#some mechanics of the game are not very fluid -especially when you play again to get to all the places

[kaus-quietis]

Firebird

It's been a hot minute since Lav introduced me to videogames, and as a good poltergeist resident, I'm leaving here my latest discovery for her to find when things get less busy.

Yesterday I played Firebird, a game developed by French studio Ludogram. It's a visual novel following a roadtrip through Siberia, in a quest to bring a young girl back to her village. It incorporates a lot of elements from Slavic folklore and tales, and has a very unique artstyle, which I loved the most.

It's a short game (I think the first playthrough took me 1h30, maybe 2h if you read slowly), and overall I found it a bit too easy at times, but the atmosphere and the storyline made it so charming it's a new favourite for me. I won't say much more because it's worth discovering on your own, so I'll just put some light criticism at the end of the tags if you want it.

It's available on several platforms, and it's in English, French, and Russian language.

Cheers!

[diamondcitydarlin]

Just finished DATV last night, thought I'd type up a little 'review' of my thoughts and what I thought were pros/cons etc, for anyone thinking of purchasing and trying it out but might be on the fence or whatever. Or just for fun idk lol. There are probably going to be some very minor spoilers below the cut, though I'm really going to try to avoid mentioning the big ones (at the very least I will avoid mentioning specifics lol, but probably not a spoiler-free review).

PROS

Really loved the combat system in this one a lot, despite the fact that the rogue class (at least so far as I can tell, I was a veil-jumper/archer focused and put my talent points into the related tree so that might have influenced things I have no idea) doesn't have stealth in this one. You don't necessarily need it, but I feel a stealth option would have come in handy during fights when the player needs to do mechanics with blight boils and crystals etc, especially as the monsters seem to hone-in solely on the main player no matter what. SORRY this is still a pro! Despite the lack of stealth, I still really liked the combat system and mechanics a lot, it's very fluid with the dodges and sprints. It was also pretty reminiscent to playing World of Warcraft which I often do, so I felt like it fit my current skill set lol. HOWEVER, as others have said, this combat system isn't really RPG and isn't like how they've done combat in games past, so be aware of that.

Opinions are going to vary on this, but I feel like the companions are all pretty solid and likeable, which for me is a bit of a departure bc in every game there's usually one or two that I avoid/dislike or find boring for whatever reason (not gonna name names lol). This also makes the choices you'll face with them A LOT harder, but for me that's a pro. Rip my heart into shreds please.

Obviously the graphics and aesthetics are gorgeous, top-tier, the design team really put their whole pussy into this lol. Not much else needs to be said on this point other than I also appreciated the lack of glitches and issues (I think between my husband and I playing alongside each other, we encountered maybe only one or two issues in the whole playthrough, kudos to the QA team!). Ig that last one is kind of a lowbar, but in a world where games often get shipped too early and riddled with issues, it's nice to play something newly released that has obviously been play-tested over and over and over and is pretty seamless as a result.

This is more of a personal one and kind of a SPOILER but: I really loved how involved the Inquisitor was in the story. I really expected us to see them maybe once or twice, but my girl reappears REGULARLY across the entire story, which is so fun. It makes sense, of course, as the Inquisitor would've been close with Solas whether they romanced him or not (or even hated him, as my Inquisitor did). Also fun to see her and Dorian sorta hanging out together again bc they were besties in my game. IDK if everyone's going to care about that since most people didn't seem to like Inquisition very much -it's my fave don't kill me-, but she's a really important OC for me so that was cool lol. (None of the other former MCs appear or even get mentioned as far as I'm aware, including Hawke, which...considering what happens was a bit of a mistake imo)

This might be a 'con' for some people, but this game is (imo) more puzzle-heavy than the others, in terms of having a lot of main and side quests where you have to figure out which crystals need to be destroyed or empowered etc, and that's something I actually enjoy even (and especially) in combat, so if you like those kind of mechanics I think you'll really enjoy this game.

CONS

As mentioned above and as others have said, this isn't really a proper RPG as DA games have been in the past. You still have a team of companions (three, including yourself) and you can still control their attacks, but you don't control them directly and as far as I could tell there was no proper tactical map (but it's also possible I missed it...I didn't figure out how runes on my dagger worked until the final boss SO LOL)

While the companions are all really likeable, strong characters (imo) and you do get a good amount of side quests with them and personal stories and the like, I still sort of feel like it was lacking in comparison to the others on this front. IDK, in the other games it felt like there was more time, more dialogue, more cutscenes spent on fleshing out those friendship/team/romance bonds, and especially with the success of BG3, I had been sort of hoping BioWare would take notes and have more random personal cutscenes here and there to discover, more moments of the team just fucking around together etc. It's still there, I just felt like there could have been...more? Like, in DA:I how you can just go chat with companions out of cutscene here and there when you go back to Haven or Skyhold, and those convos are completely optional but reveal a lot about the companion you're talking to. Not a thing in this game, you only talk to the companions when they have scheduled cutscenes and I feel like something was missing without that option to just go kinda casually shoot the shit with them. Those kinda dialogues also gave opportunity to find out what's going on with companions of past games, but as that's not a thing in this one we don't really...know about a lot of them.

The Rook character. Okay, I want to preface that I actually loved my Rook a lot in this first playthrough, but that's because I don't really mind playing a character that is morally good and a team player. If you were hoping for more options in defining your Rook character, maybe doing an evil playthrough though, I have unfortunate news. There really aren't a lot of options for defining the Rook character in different ways and you're sort of locked into a lawfully or chaotic good path with them. I feel that was a missed opportunity to bring more options into the game for replays, like an outcome where you could do an evil Rook and side with the Elven gods or something. I'm honestly not even sure if you can piss off your companions so much they leave or hate you, but maybe? Seems like that would be the REAL challenge as Rook is just kind of locked into being a nice person no matter what.

The crafting system. I honestly don't remember a lot about the crafting systems in Origins and DA2, but I do replay DA:I a lot and can confidently say that I fucking LOVE the armor/weapon crafting system in DA:I. I love that you can recolor armor sets based on the materials you've gathered. I love that the player themselves are like, working at a forge to make them, so it feels like they're doing it personally for their friends lol. I love that you can find schematics in-world for making new armors and weapons. DATV pretty much takes all of that away. Materials you gather in DATV are just for upgrading preexisting armors, which the Crossroads Caretaker does themselves. The only way to get new armors and appearances is to buy them from vendors or loot them from chests etc. I feel like this was a really big misstep on their part because the crafting system of yore was a BIG chunk of the fun for me and half the reason I loved grinding so long. This is probably the worst sin of the game imo, but this is totally personal preference.

Another big one for me- as many of you probably already know, this game doesn't factor in the world states as the others did, it just asks which character the Inquisitor romanced in DA:I. That's it. It doesn't care who ended up being Divine (despite the Divine being mentioned frequently) it doesn't care what choices you made in other games regarding the lore, it doesn't care what other kind of relationships you might have had with companions. Actually, I think losing the world states is probably the biggest sin of this game, way more than the crafting system. It obviously wasn't a deal-breaker for me, but I really feel that A LOT was lost without factoring in the world states and making follow-ups in this story as they've done in the past. I KNOW that would be a lot of work to develop and account for, but as it's been a staple of this series and incorporated into past games it's pretty disappointing to not have it at all this time.

(I technically have more 'cons' but they're too spoilery and just regard lore decisions I didn't totally agree with so I'll leave those out)

On the whole, I really thought it was a super fun game and I will most likely do more playthroughs at some point. However, if you are a DA fan and have played all the games, it will be impossible not to compare and contrast, and I think most DA fans will probably find this game to be the weakest of the four. But, still, it's a gorgeous, fun, and pretty solid action/adventure game, so I think if you like that sort of thing it's worth a try to play!

[dimensionslip]

Fire Emblem Engage Thoughts

I finished the main story recently and thought I would note down my thoughts on the game.

TL;DR: Definitely buy the game if you enjoy Fire Emblem’s battle system. If you’re looking for a deep story or something that involves the supporting cast more, this isn’t the game for you. But if you can tolerate the weak plot, I think it’s generally a fun time.

Story spoilers for the whole game are included, so tread carefully under the cut!

Things I liked:

The battle system!! The engage system adds a really interesting dimension to the base tactical RPG system and I like how it makes things quite more flexible (you can either use it to make the game easier or try out some interesting matchups to see what happens).

I also enjoyed the maps in general! They make me think, especially the later maps but not to the extent where I find it unfun to try and strategize/figure things out there.

The rewind mechanic for when you mess up. I love tactical JRPGs but one thing I’ve hated about them is having to restart a whole ass 30-min battle from the very beginning when I mess something up. So for me this is a really nice qol thing because I do not have so much time in the world to keep restarting battles that I fuck up.

The Japanese voice acting is really great. It allowed me to tolerate one of the biggest issues I had with the game (the story) and factored in to my enjoyment.

The character models and animations. They are so fluid and also good. I like that you can see them animated too before you commit to an action. 

Them making the Somniel as your base (similar to what they did for Garreg Mach Monastery in 3H, though with a caveat–see stuff in “Things I wish this game had”)

Things I didn’t like:

The story in general, but I think it’s more an issue of, it’s not what I’m looking for in a plot. I could see why the simpler storytelling might appeal to some people, but I prefer a lot more morally grey characters and while one can argue that they do exist in this story, I’m not sure I like the execution of said characters. Specific bones I have to pick with:

Lumerra’s introduction and death. At first I was a bit suspicious of her because, wow, isn’t it convenient to have a very kind mother?? And apparently she IS a kind mother all along indeed, BUT THEN. She’s killed off really early and honestly while the voice-acting in that scene was really great, the way it hits you out of nowhere is just… jarring? In the sense of it’s hard to feel anything about it because you barely knew Lumerra.

In general, everyone’s acceptance that you are the Divine Dragon and having zero doubts about it. Like a little more suspicion would have been neat to play into, even if it’s easy to prove that you are who you say you are.

The game’s habit of telling you ALL about an antagonist’s backstory and motivations before they get killed (either by your hand or someone else’s). They repeat this formula so much, even for the big bad and it’s just. One heck of a text vomit without any creativity to it, and we’re just supposed to accept how it is. It doesn’t make the characters very redeemable to me though, but I wish they exercised more creativity in getting people’s motivations across.

Sombron is such a bad offender, maybe I just don’t pay attention to his lines very well but there was little to no indication that he was doing everything just so he could reunite with an Emblem. The whole time it’s really just postured as “this guy wants to take over the world(s)”

I understand this is typical of older games in the series and large casts, but the lack of relevance of most characters after the chapter you acquire them is kinda meh in my opinion.

The minigame controls. Coupled with my controller drift issues, my poor A button is just never gonna be the same way again, huh. I think the wyvern ride one is quite fun, but the reliance of spamming the A button isn’t the best way to handle some stuff I feel, especially with the way the Switch controller is designed. I know I can just get a controller or something. But still.

Gold being so scarce in the game. I never had a gold issue in the past games I’ve played as I would earn it passively by not spending on things so much, but in Engage you can’t even do that. It seems like a ploy to get you to buy the DLC as it has some stuff there that will make your life easier, so that kind of adds to the mixed feelings I have regarding the situation.

Most characters being very one note, and it reflecting in their supports. Like if you have a character who was an antagonist turned into an ally, half/most of their supports will end up with them being eager to make amends. If someone likes muscles/training, that’s also gonna be most of their lines and their supports. But it’s a very taste-based thing, and granted I haven’t looked at everyone’s supports yet, so I might change this bullet point in the future.

Things I wish this game had:

More unique dialogue in the Somniel based on what point of the story you’re in. There are some unique dialogue for plot-relevant characters but it would have been interesting to see what the others thought too instead of their dialogues changing depending on where they were located. I think this would also solve the problem where the characters don’t feel relevant to the story anymore after you acquire them.

Lengthier support conversations. Wishful thinking, but the supports in general felt really abrupt, though this is nothing new in FE. Some were pretty deep/thoughtful, but most didn’t really leave much space for characterization.

Please let us change people’s clothes in battle. It was a little disappointing since you spend more time in battle than in the Somniel. The clothes customization in this game is pretty nice, but I guess they just left it to the Somniel because rigging those properly for battle was probably extra work they didn’t have time to properly test/implement.

My rating in numbers: 6/10 if I had to account for the plot, 8/10 if we’re just focusing on gameplay/how fun I found it.

To end this more positively, Diamant, Ivy, and Seadall are my favorite characters. Ivy (with Celica) and Alcryst (with Lyn) are my MVPs, with a special mention to Seadall and Emblem Byleth for letting me do some crazy stuff in one turn. Chloe was also really fun both in and out of battle (okay, I also like Saori Hayami) and training Anna to be my gold farmer eventually paid off lmao. Praise be to Anna.

[fishtomale]

BG3 thoughts

when playing actual dnd i’m a perpetual DM so having a character in a dnd like setting that’s like “that’s me! that’s a version of me!” is very gratifying

i’m a halfling druid charlatan ❤️ (lvl 4 i think?)

the tutorial was really bad, i shouldn’t have to go to youtube and ask my brother’s partner to learn basic gaming mechanics

like again i’m mildly experienced in dnd but turn based combat in a video game was very new to me and the tutorial did not help ease me in

it also took way too long to figure out how to use the rest mechanic

i had to switch to explorer (easy mode) to stop rage quitting. think i’ll switch back to basic medium soon tho now that i have a grasp on how it works

so opportunity attacks are very funny when i’m a dm and not very funny when i’m a player

the writing is really good so far, and stumbling onto events feels genuinely fluid and surprising. i like that.

the characters, especially the companions, seem pretty fleshed out, their dialogue in conjunction with their fun designs and impressive voice acting really draws me in and engages me

i have a sneaking suspicion that Wyll is underwritten compared to some of the other companions i’ve met… i’d like to be proven wrong

my favs so far are Astarion, Gale, and possibly Karlach in that order

when most characters disapprove of me i find it interesting but don’t really care

when Astarion disapproves of me it’s funny bc he’s just a lil bitchy

when Gale disapproves of me i fume because for the most part he claims to have similar values to me (like i’m likely never going to be mean to a kid in the game) but when i question him on any level or show that i need help trusting him he puts me down for that and like that really angers me for some reason

also when Gale disapproves of me doing something that is done to try to get him a magical item to eat, and it’s like i’m doing this for you!!! grrrrrr

the sneak mechanic is SO fun, literally always sneaking around (traditionally i play very rush into combat and kill everyone without thinking type characters in other video games, mostly bc i’m bad at video games)

lying to people is fun

Astarion tried to hit me up and i turned him down bc he said something kind of fucked up about halflings while doing it, and like, bro are you fr

intelligence is the stat i went weakest on and it is so fucking funny when the game is like “it would really help if you knew shit… but you don’t 😊”

is it just me or are all the male companions athletic abilities absolute ass (myself included) it’s kinda funny tbh

[cashewcashew]

there was a game i played on ps4 (i think) like 7-9 years ago called Teslagrad based on the inventor guy Nikolai Tesla that was a puzzle platformer using electromagnetism.

when i played i thought it was stupid difficult (i am notoriously bad at video games) but also very fun, and i even beat it in it’s entirety! (not 100% but whatever).

i found out about it again in a scott the woz vid where he offhandedly mentioned it and decided to go back to it. i then saw that a Teslagrad 2 had released like last year, so i decided to play that instead.

as i was playing it i grew very frustrated with the lacking fast travel (this was a very large map) and awkward level design for what should be much more fluid movement.

it only took me 8 hours to beat with the average being 4-6 hours so there wasn’t actually that much to the game, and i haven’t touched it since.

i refuse to go back and replay the original, then, because of how much i originally enjoyed it. keep in mind that i was in a Nikolai Tesla hyperfixation at the time and had read an extensive biography and quite frankly super boring commentary on all his patents, so that definitely contributed to rose-colored glasses towards the original game.

i know it won’t live up to expectations, and even if i enjoyed Teslagrad 2 more, i still couldn’t bring myself to play it again.

also keep in mind that my memory is notoriously piss poor, especially with attaching emotions to memories (likely depression shit) so i need to keep all the good nostalgia i can without diluting it.

anyway, don’t play Teslagrad 2 but maybe check out the original it’s like $10 on steam and released on basically everything in that era (2013). it really does have some cool innovative mechanics and you may get that same enjoyment i got years ago.

