#style Mobile back cover case

[janarthanantumbl]

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[janarthanan]

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[sasaranurude]

I'm a loser who both spends too much time playing gacha games and loves to hear myself talk, so here's another game review style post, this time covering my first day playing Break My Case. This time I'm not even being a little hater! I'm a lover! I'm cringe! I'm free! I love you Coly! I love you ikemen gacha games!!!!!!!

Break My Case is a new puzzle-music-adventure mobile game from Coly, the developers behind Mahoutsukai no Yakusoku and On Air. More relevant to BMC/BreMai is their game Stand My Heroes, with which it shares a writer, some gameplay elements, and of course a naming convention. Coly has developed a bit of a cult following for their unique status in the Japanese mobile gaming world: they're a company that was founded by women and hires women to make games for women. They put a lot of soul into their games. From the start, BMC is no different!

"Could you have pulled a clean version of this image from the internet so it didn't have all the game junk" no. it's my tumblr and you get my screenshots.

I (with help from friends) overviewed the initial Break My Case announcement back when it dropped. You can read that here! I said in that post that I thought a "dark rhythm game" would be a really cool direction for the game… and that's more or less what we got! GO ME!!!!!

First: the game's presentation is fantastic. Super slick graphical design and just amazing atmosphere. The sound design of this game is incredible. Genuinely. Really, really, good. All the music is amazing—I'm not knowledgeable enough to say anything other than "IT SLAPS!", but it totally does slap. The illustrations for the cards are all wonderfully atmospheric in and of themselves, and are just a delight to look at on the homescreen with its chill background music. Even just navigating menus is a sleek, seamless experience. The live2d is well-done, although it clashes a tad with the art style for a bit of an uncanny look at times. 

The atmosphere! The atmospheeeeeeere!!!

Of course, the draw to this game is the characters and story, so let's jump into that. I'll admit right now that I read the story through a machine translation—I have aaaalmost enough Japanese knowledge to fill in the gaps, especially since the story is fully voiced, but I'm definitely not getting the full nuance of the story that someone fluent in Japanese is going to get. THAT SAID, after completing the prologue, I was definitely intrigued enough that I want to continue slogging through the MTL just to read more! There's a great setup, centered around the bar Aporia and its three modes—a daytime cafe, a nighttime members-only bar, and, secretly, a "fixer" service who'll help anyone with any problem. Our main character, a woman who was just forced to quit her job at a corrupt company, gets hired to replace Aporia's eccentric owner while he goes on a who-knows-how-long vacation. The owner also has the role of "tail"—as in, the tail a lizard sheds to avoid being eaten. If anything in the fixer service goes wrong, it's the owner who takes the fall and the blame. This hasn't come to mean much in practice yet in the (quite short) prologue, but it's a fascinating setup. The story promises to touch on themes of the threads that weave our lives together, how small meetings can lead to massive life changes, and whether any human being is truly replaceable, even in our modern corporate world where people are treated like cogs in a machine. According to a staff interview, there are a handful of references to Stand My Heroes in BreMai, but the games' settings aren't otherwise closely linked.

Rough translation in alt text. The Aporia manager Ai may be the most mysterious, intimidating character, but he also beefs with a parrot the first time you meet him, so...

All the characters are staff at Aporia with various unique roles and background. The prologue just gives you a little bit of each of them, but everyone does show up, and they all have interesting dynamics with each other already. Ai, the stern manager, has some history with the MC that he refuses to divulge, and goes so far as to force psychologist Riku to agree to not look into it. The range of relationships among the staff run the gamut from the calm and mature friendship between fortune teller Kiho and art teacher Kyoya, to the unfaltering dedication of Yu to his ex-mafioso savior Tomose, to the ridiculous Takeru and Soyogu who spend their first appearance waking up after having gotten black-out drunk together the night before. My favorite dynamic of all so far is that of Kou and Mao—Kou is a playboy who insists he's not a playboy, and is introduced evading a woman by… asking the icy Mao to pretend to be his boyfriend so that she thinks he's taken and gay and leaves him alone. Which Mao exasperatedly agrees to, telling Kou that he's used up his allotment for this month which ohmygod how often does Kou do this. Kou if you're asking this guy to pretend to be your gay lover so often he gives you a monthly limit I think you might just have to admit you want him to actually be your gay lover, Kou, oh my god— 

Rough TL in alt text. Kou is letting the implication do all the heavy lifting here. He technically never said he was dating Mao. Technically. 

On to the gameplay. There's gameplay! Unique gameplay! Good unique gameplay! Oh my god, uncharted joseimuke territory! The main gameplay mode is a match-3 puzzle game with rhythm elements. As in other rhythm games, each song in the game is its own level, more or less. (Each character has two unique songs, and three songs shared with the other members of their unit.) You set up a team with cards you've collected from the gacha, which determine your power level and special skills. The "leader" of the team has to be the character whose level you've selected. The puzzle gameplay is a tile-swapping match 3—think bejeweled or candy crush—but the tiles you've matched are only cleared once a bar sliding across the screen hits them, clearing them in tune with the song. Everything cleared in a single swipe of the bar ups the combo counter. There's also a life system, where if the bar slides across the screen without clearing a single match, you lose a life… But the bar moves pretty slow. You're not likely to game over or even lose a single life any time soon. There are more difficult versions of the levels I've yet to unlock, so I'm sure the life meter becomes relevant then. There's also "auto" and "loop" features if you want to grind a level over and over for exp and items, but, of course, the computer can't score as high as you playing it yourself.

And, really, it's fun to play, so why would you want to!? The sound of matches clearing with the music is so satisfying and really makes you want to combo as high as possible. Once you've matched some tiles, you can't move them again, nor use them in a second match (eg, in a cross shape), so if you want to maximize your combo and make as many matches as possible with what's on the board, you have to think ahead about which matches you're going to make. The bar slowly crossing the screen adds a visual timed element that gives some urgency to putting all the matches together. It definitely feels like a game you can pick up an instinct for over time, which is super fun. 

All in all, a really solid, enjoyable little puzzle game. It would be fun to play even without the promise of anime boys. Stand My Heroes is also a match-3, for the record, which is what really cements the two games as being part of the same series.

Admittedly, the anime boy staring at you while you play musical candy crush is a little disconcerting.

The second gameplay mode is "Snap'n Spin", a… gameplay-lite mode that just puts chibi characters in random strange situations and lets you take pictures of them. The mode is explained to be a video game within the world of BreMai, so it's not even trying to be realistic or relevant to anything else in the game. Once you take your pokemon snaps of the boys, they get a fun little caption. You can save up to 40 pictures in your album. Other than being cute, the main way this mode interfaces with the rest of the game is that it's the primary way to unlock card stories for the cards you pulled in gacha. 

This gameplay mode is... cute? I guess? It being so disconnected from the style and aesthetics of the entire rest of the game felt weird. The chibis are adorable, so it has that going for it. And I do like some of the captions you get on the photos afterwards. My favorite were the scenes you catch of a character drinking, and then the caption reveals their current favorite drink. That's a delightful detail for a game set in a bar. Mostly, though, this mode left me wondering "why?" ...And I imagine the answer is something like "because merchandisable chibi characters are a requirement for joseimuke games." This mode could've been anything so long as these cute, starry little dudes were in it.

Urara here hated the drink and the caption revealed that, lately, his favorite thing is sparkling water. He's the youngest character in the cast, so I guess he hasn't grown into booze yet...

One last feature I want to mention is the jukebox. Like many games, BreMai has a music player that lets you listen to tracks from the game… But its music player is, genuinely, a fully-featured music player app with shuffle, repeat, lyric displays, and even background play that works when you're in another app or your phone is off. What! Wild! When I first learned a few days ago that BreMai had a built-in player for its BGM tracks, my first thought was "Well, what's stopping someone from downloading the game just to use the music player and never spending a cent on it? Wouldn't you rather have the songs on spotify so you at least get a pittance of ad revenue, in that case? It's more than nothing."

But having played the game now, I see what they did to prevent that, lol. You don't unlock the songs in the jukebox until you get an SS score on the song's level. Which, I mean, that's normal rhythm game stuff, of course. Can't fault that decision. But, as in other gacha rhythm games, your score in a level depends on the power of your team of cards, and the cards you get from the initial handful of pulls aren't gonna get you anywhere near an SS score without significant investment. So you're either buying in-game currency to buy upgrade items, more gacha pulls, or both. Of course, you can also put a bunch of time into grinding for upgrade items—they drop from levels. Gacha currency is harder to come by. So you're not getting songs in the player without actually playing the game lmfao. The character solo songs in particular (the ones with vocals rather than just instrumentals) also require you to build up rapport with that character—the game calls it "Nice". You build up Nice with them by playing their other songs and using their cards in levels. It takes 1000 Nice on a character to unlock their song. In my first day of playing, I was able to get one character to about 250 Nice, another to 200, and a handful more with a few points, so it builds at an okay pace. There's ways to pay to speed up the grinding for Nice and for upgrade items with things like level skip tickets. So, basically: you're not getting that music player to a useful state without investing either money or time, lmao. Is paying-or-grinding to get cool music you can listen to while not playing the game more "worth it" than the usual freemium game goals of better units, new in-game outfits, or prettier card illustrations? ...Honestly, maybe it is? It's novel, at least.

