purge your kind.”

“Our kind, but okay. You got a deal.” Belmont kicked the boxcutter out of reach and released the other Cainite. “So what are we telling the cops?”

“I didn’t call them,” Gabe mumbled. “I was going to kill you, lock the store, and leave.”

“And I think one of those guys pissed himself, so with any luck he’ll be too embarrassed to file a complaint. Well, Gabe, here’s to the start of a beautiful hostageship.”

[lowpolynpixelated]

Call of Duty and the beast that must die

Written by: Clair Beckett

Upon booting up Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 for the first time I was assaulted with a modern "Marvel" type banner, proudly declaring the expansive media franchise that is CALL OF DUTY. I was then given three different screens filled with the names of game studios swallowed by the machine in the series' long and crumbling history of game after game after game. Call of Duty claims itself a pillar of the industry. One of the many posts that hold up the very sky of the video game landscape. It stands now before me, million dollar propaganda for the US military starring Spawn and Nicki Minaj for a limited time only, but only if you can pay the price of admission.

The next thing I was told, of course, was to make an Activision account. The game then prompted me to add my phone number and restart the game twice to make sure that all the personal data it wanted from me was set to go. Modern video games have gone so far beyond what they began as and yet they still ride the corpses of the culture the executives strangled to death loudly and proudly. Remember COD4? Remember Modern Warfare 2? Well we do! And we're happy to announce that we've rewritten and re-released them for $70 with extra US warcrimes written to look like the russians did it! Buy now and get a new golden skin for the gun that will only be in the cash shop rotation for the next two weeks!

Loading into the launchers that games like Halo and Call of Duty have become is insulting. But at least Halo has the dignity to somewhat look like a game instead of a collection of repackaged and hastily made content so that you can push its cosmetics exchange and season passes safely underneath some menus so they don't bother while you try to do the thing you paid for without logging in to your Microsoft account first. No, Call of Duty loads you into a fantastic screen filled with games you COULD own and cosmetics it wants you to spend the money on first. But how did this happen? I thought we were going to vote with our wallets? Show those big companies that we're not gonna take it anymore! Well, astute video gameist, we did. Or, folks like you did, and the resounding answer was "more forever so the money we're making off these pre-order bonuses and cosmetic mircotransations." Except it hasn't slowed down? Has it? So called "microtransactions" have ballooned up to upwards of $20 for single weapon skins or character packs, art that is made at the behest of artists who are cycled out of the offices like so many reams of paper wasted on stock reports.

Call of Duty wastes 0 time showing you all the ways you can spend money every way possible. If you select the game you "own" you'll first be prompted to upgrade to the ultimate edition, then when you select multiplayer you'll be prompted to purchase this month's battlepass, when you select what character you want to present as on each team you get bombarded with skins, pricetags displayed proudly larger than the actual name of the skin. Too, damn, far. Is what this nonsense is. Far be it from me to lay down my journalistic integrity for the absolute slog that fucking Call of Duty has become, but is this really what we play now? Is this what the multi-million dollar companies have to offer? Do you think that anyone working on these games had their passion cared for? Their intent respected? The answer, dear reader, is no.

No, no this isn't about video games anymore. But your average "gamer", as it were, hasn't cared about this in about 10 years. The "gamer culture" that has been fostered within the triple A sphere of the landscape is one of complacency and non questioning attitudes of "the next big thing must be the best because it's the next and the biggest!" when in actuality it's just the biggest number of people laid off without notice and the biggest return for five people in thousand dollar suits. Modern Call of Duty props itself up on the idea of legacy. The idea that the name itself is enough to warrant the money you pay for the content it will legally take away from you in a matter of a few short years so they can save on server costs. But what IS the legacy of Call of Duty? The original titles helped shape the first person shooter landscape, and the fourth title revolutionized multiplayer action games alongside the likes of Halo, but what came after? Almost immediately after COD4's smashing success it traded any sort of message and want for things like gameplay innovation or narrative cohesiveness for an iterative cycle at the behest of a publisher in some of the early days of the triple A landscape becoming a barren sprawl of corporate greed. Mind you I said some of the early days, corporate greed has always been intrinsically tied to the video game landscape but I digress. Call of Duty became one of the first annual franchises. Swapping developer each year back and forth to make games that were baseline iterative on the last promising "bigger and better but also the same, we promise" ad nauseam until something had to give. Modern Warfare 2 is heralded as a gold standard for the series, but it mostly has to do with the most memorable levels letting you gun down civilians in an airport. Otherwise it was the same jarheaded OO-RA gun em' down action that the first game had, minus some rather potent anti-war sentiments.