[zciolo-dev]

Week 3 Development Progress

During the past week since my last post, I've managed to make a fair bit of progress on the game. There were a few key things I wanted to knock off the list that I've achieved. Primarily, I wanted to ensure the movement felt fluid, responsive, and fun while moving around the environment. While playtesting with a friend, I repeatedly tuned the values for acceleration, jump height, deceleration, and coyote time. The values I was originally using when prototyping the main mechanic ended up feeling very floaty and unresponsive, while the high deceleration felt too unforgiving for the player to want to continue playing. To address this, I reduced the deceleration greatly, increased the acceleration and maximum speed, as well as reducing the threshold for coyote time and jump sustain. This led to the player movement feeling much snappier, whilst being slightly more forgiving should the player release the movement keys. Next, I implemented the main enemy, which causes the player to fall through platforms for the next two seconds on contact. It adds a nice bit of difficulty to the game and when used sparingly can create challenge without excess frustration. Finally, to improve the level, I created flashing platforms to go along with the timer platforms. The flashing platforms can be stood on at all times, however are only visible for a second and a half at a time, making it hard to know exactly where the edges are. Again, using these sparingly around the current, temporary level helps add to the challenge of the game and provide more opportunities for the falling mechanic to shine.

Throughout further prototyping the game, there were a few things that I quickly learnt for future projects. Primarily, when making platformers, it is essential to nail the feeling of the movement as early as possible. Having to adjust it after building out some of the play environment can be very problematic as even slight changes can make some areas inaccessible or far too easy to reach. Plus, being a platformer, movement feeling good is essential as it's the primary way the player has to interact with the game. If it doesn't feel fun and fluid, the player won't engage with the game. On a more personal note, I've discovered that while GDevelop is good for quickly prototyping 2D games with the variety of built in behaviours, for a proper project I'd much prefer the flexibility of actually coding in an engine like unity, rather than the events system of GDevelop.

For the first 3 weeks readings from the Game Design Workshop textbook, the main thing I've really taken away is to really focus on the design and implementation of the moment to moment (mtm) gameplay. A game can have an amazing story, however if the combat is tiresome and uninteresting, the player won't ever experience that story due to those frustrations. It's essential to ensure the mtm is enjoyable throughout so the player is enticed to continue playing. Also, especially for platformers and simple 2D games, I find paper prototyping to be somewhat unnecessary when using an engine like GDevelop. It allows for very fast prototyping, and especially with platformers, the movement feeling good is something that can't really be tested on paper, and so being able to quickly prototype it digitally and fine tune the values is much better, personally speaking.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Next week I want to further playtest the game after fleshing the play area out a little more, as well as improving the visuals for the game. Adding some new sprites for the different platform types is essential, as well as a background to replace the current white void. If you want to play the current prototype, a playable demo is available here. Enjoy the rest of your week, I'll see you all again soon

Sources used:

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

[beevean]

So let's end this: Megaman X8

Everytime I think “oh I won’t say much this time around” and everytime I just Say a lot :P

X8 is good. That’s all it needed to be. Even without comparing it to the dumpster fires that are X6 and X7, X8 is an enjoyable title, and I’d dare say that it’s an X5 done better. This is also the first time since X3 that I really had no idea what to expect - few people talk about this game, and I know that sadly it never had a chance to shine.

The first change is in the characters. Like in X7, you can choose 2 out of the 3 (more if you count X’s armors) characters, and you can switch them in game, but there have been many improvements.

if a character dies, you can still play as the other, unless you die by an instakill obstacle such as spikes

if you switch right after you get hit, the character you’re not playing as recovers a little

a frequent mechanic is saving one of your character if he’s captured, emphasizing the Super Power of Teamwork™

there’s even a move that I can only compare to the Team Blast from Sonic Heroes: press R2 next to an enemy once the Attack Gauge is full, and you’ll get a cool animation of your two characters going ham on an enemy and hitting it hard. Love it!

Another neat change is the navigators. Not only Alia can be actually useful, but you get two new navigators, one that helps you more when it comes to enemies and bosses and one that helps you find new items (my favorite in terms of utility). Or you could just go solo! Finally!

And then there’s the characters themselves, who got a much needed overhaul after X7!

X is of course playable from the start, as one would expect from a Mega Man X game, and at first he’s the most underwhelming of the bunch, with only a Charge Shot to his name. His strength, of course, is that he can find the Light Capsules (only him sadly, Zero and Axl can't collect them for him once again) and build his own unique armors, the Icarus Armor and the Hermes Armor. You can even mix match the parts (thank you for not regressing to X5′s and X6′s bullshit), although if you choose the full sets you get extra perks like the Giga Crash. Both armors are pretty spiffy if I do say so myself :)

Zero is no longer useless! My boy is fun again! Yay! Still not quite as fluid as his PS1 days, but still! He has much more range than in X7, he’s a little faster (but slower compared to the other two characters, which is fair), and he feels stronger. And his moves are <3 Rasetsusen my beloved <3

Axl developed even more his unique characteristics and he doesn’t feel like Discount X. The Copy Shot and the hover return, but his more prominent trait is that he can shoot at 360° degrees. He has to stop in his tracks (even hovering in place), and his bullets are relatively weak, but he autofires incredibly fast to compensate. He also gets unique guns from Mavericks instead of copying X’s subweapons. Very fun to play as, especially when you’re starting out.

The parts mechanic has also been thankfully replaced by a more comfortable shop where you can buy the upgrades you’d expect, such as a Sub Tank, a Weapon Tank, energy to fill them, extra “lives” (more on that later), temporary power ups, etc. And you can choose which character you want to power up rather than carefully calculating which one of your 8 Heart Tanks goes to one of your 3 characters! After you lose a certain number of lives, you also unlock an intermission which is essentially a minigame where you collect as many chips as you can in one life (I only tried the Noah's Park one though), and you can try it as many times as you want, which greatly reduces the amount of grinding you have to do. You still have, however, to find rare metals to unlock more important items, like extra weapons for Zero - those rare metals effectively replace Heart Tanks/Sub Tanks/Weapon Tanks as your collectibles and some of them are quite tricky to find. (well Easy mode almost gives them to you freely, which I didn’t care for, more on that later :\)

Where X8 fell for me is the level design and how far they swung in the opposite direction when it comes to lives.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the level design is nowhere near the absolute garbage that X6 offered, nor is it lazy like X7. But levels here are quite a jump in difficulty compared to previous titles, not fake difficulty thankfully, but they took some cues from Classic Mega Man, especially when it comes to fucking spikes and tight jumps to avoid them. They’re also pretty long with only a couple of exceptions, and this is a bit of a problem.

The lives system in X6 and X7 was a joke. Game overs just meant you had to wait a little more to get to the last checkpoint (in fact, X6 was even overly generous with lives, considering that you could get trapped in unwinnable situations). But X8, man. You don’t have lives, you have “retry chips” like in Z1, and in Normal Mode you only have two of them - the only way to get more is to buy them at the shop, up to 3 extra retry chips in Normal mode. And it is so easy to get a game over here simply as you’re getting the feel of a level, and once you do, your only options are to go to the shop or to get booted to the title screen, and in short you have to redo the entire level again. Yeah, I know that this has been the standard until the more recent games, but I still feel the balance could have been tweaked a little. The one game where the EX Item would have been useful, and they removed it :\

In short, I’m ashamed to admit that I had to create a save with Easy mode (which has infinite retry chips among other things I didn’t want) because in Normal mode I couldn’t beat a single Maverick, hell I couldn't even reach one D: yes even knowing that the game would have ended earlier. That’s fair, I guess :\

(there could be an interesting discussion about the practice of Easy Mode Mockery and whether it makes things fair or it’s just a petty way to encourage gitting gud, but now I’m just overthinking lmao)

As for the levels themsleves, they’re... uhhhhhhh.

Bamboo Pandamonium’s was nice! Probably the best "standard” stage. It’s almost completely a Ride Armor level, and I love the power up music that plays. Dark Mantis’ was also a nice stealth level, reminded me of Magna Centipede’s. Gravity Antonion is absolutely the highlight of the entire game, with its gravity puzzle, very very fun and engaging, and I like how you get the Light Capsule with Axl's Copy Shot.

But then there’s Optic Sunflower’s level, a mix of dumb minigames, complete with some assholish sequences like, guess what, tight spiked passageways (although apparently if you play perfectly you get a bonus match with Cutman, complete with 8-bit sprite, and okay that’s really cute and a good way to incentivize good gameplay). Spikes are also what gave me the biggest headache in Burn Rooster's stage, that stupid spiked maze must have cost me more than ten lives because I suck and it’s the #1 reason I dread the idea of trying Normal mode again - the infamous autoscrollers weren't too bad though, and the third one was a memorable surprise. Earthrock Trilobyte’s level is very short, almost underdeveloped, and being chased by that Mechaniloid is more annoying than tense, although I’d take a short bland level over a marathon at this point. Same for Gigabolt Man-o-War, where I essentially won by spamming the shooting button and wrestling with the awkward suddenly-3D controls. And finally, Avalanche Yeti is a really bad Ride Chase level, not quite as irritating as Squid Adler's when it comes to level design (and obviously not as horseshit to control as Ride Boarski's), but man does it go on for fucking ever, especially with the miniboss who loves to stay out of reach.

The final levels are... barely there. Jakob’s Elevator is nothing more than, well, an elevator where enemies attack you, boring but hey after Palace Road I’ll take anything. The boss rush was the boss rush, although I appreciate that 1) there’s an in-game explaination, that is the Mavericks have been cloned by the NG Reploids, and 2) the teleporters are color-coded! That’s cute. Sigma Palace has a great aesthetic, being on the moon and all, but holy shit I am sick and tired of dying at random spiked rooms and having to redo half of the level again. At this point it feels cheap, like the devs didn't know how to create a more organic challenge!

I guess I can’t fully judge the Mavericks since I played the nerfed version lmao, in Normal mode they have something of a “pinch” mode that doesn’t exist in Easy mode. I was a bit annoyed at they very long I-frames, but then I found out that some attacks can take out a good chunk of their health, even the Icarus Armor’s standard shot. But I’ll just say this: you guys are really mean to this roster :( I think Bamboo Pandamonium and Burn Rooster are cute, and Dark Mantis is one of the coolest Mavericks in the series too. Probably the meh-est ones are Gigabolt Man-o-War (interesting animal, but quite ugly design) and Avalance Yeti (really? A snowman?).

What I can say is that the minibosses are meh. Sometimes it’s just an onslaugh of enemies, other times it’s just a dodging game. If you’re lucky, you get Vile. If you’re unlucky, you’re in Avalanche Yeti’s stage dealing with that dumb flying ship.

Before talking about the plot, the most important part first: THE VOICE ACTING IS GOOD. Really good even! It feels like real people are talking! What is this sorcery! Sometimes X and Zero have a bit of a dudebro delivery, but their voices sound great and no wonder Lucas Gilbertson became Zero’s iconic voice. you little baby blue bop

But the story itself... eh? Much like X7′s plot, the concept is solid: it intertwines the progress of Reploid technology, with the NG Reploids built to be immune to the Sigma Virus, and the condition of humanity, who are set to flee to the moon to escape the wars caused by Reploids. Harsh. But the story itself falls when it comes to the antagonists: Lumine is very, extremely obviously evil in the intro cutscene, and yet he disappears after the intro stage because Vile decided his 5-game long break was over, and the game pretends Sigma is the real villain again. There is some cool stuff with the Reploids cloning him (ngl it’s very jarring to see him as a common enemy), but then the final twist that Lumine was behind Sigma, but Sigma created Lumine, is... unclear? A shame for the first and only game that actually bothers to twist the “twist” of Sigma being behind it all. Well, whatever, game ends on a cliffhanger anyway :D

The graphics are a mixed bag. Leaps ahead of X7, but really you have to try to be worse than that game lol. Noah’s Park is quite the graphical flex, and others levels are not too shabby either, with standouts being the forest of Pandamonium, the trippy world of Antonion, and the bustling city of Man-o-War. But not all levels are splendid, with some relying on dull greys (Mantis’ level, Rooster’s level) or browns (Trilobyte’s level), and to be frank it doesn’t quite reach the same level of the contemporary Sonic Heroes for example. Not too keen on the artstyle of the characters either - I’m okay with the slimmer limbs, but the faces look a little squareish, with small distant eyes, and Zero's thin, limp ponytail is just sad. Also the animated cutscenes did not age well at all, especially in the expressions department, the most shock X can muster is a :o face.

I think the music has to grow on me yet? While playing I couldn’t recognize a single tune except for the cool Ride Armor theme and what may be the best boss theme in the X series. Most of the tracks feel like rather generic rock, good for background music but a far cry from the catchy bangers of other titles in the series. But on their own, there are some standouts: Gravity Antonion sounds very X5 (and the composer is Naoto Tanaka apparently so it fits), Avalanche Yeti has one hell of a slap bass, Optic Sunflower's minigame theme motivates you to git gud :P Jakob Elevator has a cool riff, and Gateway and Sigma Palace both convey a sense of "is this really the end?".