All gacha rhythm games have the same card select screen, don't they. These were my cards' levels after my first day of play, and you can see they didn't quite reach a suggested score of "A", much less the maximum "SS".

But I do want to stress, the monetization is, for the most part, pretty easy to ignore. Nothing in-your-face. The button to go to the shop screen is a different color, but it's not flashing with an eternal indicator, it's not popping up at every second, it's just sitting there alongside all the other menu buttons. The game isn't shoving timers in your face at all times—there's a stamina meter, which is mildly annoying, but you get ten plays when it's full, and if you're just playing casually you're probably not going to want to play the puzzle game over and over enough to fully deplete that. I know the bar is on the damn floor here but Tokyo Debunker seriously made me realize how bad it can be with mobile game monetization. BreMai is freemium, yeah, but as far as dark patterns go, it's not egregiously bad.

So, the verdict: if you're a joseimuke game fan and aren't afraid to play a game that probably won't get an English port and doesn't even have a fan translation yet (which I realize is already counting out 99.99% of people), definitely give this one a try. See if you like the gameplay—it really is worth trying—and do check out the story if you've got the ability. Or just look at the pretty anime boys. 

[whumpcereal]

the kennel recovery arc

part three of the kids not being alright (follows will and annie's povs), just prior to annie and will's first real date (which will be cute and come next, because yikes, this piece is dark). part of the kennel (masterlist here). tommy is...not doing well.

content warnings for: references to past noncon, trauma, captivity, and dehumanization, mobility issues, guilt, problematic self-talk, alcohol, adult language

first date, a prelude (tommy's pov)

Tommy’s not even sure where he is. He parked the truck once Annie went inside and walked to the subway. He got off the 7 at Bryant Park and then drifted downtown on the B or the D train or something. The line was orange. He knows that. He’d taken it a few times before, when was auditioning for the company. 

He gets off at West 4th and climbs the dirty stairs back up to the sidewalk. He doesn’t even really remember where the company’s studio is, just that this was going to be his stop. He was going to ride that line every day. He was going to know this neighborhood. 

He doesn’t know a thing.  

It’s fucking cold, and, even if Tommy has no clue what he wants to do, standing on a random corner in the dark doesn’t seem like the world’s best option. He shoves his hands in his jeans pockets, picks a direction, and starts walking. His right leg drags a little behind, the ankle turned at not-quite the correct angle, but he can still get around. 

The streets are narrower down here, older, and they’re lined with bars and restaurants, stuffed with people who are celebrating the end of the work week or the start of a weekend bender. 

Tommy envies them. The men in their three-piece suits, the women wearing precisely curated boots, the college kids who are dining out on their parents’ dime. Every one of the people he passes has a life. Tommy was supposed to have one too. 

Instead, he sits in his parents’ living room and watches television all day. It was ballet documentaries at first, but they made his mother cry, and fucking Tiler Peck was so cheerful that it made Tommy want to scream. Lately, it’s been true crime. The First 48 and Unsolved Mysteries and whatever sordid cold case he can find. Mom won’t watch those with him. It’s too hard for her to think of what might have been. 

When he leaves the house, it’s usually for therapy. For his brain and his body. Neither seems to be working wonders so far. He can’t rise to take a balance, he can’t hold a port de bras, and he can’t make sense of anything that’s happened, even if he pretends otherwise. He craves the privacy of his dark room, but he can’t sleep. No one’s noticed. Tommy’s a great show dog, after all. He knows his role. Tommy’s the lucky one; it’s Will everyone should be worried about, and they are. 

It’s just that, maybe, Tommy envies the way Will gets to fall apart. 

He steps off a curb the wrong way, and his ankle almost comes out from under him. 

“Shit,” Tommy mutters, righting himself before he gets steamrolled by a cab. He steps out of the foot traffic and looks around. It’s still busy, but the storefronts aren’t as cozy and cutesy. He’s standing in front of black door with frosted glass windows. There’s a decal on the glass, styled like typewritten text: 

the white swallow. 

Well. Tommy’s pretty sure he knows what kind of place that is. He ignores the taste that rises unbidden in his mouth. 

Tommy didn’t frequent the bars when he was in school. He was too disciplined. Drinking, he decided, would make him slow and soft. He had to stay focused, couldn’t afford to compromise his fitness. He had to be the best. 

He was, for a while. The best. He isn’t anymore. 

Fuck it, he thinks. He opens the door and pushes into the narrow vestibule. 

It’s still early, so there’s no cover. A guy in tight black pants checks Tommy’s ID, but he’s barely looking. A quick glance, and then he thumbs Tommy down the hall. Tommy appreciates it; he doesn’t like it when people look too closely. 

The bar is mostly empty at this hour. It’s dark: black walls, a smudged chrome bar with black leather rails on its edge, a bartender wearing a black leather cut who basically blends into his surroundings. The whole place smells faintly of musk and mildew and sweat. Like men. Tommy’s shoes stick to the floor as he moves to get a drink. 

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asks. He’s staring at Tommy, looking him up and down, and Tommy feels his cheeks burn. Tommy knows the guy likes what he sees, and Tommy wishes that he didn’t. He just wants to disappear.

Maybe this wasn’t a great idea. 

Still, Tommy clears his throat, keeping his eyes on the streaky bar.  “Uh, vodka?” 

“Straight?”

He winces. Of course, he doesn’t even know how to order a fucking drink. “No. With soda.”

“Lime?” 

He nods. 

The bartender’s hands are deft, and he turns and glides the length of the bar without effort. Tommy envies the ease in the guy’s every movement; he doesn’t even realize he’s staring until the bartender shoves the drink in his hand.

“You wanna open a tab, baby?” 

Tommy nods, because that’s what people do at bars, right? They open tabs, they sit and drink, they pass the time. They exist. 

He digs in his pocket and hands over his debit card. It’s connected to an account that his parents dump money into once a month. He still gets a fucking allowance. 

But it’s not like the bartender knows that. Tommy watches the guy file his card away, and he drains his drink in one go. It burns a little going down, but it’s not the worst thing he’s ever forced down his throat. Not by a long shot. 

“Damn.” 

There’s a soft chuckle beside him, and Tommy jumps. He should’ve been paying attention. He should’ve moved down the bar and found his own spot. He shouldn’t have made himself so vulnerable. He shouldn’t have come in at all. But it’s too late now. 

He feels the man’s heat beside him before he finds the courage to look up. Already, Tommy’s body is on high alert, and he can hear Doc’s voice in his head.

Come on now, Champ. Good boys are always ready. 

He can feel himself stirring, and he only hopes the guy doesn’t notice that or the tears of humiliation pricking at the back of Tommy’s eyes. Tommy might have thought the guy was cute, once upon a time. He’s tall and lean, dark brown hair and big brown eyes. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and navy blue chinos, his dark blue tie loosened just below his collar. He keeps one hand on the rail, opening his body toward Tommy, and he smiles. 

Tommy can’t see the door. There’s no way out. There’s never a way out. He grips the leather rail and forces his eyes back to the bar. 

“That was impressive,” the man says, nodding at Tommy’s empty drink. “Never seen you before.” 

Tommy suddenly feels like he’s breathing through a straw. “It’s a big city.” 

“It is,” the man agrees, “but this isn’t the kind of spot where we get a lot of tourists.” 

“I’m not a tourist,” Tommy says. It’s true. It’s not like this is some pleasure cruise. He’s not on top of a double-decker bus taking in the tacky glare of Times Square. He can’t tour the life he should be living; he can only wander through like a ghost. 

“New in town, then?” The guy leans in closer, letting his hip graze Tommy’s. 

“I’m a dancer,” Tommy says without thinking. He doesn’t know why he says it.

The guy slips his hand into Tommy’s back pocket and squeezes. “Are you?” 

No, I’m not. But Tommy is frozen. He can’t take it back now; he can’t even move. The hand on his ass is warm through the thin fabric of his pocket lining, and he can feel himself swelling against his fly. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. 

The guy slips even closer to Tommy, his pelvis against Tommy’s hip. He reaches up and gently tilts Tommy’s chin to face him. “I bet you are. Look at you.” 

Look at you, Champ. 

Tommy doesn’t even realize he’s closed his eyes until he feels the man’s mouth on his. The kiss is softer than he might have expected, and Tommy finds himself leaning into it. He lets the guy’s tongue sweep into his open mouth, and he groans. Teeth sink into Tommy’s bottom lip and skate gently backward. The man pulls away, and Tommy opens his eyes. 

“What’s your name, baby?” the man asks, voice husky.

“Tommy.” Not Champ. Tommy. I’m Tommy. 

“Tommy the dancer,” he says. “I’m Alex.” 

“Alex the–” 

“Administrative assistant,” Alex finishes for him. For just a second, his confidence cracks. “Not as impressive, but it’s a damn fine alliteration.” 

