#though it'd likely require some abstraction

[carionto]

I like to think the humans ambassador hides black powder weapons around their office instead of Lazer guns or plasma, just walks about with 2 hidden flintlock pistols

You sir or madam or otherwise have given me the biggest grin with that idea, thank you.

(me from after having written it out) I did not know where this idea would take me, stream of consciousness writing will do that.

----------------------

Every delegate of every integrated species aboard a Coalition governing station in their respective segment of the Galaxy receives full accommodations in the form of an isolated embassy structure.

One day, as per a Human custom, the main delegate - Ambassador Glenn York, invited several other delegates on a tour of his embassy. With some hesitation from a few due to their prey-like ancestry and associated cultural background, but ultimately won over by the Human's eager friendliness, they embarked on this little cultural exchange.

It was a little difficult to move about, as each embassy is adapted to suit the environmental preferences of the respective species, and Humans live on a high gravity and dense atmosphere world, so much so in fact, some of the less physically suitable delegates had to put on an exoskeleton, while many others required a breathing apparatus to thin out the poisonous air.

Once we were underway, Glenn showed us that the Humans were diligent in their work - acquiring information from and learning about all the various species within the Coalition, establishing communication lines with the respective counterparts in the disparately varied local government structures, and most importantly continually updating the translation modules.

In addition, we admired their art they had installed along the barren walls. Most, Glenn explained, was done by the delegates and their staff themselves during free time, and it ranged from tiny contraptions painstakingly assembled within a minuscule glass container (we did not realize they could hone their dexterity to such a precise degree!) to large murals covering an entire wall with the most vivid color and shape combinations one could imagine; from the very clear and obvious to impossibly abstract! Though the music they had to turn down - the vibrations of the thick atmosphere were beginning to overload the dampening systems and one of the delegates almost passed out.

Near the end of the tour, Glenn invited us into his office to show off what his "hobby" is:

"The boys and gals I work with are all talented people, but none of them appreciate the kind of craftsmanship I prefer. It's kind of a ancient art form, you see, high maintenance too, very delicate."

He pulls out a pair of ancient looking projectile weapons, at least judging by the shape, but none of us can quite grasp, aside from the trigger, how it operates. We are all silent as he pours some sort of fine grain from a small bag into the upturned tube then drops a small metal ball and proceeds to jam it further in with a cloth and stick.

"I handcrafted these myself. Sure, I could get a printer to do it and it'd be perfect, but perfection just ain't right when it comes to work of the soul, amirite? I find it therapeutic, to mold the shape, heat the iron, cast the shape, smooth the edges, straighten the barrel, carve the grip, roll the bullets, grind the powder... just..."

He lets out a long sigh of relief? satisfaction? euphoria? as he gazes with great affection at the pair of devices in his hands. We feel the urge to end the tour. Like. Right now. But Glenn insists on a demonstration. We hesitantly follow him to a largely empty room below where he sets up a couple of small wooden block on a pedestal. As he points one of the devices and is about to pull the trigger, he stops, looks back at us and says:

"Almost forgot, you'll want to take a few more steps back and turn your dampeners to max."

Heeding his advice, we do so, and after he appears satisfied with our... safety?... he returns his gaze to the wooden block and pulls the trigger.

[cacophony]

We awaken after a short while, the sturdier of our fellow delegates say the rest of us were out for just a few moments, but the ringing reverberation of the shockwave through the Human atmosphere still resonates throughout our bodies. Glenn, worry in his eyes, is apologizing profusely:

"Oh I am so sorry, I didn't think you'd still react so poorly. Is anyone hurt? I even put in less gunpowder than normal, but I guess that's still too potent. I--I'll file an official apology and compensate for any damages I may have caused to any of you. I will take full responsibility for this incident. Please do not think poorly of us as a whole due to the willfulness of one individual, it was never my intention to inflict any injury on anyone."

---Later---

After a thorough medical examination, it was determined that only a few delegates suffered a minor case of shock, which was alleviated rapidly at their respective medical stations. Ambassador Glenn York was reprimanded and sent back to Earth, a replacement will arrive shortly. The one permanent remnant of the incident is the wooden block that was struck by Glenn's pistol - now put on a small display in one of the inner rooms of the Human embassy. The bullet still embedded half-way and the splinters it shot out arranged in a chaotic manner, befitting an explosion, down in front.