So... did I like X8? As of now, I’d rank the X games like this:

8) X7

7) X6

6) X3

5) X5

4) X8

3) X2

2) X1

1) X4

So X8 is square in the middle, and I’d say it fits. It’s a good game, one that tried to be ambitious and it succeded. I didn’t jive with it, I really don’t think I’ll try Normal mode soon, and tbh it might be simply because I’m tired lol, but as the last game in the X series, it’s a good sendoff and most importantly a great apology to the fans :P

[nintendowife]

I finished Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood on PS3 yesterday.  A little bit of background on this: I had purchased a physical copy of the game in 2011, had started playing it but stopped to Sequence 3. I suspect there was a bit of a fatigue/burn-out after recently playing Assassin's Creed II, where we collected all the feathers with my husband.  The old Brotherhood save file was from 2012 and now 10 years later I felt it was time to finish what I had started. I had actually set it as a goal for myself for 2022 to finally finish the game that's been haunting my backlog.  I started a new save file to have some clue about what's going on in the game and managed to beat the main story in a week. 

The stealth-action adventure game is a continuation to Assassin's Creed II and we relive the protagonist Ezio Auditore da Firenze's memories again. The events take place in 16th century Rome where Ezio aims to revive the Assassin brotherhood and free the city from the Templar order led by the Borgia family. 

I have to say I was quite pleased with the game. It has aged very well: it looks good, sounds good and the gameplay feels fine looking at it from today's modern perspective. I played the game with Italian voice acting to achieve a good immersion and was not disappointed. 

The characters are nicely designed and well-written - Ezio especially is a very charismatic, likeable protagonist. What perhaps impressed me the most was the clothing design that is very detailed, showcasing the roots of Italy being renown in the world of fashion.  The landscapes and city structures like historical landmarks paint a very authentic feel of Renaissance Italy. I often caught myself sitting on top of rooftops and towers gazing at the skies that cast beautiful lighting over the city of Rome. 

The main story immersed me into the game for hours at a time. I was looking forward to seeing how the events would unfold and how it would end. The blend of history (with actual historical figures), sci-fi and mystery is a delicious combination. 

In addition to the main story the game has a good chunk of optional side content like burning down Borgia towers, rebuilding Rome by purchasing and renovating shops and landmarks, destroying Leonardo Da Vinci's machines by his request, faction quests and searching for hidden collectibles. There's a game mode where you recruit assassin trainees and send them on missions to improve their skills and bake them into full-fledged assassins. An additional perk of this is that you can call your recruits to aid you in combat.  There's also a multiplayer mode which I didn't try out so can't comment on it. 

The combat system is pretty versatile with various options for weaponry and possibility to use tools like poison and smoke bombs to disorient the enemy. I had some trouble with the controls at times as the target lock suddenly kicked in on its own when engaged in combat. This led to many failed mission attempts where my main target fled due to Ezio suddenly concentrating on a guard instead of chasing after a Borgia captain.  The parkour and climbing mechanics feel fluid but at times it was difficult to steer jumps into the right direction. There were occasional performance issues when moving through the environments at a faster pace but it didn't really bother me. 

I encountered frustration and annoyance with some of the missions where the conditions of failure weren't properly announced right off the bat. Only after I "desynchronized" a text appeared stating the reason for the mission failing. Trial and error isn't my favorite feature in games. 

I should give a special mention to the soundtrack which successfully creates the right kind of vibe for the game. It does a great job of accentuating the suspense and mystery of events and locations. The brilliant music was composed by Jesper Kyd who has created the scores to prior Assassin's Creed games and is also known for his music in some Hitman titles. 

I found Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood an enjoyable and interesting game. I'm sort of inspired to look into the last part of the Ezio trilogy, Assassin's Creed: Revelations now. Vittoria agli assassini!

[playernumberv]

Returnal may be the best game I’ll probably end up leaving unfinished

But wait, I hear my imaginary audience ask - if a game is that good, how and why would I possibly leave it unfinished? And indeed, when I leave a game unfinished, it’s usually because I don’t have much good to say about it, and no longer deem it worthy of my time. I left Assassin’s Creed Valhalla unfinished after 30 hours in it, for example, because it just kept dragging on and on and on and I just got incredibly bored. That’s not the case with Returnal at all. 

In what has been for me a relatively lull year in games (with nothing having reached my personal standard for being a GOTY contender yet), Returnal has been the most compelling and fascinating title I’ve played. It is just utterly stellar. I love how intriguing the sci-fi psychological horror/thriller setting is, and while sparse, the little narrative there is compels me to want to find out more about Atropos and Selene. The third-person shooter combat is visceral and fluid, and is a mad rush of pure adrenaline and exhilaration that is complemented by an overwhelming smorgasbord of eye-melting visual effects. Audio design can only be described as majestic, with thunderous combat soundtracks that catalyze the already sky-high intensity of the game’s combat, and the deafening roar of enemy cries truly tear right into you, making you feel as if you were truly confronted by terrifying alien monstrosities. Level design and art design are similarly masterful, creating an alien world that genuinely feels alive and horrifying. And have I mentioned how indescribably good the dualsense implementation is? You can feel the pitter-patter of raindrops; you can feel the kinetic rush of dashing; you can feel the recoil of gunfire. If Astro’s Playroom was a technical demonstration of what the dualsense could be capable of, Returnal is an applied demonstration of how the dualsense can truly elevate gaming experiences. Every aspect of this game comes together and just oozes an unprecedented level of quality in the level of immersion it achieves - it bombards you with near-endless bursts of visual, auditory, as well as sensory feedback, and in so doing creates a truly next-gen gaming experience that feels extremely immersive. Short of VR experiences, I daresay no other game has ever come close to such an immaculate level of immersion, so much so that can say unironically that the game actually makes me feel like I’m stranded on an alien world.

Again I hear my imaginary audience ask - this makes no damn sense, if Returnal is as magnificent as I claim it to be, why would I leave it unfinished?

And to that, my answer is this: Returnal is simply far too punishing and inaccessible. For a working adult who—I’m ashamed to say, despite my immense love of games—isn’t especially skilled at gaming and who has relatively limited time and energy for gaming, Returnal simply demands far too much. It’s utterly soul-crushing. To begin with, I am not a fan of the repetitiveness of roguelikes, and even a roguelike as polished and well-designed as Hades did not especially impress me, as I mentioned in my earlier review of it. Yet Hades’ roguelike is, ironically enough, heavenly compared to the genuine hellishness of Returnal’s roguelike, where permanent upgrades are extremely scarce to the point of being nearly non-existent. Virtually everything resets with each death. Your weapons: gone, reduced to ashes. Your suit upgrades, health upgrades, all gone. And that may have been fine were the game itself not nail-bitingly hard—it’s not uncommon at all to have to spend an hour or even more on preparation, only for one small mistake to be severely punished before you even manage to reach the boss, and to have to restart from zero all over again. Furthermore, as is standard of the roguelike genre, there is a fair bit of randomness—and so how successful each run is may in part be determined by whether you luck out on obtaining the desired suit upgrades or your desired weapon. This randomness further compounds the amount of time that needs to be spent on preparing, failing, being unlucky, and trying all over again. That may have been fine once in a while, but repeat this cycle enough times, and Returnal becomes a miserable punishment. It’s utterly soul-crushing to have to waste hours on preparation, only to fail and have all the preparation completely reduced to nothing. And this isn’t even accounting for how gruellingly tough the boss fights can be. Returnal makes you squander hours upon hours—it severely punishes failure, to the point where its rewards, majestic though they are, become overshadowed by its punishment.

Yes, yes, I can already hear a portion of my imaginary audience chanting. ‘GIT GUD’, they say, and I don’t deny at all that I am not good at Returnal. But I am certain that there are other gamers, who like me, do not play games to be punished, challenged, and pushed to our limits—we play games for entertainment, for relaxation, and for escapism from the stresses and difficulties of the real world, something that may be especially important in the broken, pandemic-stricken world we live in currently. Returnal is the utter opposite of relaxation, and if a (mostly) healthy, able-bodied person like me finds it inaccessible, I imagine it to be even more so for a huge proportion of others out there. To be fair, I hesitate to call any of this a ‘flaw’ on the part of Returnal, and I do understand the sentiments of the ��git gud’ crowd—there’s a strong charm to Returnal’s unflinching adherence to its vision, and its insistence on having an identity of relentlessness and challenge is in its own way very respectable and charismatic. I also do understand the immense elation and satisfaction of surmounting a seemingly-impossible challenge—beating the bosses of the first and second biomes of Returnal filled me with a raw euphoria no game has given me in ages. In part, having no recourse towards an easier way out is part of this charm. Knowing that one cannot simply choose an easier option, for there is none, truly does magnify the immense satisfaction of conquering a challenge.

With all that being said, I cannot help but think that sacrificing a small part of that charisma and charm in the noble pursuit of accessibility is a worthy cost. This need not even involve sacrificing the roguelike genre in favour of a more generic third-person action-adventure style of gameplay—although admittedly, given my general disdain for roguelikes, this would probably have been a better fit for me. I do have to say that the roguelike genre is perfect for Returnal. Its central narrative theme of being stranded on an alien planet where the main character returns by death—wait, wrong series—provides perfect ludonarrative harmony when melded with the roguelike genre, and this harmonious complementation between game-play and narrative is truly brilliant. Even maintaining its roguelike genre, I sincerely believe that Returnal could have been made to be substantially more accessible and less punishing, and to shift the mechanics away from randomness and towards granting more player control. Having difficulty options provide a convenient way to accomplish this, but I do believe the roguelike itself could also learn a number of lessons from Hades. For example, even maintaining its present difficulty levels, a larger number of permanent upgrades would go an incredibly long way in making Returnal’s roguelike far more meaningful and palatable. More forms of permanent suit or health upgrades, as well as more permanent weapons—being stuck with only a pistol at the start of every run is extremely unwelcome—would be immensely appreciable as well. Implementing these changes would indeed compromise some of Returnal’s unflinching and unrelenting vision. But would it not be a worthy trade-off if a greater number of people can experience the utter majesty of what Housemarque has accomplished here in terms of audio design, game design, art design, and narrative?

I truly am impressed by Returnal, and when awards season comes by at the end of the year, I think it unquestionably deserves every accolade it will almost surely obtain, be it in audio, narrative, or gameplay. It is the best game I’ve played this entire year so far, and even as I type this, I feel a rush of sheer awe at just how unbelievably excellent Returnal is. Unfortunately, my affections for Returnal feel unrequited. My circumstances and my relative incompetence as a gamer make it near-impossible for me to ever experience in full all that Returnal has to offer, despite my great desire to be able to. So, it seems, despite my deep affections for Returnal, I may never finish it, and I will think back to this years later with deep regret, wishing that I were in more suitable circumstances, wishing that I were a better gamer, and wishing that Returnal could have been more accessible. Alas, these wishes were not to be.

[mrslittletall]

Time for my Ghost of Tsushima Review: Graphics To make it short, the game looks absolutely GORGEOUS. It goes with a realistic style. I didn’t had trouble with the character models, they looked good and unique and the facial expressions were well done. What got me, though, is the scenery. Tsushima is lush with nature and there were trees, flowers, pampas grass. You clearly could see what was a japanese settlement and what was a mongol camp, though I have to argue that they resuded a lot of assets for the buildings, like if you you knew one of them, you knew all of them, but that is nitpicking.  The water looked great, the fire effects looked great, the foxes were cute, the flowers were gorgeous. It was a joy to look at and I made some scenery screenshots which I all forgot to upload, oh well...  The last area was a bit duller though, because it was full of snow, but I like snow and we got footprints in the snow, so I was fine with it ^^ Sound/Music Sadly this game suffers from western Triple A problems... the music is generic and doesn’t stand out. I think I remember one song of the entire OST and that was in Yarikawa, when you unlock the Ghost Stance.  The music is generally played with japanese instruments which was a very nice touch though. It wasn’t there all the time also, leaving you room to listen to the atmosphere, which was nicely done. It never really was quiet in Tsushima, but it made me feel at ease. I am also amazed at the voice acting. The voice acting was really really good, though both me and my husband had one gripe with it... Ok, so I put them on english, but they are still talking japanese with each other, it’s just dubbed for our listening comfort, so why... why did so many VA’s speak with a fake japanese accent?! That didn’t make any sense at all!  It got even more hilarious when I read the names of the credits and Jin, one of the few who doesn’t sport a fake japanese accent was spoken by a japanese man! That was the only gripe I had with the voice acting though.  Gameplay  The game feels like a classic Open World game. I heard a lot of people got tired by it, but they probably have played like a hundred Open World titles already. I only played Breath of the Wild and Death Stranding (and Death Stranding is not a typical Open World title), so it felt all fresh and new enough for me. I am a person who really likes to see progress in games, so it always felt great for me when I found one of the locations in Tsushima that would give me some extra and make my Jin stronger. I loved the exploration part of the game.  The quests of the games? They were a bit generic, at least the optional quests. Lots of the same to do. The story quests were more interesting, for they sometimes forced a certain playstyle on you or gave you certain weapons to use. Like, sinking the ships with the hwacha was really cool and having to sneak out of the shogun’s castle was nerve wracking. I wasn’t bored with them though, for I liked the little stories behind the quests.  The combat was really fluid and played well, though the standoffs at Act 3 got ridiculously hard. I thought it was my problem, but I wasn’t the only one failing the standoffs in Act 3, the game really just made them super hard, apparently to encourage stealth? Yeah, but I don’t want to stealth the mongol patrols...  The boss battles in the game... they kinda felt like a dance. You had to find out what your opponent does and react accordingly and if you did it right, it felt like a beautiful rythm of a sword battle. I was pretty impressed by how fluid it felt when I didn’t mess up. The stealth mechanics were good. I hate stealth in games where you normally don’t do stealth, but here the stealth was a big part of the game. You had a lot of options for stealth, you could hide in grass or behind walls, you could assassinate the foes one by one, you could hide on a roof and shoot them with your bow, you get access to poison later in the game (shooting a brute with hallucination dart was always fun) and and and. It really hammers home that your character took up the practices of a shinobi to save his home.  The early game hell was pretty bad though... you start with not much of course, and that made me almost give up on the game because I did nothing but die... only when I found out that I can run up to archers and hit them with my sword instead of having an archer battle, I had fun again. Like, the game starts you out with low health and resolve and then gets you into missions with five archers shooting at you at once? You are dead before you could even aim!  Overall, I had fun with the gameplay.  Story/Characters Ok, that will be complicated, because I like the story and I dislike the story at the same time... But let’s talk about the characters first. I loved most of them, especially Jin, Yuna, Kenji and Norio. Every main character got their own questline which you could follow and it showed a lot about them, also that none of them a honourable hero or anything, but they all had their flaws and troubles... Especially Lady Masako’s quest made me thinking... for it was extreme that her family got slaughtered like that, but after hearing that she left her sister in an abusive marriage I couldn’t hate Lady Hana for it... she must have tremendously suffered and sadly all her negative energy got channeled at innocent people... Their stories went through the whole game and were a good thing to deepen them, because in the main story they felt a bit side lined in favour of Yuna’s and Jin’s friendship as well as the storyline about Ryuzo and the relationship between Jin and Shimura.  Ok, let’s talk about the story now.  The story is set on the 13th century of the island of Tsushima with the mongol invasion. Because the mongols fight not fair, the honourable Samurai lose the battle... almost all of them. Jito Shimura gets captured and Jin gets dragged away by thief Yuna who nurses him back to health. Of course he makes the decision to save Shimura, who is his uncle, but now he hasn’t an army in his back, he’s only one man. So Yuna teaches him the tactics of stealth and dirty fighting. More and more over the span of the game, Jin takes up the practices of a shinobi, with a lot of Ghost Weapons that get unlocked and a stealth based game play.  Jin, who has been raised as honourable samurai, has trouble with this and can’t accept his new role at first. He tells himself he stops doing it once the mongols are driven out, but...  A legend is getting spun. The Legend of the Ghost. I really like how this happens, for Jin does nothing supernatural to get the mongols down, he simply changes his tactics. But the people hear about it and they rumour and soon after they call him “The Ghost” and everything gets exxegerated a LOT. That is pretty much how legends must have started, so I loved this aspect.  And I loved how we see Jin’s inner struggle and how he thinks about the land first and his honour second and that there is a friendship with Yuna which never turns into romance, which is a plus as well. Act 2 was really epic and I loved the whole Yarikawa moment, when like everything screamed “For the Ghost”, that was POWERFUL. What I dislike is the story since the end of Act 2 and in the start of Act 3.   See, there’s Ryuzo. Ryuzo is Jin’s boyfriend childhood friend and he is a ronin. Jin asked him to join his forces, but Ryuzo betrays him and joins the mongols for his men hunger and the Khan did promise him food.  And during the second act, Ryuzo and his strawhat ronin act like secondary villains... and I was very much hoping for a redemption arc for Ryuzo, but instead the story lets Ryuzo pathetically cry for his life and Jin has to kill him. Um, what was that?! You missed a GREAT opportunity for a redemption arc here and it feels like you didn’t use the potential of Ryuzo at all...  And then Act 3 happened... see in Act 2 there is a mission where Jin gets poison and it is a powerful weapon, most players will probably use it. But there is a scene where Jin uses it without player control and his uncle is like “WTF Jin?”  The issue comes when we enter act 3 and now the mongols use the poison that Jin used on them... And the story turns into a “Oh Jin used poison, how horrible that is! Now the mongols have poison! Why did you use poison, Jin? You are clearly the villain now.” Which I am like... “No? What the fuck? This guy saved thousands of people because he decided that life was more imporant than honour and the narration wants to tell us that poison is bad? What?”  In the end, I liked that Lord Shimura came to help though and the ending tale... had some very powerful lines “You have no honour.” “And you are a slave to it.” Beautifully delivered those lines. My decision in the end was to let Lord Shimura leave, but not for the reason Jin had, for he said he wouldn’t kill family. My reason was the following: “Live! See the pain and suffering of your people and help them. Live with your shame and survive, because that is what Jin does. You don’t get an easy way out, old man.” Yeah, my reason was lot more spite...  Anyway, I wish the story in the later acts would have been better... it started so strong... Overall This isn’t a perfect game of course. But I had my fun with it and I wanted to explore the map and see the end of Jin’s story. Characters were adorable and fun, gameplay is smooth once early game hell is over. I would totally rec this game if you aren’t fatigued of open world titles.