A hesitant smile cracks Tommy’s face. He swallows a laugh. “Hi, Alex.” 

“Hi, Tommy,” Alex says, dipping his head for another kiss. 

His mouth is hot and cold all at once, warm breath and smoky whiskey and ice. His hands are in motion, turning Tommy toward him by the hips, slipping over Tommy’s chest, anchored on Tommy’s shoulders. When they come up for air, his forehead nods softly against Tommy’s. 

“What are you drinking, Tommy the dancer?”

Tommy doesn’t answer right away; Alex presses forward for another kiss, and he can’t fucking think straight. 

“Vodka. Vodka soda,” Tommy manages. 

Alex turns his head and gestures to the bartender with one hand, letting the other rest at Tommy’s waist. “You’ve got a body to maintain. I understand. I respect it.” 

Tommy only nods. He does have a body, and it’s his, his and no one else’s, and he wants Alex to touch it. He wants Alex to touch every inch of him until Doc’s fingerprints are covered over. He wants to run away. He wants another kiss. He wants to scream until his throat is raw. 

He wants to leave this bar and go back to an apartment that has his name on the lease and wake up in the morning and go to the studio and feel his body move the way it’s supposed to. He wants Alex to be the guy he texts before he goes to sleep and when he wakes up in the morning. He wants to kiss and fuck and laugh and cry and for all of this to be normal.  

He doesn’t want to hide. He wants Tommy the dancer to be real. 

“Vodka soda and a Jack and coke,” Alex says over his shoulder, shoving his pelvis against Tommy’s. Tommy’s ass bumps up against a barstool, and Alex smiles. “And where does Tommy the dancer dance?” 

He drops his head and scrapes his teeth down Tommy’s throat. Tommy’s head tips backward, and Alex’s fingers tangle in his curls. Tommy feels himself throbbing beneath his zipper; Alex grinds hard against him. Tommy can’t stop the moan that exits his open mouth. 

Alex laughs and leans backward. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair.” 

The drinks arrive. Both glasses are already sweating. Tommy grabs his and throws at least half of it down his throat. 

Alex’s forehead creases. “Hey. You good?” 

Tommy nods, coughing against the acid burn of the alcohol in his throat. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

He’s not, but who knows if he’ll ever be good again? 

The drink shocks him back into semi-awareness. The bar is a shithole. Alex smells like sour sweat. Tommy should slow down. He has to be able to drive Annie home. 

But Alex is touching him and no one is watching. No one but Alex is watching Tommy at all. 

“Did you have a bad day or something?” Alex asks. His grip softens, and his hand slides gently back to Tommy’s hip. 

“Or something,” Tommy mutters. He forces himself to put his drink down. He hopes Alex doesn’t notice the way his hands are shaking. 

“Maybe we can make your day better,” Alex says softly. He dips his chin and his brown eyes–fuck, they look like Will’s–are big and needy. Alex doesn’t move closer this time, and Tommy understands: it’s his turn. No one wants to take advantage of the drunk bitch. 

“Maybe,” Tommy says, and he wraps his arms around Alex’s neck. He feels heavy and clumsy, but Alex’s smile spreads like butter, and Tommy doesn’t let go. 

Alex snakes his arm around Tommy’s body and reaches for his own drink; he takes a sip without breaking eye contact, the glass so close to Tommy’s face that Tommy can almost feel the cold wet on his skin. Like winter air. Like nighttime. Like everything he missed while he was locked away. He can smell the sugar on Alex’s breath. The drink makes its way back to the counter, and Tommy’s mouth makes its way back to Alex’s. 

Tommy’s kisses are indelicate and pleading. He reaches for the loosened tie around Alex’s neck and pulls him close, knocking his elbow into his vodka soda. 

The drink spills, and the bartender curses, and Alex pulls away, laughing. 

“I’d ask if you want to finish your drink,” Alex says, “but it appears to be all over the bar.” 

Tommy laughs. Or at least, he hears himself laugh. He can see himself against the bar, like he’s watching it from above. The sweat at his hairline, the nervous fidget of his hands. The beautiful man beside him who doesn’t know that he should run the other direction. 

Alex cocks his head. “Well, Tommy the dancer, what would you think about getting out of here?” 

Tommy nods. He leans against the barstool while Alex pays their tabs, taking his card when it’s handed to him, and he tries to make sense of what he’s about to do. He’s going to leave this place with a stranger, and he is going to ask that stranger to fuck him. Alex will do it, and they will be the only two people who know it. No one will be watching. There won’t be paid requests or camera angles to consider. Tommy is going to obliterate every memory of what Doc did to him in that glass box. 

Or maybe, Tommy will fuck Alex. Not like Doc made him fuck Will. No, he and Alex, they’ll do it face to face. He’ll be able to hear Alex, to see on his face that he wants it. Alex’s brown eyes will be Will’s, and he will forgive Tommy. 

Maybe they can do both. They’ll hold each other after. Maybe Tommy can bury himself in Alex’s bed and never come up for air again. That’s what he’s been trained to do, isn’t it? And he’s a good boy. He is. A champ. 

“Tommy?” 

Tommy jerks when he feels Alex’s hand on his arm. 

“Hey, whoa. You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says weakly. “Just spaced out there for a minute. Let’s–let’s go.” 

“My place isn’t far,” Alex says, pressing a quick kiss to Tommy’s cheek and lacing their hands together. “Noho. Maybe ten minutes walk.”  

If Tommy’s life had gone according to plan, he’d know what the fuck Noho is. He might have an apartment there too. He might do things like go to greenmarkets on the weekend and make impossibly charming meals from scratch in his railway kitchen. He’d have a park he lies out in when it gets warm, a bodega where the guy behind the counter knows him. Alex might be his boyfriend, and he wouldn’t have to tell Tommy how long it takes to get to his place because Tommy would already know. 

But it doesn’t matter where they’re going. He lets Alex lead him from the bar like the puppy he’s trying hard not to be. He needs someone to show him the way. 

They only just make it out the door when Alex stops. He squeezes Tommy’s hand and looks over at him with concern. “Tommy the dancer, you are limping.”

Tommy had forgotten. Half a drink and a few kisses, and he’d let himself forget. He should say it’s a recent injury. Dancers get hurt all the time. But when dancers get hurt, there are orthopedists and physical therapists and fucking doctors. Their ankles don’t get broken and haphazardly set and then broken again. They aren’t made to hold their entire body weight for hours on a tenterhook of crumbling bone. 

Tommy isn’t a dancer. He’ll never be a dancer, not ever again. It was stupid to pretend. 

Tommy pulls his hand away and ducks his head; he doesn’t want Alex to look at him. Not anymore. 

“Tommy? Hey, man, are you–” 

Tommy bats Alex’s hand away before it can touch him. “I have to go.” 

“What the fuck? What did I–” 

“Nothing,” Tommy says to the sidewalk, and his voice splinters as a lump of tears hits his throat. “You didn’t do anything. It’s me–I–I can’t–I just have to go.” 

“Are you okay?” Alex asks. “I mean, you don’t seem drunk, but–” 

“It isn’t that,” Tommy interrupts. “Please. Let me go.” 

But Alex isn’t touching him, and nothing’s really happened. Still, Tommy wants to fall on his knees and beg. It’s all he knows how to do. 

“Tommy?” 

Tommy shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t do this. I can’t– 

Alex’s hand brushes against Tommy’s shoulder, and Tommy screams. Alex jumps back. 

Tommy shouldn’t have screamed. He isn't allowed to scream. He isn’t allowed to fight. He knows that better than he knows anything. If Alex wants to take him home, Tommy should let him. 

Just now, it doesn’t really look like Alex wants to go anywhere with him at all. 

“Fuck! Shit, man. Look, I don’t–is there someone I can call?” 

A half-strangled laugh bounces out of Tommy’s mouth, and Alex flinches like it’s hit him in the chest. Who the fuck would he call? His mother? And it’s not like he can interrupt Will and Annie, and fuck if Will wouldn’t think Tommy was reaping what he sowed. And he is, isn’t he? Tommy deserves this. This fucking misery is his just desserts, and for just a second, he’s glad he can feel it. He’s glad he doesn’t have to pretend.

“No, there’s no one,” Tommy says wildly. “And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter.” 

“I don’t–” 

“It doesn’t matter if I want it,” Tommy cries. “Don’t you know that?” 

A few passersby glance at them, and Alex takes another step back. “Jesus Christ.” 

Tommy turns away, raking his hands over his face and dragging his tears with them. He can feel the vodka sloshing in his stomach, and his chest burns. He braces himself against the building. 

“Look,” Alex says, his voice careful and even, like he’s talking to a spooked animal–which, Tommy supposes, he is. “I don’t know what your deal is, but I don’t feel right just leaving you here.” 

“I’m fine,” Tommy murmurs. “You can–you can go.” 

“Yeah, sure you are.” 