Call of Duty's legacy then is one of "gamer culture", fiercely embroiled in charging the most for the least at the promise of it being the very bleeding edge of what your new several hundred dollar machine can do. The idea of the annual franchise sold more than consoles it sold promises to people, and executives loved that. The culture I speak of you can see everwhere in the mid to late 2000s and early to mid 2010s before the absurdity of it all really started to take root. From Mountain Dew cans boasting cool spec ops dudes in tactical gear and offering double XP should you buy the sugary sludge, to commercials starring then YouTube celebrities famous for blowing things up with military grade firearms on empty land. Gamer culture was and still is top priority in ensuring people don't question the quality or practices of the things they're being sold now. As long as a company can tug on the heartstrings of millions by saying things like "We grew up playing (insert late 90s/early 2000s video game title here) so we get what makes games fun." They have carte blanche to repackage, resell, and further monetize things that should not cost that much if anything at all. The idea that the name "Call of Duty" should stand as the base pricepoint to sell you a launcher to host all the games you could own while barely showing you the ones you do is that corporate greed taken to such a far extreme it's maddening to think about why people aren't more fucking angry about this.

The great Stephanie Sterling has long spoken on points like this about companies like Activision/Blizzard, Nintendo, and EA. Titans of the industry now only famous for how many people they layoff every few months and how much they charge for games that shouldn't cost that much. In a 2019 article on how Apex Legends ended up saving Electronic Arts from major stock crashes, she said the following:

"Last generation saw the rise of the “fee to pay” game. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 made online connectivity obligatory for modern consoles, and it was only a matter of time because videogame publishers smelled an opportunity to make money from constant access to their customers. Full premium expansions for videogames gave way to downloadable content, which in turn gave way to microtransactions appropriated from free-to-play games. Only, they never made the games containing them free.

New “AAA” titles saw their entire in-game economies overhauled for the worse in order to support microtransactions. Dead Space 3, notoriously, had to reduce all its horror elements and become a traditional action game to support a desperate weapon crafting economy. This was excused by pundits and spokespeople as offering players a “choice,” without addressing the fact that psychologically manipulative gameplay elements were not things we could opt out of in the games we were paying sixty dollars for.

Having gotten away with it, however, publishers only grew worse. With traditional DLC, season passes, and multiple special editions, many companies have more than quadrupled down on their monetization, and modern games are slowly - subtly - starting to resemble starter packs more than finished products."

-Stephanie Sterling, "How Apex Legends Saved EA's Ass... In Spite of EA", Feb. 12, 2019

In microcosm I think this perfectly encapsulates what the new legacy of things like Call of Duty is. Full and even fuller priced games being stocked with more and more transactions to pull the most out of the consumer without giving anything meaningful in return. Virtual rewards for real world currency that can be taken away at a moment's notice. Fortnite is most famous for popularizing the "battlepass" style of monetization and rotating cash shop storefronts. By having you purchase funny in-game tokens to buy your skins it hoped to have you forget about the 30$ you just spent on said tokens. Call of Duty and its piers have no such interests. No, cold hard cash is the only way it presents its purchasable garbage and that's what you pay each time you give in to one of it's dozens of FOMO inducing splash screens and reminders. You are taken advantage of for your money. That's not even to touch on the genre destroying concept of "crossover content" which only serves to further drive the idea of sales over substance, with more of your favourite characters and celebrities being added to these games in the form of poorly animated and uncanny models for 20$ a pop.

This new form of selling a legacy can only end in more of the same. More skilled artists, developers, and writers being laid off into an industry that cannot afford to hire them back. Infinite growth has already reached it's glass ceiling and is pretending that it simply cannot see it due to it's see-through nature. These giants of the industry, these beasts, must die to see meaningful creative growth return to such spheres as the triple A landscape. The old must give way to the new, the nostalgia has been wrung out like so many drops from an already dry sponge. Name's are not worth paying for, and neither are concepts. We must think and act critically of these systems if we are to escape them. Voting with your wallet is a false initiative. Participating in the market they have a stranglehold on cannot lead to their downfall. This is all to say the following: Stop buying this nonsense. Look more into the independent scene. Find your new favourite games through channels like itch.io or the "indie" spaces on the other major storefronts. Pay for the games that care about what they are. And for the love of everything stop purchasing US Army propaganda. I'd like to recommend the likes of Stephanie Sterling, as previously mentioned, who's journalistic integrity and strength has persevered through some of the worst of gaming's tumultuous history. Jacob Geller, who's introspective analysis of video games as pieces of living breathing art tell so much about the passion and craft that goes into something as commonplace as "a video game". And finally Noah Caldwell-Gervais, a man who I can only describe as one of the most earnest, honest, and just plain down-to-earth guys to ever grace the gaming landscape. These three along with countless others are avenues into further understanding the type of landscape video games exist in in the modern day. I hope you come away from either this article or their work with something new, be it a game or a thought on all this mess. Thanks for reading.

Sources and links:

"How Apex Legends Saved EA's Ass... In Spite of EA"

Stephanie Sterling's work

Analyzing Every Torture Scene in Call of Duty — All 46 of Them (Jacob Geller)

How Many Clicks Does It Take To Get to the Center of Diablo? [A Franchise Retrospective] (Noah Gervais)