[dontasktheradiodemon]

How Do Snakes Pee

Look. He's got two of 'em. Does he use them both at once or does he take turns with them or—

This is the thread that really proves Telly @usedhearts is in love with Alastor, because if he wasn't then Alastor woulda been kicked outta the airship for interrupting cuddles for this.

There’s no smut here, but, like... I wouldn’t call this a SFW thread. I also wouldn’t call this a serious thread.

Alastor

Tonight had been a lovely romantic evening—capped off by sex, which Alastor still considered the least romantic part of the whole night, but as long as it was still doing something for Telly he was game to play along.

But his mind had been wandering more and more often during these erotic encounters, and the latest one had brought up a question that, try as he might, he couldn’t shake.

And so, after they’d washed off and were sleepily cuddling together, Alastor pecked Telly’s lips and said, “Can I ask something? There’s something I need to know.”

Sir Pentious

Telly had been dozing when Alastor pecked him and started speaking. He blinked and gave a yawn-- nice and big, look at all those teeth-- before smiling at him.

"Mm, what is it, darling?"

Alastor

Oh, *look* at all those teeth. Adorable.

Alastor gave Telly a loving smile, took his face in his hands to gently rub it with his thumbs, and full of affection, he gently whispered, “Do you pee out of one at a time or is it both at once? I can’t decide which would look weirder.”

Sir Pentious

Telly blinked. And then blinked again. Then a third time for good measure. His brow furrowed and he reached his hands up to hold Alastor's against his face.

"I say this with all my love, darling, but _what the fuck?_ "

Alastor

Alastor shrugged. “Well! I know you come out of both at once! But that’s a little different, isn’t it? That bit is *supposed* to be all fluids everywhere, that’s part of the... you know, the whole *aesthetic* of the act. Doing that at the toilet seems out of place! But on the other hand, if you *do* only use one at the toilet, what’s the other one doing at the same time?” Another shrug! He’d put a lot of thought into this issue. It had been the only thing on his mind for about 90% of Telly’s hand job.

Sir Pentious

Telly sat up a bit, propped up by his elbow, chin on his knuckles as he listened. His brow rose higher and higher with every word and he took a long, slow breath.

"You've thought about this a lot, have you? I'm not one to stifle curiosity, but also, I am only going to answer this because I love you: It's both."

Alastor

Well, naturally. One doesn’t talk to people one *doesn’t* love about what one’s genitalia does, now, does one? Unless one is talking with one’s doctor, but details.

He nodded slowly, a thoughtful look on his face. “... Does that make it hard to aim?”

Sir Pentious

He's trying, so so very hard right now, to hold a straight face. Telly closed his eyes a moment, taking a breath.

"No. I just hold both at once with one hand."

Alastor

“Hm.” Alastor nodded again. Sure. That made sense. Kept things all pointed the same direction. Like a double-barreled shotgun. Except with less wide spray, ideally.

Was it uncomfortable, though? Probably not, or else Telly would have come up with another solution. It *sounded* uncomfortable. But maybe just because Alastor wasn’t built to have two lined up next to each other like that. And anyway whenever Alastor saw Telly’s, they tended to be fully erect; they were tucked away the rest of the time. No doubt they were easier steer flaccid. Did Telly even need to extend them all the way to use the toilet? Or just a couple of inches or so?

After about half a minute of deep contemplation as his questions multiplied, Alastor asked, “Can I see?”

Sir Pentious

He's blinking again. So much blinking is happening right now.

"Can you _what?_" He asked, as if he hadn't just heard his boyfriend asking if he could _see him pee._

Alastor

“Can I see? It seems a lot faster than asking twenty questions about the mechanics. And it sounds like a weird sight!” He paused. “No offense.” So he said, as if calling it “weird” was the most out there part of this conversation.

Sir Pentious

Telly moved to lay fully on his back. He closed his eyes, folding his hands in a praying sort of motion, and took a deep, deep breath. Letting it out slowly, he finally opened his eyes to turn and look at Alastor.

"Only this once, and only because I love you, and then _never again._"

Alastor

Alastor couldn’t imagine he’d *need* to see it more than once, but Telly made it sound like it was such a chore. “Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to! It’s fine.”

Sir Pentious

"No, no, I am not going to stifle your curiosity just because it's odd and off-putting, but you only get to see it once so, enjoy I suppose?" He stood up, and slid off the bed, slithering towards the bathroom.

"Come along, then."

Alastor

More off-putting than fountaining semen into the air in front of a witness? And yet Telly had no problem with that. Alastor tried to wrap his head around the difference. “Oh—*right now?*” He hopped to his feet and followed Telly. “I’ll mentally prepare myself.”

Sir Pentious

"If I don't do it right now, I never will, so yes, right now. You asked for this, Alastor." He turned to arch a brow at him, and then slithered into the false bathroom. He went to the toilet and stood in front of it, like he usually did. And just kept standing there.

His eyes flicked over to Alastor and then back to the toilet, and he, once again, could not believe he was doing it. He took a breath and his fingers found his slit, spreading it to find the heads of his dicks and draw them out.

He only pulled them out about three inches, and pressed his other hand against the wall behind the toilet, leaning over it a bit more.

And.....then nothing. Nothing came out. He glanced down, then to one side, then the other side.

"It'll....just be a moment....I'm not used to an _audience_."

Alastor

“I’d have even more questions if you were.” He watched with a crooked smile, half amused by Telly’s self-conscious display and half vicariously self-conscious himself. “Should I get you a glass of water? Or scare you?” No, that was hiccups, wasn’t it.

Sir Pentious

"Scare-- no! I just...." His face scrunched and he pointedly looked away from Alastor.

"I'm just going to try and pretend you're not there for a moment. Just try to be quiet."

Alastor

Solemnly, he said, “I’ll try my best.”

And then he stood there quietly, hand under his chin, watching contemplatively, and totally behaving himself.

Sir Pentious

Telly closed his eyes, listening to the silence and pushing all thoughts of being _watched_ from his brain. Finally, he began to pee, and a few seconds later he was done. He shook and then let his dicks retreat, flushing after.

It was only then that he reopened his eyes and BWUAGHED at the sight of Alastor standing there _watching_. He quickly turned to begin washing his hands.

"Satisfied?"

Alastor

The whole time he watched with the contemplative look of a master art teacher examining a student’s charcoal technique. When Telly finally spoke, Alastor nodded. “I was right! It was kind of weird looking.”

He followed Telly to the sink to lean against him. Lovingly. “But not *bad*-weird, mind. Just unusual. Nothing wrong with unusual! I happen to adore unusual.”

Sir Pentious

"Fine. Good." He huffed a bit, turning his head to look down at Alastor, fondly.

"You are never seeing me do the _other one_ though, so don't even ask."

Alastor

Alastor’s eyes immediately unfocused. Oh, he hadn’t even thought about that. Now he was WONDERING. It had to come out the front, right? So did Telly have to... what, sit backwards on the toilet? Lie across it? How did that... how......

Sir Pentious

Telly finished washing his hands and dried them, before turning to Alastor. He then gently took his face in his hands, and leaned in, ever so close, to say.

"_No._"

Alastor

He blinked up at Telly, then reluctantly nodded. “I think I can live with not knowing.”

Sir Pentious

"Good because it's never going to happen. Ever. Never ever ever."

Alastor

“All right! I suppose that would be just weird to ask to see.” He said this without the slightest trace of irony.

Sir Pentious

Telly just rolled his eyes (all of them) and leaned in to kiss Alastor.

"YOU, DARLING, ARE _WEIRD!_ AND I LOVE YOU!"

Alastor

He accepted the kiss graciously. “Although this is going to haunt me now, I’ll have you know.”

Sir Pentious

Telly leveled him with a deadpan stare. "Haunted. By how I poop. Really."

Alastor

“What if I take you out on a date and you can’t use the toilets there?! I won’t know if I don’t know what you need. Do you sit *backwards?* Do you—do you need one of those floor toilets they have in some countries?” A pause as he turned to eye the toilet in the room. “... I suppose you’d have one of those here, wouldn’t you.”

Sir Pentious

"Yes, I would. But here, look." He slithered back to the toilet and pressed something on the back of the tank. The entire toilet shifted, the bowl tilting and moving up, the seat retreating.

"I made this to make it _easier_ but I can still use normal ones just fine. And that is _all_ you're getting on the subject." He pressed the button again, the toilet shifting back to normal, and then went to wash his hands again.

Alastor

Oh but now there’s machinery involved! Fancy snake machinery! He’s always curious to see fancy snake machinery in action!

He reluctantly pulled his eyes away from the transforming toilet. “I guess I’ll live with the mystery.”

Sir Pentious

"Yes, you will, because doing that in front of someone is _weird_ and especially the other one! It's weird and gross, and I don't want to show you that." He snorted and dried his hands once more, before putting one on his hip.

Alastor

“*Is* it weird and gross? The original question, too?” It hadn’t even occurred to him. “I’ve watched you getting off dozens of times and you never complained about *that.*” Tonight Telly’s getting to learn as much about how Alastor’s brain works as Alastor is about how Telly’s junk works.

Sir Pentious

He stared at Alastor for a good half minute, incredulous.

"YES! IT'S _DIFFERENT!!_ TWO ARE EXCREMENT, AND ONE IS NOT!!"

Alastor

That was a very long time to be incredulously stared at. He’s reexamining all his life choices.

“Does it make that much of a difference? It’s *all* dirty bodily byproducts you purge in the bathroom.” Then again, some people liked semen. “All right, okay, fair, two are excrement and one isn’t.”

He ruminated on that a moment. “... What about snot? Where does snot fall in the hierarchy? It isn’t excrement, is snot more or less gross than semen?”

Sir Pentious

Telly sighed, rubbing a finger between his eyes (on his face). "It's.....about the same. Semen and snot are about the same level of gross."

Alastor

He nodded thoughtfully...

Sir Pentious

Telly just laughed a little, shaking his head. "Darling, you're ridiculous. But I love you."

Alastor

“Am I, now!” He drew himself up in mock indignation. “If you can’t have these conversations with the man who’s seen you spurting fluids halfway across the bed—then who, I ask, *can* you have them with?”

Sir Pentious

Telly didn't even deign that with an answer, he just started to slowly sink down as he laughed.

Alastor

“That’s what I *thought!*” His indignation didn’t reach his face; he was smiling goofily. Look at that, the greatest supervillain in Hell, reduced to a noodle laughing on the floor.

Sir Pentious

Telly leaned his back against the lower sink cabinets and tried to get his breath back.

"I _hate you,_" He said, even as he stretched back up to kiss him.

Alastor

“Oh, don’t say *that,* now!” He leaned down to slide his arms beneath Telly’s and around his back, tugging him up into a kiss. “Tell me you don’t.”

Sir Pentious

"I love you, but I hate that you ask me these things!!" He laughed more, kissing him again.

Alastor

“Well then, it’s a good thing we’ve got it over with!” Another kiss. “As long as we’re in here, do you have any mildly intrusive questions to ask me, or should we head back to bed?”