I’m not, Tommy wants to say. But he doesn’t, because what would it accomplish? Alex isn’t going to touch him now, and Tommy still doesn’t know if he wants him to. What does this guy know about him? Nothing. He thinks that Tommy is a dancer. He doesn’t know what Tommy really is, and Tommy can’t tell him. Tommy can’t tell anyone. No one wants to hear. He’s supposed to be better. This is supposed to be easier than it is. But he can feel Alex’s eyes on his back, and it’s like he’s back in the glass box. 

He should have just stayed in the truck. He should have sat and stared at his phone and waited for Annie. 

He should have gone home with Alex, and now it’s too late. It’s too late for so many things. 

Tommy’s phone suddenly buzzes against his hip. He swipes his arm across his eyes and digs into his pocket. 

Annie Barker On our way back. Ready when you are. 

The screen lights up again. 

Annie Barker We’ll wait out front. 

“Tommy?” 

Another message comes in.

Annie Barker He wants to see you too. <3

“Okay,” Tommy murmurs. He keeps his phone in his hand, keeping his other hand pressed against the wall. “Okay.” 

“Look, can I give you my number?” Somehow, Alex hasn’t left him yet. “No funny business, just–will you let me know that you get to wherever you’re going safely? You’re going somewhere, right? You have somewhere to go?” 

“Yeah,” Tommy says. He forces himself to stand, and he turns to face Alex, letting his left leg make up for his right. He doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. 

“Tommy the dancer,” Alex says softly. Tommy feels him move closer again, but Alex doesn’t touch him. “I’m sorry. For whatever it is that happened to you.” 

He reaches his hand out, and Tommy hands over his phone, letting his fingertips crest softly over the heel of Alex’s palm when he draws away. Alex taps in his number and hands it back. 

“Will you make it okay?” Alex asks.

“I’ll be okay.” It’s what Tommy’s meant to say, even if he doesn’t know how to believe it. “Really.” 

“Make sure you let me know that you are,” Alex says. 

Tommy slips his phone into his pocket and taps it against his hip. “I will.”

Alex leaves him then, and this time, it’s Tommy who watches. He waits until he can’t see Alex anymore, and then he heads back toward the train, his gait slower and more stilted than when he started. Every step is a reminder of what he’s lost, but he is still standing, and Will is waiting for him.

taglist: @darkthingshappen, @oddsconvert, @sparrowsage, @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @highwaywhump, @squishablesunbeam, @hold-him-down, @whumpsday, @sowhumpful, @termsnconditions-apply, @honey-is-mesi, @irishwhiskeygrl, @deltaxxk, @d-cs, @whumpinggrounds, @canislycaon24, @considerablecolors, @starlit-darkness, @scp-1926, @flowersarefreetherapy, @morning-star-whump, @whumpwhittler, @susiequaz12, @whumptakesthecake

[fattest-disney-characters]

Zootopia where Anyone can be anything, ZPD (Zootopia Police Department), an 4’7”, 45yrs old Horse-humanoid named Officer Max, Max try to fix his underwear from being wedge up because of his “bigger than soccer balls but sags low” asscheeks, it gives super tight wedge from between of his asscheeks, his “fairly large doughy sloshing single belly with the standard indent towards the bottom that makes it look like a butt” belly, hus bottom belly flops down cover his FUPA, you can see his bottom belly wobbles and slaps against her FUPA area, his “sacks of flour” DD’s struggled her tank top, His dark blue button-down Police shirt completely unbutton where you can see his messy tank top, his belt no longer need to buckle it up. His Police Uniform sleeves strengths from his “very hammy lower arms but upperarms fattening like fatten hams that her arms got so fat that resemble sausage fattening hams that slowly engulffing his lower arms” upperarms, and you can see her 30 back rolls hidden from back of his Uniform, His two small single-chevron collar pins barley leaves it open because her neck and chins, you can see his gold-tinted badge because his belly is in the way, so Max move to top short where his chest poking out, his oval patch featuring a silver police-style badge is covered in pizza sauce and Donut crumbs and frostings, he had fatten sausage fingers with chubbier hands and fatter face with heavy chin and double chin was starting to appear on his fat face. (Toriel)

Toriel is commissioner that worked in many police departaments before coming to Zootopia,she is a sucessful officer with every case she receives, she weights 3460.95lbs and uses a mobility scooter to move around in the Zootopia police departament, her uniform barely fits her and is constantly showing her panties,her back fully covered by fat rolls, her belly become a double belly that hangs low on the mobility scooter with big fat fupa, her arms were like big meaty hams with big fat hands and fat sausage looking fingers while her legs were covered in fat rolls that cover the top of her paws that like her hands were big and fat with fat sausage looking toes and very smelly and sweaty. She is now 55 years old and have wrinkles and crows feet under her eyes, she is stuck in the departament doing desk work till she receives a case but many of the cases involve her getting stuffed by the citizens that are constantly celebrate her arrival to Zootopia

[orangameelectronics]

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[dailycharacteroption]

Prestige Class Spotlight 12: Aldori Swordlord

[photograph by MD-Arts on DeviantArt]

It’s funny, we’ve covered a fighting style and a Second Edition Archetype based on it, but only now are we doing the original prestige class for the Aldori Swordlords and their fighting style.

For those who aren’t familiar, The Aldori style of combat was named for it’s founder, who lost a fight against a bandit lord, left, learned some sweet sword skills with a unique weapon and came back for revenge, and eventually caved and began teaching other people his techniques, but only if they swore an oath to never share the secrets of the style with anyone who had not taken the oath.

Some take this very seriously, others do not, but the fact that the former have a tendency to hunt down the latter and those they’ve taught does skew the percentage between the two by a significant margin. Whether or not a prospective swordsperson has taken the oath is inconsequential to the prestige class requirements, of course, so you’re free to play either freely, though of course being oathless means you’ll have a lot of enemies if other masters figure that out.

In any case, these swordlords specialize in the use of a longsword-length blade with a slight curve to it, making it into an effectively single-edged weapon. The style centered around it allows the weaponed to be used with surprising grace, and it is mostly meant to be used in single combat, focusing on parrying foes and creating openings to strike.

In order to pursue this path, one must have learned how to use such a blade to it’s fullest extent, including the ability to strike with dexterity over strength and perform intimidating displays, as well as skills geared towards the elite lifestyle and physical prowess associated with the swordlords, putting this option as available around the 8th level mark (6th if you have a bonus feat at first level as a human, or even faster if your starting class grants bonus feats, such as fighter.)

Dextrous attacks are a key part of the style, and these warriors utilize it with ease, causing extra harm to foes thanks to their precision.

As duelists, these warriors must be prepared to fight at any moment. As such, they learn to draw their weapon quickly if they have not already done so, and how to best use their weapon for defense if they already have done so, (as well as using their dueling sword for various duelist or swashbuckler abilities).

The mastery these swordfighters display is truly impressive, and consequently, intimidating, giving them an edge when they demonstrate it to strike fear into the hearts of others. It even helps in performance combat, wowing the crowd with impressive displays.

They also demonstrate their agility to better dodge incoming strikes.

Another strength of their fighting style is how these warriors learn to read their opponents, letting them fight more defensively while remaining accurate, and then turn around and catch sight of their foe’s weaknesses and exploit openings.

A key maneuver at the right moment, especially one that leaves a foe at a disadvantage can shatter their confidence. As such, these warriors capitalize on that and demoralize foes further when they deal especially grievous blows or succeed at a maneuver that puts them at a serious disadvantage.

A parrying sword may not always be able to block an incoming blow, but it can sure throw it off course from your vitals. As such, these duelists always go for the parry, and have a decent chance of negating crits as a result. Later on, this improves as they get better at such defense.

Not all fights are duels, and not all duels are done on fair, even footing. As such, the swordlords learn to keep mobile even when hanging from a handhold. This training also helps them right themselves without taking a hit when knocked down.

The most powerful among them can shatter not just confidence, but also discombobulate foes, leaving them unable to use their mastery and insight in the fight for a few seconds.

The Aldori Swordlord prestige class is honestly a masterclass in building a prestige class that works for as many classes as possible while still keeping it’s gimmick concise and fun. Now, naturally, this archetype is meant for martial classes, but it actively goes out of it’s way to integrate with the rules for certain classes and archetypes, from potentially granting a bonus feat meant for swashbucklers and duelists, to integrating with the Aldori Defender archetype for fighter. Additionally, the ability to suppress morale bonuses, and at max level insight and competence bonuses as part of free demoralizations you get every time you pull off most combat maneuvers and all critical hits is potentially huge, shutting a buffed-up foe down long enough to secure the victory. You can easily build these characters using fighter, swashbuckler, ranger, paladin, or even sneakier classes like rogue and slayer, and really come up with a powerful character with good defense, offence, and debuffing built right in.

Closed fighting techniques are interesting, and not just for the intrigue that comes from knowledge that outsiders aren’t supposed to know. It’s more defensive than anything else, an attempt to stave off war’s cycle of innovation and reverse-engineering. After all, a foe can’t copy, or worse, pick apart your technique if they don’t know it. On the other hand, however, such concealed knowledge does mean that there is the risk not just stagnating, but of the style being outright lost for good if nobody remains to teach it. It really depends on what you value.

Distrusting them from the moment he laid eyes on them, Argyo has hated the party ever since they came to the lashunta homeworld. What’s worse, he hates how readily the rest of his kind have accepted these strangers from the stars, and now his master is offering to teach the warrior their sacred swordfighting techniques? This is the last straw, and he may do something completely rash as a result.

They say that the caligni, the so-called dark folk, were once humans transformed by centuries of meddling from their owb masters. However, now an owb prophet known only as the Snuffed Flame seeks to develop a way to transform humans into shadow-bound servants within a matter of minutes rather than generations. As such, it has orchestrated several kidnappings, including the current arena champion Zolta.

In the land of Byarna, it is said the first dueling swords were made as copies of the legendary Foeslicer, an enchanted blade of incredibly lethal power. However, it has been so long and the weapon hasn’t surfaced, making many wonder if it was ever real to begin with. That is until a young man, a spy caught stealing secrets of the dueling sword style, is forced to draw the weapon he found during his work.

[anniefebruary]

also bats eyes reptilian blink style. 2 & 5 😈

now these i shall answer while stimming bc i care SO BAD abt these wips. not to say idc abt the other ones but these are near and dear to my heartttt

#2 is a power rangers au of stranger things and its the lore bible for the au that i plan to write fics based off of bc im back in my power rangers hyperfixation era (dare i even say special intrest because. i kept my power rangers knowledge from childhood to this day feel free to ask my opinions)

#5 is fic based on the 2012 movie Chronicle thats SO good and kingsley vanweezer for sure put me on i definitely reccomend watching it

posting snippets under the cut but. does a little dance

#2

The best scientific minds of the time came together to create a type of mobile armor that allows for the wearer to have more of an edge in combat. More agile, more focused, more resistant. Rumors are that the primary creator based each on positive traits when the team behind the devices assumed the users would be young adults. This gimmick wasn’t well known, but as the testing of the devices progressed, having a mindset that matched each device benefitted the user in more of a psychological manner than physical. However, the colors of each device and armor were made to simply keep track of agents and what they possessed. Each device contained a tracker to find the others if they were lost. 

The first agent found was assigned the first device, Red, once he exhibited exceptional abilities in both powers and combat. Therefore, Red was associated with leadership, and Agent One, Henry Creel, was destined to be at the head of the task force along with seven other members. More than seven people were found with strange powers, and the unfortunate motivation for training as many as they could find was for…security, in case the other agents were to be inadequate in combat to the point of, for lack of better phrasing, death. But the agents were trained to avoid that at all costs. Perhaps they were trained too hard.

When Agent Eight, Kali Prasad, escaped, she stole the Purple device to aid her. Of course, since her abilities were tied to altering perception, she took the one colloquially referred to as “Mind” and disabled its tracker. Authorities are still searching for it, but in the meantime, all evidence of her and the stolen device were wiped from the data kept by Hawkins Lab, just to cover their tracks. Training became harder, security became stricter, and Agent One was integrated into said security. 

This was a grave mistake.

#5

Andrew's eyes scanned Steve's face, then flickered his eyes to the ground. "Stop looking at me like that." 

"Like what?" Steve moved his hands back to his sides, but kept the same proximity.

"Like...that." He wanted to say like that sunset we watched, all bright and blinding. Pure radiance. Like I'm worth looking at. 

Steve lowered his brows and head, trying to catch Andrew's eyes. "Do you not...like me looking at you?" he asked cautiously.

Andrew looked up into soft brown eyes. Ever since they'd gone in that cave, he's felt more connected to Matt and Steve. Not in the bonding time way, but in the actual mental link. The more they hung out, the more he could feel the subtle ebb and flow of their feelings; it created a fun feedback loop when they were giddy, but overusing powers had them all reaching for napkins. Right now was no different. Steve was so vulnerable, so earnest that Andrew could feel the slight spike in anxiety in his chest (or was that his own?) yet the cautious adoration in his eyes.

[miloscat]

[Review] Avatar The Last Airbender: Bobble Battles (PC)

A budget licensed RTS, it's about what you'd expect.

Frima Studio is a successful French Canadian developer: over the years they've done lots of casual, Flash, and mobile games, as well as some console stuff. I just found out they're working on a Risk of Rain spinoff currently. But one of their first jobs was making a tie-in Avatar strategy game in 2007, and they did it competently enough.

Based on Books 1 and 2 of the show, Bobble Battles takes its name from the "bobblehead" art style, better known as chibi or super deformed, which was employed in a few other spinoff projects like animated shorts, comics, and video games. It's an appealing look and helps a bit with readability of the characters when you're zoomed out (although character design could have differentiated common unit types a lot more), but you can't appreciate the look too well unless you're zoomed in, in which case the game is much less playable.

As a real-time strategy game in the vein of your Warcrafts and Dune 2s, it's been simplified and streamlined to the nth degree. There's only one resource, no upgrading, a handful of unit types that act identically between factions, and a basic control scheme. The limited nature of the controls hurt it as moving between the arrow keys to shift your view and the numbers for control groups is uncomfortable. Those are pretty much your only functions by the way; there's no attack-move or other specialised move commands, although hero units do have more flashy attacks.

I'm no RTS die-hard but even having played a bit of Starcraft and Age of Empires back in the day I couldn't help but find Bobble Battles wanting in gameplay. There's no rally points, few hotkeys, and just getting your units to do anything is a hassle. Selecting control groups instantly shifts the camera over to them, there's always a pause before they execute your commands, and they need to be heavily micromanaged to attack targets. Pathfinding in narrow spaces can be atrocious, with your guys often milling around or getting stuck on walls when you're on a city-based level. On the whole there's a lot of pain points in the micro scale, and little need for macromanagement at all. I understand the desire to create a game in this genre for younger audiences, but it's not just dumbed down, it feels shonky and shallow.

The game is structured in three campaigns. The first two more or less cover the heroes' journey through the first two seasons of the show, while the third has you playing as the Fire Nation trying to stop them. After completing these you unlock the Timeline mode, which rearranges the scenarios into chronological order... this seems superfluous. The missions do try to have some variety between small-scale hero exploration and production maps and to give you different kinds of objectives. They do a decent job at this, although the scope never gets very big. The most that will ever be demanded of you is juggling three control groups to defend three settlements that are pretty close together, but again this is baby's first RTS so I don't knock it for lacking difficulty.

As an Avatar game, it's kind of cool seeing events from the show reinterpreted into a new genre. You rarely had squads of people running around battling in the series, so there's some novelty to that. The characters having unique abilities is fun, and I got a kick out of seeing the designs of building and units between the nations. There's even one unique creature here, the goat-like mount that Water Tribe riders use. [EDIT: This beast does actually appear briefly in the North Pole episodes.] Only covering two-thirds of the show is a bit of a letdown, although to be fair it's an unavoidable consequence of the passage of time and when the game was commissioned. Can't argue with the immutable laws of time and space.

Bobble Battles is essentially fine. It works. There's even some creativity in how it's interpreting the source material and in the scenarios, but by attempting to simplify what is generally a complex genre, I think they went too far and actually hurt the playability. And that's before mentioning the dodgy behaviour of your units. It gets points for its uniqueness within the sphere of Avatar games, but it's hard to recommend except for completionists like me, and they would just play it anyway so it doesn't matter what I say about it!

[mindcrowned]

ryan's armor

when the former teacher went to approach vincent hayed for his ...costume, ryan had previously taken several days to think about how he could possible do this, because while he was somewhat willing to play long, he was not going to make a fool of himself being wearing something excruciatingly stupid. his idea was simple - in a way & yet an almost polar opposite to his usual style of clothing.

due to ryan's focus being agility rather than brute force, he wanted his armor to ... support that. too heavy & he'd be slowed down, which could mean death. too delicate & he'd be defenseless, because ryan wasn't born with durability in his blood - no.

the perfect choice for him was a mixture of both. (dexterity armor)

a dark, clever mixture of leather & jeans, which stretched as he needed them to would be a great start. they were fucking comfortable. his belt buckle would most likely pose the most obvious piece in the collection with the big H slapped on it. to represent his name, obviously. black leather combat boots made from lightweight materials would protect & carry him across the battlefield - surely.

as for his actual protection, he stuck with the dark colors - feeling like they'd fit his vibe anyway. a dark tee would build the base, though reinforced to offer protection & the most obvious part would be his breastplate vest, made from enhanced titanium & fiddled with until it fit the rest of the outfit. the thin black plastic coating was hardened several times to keep its appearance even if he ever got hit.

his katanas were fastened to his back for easy access & yet full mobility, because he had both hands free at all times & could pull them quickly whenever he felt he needed them. showing a little skin, yet not too much .. ryan opted for padded sleeves, the same padding as his knees were protected by in case he fell. his gloves were padded, too & reinforced with hardened steel to protect the back of his hands at all times. his hands were his window to the other side. he needed them protected. his watch fit the outfit perfectly, big digits helping him to keep track of time.

he didn't want to run out of juice mid flight. or something. nor did he want to overdo it & exhaust himself in the middle of a fight.

as for a mask .. or a cape. ryan refused to wear either, but the proposition to dump the glasses & pick up contacts instead ... was begrudgingly accepted. with the glasses & combed-back hair in ryan's original state... they felt he might be able to pass as a hero without blowing his cover ..instantly.