Sir Pentious

"I think we've hit the quota for intrusive questions for the night. Let's go back to bed." He wiped the hilarity from his eyes and stood straighter, wrapping his arm around Alastor's waist as he slithered back towards the bedroom.

Alastor

“Aren’t I lucky!” He wrapped an arm around Telly’s hips and squeezed him closer as they returned to bed.

[haro-whumps]

Group Whumpees 7: Home

CW: transphobia, shitty family relationships, alcohol and binge eating as a coping mechanism, death ment., slavery, aftermath of abuse, multiple whumpees

Tag list: @bleeding-demon-teeth @theycomeinthrees @redwingedwhump @whimperwoods @inpainandsuffering @whole-and-apart-and-between @whump-whump-whump-it-up @whumpingupastorm @newandfiguringitout @lonesome--hunter @looptheloup @icannotweave  @deluxewhump @whumping-every-day @yeet-me-out-a-window @what-a-whumpy-world @burtlederp @constellationwhump @swordkallya @finder-of-rings @fairybean101 @adventuresofacreesty @arlennil @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight

Masterlist

Galo wasn’t entirely sure of what he expected to happen when his father showed up. He knew he was in deep shit--nobody just hung up on his dad, much less multiple times in a row. Screaming, probably. Ranting and raving, no doubt. So he guessed he was grateful, more or less, to whatever powers that were, that his dad showed up already drunk.

“Hey dad,” he said, forcing a tight lipped smile.

“Hey you piece of shit!” Galo’s father answered, loud and boisterous, but happy. He clapped Galo on the back and jabbed a finger into his chest. “I’ve been callin’ you!”

“Yes, dad, I know.”

“Aaaaahaha, oh shit are those devilled eggs?” 

“Yup, go enjoy,” Galo said, gently pushing his father in the direction of the horderves table and mentally thanking Sasha for making so, so many. Yeah, Galo had requested a lot, on account of him knowing his audience, but thank you Sasha.

“Heeey, lil sibling,” Esther greeted, slinging her arm around Galo’s shoulders. Since his transition, she’d pretty much refused to refer to him in any kind of gendered terms and he’d yet to hear her use, like, pronouns for him. On one hand, yes, it was nice that she didn’t insist on calling Galo a girl. On the other, it had been over a decade.

“Afternoon, Esther,” Galo greeted, “You show up with dad?”

“Yeah, Jeremiah’s parking the car. We pregamed.”

“I noticed.”

“Hey guys!” Jeremiah called.

“Hey lil bro!”

Galo felt his eye twitch, very aware that Esther had no issue calling Jeremiah ‘lil bro’ when Galo was--

It was fine. It was fine. They had a 40 minute service, some time for people to leave flowers and mingle, and then Galo could leave.

“Thanks for doing all this, Galo,” Jeremiah said, and Galo smiled a little more genuinely when he clasped his hand, pulling him into a sorta-chest-bump-ish. The motion, if not the contact itself, was there.

“Yeah. Been a real pain in the ass,” Galo admitted. He did not… get along, necessarily, with Jeremiah. But while he disapproved of Jeremiah’s spoiled nature and entitled actions, Jeremiah’s personality was probably the friendliest of Galo’s family. Definitely used to getting his way, and getting it handed to him on a silver platter (their father treated his “only son” differently than the other two), but not like, a bad dude.

“Luckily, Aunt Jude agreed to do cleanup for me, since she couldn’t help with setup.” Aunt Jude was a fundamentally unlikable person, but she made a mean potato salad and was the most responsible member of their family, with the exception of Galo himself. The phrase “control freak” was not a particularly off-base descriptor for her, and Galo knew she’d be plucking at everything “wrong” with what Galo had done in setup in passive aggressive jabs if he let her rope him into a conversation. 

Which he did not intend to do.

At all.

Fuck there she was.

“So how you been, Jeremiah?” Galo asked, leaving Esther to deal with Aunt Jude’s approach. He’d listen to Jeremiah describe every single attachable part, feature, and accessory of whatever new gun he’d bought between now and the last family reunion if it meant sticking Esther with Aunt Jude. He’d politely prompt Jeremiah to talk about golf and “owning the libs” on reddit and let him complain about his loudly eco-feminist lesbian coworker, if it meant not having to deal with Aunt Jude’s holier than thou party planning and getting deadnamed repeatedly. 

Fortunately, Jeremiah was married to the sound of his own voice, so between Galo subtly herding him towards the alcohol and giving intermittent “Mhm”s, Galo kept him going until the funeral itself began. 

Or would have, if Uncle Mike hadn’t started making a scene before the damn thing even started. Galo sighed and pressed his face gently to the wall, listening to the increase in volume as everyone got in on Mike’s riot act. It was a show, him playing the devil’s advocate or saying something provocative or “accidentally” roughhousing too hard. It was just him making sure he was the center of every fucking body’s attention. Galo needed to be sober enough to drive, two hours from now. Sober enough to have a halfway coherent conversation with his shitty fucking family, in about an hour and a half.

But for now, he could grab the bottle of vodka, cut it with some lemonade, and down the entire glass before refilling it with straight vodka. His tastebuds would hate him for it but ideally they’d not be online here in a few minutes. He knew he couldn’t keep drinking like he had been, the last week. If not for his liver, then at the very least for the continued efficiency of his T shots. 

FUCK Aunt Jude was right there.

“Sorry, can’t talk right now,” Galo said in a rush, downing the vodka (ow) and making a beeline for whatever bullshit Uncle Mike was up to. “Gotta put out this fire, talk after the funeral,” he insisted as she opened her mouth again. Uncle Mike was a rude motherfucker, but just for the attention of it all. Aunt Jude was insufferable. 

Galo got between Uncle Mike and his own father, easily solving the dispute now that Auntie Bethany wasn’t there to egg her brothers on. And, since Galo, official fun-sucker of the family, was now on the scene, the rest of the agitated crowd simmered down. A member of Auntie Bethany’s church approached him, and he forced a smile.

“Thank you, young man,” he said, and Galo’s smile went a little more genuine. 

“Sure thing, dude,” Galo said, pushing his hair back from his face. “Galo. Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine. My condolences for your loss. Bethany was a generous and upright woman; our congregation will miss her sorely.”

Don’t talk shit about the dead, Galo reminded himself firmly, before he could remark on what an evil shrieking harpy she was. He thought on the five people he’d left in that massive house, frightened and hurting, and couldn’t reconcile them with the story this man was now telling him, on how Galo’s aunt had always been the first to visit a church member in the hospital or bake something for an expecting couple.

Auntie Bethany had always worried about appearances more than anyone else in the family, Galo figured. And he was the only person in the room who understood just how far her coverups went. He rubbed at the bandage on his arm, not wanting to stand there listening to a stranger list off how good and kind and giving Auntie Bethany had been, giving Galo sympathy he hadn’t asked for. 

The funeral officially starting was a fucking mercy. He sat between his siblings, trying very hard to daydream himself away for the next 40 minutes. The pews were uncomfortably full. The entire church turned up, it seemed like, and the majority of her facebook friends. 

He forced himself to space out for most of it, thinking very deliberately about which character he intended to romance on his next playthrough, and if playing a female character would be worth it to romance the lesbian who could, in all honesty, do anything she wanted and he would thank her for it. Pros: hot video game girlfriend. Cons: Galo did not care for playing a female character, when male was an option. 

Unfortunately, after eulogies were given (more like soliloquized, everyone in this goddamn (ha) building was only interested in showing off how righteously they were reacting to Auntie Bethany’s passing) and the body was buried, there was a little luncheon and Aunt Jude finally started negging Galo about the funeral. Galo sat, body laced with tension, and forced himself to drink fluids that were not alcohol. Aunt Jude was family, he couldn’t just tell her to fuck off, especially since it’d just start a scene and there was more than one person in the building who would love to join in if Galo caused a scene.

He could really do without the continuous deadnaming though. It was like Aunt Jude was hosting an internal contest on how many times she could say the wrong name in a single paragraph. Even Auntie Bethany hadn’t gone out of her way like this.

He counted down until he felt like enough time had passed, and then called a meeting of all family members in an adjacent room.

“Ma’am, this is family only,” Galo said, halting a woman in a blue dress and pearls at the door.

“Oh, but Bethany and I were like sisters! She always said that, you know? How I was like a sister to her. We were so close.”

“That’s nice, ma’am, but I don’t know who you are, and this meeting is for the immediate family of the deceased.”

Her wrinkly, painted lips pursed, and Galo could feel the exhaustion of the pending conversation hit him before it even happened.

“Ma’am, we know you miss her, but why don’t you go speak with the others,” Aunt Jude butt in. “In this time of grieving, such a close friend to Bethany would be like a lantern in the night, guiding the others, since I’m sure you know how she would have wanted us to mourn her passing.”

Galo turned into the room, letting Aunt Jude handle it, trying as best he could to block out their holier-than-thou sympathetic tones as they discussed whatever the fucking shit they were spewing. Aunt Jude clipped up next to him in her loudly tapping high heels and said, “And that is how it is done.” And then she deadnamed him again! Great. Fan fucking tastic. 

“So,” Galo said, getting everyone’s attention as quickly as he could because he was at his wits’ fucking end, “Auntie Bethany changed up her will right before her death, listing only the people who visited her in the hospital, which turned out to be only me.” He’d summarized as much in a family facebook chat, but it was good to get everyone on the same page, especially since most of them were drunk (and he wasn’t drunk enough).

“Before anyone protests or starts making remarks,” Galo said, a little louder, “let me finish. I figure that, since I am the only one who visited her, I’ll keep her physical properties, and we the family will split her bank account evenly across all of us. Sound good?” Galo hoped his tone discouraged anyone from saying that that did not, after all, sound good.

“And how much is that? Rich bitch never did say how much she had,” Galo’s father crowed drunkenly. 

Galo made a show of counting heads. Ultimately, it wouldn’t matter. “Between the 17 of us, I’ll write everyone here a check for 2 million dollars.”

Everyone was very happy about that. Galo did not mention that, even after giving that much to his relatives (not that any one of them really and actually deserved that kind of money), he’d still have somewhere around 30 million to donate and spend how he liked. Auntie Bethany had been very wealthy. And these 2 million dollar red herrings would ensure none of them questioned after the slaves, who would absolutely not be going to any member of Galo’s family. He got out the checkbook and made his way around the room, reminding the drunk ones to make sure to cash these and not let them flutter off in the wind because Galo wouldn’t be able to write them another one (a lie, but one he’d stick by). And then, and then, it was finally socially acceptable for him to leave, citing being tired from getting up that early that morning and making a beeline for his car. 

“Fuck,” he breathed as he sank into the sweet cloth seat. His body felt ridiculously heavy, but he wasn’t quite out of the frying pan just yet. He turned his car on and drove, drove as fast as the speed limit let him, tricking his stupid monkey hindbrain into feeling like he was running away and it was working. He drove directly and immediately home.

His apartment was no different than how he’d left it. He almost expected dust and roaches, he felt like he’d been gone a year, but really, it had only been a week. One whole week, straight out of hell.

His mattress was kinda lumpy, and had an indent in Galo’s shape from where he so frequently faceplanted into it. He faceplanted then, too. The bed wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was familiar and it smelled like him. He groaned. He took a nap.

He felt better, after. He removed his jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves, and splashed some water on his face. Then he decided to just ditch the shirt altogether. He’d taken all his sweatpants with him when he did the preliminary move into Auntie Bethany’s place, but he still had a pair of leggings he used to wear to the gym before they got a rip in the inner thigh and so he put those on. He downloaded grubhub specifically so he could order a shitload of burritos from taco bell, plus a mountain dew slushie abomination and more of those cinnabon ball things than he could actually, personally eat. It was time to put some garbage in his body. 

Y’know, maybe he wouldn’t sell his bed. Almost all of his craigslist ads had been answered, and he intended to hand over the furniture tomorrow, while the movers were here, having set up appointments with the buyers. His bed was the only piece of furniture that he hadn’t gotten a response for. And he was, after all, ridiculously wealthy.

He pulled up his calculator app. If he wanted to keep rending this apartment indefinitely, let’s say, 20 years, it’d only cost, what, $200,000? That wouldn’t even make a dent in his inherited wealth. He didn’t have to break out of his lease early. He could keep this place, a secret little getaway only for himself, when his new life at the mansion overwhelmed him, or he needed to give those five the night off from his presence, or if he was hiding from his family, or god even knew what. He didn’t have to worry about the money. Literally, nothing monetary could ever touch him again.

And he could redecorate this place, too. Get a little retail therapy in, make it his personal project to work on here and there. That would be… nice. He couldn’t have any plants or living shit in here--it’d die--but maybe some fairy lights and a wall hanging.

He tipped his delivery driver with a $50 bill and didn’t even blink at its loss. He shoveled taco bell into his mouth and called the mansion’s house phone halfway through the meal, washing his mouth out with the toxic waste lookin’ slushie.

“Good evening?”

“Hey, Nyla, it’s Galo. Just letting you know I won’t be home tonight, so you all have permission to go to bed whenever you’re ready to, okay?”

“Yes Master, thank you sir.”

“Have a good night,” he said, and hung up. After dinner, he dicked around on his phone, wishing he’d left his game console here (it wasn’t like he was playing it at the mansion), before he turned in early for the night. 

The next day was better. The moving crew was friendly and thorough, he was happy to hand over his old junk to the buyers, and once they’d trucked his belongings over to the mansion he enlisted their help in moving Auntie Bethany’s old craft furniture and the totes of supplies Nyla had packed up into his car, which he hauled off to be donated. His family didn’t call him, likely too busy spending as much of their new money as they possibly could within a day. He went to the gym in the evening, and bumped into an old friend he’d made before he switched to mornings.

Yes, the next day was better.

--

“He said he’s not coming home tonight,” Nyla informed them, gathered together in the kitchen for dinner. It had been a quiet day. With Master Galo leaving early in the morning, the most that had happened was Evan finishing out his recitations and trying to limp feeling back into his numbed legs. “We can go to sleep whenever we want to.”

“I’d like to sleep early, then,” Greyson remarked, and they all took a look at him. Normally he just listened and went along with whatever the group, or Nyla, decided.

“Tired?” Lilah asked.

“It’s been a week,” Greyson said heavily, and they all agreed. It had certainly been a week. 

“Do you think we could take a bath?” Lilah asked, and they looked between themselves. Taking a bath in the basement bathroom, which had a tub like a small pool, was reserved for when Mistress was out of town for multiple days in a row, and only for the middling days, when there was no chance she might return from a cancelled flight or arrive early.

“Master is o-only away for the n-night.”

“But he hasn’t lied to us yet,” Nyla said. She glanced at Evan. 