[cielhunternorwood]

Tower of MMORPG

Well, after needing to scratch the open world exploration itch, I returned to Tower of Fantasy, an MMO-style gacha game I played since day one and then left for a few months due to burn-out (as well as some questionable design decisions). Has it gotten any better? Well, let's just cover the whole thing.

UI/Graphics: Korean MMO/10

So, do you remember Mabinogi? Or any of those really old MMOs like SMT Imagine? Remember how the graphics looked back then? Well, that's what Tower of Fantasy generally looks like. Seeing as it's a mobile game, I can't say I'm too surprised a lot of the graphics are either very simplistic or low-resolution, and that goes for the weird UI as well.

I won't say it's terrible, but it definitely is on the low end. It has the feel of a low-budget MMO from years ago that was retroactively made a mobile gacha in order for it to sell. While it's made a lot of vistas and beautiful viewpoints over its time, and a later city looks absolutely crowded with cyberpunk-genre lightboard signs and what have you, there are also a lot of repeated textures, visible seams in terrain, and a few clipping errors that can cause collision issues.

It's not that it looks bad, but it definitely doesn't have as much care to it as more funded games.

Gameplay: Devil May Gray Raven/10

So, the main function of the combat is that you get a wide array of weapons- you can equip up to three- and they all fall under a particular element: physical, fire, ice, volt, and altered (only two characters have this so far). Each weapon is very unique and has its own move set, dodge attack, air attack, and a cooldown-based skill. Pull a bit back, yes, the game allows you to air-fight. It also has the No More Heroes bullet-time-dodge mechanic that has become popular since Bayonetta.

The best part of the combat is the Discharge system. Smacking enemies with weapons will build up Weapon Charge (each weapon has its own rate of generating charge for other weapons). When a charge is full, it causes your other weapons to flash. Switching to them triggers a QTE for a devastating super-attack (of super-support effect for Support weapons) and allows you to go to town with that weapon almost immediately.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! Each weapon also has a set amount of Shatter power, which is necessary for dealing damage to enemy shields. Shattering shields is very important not just due to them cutting damage taken in half but also useful for stopping big enemies and bosses from using devastating super attacks if you Shatter them fast enough. It also stuns most enemies for a moment and, in some rare cases, mounting bosses to backstab them over and over for extra damage (though sometimes you may do more damage just whacking them on your own).

Combining that with the incredible mobility options, which certain other games lack, makes for a REALLY fun hack and slash game that makes exploration much more fun and interesting since you have multiple solutions for traversal.

So, what's wrong with the game? Well, it's generally kind of buggy. Repeating the low-budget comment earlier, it feels as though the game released without ironing out the bugs, and it just hasn't stopped to fix it because someone, most likely the publishers, pushed for more content rather than fixing mechanics. There's a wide array of issues with the game that are both aggravating and beneficial that I won't list. Sure, the game is fun, but you have to deal with A LOT of weirdness with terrain, physics, etc.

Now, exploration! A big part of the open world, and one of the big things advertised for Tower of Fantasy is that you found the gacha tokens out in the open world, alongside the other currency for buying more. The problem is that this is only partially true.

ToF has five gacha tokens, three for weapons/characters and two for matrices, the equipment for the weapons themselves. This means there's one low-rarity banner which has a very low chance of dropping an SSR weapon/character, one standard banner which has a higher chance (with a short pity for a random SSR), and one limited banner which has a 50/50 pity at 80 pulls and then a "guarantee" in the form of paying 120 tokens once you pull 120 times. The matrix banners are split similarly into standard and limited, with limited matrices being specific to the limited weapon available.

Now... This is an MMO-ish game, so grinding for standard SSR matrices is possible, and world bosses also have a VERY low chance of dropping a standard SSR weapon, but they have all been power-crept by newer, still-limited options. It is further gated by daily Stamina and items specifically for opening Boss Chests. Also, any 'Exploration Points' in the open world are one-time only, and only about ten of the HUNDREDS of Points across all current maps hold Red Nucleus- the items for Limited rolls- and only Supply Pods in the first world drop the currency for buying more rolls, Dark Crystal.

Starting to see the problem? It's a different kind of bad from the Genshin problem, which is making it seem like you get a lot of rolls when you actually don't, since everything is one-time only. While standard weapons are still serviceable to a degree, operating in high-end content will be impossible without getting some of the newer weapons coming out in the present.

So, generally, combat is fun and allows for experimentation and combos, but the gacha really ruins a lot of it, especially when the game almost never reworks old weapons to make them either viable or at least useful in end-game content. The exploration early game is pretty fun, it is awful in the second world, and the third world so far looks to be a huge improvement.

Music: Pretty Basic/10

The music isn't much to write home about, since it's fairly simple in most cases and sounds very much like a garden-variety anime soundtrack in most places.

There is one single vocal song for the game called "Meant to Be" which is astoundingly great, both the instrumental and the full version. It's possible to hear the full version by triggering a night-time event in a specific area and the instrumental by climbing to the very top of a Tower in the center of the first world.

I won't say the music is bad, but other than the vocal song, it doesn't quite stand out. On the other hand, the music does its best to keep to its particular mood and to change based on area, combat, and so on. At the least, it doesn't do a lot of recycling of music and tries its best.

Character Designs: Cyber-Fantasy Mish-Mash/10

This is a weird one to touch on because the character designs vary by the World a character comes from, but it largely embraces a cyberpunk style for most characters and otherwise delves into Eastern Fantasy for later ones.

The designs range from fairly generic to crazy unique, but each one feels crafted specifically for themselves and not just borrowing a generic model for each body type (or at least seems to not be falling for that). Each character also has a second appearance to unlock from advancing their weapon enough via getting copies of it, with the results ranging from something of a palette swap to one guy becoming Sephiroth's twin brother.

And let's not glance over the player character, your avatar, who is highly customizable in hair, eyes, and accessories, but there's a limited selection of outfits, most of which are punk-themed, cyber or otherwise. Most outfits come from event gachas which are grotesquely expensive to attempt, so it's generally not worth it unless you're a whale.

Economy: Streamlined MMO/10

Money is Gold. Upgrade materials have two sets: elemental stones (altered weapons use one of the four base elements) and upgrade items (of which there are also four). Each weapon upgrades with one element of stone, one of the two more common upgrade items, and one of the less common upgrade items. Multiple in-game modes let you grind for these upgrade items, and they can also drop items for leveling up weapons or alternatively drop items for leveling up matrices.

The other grind modes drop equipment, which is your main source of stats and can be a massive headache to grind. Each equipment piece has the same base stats for its type and four sub-stats which are randomized. These can be upgraded with the same type of equipment pieces or crystals gained from both recycling equipment or breaking big crystals in the open world. The upgrades will boost a random sub-stat, up to a certain number of upgrade levels.

Then there's ENHANCEMENT which is just a flat level-up to the main stats of the equipment, and that item is basically locked behind weekly rewards for a specific solo game mode that rewards an amount based on your completion of it. There is a handful you can get weekly in the Commissary, using the other currency that drops from running any mode that uses Stamina.

As you can see, it can be fairly simple and easy to get into a pattern of grind for getting what you want out of the modes, and since this is MMO-style, a lot of these modes are made way easier by teaming with randoms or pals, so grind for items can be fairly painless... Well, except for if your equipment keeps tossing you bad sub-stats.

Story: There's a story?/10

So, the story of Tower of Fantasy is fairly simple. You start off as your own character, being chased by a two-headed dog, and you wind up collapsing due to radiation or something. When you wake up, your memory's gone and you find yourself saved by a blond girl named Shirli and her big sexy brother, Zeke. They live in a Shelter made out of a crashed ship in Aesperia, along with a bunch of other folks trying to survive amongst the world which was irradiated by an event known as the Cataclysm.

You get a very barebones explanation of how people survive, getting supplies through teleporter things from Hykros, a bunch of folks living in the sky in a floating city, and survive the radiation by using Suppressors to ward it off. So, guess what happens to the girl who shows you around town? Yep, her suppressor runs out of battery and she gets irradiated. In order to save her, Zeke decides to go with some bad guys known as the Heirs of Aida.

Thus, your character decides to chase their trail to save both of them and uncover the plot of the Heirs of Aida. Eventually, you find out your character was actually a form of Spec Ops agent for Hykros known as an Executor, which lends you to getting access to a lot of support in both challenging the Heirs of Aida and saving Shirli and Zeke.

To avoid further spoilers, let's just say things kind of end weirdly, and the story of the second world drops the entire Heirs of Aida plot to introduce a NEW enemy known as Grayspace Entities who just hate everything living, I don't know.

It's a very bare-bones story, as you can see, and works through several seasons of anime plot over the course of what would be a couple of episodes, and it has a very strange manner of not explaining things as it goes along. It just tosses you into situations with little prompting and pulls you along without much exposition.

While this leads to there being more gameplay time and lends itself to few dialogue bits being tolerated or over-extended by wordiness, it leaves a bad case of story whiplash where you just have to go "okay, sure, moving on".

I would add that a lot of this stuff revolves around time technology, but it's treated as mostly a MacGuffin and nowhere nearly respected in terms of concepts of time travel, manipulation, and repercussions except for when it was necessary to explain the Cataclysm's cause.

It's just generally a mess of ideas strung along with little to any connectivity or background, leaving everyone experiencing it absolutely confused.

Overall: College Student Hobby/10

Tower of Fantasy, I would say, is worth an experience to discover the combat and how much fun a game can be when mobility is made available in many ways. In fact, a lot of people who played or continue to play ToF ended up quitting Genshin due to it just having a better core gameplay. A lot of the problems with ToF come from what feels like low budget compared to its high income, and it isn't quite being fixed up unless a problem is especially game-breaking.

Again, I would say to experience it without spending, since they changed the beginning game experience, for some reason, to skip over most of the World One events while providing a side quest means for going back to play through those events.

You might not be able to experience the super power of SSR characters without some time investment, but at the least don't spend any money on it.

I say this both as someone who regretted spending money on it but also as someone who is seeing signs of a game that may be ending service sometime soon due to a huge drop in playerbase. And the problem is that it's no surprise that it happened, since this game has the feel of something that was forced to be a gacha to make money rather than being left as what it was probably meant to be: an MMO with DMC-style combat.

[augment-techs]

What happens now? Do we have another go?/Do we bow out and take our separate roads?- Allies or enemies by the crane wives

Kim and Sharkie

(I'm not gonna lie, this was really hard and after five drafts, this was also as far as I could get without tossing my computer out the window. I apologize.)

Of course since Tommy had a tragic backstory, it really did stand to reason that maybe Kim had one too.

Not tragic, not fully in the style of Shakespeare or Bronte, but...less than idyllic.

Kim was made for the bright lights, big city setting of Los Angeles; born and raised, and raised in the manner of the upward mobility of her family money and "good breeding" as her grandparents used to say when she saw them at holiday parties that included fake snow on pine trees three stories tall and covered in decorations that cost more than some families made in a year. She went to ballet when she was three and moved onto gymnastics when she was five; had the best tutors and trainers and parents who (she thought; was pretty sure) loved her and only wanted the best.

She also went to a private school before they moved to Angel Grove, from kindergarten to Freshman year, with her best friend that, well...

Sharkie reminded her of Bulk and Skull, when she thought about her between being a Ranger and her so-called "normal" life.

Pretty girl with a petty, mischievous attitude, a preference for nonconformity that often left her in trouble with teachers, and a complete disinclination to ever use her real name--though why, Kim never understood; Stella Angel wasn't such a bad name.

(It was the roots that the name carried that the girl didn't like to think about. If she had told Kim...well, she might not have fully comprehended what it was to be an immigrant and an abuse survivor, but she might have been more sympathetic. Even though there was no certainty in that, either. Kim could look back and realize she was rather innocent in her sheltered life and in that way, ignorant.)

Sharkie picked Kim up off the floor in gym class the day she got her first period and thought she was going to die, the other girls sneering and giggling and the teacher trying to keep Kim calm as she hyperventilated. Sharkie just told the others to get out of the way and carried the tiny brunette princess style into the shower room so she could rinse off and calm down, and handed her a thick pad for the spare underwear she yanked out of her own locker (they were cute and purple with a pair of pink ribbons sewn into the sides no bigger than a dime) and asked rather calmly if she would have preferred a tampon, "Since they last longer and you won't have to freak out if the pad leaks a little."

Kim had been too out of sorts to really think about it at the time, except that she didn't want to put anything inside her that looked like it would hurt, and the instructions weren't very helpful. Sharkie had merely shrugged and gave Kim a couple for later in case she changed her mind.

She walked out to tell the teacher Kim could talk to her, and spent the rest of the week tormenting the "little bitches" that tried to give Kim a hard time about something, "Totally normal; not her fault her parents weren't looking out for her with basic information."

Kim had her own sort-of friends, and her parents had their expectations of her that kept piling up and stifling her as they got closer and closer to the date she wasn't yet aware of that marked their moving to Angel Grove and away from all that she knew, but she tried to be something close to friendly with the girl that had looked out for her best interests in her own abrasive little ways.

They had lunch together in the art room sometimes, Sharkie chewing on a tongue sandwich between drawing charcoal shadow monsters and breaking glass and ceramics just to paste them back together into something else entirely that looked both scary and wonderful; kind of like her.

They went to the mall, sometimes, when being at home got to be too much for Kim, trying to block out her parents sniping at each other, and Sharkie sometimes goaded her into trying out new styles; grunge and punk and extremely femme or academic or--something that nobody would ever see the pictures of or Kim would walk directly into the bottom of the ocean--honest to god southern gothic. Everyone at school gave them a wide berth for a week when they made a bet that Kim couldn't handle wearing so much black and makeup and Sharkie couldn't handle going for something so pastel and girly.

They both lost because it was the summer five days before Kim's parents told her they were moving; Kim came close to suffering heatstroke and Sharkie almost caught on fire from showing so much pale skin without remembering to put on sunscreen for the boardwalk or getting Kim to go to the fair before it moved on.

When Tommy talked about Tyler and growing up in New York in the aftermath of her being so fucking mad at him for going off on his own to infiltrate a secret society of ninja, she didn't let up on her pouting and guilt tripping, but she could understand the need to do what you could for someone that cared about you when you didn't know you needed someone like that.

He showed her a photo they took at one of those little booths for tourists, tiny and with clothes too big for them, but happy in the moment with each other.

Kim showed him one similar, but not quite after the Eltarian War and the new surge of rebuilding sites and feeling like she kept missing running into a familiar face she almost didn't think about so often, phantom feeling of her hanging out in the girl's bathroom that almost none of the teachers went into, smoking a joint with the dates Bulk and Skull had at their failed Homecoming.

*

"A drug Renaissance in Angel Grove? Really?"

"Yeah, I know, it's fucking stupid, but Grace asked if I--if we, actually, because I am not good at this--could look into this on the down-low because the police are worthless and some of Grace's employees are worried about their kids dropping like flies at the college."

"Is it really that bad?" Matt steepled his fingers like the roof of a house before waving them a little back and forth, thumbs hooked and reminding her--awkwardly--of a little child trying to make shadow puppets.

"Bulk beat the shit out of some guy that offered to sell him some last week for distribution after the guy had already tried his luck following Skull around like a creep and asked basically the same thing but, like, the wrong way? And the poor bastard reported him to the school security guard under the impression that he was gonna snatch some Freshman. So, yeah, I'd say it's pretty bad."

"No, I meant the drugs--although, thank you for that information; that actually explains...some stuff going on with those two," the two of them keeping court with the other loners and stragglers and being less impulsive and more protective lately came to mind, but Kim needn't comment on that when Matt knew too, "Anyway, is it something like meth or cocaine?"

"Eh, I think it's more like some fast acting roofies? Terona tried to explain it like I'm five, but all I got was that the first symptoms are usually waved away as just general dizziness from drinking, followed by either lowered or increased body heat, and then blacking out of memory even while conscious at the time. Most of the people reported not remembering anything beyond looking for water or a bathroom and then waking up in various states that heavily implied assault. Two college students ended up in a coma because the offenders used to much of the drug and just left them to the elements after...Just after."

Kim sighed, thinking of all the schoolwork she already had piled up, the little class of beginner gymnasts as Ernie's she needed to teach the next day, the promise to take Aisha on a girl's only shopping quest after realizing both their closets were in sorry need of improvement...

Still, she was getting better at doing the right thing, and the words just fell out with as much ease as anything else in her life, "Yeah, yeah. Lemme just talk to the others. Maybe me and Billy can get Bulk and Skull talking about the party circuit they mentioned and we can grab an invite without seeming too suspicious."

*

Salt and water poured in a glass and pressed to her lips.

Between the swallow and the burning of the vomit it brought up--bright blue, never a good sign when she'd been drinking her precious color from the wine cooler selections she'd heavily watered down--Kim was aware of the girl holding her hair back and the look of distaste across her face as she told Skull to get Bulk and start clearing out the drugged drinks (bless him, bless him for noticing and getting someone with more experience; she'd hate to think what would have happened otherwise).

When she was done vomiting up the foam and toxin, and blinked at the other girl, Kim suddenly felt as though she'd scratched open an old wound without realizing it.

"Hope you didn't develop an eating disorder with all the monsters that run around here, Kimmy."

The hair was longer and wilder, the clothing not too different from what Kim expected the girl to grow into liking, the makeup popping in such a dark shade compared to such gray skin. The accessories of silver hoop earrings and black pewter knuckle rings shouldn't have drawn Kim's eyes, but they stood out in the kitchen as she slowly came back into some semblance of her right might and kept her from looking directly into the other (beautiful) face.

Then she doubled up and puked on the combat boots that went thigh high and looked expensive, yet well used.

"I was kidding."