They all knew she was being indulgent for Evan’s sake, since he’d had a pretty shit time yesterday and that day. Acquiescing to a bit of mischief. He smiled.

“And we’d hear him open the front door, anyway.” Evan’s voice was still a little rough from that morning. “Dude’s heavy.”

“Let’s take a bath,” Greyson agreed. 

They all showered like they normally did, Greyson first, getting off the grime and sweat of the day, and then sank into the large, gently steaming tub, soaking and talking quietly, ears perked for the sound of the front door, but enjoying the warmth, and the chance to relax. They spoke on Master Galo, collectively attempting to parse his mindgames and coming up short. They spoke on the work they had done and what needed doing, Nyla creating neat categories in her brain. Evan and Greyson spoke infrequently, one feeling too guilty to speak, the other too tired. And then they all said nothing at all, still and warm, simply sitting in the water.

Sasha started to nod off first, her head resting on Nyla’s shoulder, then jerking up, then laying on Greyson’s. He pet her wet hair and broke the silence by urging her to bed, with him. The other three, content and about as calm as they could get, in this place, were not far behind them.

They dried and dressed and climbed into bed, Greyson out in a moment, Evan asleep last, warm and with each other in their Master’s absence.

Next

[antibioware]

My final thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda (a 3 years late review)

So I spent the past week and a half playing a game I paid 13€ for, one that I promised myself I wouldn't touch but that in the end I gave a solid try to anyway, because I was willing to give Andromeda the benefit of the doubt. Because I'm aware that sometimes I'm a bitch, and that the Mass Effect trilogy had its own problems too, but I still regard it as one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected it would be, but that doesn't make it good. Above all else, Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game that could have been interesting, had the creators actually cared to make something out of it outside of just “Dragon Age Inquisition in the Mass Effect universe”.

I wanted to write a more coherent post about what I didn’t like about it, aside from just shitting all over it like I’ve been feeling like doing since the canonical bury your gays in the game slapped me in the face. So here it is, an overlong post about a 3 years old game.

Before getting into the main elements that I disliked, I wanna preface this post by saying that I enjoyed parts of the game. The main characters, while not as well characterized as they could have been (no Bioware character ever is), grew on me the more I played the game, and by the end were the main reason why I kept playing. Unlike DA:I, the writers did a really good job building up the found family trope in this game, and while it turns corny at times, it’s very heartwarming. I think many of the planetary settings in Heleus were stunning to look at, to the point that I didn’t even mind all that much having to drive from point A to point B.

I didn’t hate the game, and I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who enjoyed it, but not enough to simply accept its many flaws.

The problems with the gameplay itself

There are three main things that I don’t think work well and are up in your face since the first seconds of the game: the game interface, the fight mechanics, and the open world aspect of the game.

◦ The first impact I had on Andromeda, right from the first 2/3 hours of playing it, was that it was very cluttered and very, very confusing. I had just finished playing ME3 and I had issues understanding how to move without having a proper map onscreen, how to read throught the thousand tutorials for the 100 new, useless elements they added to the game that are either reused from ME1 or taken directly from DA:I. The game didn’t need a crafting system, especially not one DIVIDED IN TWO DIFFERENT SECTIONS, it didn’t need an inventory system, and especially it didn't need to have the sheer amount of sidequest it had.

◦ The fight mechanics + leveling up/classes system is a hot mess. I understand they wanted to try something new, and in part they did make the fighting feel more fluid, but not being able to rely on teammates for necessary stuff like overloads/specific powers that you need during fights severely impaired the strategic element of the game. Now it’s just a third person shooter with teammates dying left and right because you have 0 control on how they fight, aside from putting them in one place or another.

The fact that you can only use 3 powers at the time is a consequence of the confusing leveling up system. Because you can have an endless amount of powers you can give your character, they needed to find a way to make them not too overpowered. The problem is…. You had more powers to use in-game in ME1. It doesn’t work so well.

When the fighting mechanics in ME3, a game that came out in 2012, feel way fluider and more enjoyable than the ones from the game that came out in 2017, something is very wrong.

◦ Open world games are a challenge, because too many developers don’t understand that turning a game into an open world doesn’t make it good, it just makes it bigger and slower. It was a problem with Dragon Age Inquisition, and it’s a problem here with Andromeda - with the only good aspect being that at least Andromeda gives you a decent car to explore the planets.

ME1 had some level of open world-ness, and there was a valid reason why ME2 and ME3 got rid of the concept: the maps you’re given are a big, cluttered mess of nothing. You have several thousands sidequests, many of which incredibly similar to each other, and nothing fucking else. Sometimes you will accidentally stumble upon something interesting, and then return to a 6 hours drive into the nothingness that keeps repeating over and over again.

It got to the point I almost stumbled upon the endgame because I got exhausted of running around doing errands, and I tried continuing the main plot, only to realize I was almost done with it. That was it.

Empty self-referencing

This is the term I used to describe my girlfriend why the way the game made call backs to the previous games bothered me so much. Call backs aren’t new to the concept of the game (the Mass Effect trilogy literally lived on characters returning from previous games, referencing things that had previously happened, etc.), but because this game wanted to be a separate thing from the ME trilogy, it couldn’t use this sort of material. And that’s completely fine! The game wanted to be its own thing, I was happy about it at first, because the trilogy was over and done for. If Mass Effect was indeed gonna continue, it needed a fresh start.

The problem is, it also needed to remind players that it’s a Mass Effect game, the game from which Commander Shepard came.

So, how to solve this matter? Well, instead of referencing stuff that actually happened in the trilogy, it solves the referencing aspect by putting a bunch of relatives of characters from the trilogy in the game. You get Conrad Verner’s sister, Nyreen Kandros’s cousin, a lost illegitimate son of Zaeed Massani, a brief cameo of Garrus Vakarian’s dad, a krogan on New Tuchanka being from clan Urdnot, and so on. And it was funny the first time or so, maybe even the second, but at some point it just turned awkward, and I started asking myself, “is this it? Is this all that’s left of the trilogy, just a bunch of big name characters to remind the player you belong from the same universe?”. The brief way they referenced back to Shepard was also very awkward and felt... out of place, with the rest of the game.

A couple call backs I really liked were:

Liara being acknowledged for her work as a Prothean researcher and being in contant with Ryder Senior, without much reference being done to her time in Shepard’s crew. It was good, seeing her from an outsider perspective.

The fact that Avitus Rix, being a turian ex-Spectre, knew Saren and was in fact his disciple.

Both these elements are things that make sense and tie the game back to the trilogy beyond just going “hey, this x character is the relative of this other x character, isn’t it crazy!”

The plot, and the problem with binary choices

It’s easy to make fun or critique the game struggling to find its own plot after something as big as the ME trilogy was. But Bioware isn’t an indie developer, it’s a huge fucking company, and they could have done better.

While I liked the design of the Remnants architecture and enemies, putting a plot point revolving around an ancient, long lost alien civilization who was much more technologically advanced, sounds a lot like a bad repeat of the Protheans.

I liked the Angara conceptually, but I didn’t like their design all that much and I often found it hysterically funny that angara are supposed to be a deeply emotional race, when the animators left them stuck with those mono expressive faces and unemotional eyes.

And on top of all of this, the kett are boring villains. The exaltation progress is really just a bad repeat of how Reaper indoctrination worked, and the way they talk reminds me of the big bad templars from the Dragon Age universe. It’s literally nothing new, and because of it, it’s boring.

When I was playing the endgame, all I kept thinking was “this is it? this is all they came up with? for real?”. I liked the twins aspect of the endgame, but aside from that, it didn’t feel satisfying.

And now comes the reason why it didn’t feel satisfying: the game got rid of the Paragon/Renegade system from the trilogy, and because of that, they also got rid of the possibility of additional problem-solving solutions during big choices. 

In Andromeda, almost every major quest has a binary choice attached to it: choose this or that. Burn the facility or save all the angara but leave the facility standing. Save the krogans or Raeka. Pick Sloane or Reyes. Keep Sarissa as the Pathfinder or not. Etc.

in the trilogy, complete, important binary choices were rare (choosing Ashley or Kaidan is probably the biggest one) and the consequences had long lasting effects. Not all of them did (saving or killing the rachni in ME1 and rewriting or destroying the geth in ME2 didn’t have so many long term consequences in ME3, for example), but a great deal meant big changes in the following games.

The issues with these choices in Andromeda? None of them matter. Characters will get angry at you for going against their will in a single dialogue line, and then never mention it again. The opinion on the Nexus won’t change if you expose Spender, Addison’s connections to the Exiles, or Nexus people targeting the angara. None of your companions will betray you or leave you for going against their will during their loyalty missions.

A Mass Effect game with choices that don’t influence the final result of the game feels like a joke, and while I know in many ways the trilogy also had a problem on this matter on some parts, dead characters stayed dead and betraying a friend’s trust meant losing them in the near future

The unavoidable part where I mention the issue with LGBT rep in this game because I’m a nonbinary lesbian and I can’t detach that aspect of myself from how I consume media

Endless gays and trans folks out there have already written this sort of matter so as my last point of critique, I’ll make it quick. Bioware has a long story with homophobia and transphobia in its character writing - this without mentioning the huge problems with racism in the character writing, too. Many gay/bi women in Bioware games are written by the same homophobic straight cis man with a lesbo fetish, AKA Lukas Kristjanson, and that alone gives a really good feeling on why such issues exist.

The original Mass Effect trilogy had very little gay romance options, out of the amount of romance options: as of ME3, there are two main gay romance options for fShepard (Liara and Traynor, without counting the mini-romances that were put in the previous games for pure fetish fuel) and two for mShepard (Kaidan and Cortez, both only added in the last game).

Andromeda wasn’t... the big breath of fresh air in the representation department they tried to pass it as. There are more romance options, but for once, there add to add another m/m romance option later on because the only gay romance available were with minor NPCs, and there’s an issue with the amount of content gay romances get compared to main het romances.

There’s a single trans NPC, and it's a random person you meet who tells you her deadname and the reason she transitioned right away. Ugh.

And now we come to the bury your gays mission that made me almost uninstall the game: the mission to find the turian Pathfinder with the help of his partner, the previously mentioned Avitus Rix,  who also happens to be the first gay male turian character in the game (the first gay female turian being Nyreen Kandros, who dies btw). You invest time to trace back to the turian arc, while listening to Avitus talk about how important the turian Pathfinder is to him, you realize pretty fast they’re lovers, and when you find out the turian arc, it’s all to discover that the Pathfinder is already dead. Not a choice in the game that could accidentally kill him, like with Raeka, or an active choice you make to keep him in his role, like Sarissa. He’s already dead, and you’re left with Avitus alone and mourning.

The game is from 2017. This sort of bullshit is unacceptable, and I will keep screaming it until Bioware manages to pretend like they care about their LGBT fans.

To end this mess of a post - Mass Effect: Andromeda lasted me a total of 50 hours of game, and in a way, I’m glad I got it out of my system. It was a delusion, but at least now I can cross it off my list and go back to playing other stuff. I understand that this is a game many ended up liking, and I’m sad I can’t say I’m among them, and that I couldn’t even fully enjoy the game at times. Also I promised myself I wouldn’t mention this but goddamn the facial animations of the game were so ugly.

DESPITE THIS, I really loved the characters, and I very much enjoyed Vetra’s romance, which was the main reason why I bought the game. 

[norwegianpornfaerie]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

First of all, thank you! This is an unusual year for us all, and Yuletide is one of those few things we can still enjoy just like usual. So I’d like to thank you not just for taking part in this wonderful exchange, but for taking the extra time to read this letter. Please note that I don’t expect you to adhere to everything I say here; I’m providing it in case you’d like to know more. And since you’re here, I’m assuming that’s the case. You’re already doing a great job!

Most importantly: Don’t try to bend over backwards to make your story fit my prompts and suggestions, if you’re not feeling them. I’m assuming you signed up to write my fandoms and characters because you have a genuine interest in them, and that’s what makes for the best stories. So let the optional details be optional, and take the below as a guideline and inspiration!

Do Not Wants: You will find these in my prompts, below the cut.

Things I really enjoy:

First time stories! I absolutely prefer this to anything else, in relationship-focused stories. As I tend to say, I’m secretly an 18th century romantic poet. Slow burn, UST, all that good stuff. I’d rather have one smoking sex scene at the end of a story, with a lot of build-up, than five scattered throughout. I realize you’ve got limited time and words here, but whatever you can give, I will happily take.

Casefic! I love detective stories, especially the classics, so anything in that vein will make me very happy indeed.

Plot, and plot twists. Plot is delicious. I don’t mind character studies, but a good plot will make me happier than anything. And a twist in the tail is my everything.

In-character, explicit sex. If you enjoy writing that sort of thing, I am a sucker for a well-written explicit sex scene. I love reading sex scenes that let the characters shine. Much more interesting than plain porn!

World-building. In science fiction or fantasy canons in particular, I can never get enough of this. Let me know what people have for breakfast, how their clothes are made, where they shop, where they go on vacation and how - tell me about the three seashells! (#obscureDemolitionManreference) In short: Details!

Humor! Humor is so important, in life and fiction alike. Some of my fandoms are humor fandoms, but even those who aren’t, can absolutely benefit from humor. I believe humor is what makes us who we are and keeps us going, be we alien hybrids or robots or just plain humans.

A note on shipping: If I’ve specified a ship and you don’t like it, please don’t feel obligated to write it. I’ve tried to make that clear in the prompts, but it bears repeating.

Now, author, if you’ve read the above and think “but I only write gen” or “but I hate plotty stories” or “I couldn’t write casefic to save my life” - really, really don’t worry. You matched with me because you like one or more of the same fandoms and characters as me, and that’s more than enough. I trust you to write the best story you can, and that means writing it the way YOU want to. I’m obviously very happy if you chose to include some of my likes, but don’t feel forced to do so.

If you’ve read all the above, and you’re still not sure about something, maybe my fics on AO3 might be helpful? I generally like to read the same type of stuff I write.

Thank you, thank you yet again, and have a great Yuletide!

See below the cut for my sign-up details and fandoms.

Robot Series - Isaac Asimov          

R. Daneel Olivaw

Elijah Baley

 Caves of Steel is probably my favorite novel of all time, as are the rest of the novels, and I am very fond of Daneel and Elijah. I find the world they inhabit fascinating, both the future society of Earth, and the Outer Worlds. As I both love detective fiction, science fiction and above all robots, these stories may as well have been written specifically for me. A lot of the appeal lies in how the stories manage both to deliver an entertaining mystery, as well as heart-felt interpersonal drama in a straightforward way. Daneel is one of my favorite fictional characters; the way his empathy and personality shines through programming and limitations.

Wants: Casefic. Seriously, if you can write me casefic for this fandom, I will be delighted. A murder mystery would be fantastic. I do ship Daneel and Elijah, and I would love to read about the unresolved tension between them. Explicit sex would be great! World-building and exploring whichever location they are at, be it Earth or one of the Outer Worlds, or on a space ship or station, etc. Exploration of Daneel's character; Elijah stuggling to come to terms with his feelings for him - preferably romantic feelings, but if you don't want to write that, feelings of deep friendship. Bickering and banter and held-back affection!

Do Not Wants: Daneel or Elijah shipped with other characters. Canonical relationships are okay to mention or feature, but I don't want them to be the main focus of the story. No mention of Elijah's death, please, and no mention of Daneel's ultimate fate - though a story reuniting them after Elijah's death would be more than welcome. No PWP, please, I prefer my porn with added plot. No hurt without comfort. No mention of bodily fluids other than blood, semen or saliva in a sexual context. No body horror/permanent disfigurment.

Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse          

Reginald Jeeves (Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse)

Bertram "Bertie" Wooster (Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse)

 This is one of my comfort fandoms - I take such joy in the language and the characters and the masterful plots... but mostly in Jeeves. I have great affinity for Bertie, and can identify with him quite often, and so it's no wonder that I, too, am deeply fond of Jeeves. I see him as a deeply feeling person with masterful control, and scintilating intelligence. Who also happens to be petty and jealous when it suits him. It is the character interation and interpersonal relationship I adore the most, as well as the clever, intelligent humor.

Wants: I do ship these two, and I would absolutely adore some UST ending in, erm, resolved tension. If you don't care to write that, I'd love a story based on their mutual admiration and friendship. Ideally, I would prefer a story written in first person, but I have no clear preferences as to who should be the narrator. Bertie, of course, narrates most of the stories in canon, but if you are more of a Jeeves, or would rather write in his voice, nothing would be better than that. I believe Bertie is genuinely intelligent and clever, and I love when this is shown in writing. Particularly if Jeeves comes to realize it/comes to Bertie's defense if someone belittles him.

Do Not Wants: Jeeves or Bertie shipped with other characters. No PWP, please, I prefer my porn with added plot. No hurt without comfort. No mention of bodily fluids other than blood, semen or saliva in a sexual context. No body horror/permanent disfigurment.

  Hot Fuzz (2007)  

Nicholas Angel

Danny Butterman

 Hot Fuzz is my favorite of the Cornetto Trilogy, and just plain one of my favorite films overall. I love the details, the clever writing, the loving genre references - but most of all, I love Nicholas and Danny. There is something quite wholesome about the two of them and how they grow together; the joy of two people finding one another a perfect fit. Danny and Nicholas make one another better without changing who they are, which is a wonderful thing. And then there's the tone of the film, which is perfectly balanced; it's funny without being silly, realistic without getting grimdark. Just right.

Wants: I do ship Nicholas and Danny, so I'd love a slow burn romantic story. If you don't ship them, a story about their developing friendship would be very welcome. Domestic scenes and village life! For some reason, I really like reading about these two in a holiday setting, so that would be wonderful. Awkward miscommunication which gets resolved sweetly is my jam for these two. Haplessness and held-back affection and building a life together.

Do Not Wants: Danny or Nicholas shipped with other characters. No PWP, please, I prefer my porn with added plot. No hurt without comfort. No mention of bodily fluids other than blood, semen or saliva in a sexual context. No body horror/permanent disfigurment.

    XCOM: Chimera Squad                    

Cherub (XCOM: Chimera Squad)

 I absolutely love the XCOM franchise, so I was very excited to play Chimera Squad. I was particularly interested to see what society would be like after the war, with human and alien cultures blended. There was a little bit of that in the game, but not nearly enough to satisfy my curiosity - I'm hungry for more! What I love about XCOM, beyond the game mechanics, is the setting and the world-building. When I see a Muton in a t-shirt, I want to know more! I've requested Cherub because he's my favorite character, but I'd prefer something not too character-centric.

Wants: World-building! And lots of it. Show me where people live and work; aliens and hybrids and humans all. How do interspecies relationships work? Can humans interbreed with aliens? How has alien culture affected society? Burger Palace: We need to know what's going on there. What's popular culture like? All that good stuff.

Do Not Wants: Anything too character-focused or introspective. Any ship is fine, slash or het, so long as it's not the main focus of the story (I want to see the world). No PWP, please, I prefer my porn with added plot. No hurt without comfort. No mention of bodily fluids other than blood, semen or saliva in a sexual context. No body horror/permanent disfigurment.

[gascon-en-exil]

Ranking Zelda Water Dungeons

@thehylianbatman asked for this, and I’ve been sitting on this idea for something like two years now so I figured it’s a good a time as any to pull it out. Water dungeons in The Legend of Zelda have collectively garnered a bad reputation, with some of them among gaming’s most standout representatives of all the annoyances that come with Down the Drain levels. Because I like to be contrary watery environmental aesthetics are typically among my favorites however I have a particular fondness for many of these dungeons, and so I’m giving them a bit of time in the limelight (while also acknowledging that some of them nonetheless really are terrible, even if they’re pretty). Also note that I have not replayed any of these games to make this list, so I’ll be going entirely from memory. While that’s hardly the most accurate way to do something like this, it’ll be helpful in gauging which dungeons leave the most lasting impressions.

First off, a list of dungeons I will be excluding from this ranking because they don’t meet my personal requirements for what constitutes a water dungeon.

Any mini-dungeon, ex. Pirate’s Fortress from Majora’s Mask or the water-based shrines in Breath of the Wild

Dungeons where the name and/or location is suggestive of a watery theme but the experience itself fails to deliver, ex. the Palace on the Sea from The Adventure of Link, Catfish’s Maw from Link’s Awakening, the Ocean Temple from Spirit Tracks

Dancing Dragon Dungeon from Oracle of Seasons, because a waterfall entrance and some short swimming segments do not a water dungeon make.

The Tower of the Gods from Wind Waker, because only the first floor is even partially water-based and it’s just the tide going in and out which is both uninteresting and rather frustrating to play around. I thought about including it, but it would be very low if I had.

Skyview Temple from Skyward Sword, as its swimming segments are also brief and come more in the odd return visit for a midgame fetch quest than for the initial run through.

Now for the ones that made the cut:

#13. Water Temple (Triforce Heroes)

This one just barely made the list, and my decision to include it in the end is mostly on account of the novelty factor. Of the three stage select-style Zelda games, Triforce Heroes is the only one with any notable water levels and even dedicates a full world to the theme. It’s too bad that I can only really count the last level in that world as a dungeon, because this Water Temple is just a knockoff of the Swamp Palace from A Link Between Worlds adjusted for three Links. There are tektites and octoroks and you play around with water levels and this game’s iteration of the hookshot before fighting a version of the OG water dungeon boss Arrghus. Much of TH feels like a quirky theme park version of a Zelda game, and unfortunately this particular example does little to elevate the concept and as a result feels uninspired. The rest of the Riverside world fares better, especially in its use of the new water rod item, but its last level is a dungeon only because it has to be.

#12. Jabu-Jabu’s Belly (Oracle of Ages)

If I had to choose one dungeon as an example of what people tend to hate about this group on the whole, it would be this one. Less infamous though it may be coming from a handheld title rather than one of the 3D games, this version of a dungeon inside a giant fish suffers precisely because it is not 3D, or more specifically not Ocarina of Time. It combines aspects of both of OoT’s water dungeons and fails at each of them because of the limitations of the game’s format; the unpleasant environs of being inside a digestive tract don’t come across well on the Game Boy Color, and raising and lowering the water level is harder to visualize in only two dimensions. Combine this with bland visuals that make it easy to get lost, a dungeon item that’s only a length upgrade of an item you already have (also like OoT’s Water Temple), a droning musical track, and the less fluid swimming controls that come with OoA’s mermaid suit “upgrade,” and there’s not much saving this one. The boss is sort of fun I suppose, but it’s a bioelectric aquatic monster...hmm, now where have I seen that before.... 

#11. Swamp Palace (A Link Between Worlds)

I did want this one higher, but it’s so short. That’s true of all but two of the Lorule dungeons really, with them being streamlined and in many cases more thematically pronounced rehashes of the Dark World dungeons from A Link to the Past, but because the original Swamp Palace is already solid (see below) this one just doesn’t have much to do. It adds some raft puzzles and marginally more complex changes to the water level, but that’s about it. The boss is also almost identical, which isn’t saying much because “monster with a single eye that is also its weak point” describes most of the bosses on this list, but here it’s just Arrghus again. I will say that I was grateful for how short this dungeon is in my single run of this game’s Hero Mode, because it holds the valuable defense-boosting Blue Mail. Imagine the developer trolling that would have been leaving it where it had been in LttP: in this game’s equivalent of the Ice Palace.

#10.  Lakebed Temple (Twilight Princess)

As the first 3D entry on this list I suspect this may be a bit surprising, but I have to say I’ve never liked Lakebed much. A big part of that is how there’s relatively little water inside the dungeon despite it being on, you know, a lake bed. It’s a shame too, because Twilight Princess has the second-best underwater controls of the 3D games and even underwater bombs. Have fun using them in maybe three rooms. It’s also an uninspired experience beyond that, with drab visuals - despite its reputation for being gritty and brown TP can do good visuals, just not here - a music track that’s more atmospheric cave music than identifiable melody, a structure that resembles what would come from welding the two tower climbs of Ocarina of Time’s Fire Temple to the central structure of its Water Temple, and a tedious backtracking segment in the middle if you want to get all the chests (and all the stamps in the HD remake) which of course I do because 100% completion. Redirecting multiple currents and using them to flood the central room is admittedly neat, but I can’t give Lakebed too much credit for what the clawshot does to distinguish itself from the standard hookshot when much of the difference here comes down to hanging from slowly rotating platforms. Whee. Morpheel is also a joke, initially a riff on OoT’s Morpha that looks genuinely impressive when its leviathan main body emerges for the second phase...and then dies in a minute while posing next to no threat to the player as it swims around aimlessly. The frog mini-boss leaves more of an impression for striking an odd balance between goofy and gross...but why is a giant frog at the (partially dry) bottom of a lake? Gah.

#9. Angler’s Tunnel (Link’s Awakening)

Easily nabs the award for best glow-up in a remake, and indeed this ranking owes itself mostly to the Switch version. The original deserves some praise for being the second water dungeon in the series while not copying too much from the first, and it’s the only one on this list where Link can’t swim at all until he acquires the dungeon item meaning for the first half he’s got to avoid water like it’s lava. Still, the remake massively ups the aquatic ambiance between the cool blue lighting and environmental pieces and the remixed music (with bits of the original Game Boy chip tune left in, as with most of the soundtrack). It also buffs the boss so it dies in thirty seconds instead of five - go marginally threatening Angler Fish! Less than half of the dungeons in Link’s Awakening have traditional themes, instead preferring such odd motifs as bottles and keys and amateur demolition, but Angler’s Tunnel is one of the few that does so I’m happy to see that the development team for the Switch version really leaned into that distinction.

#8. Divine Beast Vah Ruta (Breath of the Wild)

I struggled considerably with ranking this one, and even now I’m still not satisfied. On the one hand this ought to be easy; everyone knows that the Divine Beasts are a low point of Breath of the Wild, small and monotonous with few enemies and similar boss fights and puzzles that are only slightly beefed-up versions of those found in shrines. On the other though BotW more than any previous game blurs the definition of a dungeon with its multitudinous shrines, lengthy (or not) quests leading up to the entrance of each Divine Beast, and Hyrule Castle providing an open-world dungeon experience like no other. In this regard Ruta is easily the best of the Beasts, as the sequence of events leading up to it involve a mostly linear narrative and geographical progression (helped by Ruta drenching the area in constant rain and preventing Link from climbing over everything like usual) that organically follows from the story progression near the start of the game and concludes with a thrilling mini-game in which Link rides Sidon smashing ice blocks and shooting targets mid-air after being launched from the top of a waterfall - and also forever blessing the internet with more gay shark cocks than it could have ever needed or wanted. Ruta’s interior has a few points in its favor as well; the obligatory dungeon movement mechanism only shifts the aim of the water spraying from the elephant’s trunk which is less disorienting than the equivalent mechanics in the other Beasts, and Link has a rune (Cryonis) naturally attuned to water/ice puzzles which somewhat makes up for BotW’s bizarre lack of underwater swimming. So yeah, lots of pros and cons and Link the DP’ing fish fucker bottom, so I’ll have to settle for sticking this one just below the middle.

#7.  Jabu-Jabu’s Belly (Ocarina of Time)

It seems strange how everyone accepted it at the time, but Ocarina of Time’s initial trio of dungeons keep the training wheels firmly on. All of them are fairly short and straightforward, none of them have locked doors, and the first two are as aesthetically generic for their respective themes as it gets. Then comes Jabu-Jabu, which is still short and key-less..except you’re inside a giant fish so here that makes sense and we’re all better off not thinking about how the barred “doors” work. As I alluded to in the entry for the inferior Oracle knockoff, this dungeon sells it on the nastiness: Link’s footsteps make squelching sounds, the walls appear to pulse (and have live cows in them serving as switches in the Master Quest revamp...again, don’t ask), glowing white growths serve as slingshot targets, there are mysterious tentacles everywhere and not the sexy kind, and the boss is a swollen mass of viscera that explodes in a shower of green goo when it dies. Extremely gross all around, but then you are inside a giant fish. Funny too that Jabu-Jabu throws a hitch in the usual dungeon pattern in the form of an escort quest of all things, but thankfully Link has to carry Ruto around instead of waiting for her to follow with dodgy AI. I also have to give credit for this dungeon making extensive use of the boomerang you find in its depths, easily one of the most fun items in OoT that goes criminally underutilized since only young Link can use it and it comes right at the end of his portion of the quest.

#6. Mermaid’s Cave (Oracle of Ages)

Oracle of Ages makes up for its counterpart’s lack of water dungeons with two of its own, and Mermaid’s Cave is by far the better of the two. It stands out as the only dungeon in either Oracle title to make use of its game’s defining gimmick, which in this case means that there are past and present versions that have to be explored separately. Ocarina of Time had earlier featured a dungeon with a similar concept in its Spirit Temple, but as with time travel in OoA more generally Mermaid’s Cave takes it a step farther with major structural and environmental differences between the two versions. The water source at the base of Rolling Ridge dries up over the course of four centuries, leaving the dungeon partially flooded in the past but mostly dry and ruined in the present, and doing some things in the past Mermaid’s Cave will affect the dungeon in the present as well. Unfortunately the novelty is somewhat undone by the dungeon item, the clunky mermaid suit that I’ve previously complained about. It leads to the game’s first fully underwater segments and plays a major role in the boss fight which alternatively engages you above and below the surface, but the letdown that is this dungeon’s namesake keeps me from placing this one any higher. Well, that and the fact that you have to do two Goron trading sequences to get inside, because of course you need a key for each era. OoA loves little annoyances like that.