[wroteonedad]

Is Juergen Teller's W Magazine Shoot Art?

I was lucky enough to get accepted into an arts university 5 years ago. To this day I still couldn't tell you why except for me and the lecturer talking about Kate Bush for a solid 15 minutes. And despite it nearly being two years since I graduated from university, I still haven't done anything much with said degree. I've done one live gig, made two montages and I've only just finally felt inspired enough to perhaps start a new project. Even that is exhausting considering that I have a full time job and most time I spend away from work is me sitting here and writing up whatever content I can come up with for my blog. Back onto my main point though, back in university I got to come across some amazing photographers and artists that my lecturers would tell me would flow with my work perfectly. Sometimes they did, but whoever told me about Juergen Teller,,, I wish they didn't. He's one of those artists that I forgot about for a good couple of years, until I logged onto Twitter three days ago and saw a Tweet of someone reminding me of *that* Juergen Teller shoot for W magazine. As soon as I was reminded of those images I wanted to shut off my phone and never turn it on again. So this week we are going to discuss, if the photoshoot is art or plain lazy.

Let's go back and discuss Juergen Teller pre W Magazine shoot. Teller is a German fine art and fashion photographer. You think of the first celebrity that comes to mind and Teller has probably done a photoshoot with them at some point. He moved from Germany to London all the way back in 1986 and has been actively building his career from that moment. He specialises in 'minimal' images when it comes to his portraits of celebrities and models over the years, many which are. What makes him different to other commercial photographers is that he refuses to tailor his work to the clients wants and needs, because he has his own established style and know what works for him. While many of his works, especially his older works, are mesmerising and captivating, I also feel as though Teller has been stuck in this safe space for years, never crafting anything that steps out of what he knows in case it doesn't get the reaction he wants.

I liked his old work. Hand on heart, I will admit it. I was a big fan of how personal the images looked, kind of like I was going through a family photobook of somebody I don't know. I liked how lowkey the images were, never big studio images. Always homely environments, a bedroom, a garden. Sometimes it felt as if Teller was trying to make the person he was shooting appear on the page as a middle class person. Ordinary folk, like you and me. These images were not airbrushed, the way in which you'd see famous models grace the cover of Vogue magazine. You could see blemishes, bags under the eyes. I respected that because I really think it takes balls for a photographer to not only take images of these in the first place, but then to publish them like that and refuse to edit it the way in which you would like to look.

In more recent years, Teller almost gave up photography. He realised that the world is suddenly 'flooded' with photographs, that it's so easy to take an image. When he first began his career, there weren't so many people making images. It was something that felt like an art and only some people had the ability to capture that. It all stems to the debate of artists and their love hate relationship for platforms such as Instagram. Teller hates phone photography and Instagram so much that it was the concept of social media and people not caring about these images that made him want to stop. Perhaps it can be argued that the photoshoot for W Magazine feels like a mockery, a big fuck you to people who rely on mobile phones to take their own images, or images of other people.

The photoshoot for the magazine feels humbling for all the celebrities who partook. A random street in the middle of Los Angeles, a place that always looks rich and glamorous, especially when we think of the celebrity culture over there. This shoot was a car, a tree and a street with a dream.

The controversy from the public was how baffled they were from how simple this photoshoot was. No special lighting, no post editing, just images that look like something my mum would take. Even Riz Ahmed claimed that his shoot with Teller lasted for 20 seconds. Two images and his work was done. Perhaps it really is in order for us to look at the image of the celebrity and remind ourselves that they're just like us. The images scream anti-celebrity in the way that every image subverts the types of images you usually see of a famous person. Whether they're magazine shoots or even Instagram images, their posts always feel airbrushed and glamorous, a type of beauty standard that most feel as though they could never tend to. Perhaps that is truly what makes this photoshoot so memorable, because most of these famous people look dumb in this silly rundown place with no glamour around then aside from perhaps their outfit (not James Corden though).

However if you think these images are artistic and out of the box then, well that's your opinion. I can't see why you would take anyone, let alone a celebrity out into a dirty city street and have them sit on discarded fold up chairs on the side of the road or let them sit on the floor next to a pile of someone else's litter. No matter how much I look at this collection of images, I can't view it in any form of art form. Not even anti-art and the whole collection of images do nothing for me. I'm not saying that he's a bad artist because there are many of his older images that I really love, but the flair was not there for this entire magazine shoot. It feels as though it was made to make some headlines and make a name relevant again; whether that is Teller's name or some of the famous people included in this shoot, you decide. And truthfully, I am sick of critiques defending the entire photoshoot. Mark Grobe wrote an entire article about how he thinks if the person doesn't get the W magazine shoot, then it means that Instagram rotted their brain. In his essay he states 'It's a tough pill to swallow but people love the feeling evoked by a Juergen Teller-esque image – until it's shot by Juergen Teller, as evidenced by the meme.' (the following meme is below)

'The informal and "iPhone style" aesthetic is so of the moment that it's tricky to recognize as warranting artistic merit, and it's possible that Teller is a victim of his audience who, growing up on social media, see amateur-style photography as something that needs to be purged from the camera reel, and not published in a fashion magazine.' However I have to disagree, not understanding the photoshoot has nothing to do with social media rotting your brain, or having access to taking a photo wherever you are whenever, it is just the way that people connect with each other of the Internet. I feel like a veteran when I say I've had my Twitter account for 11 years, but the best times I've seen people connect with one another is when they are simply taking the piss out of something, whether it's as insignificant as a photoshoot or the rumours of World War 3 back in 2020. People bond and people love over being able to share silly jokes, it never means the actual meaning of something has gone over anybody's heads and its silly to even make an assumption like that.

Maybe you think these images are amazing, that's fine. Maybe you also hate them and can't see what it is about them that makes them a form of fine art. Anyone who knows anything about the field of fine art will always at some point make a piece of art that doesn't really make sense to anyone except for them. The only memorable part of this photoshoot were the memes that exploded on Twitter after it and I think that's perfectly reasonable too.

This was still the best meme out of all of the ones I saw online though.

[janarthanan]

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[dailycharacteroption]

Retrograde Revision: Airborne Ambusher (Fighter Archetype; Strix)

(art by Joanna Lubanska on Artstation)

 Our second entry, and we have the airborne ambusher, a racial archetype for the strix, an ancestry that we covered within the last month on the blog! How’s that for serendipity?

Looking back at the old entry… oof, yeah, you can definitely tell I was hypersensitive about being judged for infodumping. Its encouraging to see how much I’ve grown.

In any case, the airborne ambusher is a fighter archetype meant for members of flying ancestries (in particular the strix) to use their flight to their advantage against their foes, making it a perfect choice for those who are lucky enough to have a flight speed either through magic or natural ability.

Indeed, with their maneuverability, these warriors can nimbly avoid harm while also striking hards and slipping away, even using the force of gravity to their advantage.

The strix supposedly developed this fighting style in response to the Chelish humans encroaching upon their territory, though the archetype itself does not share any anti-human mechanics. As such, if you are playing any other sort of flying ancestry, or even just find a reliable way to fly and take fighter (and this archetype) later, I see no reason why not to utilize it.

 As you might expect, these warriors don’t tend to use heavy armor of shields, as this would weigh them down, but they are experts at flight.

They also put some of their training towards striking while moving in the air, as well as hovering in place to strike repeatedly when needed.

Their flight training allows them to swiftly dive through a foe’s reach, twisting and rolling in the air to avoid reprisal.

That swiftness also makes them harder to hit even when foes directly target them as well.

Finally, when going on the offensive, they add their flying momentum to their charge attacks, making them more accurate and lethal.

This archetype exists primarily to be a way that flying fighters can take advantage of all the fun things about flying combat, not just raining down projectiles from on high, but also dive-bombing foes with flyby attack. With that in mind, I’d build with many of the staples of mobile fighting, as well as picking up things like Vital Strike and its companion feats, since you’ll be more likely to be making single attacks than full ones except perhaps while hovering.

 This archetype is colored by, but not mechanically influenced by the bad blood between strix and humans, but that’s easy enough to reflavor. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that I’d argue that it would appear in every flying ancestry out there, from strix to gathlain to wyvarens and beyond.

  The trade route running between the port city of Verdstal and the dwarven kingdom of Hermngrdr plays a crucial role in the prosperity of each; ferrying food, salt and spices in exchange for weapons, tools, and works of art. This is why the recent Strix attacks on the route have caused such a stir. Interested parties will not only have to defend caravans, but perhaps even discover the cause of the boldness, or perhaps desperation, that has driven the strix so far from their aeries in the west.

 Strix were once slaves to the mystical syrinx, and in some places, that still holds true. Recently, tales have surfaced of a warband of strix lead by one of the owl-faced ones has been ambushing couriers as they make their way between two cities, their messenger bags torn open, but their coin purses untouched. What are they looking for?

 Few things are more terrifying than a mothman appearing before you, perhaps serving as an omen to your impending demise, but one among them takes this doom into its own, bloody claws. Bloody Wind delights in terrorizing those of ill fate, using his spells to separate them from aid, before delivering them to their dark fate, always just out of reach.