#5. Swamp Palace (A Link to the Past)

While you’d be hard-pressed to call it the most iconic anymore, this is without a doubt the ur-water dungeon of the series - and I don’t only mean that it’s the first one. It’s got raising and lowering the water level, swimming against currents, redirecting channels, electric enemies, the hookshot as a dungeon item, randomly unintuitive nonsense (flooding a canal in the Light World does the same in the equivalent Dark World building because...?), and a squishy boss with a giant eye. As I did when I was ranking the games I had to bump this dungeon up a few spots specifically for how important it was in inspiring future dungeons, but nevertheless I believe the Swamp Palace holds up on its own even today. It’s notable that, in the game that arguably has more dungeons than any other in the series depending on how you count them, this is one of only a handful to even have a clearly identifiable theme - and that so much of what’s on display here has been iterated upon in so many future titles. That’s some classic Zelda stuff right there...and funnily enough this isn’t among the most annoying of the Dark World dungeons. Safe to say that a certain later title was the one to acquire a bad reputation for this dungeon type...ahem.

#4. Water Temple (Ocarina of Time)

Here it is now, possibly the most frequently maligned dungeon in the entire series. For the N64 version I absolutely understand it: the layout is unituitive and forces a lot of backtracking if you don’t know exactly where you’re going (especially with that block in the central tower...you know the one), most of the rooms look similar so it’s harder to memorize the locations of each, needing to open a slow-loading menu to take the iron boots on and off repeatedly is exceptionally tedious, movement and combat options are awkward and restricted underwater making enemies more annoying than they should be, Dark Link can be a nightmare of a mini-boss if you don’t know the flaws in his AI, the dungeon item is merely an extended hookshot, Morpha can kill you very quickly if you don’t know the even bigger flaw in its arena design...it’s one big mess, and little wonder it’s about the only dungeon to actually be easier in the Master Quest. All that said however the 3DS remake fixed around half of these issues including the iron boots and some of the navigation woes, and it’s a much smoother experience overall in that version. This Water Temple still doesn’t crack the top three for me though, in large part because I view it largely as bringing the ideas of the original Swamp Palace into three dimensions rather than creating something truly unique and memorable - or memorable for the right reasons anyway. There’s also the curious aesthetic choices in this dungeon that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone discuss before. Between the music, the pagoda in the middle, the serpentine dragon statues everywhere, and Dark Link’s room there’s a distinctive East Asian flavor to the temple that I don’t quite know what to make of. It’s nowhere near as pronounced in any of OoT’s other dungeons or major set pieces, so it all feels quite random.

#3. Temple of Droplets (The Minish Cap)

Heavy bias factor here, because ice is another favorite gaming aesthetic of mine and this is somehow the only Zelda dungeon to combine it with water (Phantom Hourglass’s Ice Temple doesn’t count for the same reason that neither DS game appears on this list: Link can’t swim in those games, so how could there be water dungeons?). That aside however the Temple of Droplets is just delightfully creative, as is typical for this game’s dungeons. It starts with predictable ice block puzzles that lead to a fake-out with the boss key, but then it opens up to a diverse blend of lily pad “boating,” diving, melting ice with sunlight, burning ice and webs and lighting dark rooms with the lantern, and still more ice block puzzles. It’s so many different elements mashed together and enhanced even further by The Minish Cap’s unique shrinking gimmick, because this is one of the two dungeons to be fully Minish-sized. The mini-boss is an electrified Chuchu, and the boss an ordinary Octorok with a weird floral growth and separate water and ice phases that make defeating it much more of an ordeal than such a basic enemy normally has any right to be. I believe I mentioned in my game ranking that TMC is one of the more underrated titles, a creative sleeper hit that still manages to pack in tons of references to earlier, better-known 3D games. That’s certainly true of this dungeon, which throws in a quick little puzzle reference to earlier 2D games’ habit of designing their dungeon maps in particular shapes. The similarly-shaped Bottle Grotto wishes it was this good.

#2. Great Bay Temple (Majora’s Mask)

Notwithstanding that it’s in my favorite game in the series, Great Bay Temple took a while to grow on me. At first I was skeptical that an anachronistic waterworks was the right fit for a dungeon in the grim and apocalyptic Majora’s Mask - I’m always leery about fantasy media injecting random bits of other genres such as this dip into (sort of) steampunk. It didn’t take long however for me to fall in love with the place, with its rapidly-paced dynamism and brightly-colored plumbing a stark contrast to the slow and plodding Water Temple of the previous game. It perfectly accentuates Zora Link’s speedy swimming, and while the ice arrows slow the second half down a touch I’m just grateful that at least they have a point in this game unlike in Ocarina of Time. The enemies are hit or miss, although I say that less about Gyorg and more about Wart, the mini-boss that thoroughly demonstrates why Arrghus is an exercise in tedium in 3D (which is even less forgivable in a game where you’re always on the clock). Still, that doesn’t detract from how fun it can be exploring while redirecting water currents and getting all of the colored pipes flowing, and this isn’t even too frustrating with the water pushing you through the areas you need to be in sequentially. What does detract from all this somewhat is the 3DS remake; Zora Link’s infamous swimming nerf isn’t so bad in the dungeon’s narrow corridors and I can live with the more restricted ice arrows (creating icebergs in random places isn’t my idea of fun, so I don’t feel like anything was lost), but the changes to the Gyorg fight make it longer and more RNG-dependent than it should be. It’s not the only boss in the remake to become worse apparently out a desire by the developers to waste more of your limited time with them *glares at Twinmold*, but Gyorg hits worse in my minimal cycles runs on account of where Great Bay Temple falls in my scheduling.

#1. Ancient Cistern (Skyward Sword)

I didn’t want this to be #1 - it’s just not fair. The Ancient Cistern is more or less the only entry on this list that escapes the water dungeon stigma, and in fact gets consistently ranked as the best dungeon in all of Skyward Sword. Everyone loves this place, and it’s easy to see why. The aesthetics are gorgeous, it’s decently challenging but not labyrinthine, the whip is fun to use, Koloktos is awesome and unique and mildly disturbing, and the whole thing is wrapped in an explicit allusion to a Buddhist fable that comes across in the environmental details and in the dungeon structure alike. I wouldn’t call this a perfect experience, but my objections feel like nitpicks. The underwater swimming controls in SS suck...but you’re not underwater much, and there’s a much more infamous section for that later in the game. The dungeon is only half water-themed, with the basement being more of a shadow dungeon and (unlike with the Temple of Droplets) little being done to blend the two...but that plays into the fable reference and at a key point the feeling of ascending a thread from death/hell into enlightenment. The Buddhist trappings are extremely overt particularly with the shape of the boss key and the giant statue that is the dungeon’s central structure...but if the presence of that in the Zelda universe isn’t immersion-breaking to the developers for whom Buddhism is a present cultural reality then it would be petty of me to consider it more than a curiosity. None of that was enough for me to place Great Bay Temple over it, especially in light of the mild downgrade that dungeon got in its remake. Here’s to hoping that when/if SS ever gets a port or updated rerelease that the Cistern will be as good or even better than it is now. They can take the motion controls off swimming, for starters....

[profoundnet]

Header by @cryptomoon​ and is available on merch from her redbubble store. You can use all those fancy emojis (and more!) on our Discord server!

The Masterpost is open for all creations by ProfoundBond members which are posted in their entirety during that month.

MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS FOR FEBRUARY AND MARCH 2020!

Featuring works by ArielAquariel, @saywhatjessie, @castielslostwings, @maleyah-givemetomorrow, @spnsmile, @banshee1013, @leafzelindor, and  wolf_mistress17.

Masterpost below the cut.

ArielAquarial - ArielAquariel

Out of the box (G, 10k)

Dean can’t complain about his life so far. He spent years beside a great kid with an amazing imagination. He and Ben had been through a lot in the short time he’d acted as his favorite toy, but all good things must come to an end. It was only a matter of time until Dean found himself in the trash, or if he was lucky, a yard sale. What he hadn’t considered was ending up in the attic with only Christmas decorations for company. Or, the one where Dean is an action figure, Cas is a tree topper, and Charlie is an elf with WAY too much time on her hands.

Tags: Charlie Bradbury Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Christmas Decorations, Fluff, First Kiss, Size Difference, Alternate Universe, Nosy Charlie Bradbury

The next best thing (T, 6k)

Sam had told Dean that California was different. More liberal, he said. You could walk down the street in a frilly pink dress and no one would bat an eye. Well, Dean wasn’t very interested in wearing a dress, but holding hands with a man without having to be nervous about it? That, he could get behind. Or... When Dean moved to California, he never expected to stumble upon a man publicly glaring daggers at a dildo. Especially when said neon pink dildo was suctioned to his car door.

Tags: dog sitting, Meet-Cute, Alternate Universe, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Fluff, Sex Toys

JessJesstheBest - @saywhatjessie - JessJesstheBest

Aromatic Adjectives Need Not Apply (G, 4.3k)

Castiel was an Alpha, despite what everyone always guessed upon meeting him. He was tall, and he had the stern and imposing profile, but, to most people, those Alpha traits were where it ended. He had a lithe, runner’s frame, with trim waist and thick thighs. “Child-bearing hips” he’d been told. Though, obviously, no children would be born of him. This scuffling man, though. He was... round. Potentially child-bearing. And Castiel was sure his true mate wasn’t either of the other two men. Or Castiel is an Alpha that doesn't believe in true mates but sniffs one out anyway.

Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, College AU, Alpha/Alpha, Scenting, Chubby Dean Winchester, DeanCas Reverse Bang 2020

castielslostwings - @castielslostwings - Castielslostwings

Deserted (E, 61k)

"This was a mistake, Castiel thinks, almost laughably. Lightning does strike twice." Six years after their plane crashed, stranding Castiel and Dean injured and alone in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, life is pretty damn good. Married and more in love than ever, they've settled into their shared life together with few bumps along the way and no intention of ever ending up in a situation like that again. That is, until Sam shows up for a visit and turns everything they thought they knew about where they're going and where they've been upside down. Somehow, Sam manages to suck Dean and Castiel into flying to Hawaii to help him untangle a twisted, murderous web where tourists are disappearing and hacking for evidence just won't cut it. What will happen when a would-be heroic Team Free Will gets in over their heads, stranding Dean and Castiel in a brand-new kind of wilderness and leaving Sam to once again follow a breadcrumb trail to ensure they survive?

The Sequel to Wild

Tags: Wilderness survival, hurt/comfort, established relationship, no Destiel angst, case fic, beaches, Hawaii, deserted island, Survivalist Dean, Brave Castiel. Accompanied by art by @winchester-reload.

Enchanted Ink (E, 36k)

In a world where an artist's magic brings tattoos to life, ink-gone-wrong can spell lasting heartache for those unlucky enough to experience it. Jaded and cynical on both life and love, Castiel's about to find out that even the most deeply-etched scars can be transformed into something beautiful when the right person is holding the pen.

Tags: Magical realism, getting together, emotional hurt/comfort, tattoo artists Dean and Cas, magical tattoos, self-acceptance, secret author dean, domestic fluff, top cas/bottom dean.

Maleyah - @maleyah-givemetomorrow - Maleyah

Where Our Soul And Grace Meet (E, 5.3k)

“Still,” Dean says, as he leans in, “I believe I asked you a question?” Castiel hears that voice dip into another part of him. Something smooth and warm trickles down his spine. A churning, familiar feeling swirls in the pit of his being. “Restless,” Castiel whispers, responsive to that tone and all it implies. “So restless I don’t know what to do with myself. Perhaps you do?”

Tags: human!Cas, s9 divergence, Fluff, Established Relationship, Soft sub!Cas, Soft Dom!Dean, Bondage, Spanking, Light Dom/sub

Hot Wings and Magic Hands (E, 50k)

The one where Dean is a burnt-out surgeon, who has some minor self-esteem issues about it and Castiel is a gym instructor who helps him out of his rut. But it’s all just professional, right? (Real time Valentine's Day fic)

Tags: Valentine's Day fic, Surgeon!Dean, Yoga instructor!Cas, Idiots to Lovers, Burned out Dean, Sauna, Misunderstandings, Slow burn, Mild Angst, Fanart

Where Your Light Meets My Shadow (E, 3.3k)

“Cas, honey, come here. Sit between my legs.” The request jolts them both out of their reverie. Cas’ eyes widen as he licks his lips, but his response is immediate. He moves like water, fluid, beautiful, aglow, when he crawls onto the bed towards Dean. There is a touch of deep concentration to the way his brow furrows that’s so innately Cas. It seems to lay him bare and his heart thuds louder in his chest as Cas’ shadow falls over his legs.

Tags: human!Cas, s9 divergence, SPN Kink Bingo, Deepthroating, Established Relationship, Soft sub!Cas, Soft Dom!Dean, Light Dom/sub, 69 (Sex Position)

spnsmile - @spnsmile - spnsmile

Gambler’s Woe (G, 6.9k)

Coda to 15x11 (The Gamblers) Sam lost the game, Fortuna wins. Dean calls Castiel to say goodbye. They didn't get kicked. They returned to the Bunker. Except Cas still hears the message and goes to tackle Dean. It's a lucky night. The idiots find what they don't want to lose anymore.

Tags: General audience, M/M, hurt/ comfort, idiots in love, angst

Banshee1013 - @banshee1013 - Banshee1013

Ten Inch Hunter (E, 17k)

After returning from Purgatory the second time, Castiel and Dean were just beginning to explore the new direction of their relationship, when on a case involving missing hunters, Dean is struck by a witch's curse and turned into a ten-inch plastic figurine. Can Sam find a way to revert the effects of the curse and return Dean to himself before the tiny spark of life Cas detects in him fades away? Or will Cas lose Dean just as their relationship has begun? Written for the 2020 Dean Cas Reverse Bang.

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Witch Curses

LeafZelindor - @leafzelindor

Dean’s Wings (SFW)

DeanCas Reverse bang piece

Tags: wings. Accompanied by fic by @quillsandink-writes.

Fading (SFW)

DeanCas Reverse bang piece

Tags: hurt/comfort. Accompanied by fic by Aapicula.

wolf_mistress17 - wolf_mistress17

Let Me Show You (E, 9.2k)

After their return from Alaska, Dean comes up with a great idea: teach Castiel how to play pool.

Tags: Love confessions, first kiss, first time, explicit sexual content, Season 15 code for 15x11 The Gamblers, playing pool/billiards, fluff and smut