[richardsphere]

Miraculous Chat Noir: Analysing the "evolved power" and its potential uses

So i already did a small mini-rant (through the lense of the Maribat slanderfests) earlier. But i feel like this needs a dedicated post. Before i put the cut in remember: this is speculation about theoretical superpower aplications. We're talking whitevoid math without narrative or consideration wether it makes for a good story. This will deliberately ignore wether or not it'd be a good writing decision to use the powers in this way. Do not @me about how "the writers wouldnt do this cause it makes a bad show". I know. This is Death Battle Powerscaling Bullshit, not anything about wether Adrien would or should, but about wether he could with currently established precedents.

Lets start with the first catch: Miraculous Chat Noir doesnt require touch and has a comparable scope to Miraculous Ladybug. Just taking those 2 facts, and thinking of purely 1th degree "simple physical, non-abstracted" forms of destruction. This is already really powerfull. Because that means adrien could be in tibet (feast), learning under the guardians. Receive a phonecall from LB with a link to Rena doing a livestream and the words "its in the glasses" and, From Tibet without needing to use astro-stuff or portals, cast Miraculous Chat Noir and have his giant homing cloud destroy the akumatised object without ever being on the scene. combine this with Rena's illusions... you could even fake Chat Noir not having left Paris at all. Have the Illusion Chat say the words, have real tibet-cat cast the spell. no one would know the difference. Like in a theoretical "just using powers in the most pragmatic posible way" story, Every Akuma is solved right there. Most akuma battles amount to "figuring out a way to get Chat to touch the thing", and he no longer needs to touch the thing. Even without getting weird and metaphysical, this is a big powerboost. Adrien destroys the object with Miraculous Chat Noir, then Ladybug fixes everything the akuma broke, end of episode. This is the obvious "no story, just nukes" option. Its the boring one that, though fun in a 1-off gag fic should really not be used in the story outside of special episodes. Think of it as Adrien's version of Lelouch's final "Obey me" leading into the Zero Requiem. Its a final resort because it solves the plot. And thus should not be used carelessly, lest we not have a plot.

So in pursuit of narratively satisfying and creative uses: Lets look at our precedents and get freaky. Cause you wanna know what else there's precedent for? destroying sound. Cataclysm has destroyed sound (akuma-jagged's "awesome rock solo"). Lets say you were fighting a sound-based akuma that attacks with thunderwaves or some vocal compulsion? No sound.= no problem. Well actually 1 problem... LB needs to "say" miraculous ladybug in the aftermath. But taking that precedent and getting slightly more targeted/conceptual. Full Disney Princess: destroying a voice. Fighting a power-duplicator or compelling-voice antagonist? Problem solved. Destroying minds is also obviously on the table. (because what is memory if not a smaller part of the mind). You could even get into small not-quite-mind-controll effects if you were to destroy personality traits. IE: "I destroy your nervous habit of fingernail-chewing", all the way up to "i destroy your ADHD" or "I destroy your mind, you're a comatose shell now". Or perhaps an interesting one from a Sandman/Horrificator-type antagonist: Destroying someone's fear, or really any emotion when you think about it... (oh god that's got some narrative potential for a post-gabe-reveal fic, the idea of LB's betrayal hurting him enough that he doesn't want to love her anymore.. destroying his own love for Ladybug... OH GOD that hurts!) In case of another Darker Owl/Black Mercy situation: destroying dreams... Getting a bit more Liirii in our aplication: "I destroy Hawkmoth's influence/connection" might not be an instant de-akumatisation (as you'd still have the powers granted) but it would prevent Lila from talking someone out of de-akumatisation like she did with Maya. I like the way that using it made the sun go dark. even without destroying it anything...this might be a nice way to bring the night-vision back into the story. (we could of course go for "destroying light", but that would require us to say that it's "darkvision" instead of "night vision". Which is not a precedent we have RN) ----- If you cant tell, i personally love when a character has semantics-based magic, one of my favourite tropes for the way it inspires creative use of a theme.... and Destruction is so broad when you get to semantics it. There really isnt anything you cannot achieve by "destroying its opposite".

assuming Adrien can break anything Marinette's Miraculous Ladybug has been shown to repair? That opens up: Destroying time. (mari's creation has affected time like... a lot), Space and I guess the various instances of the miraculous putting displaced object back in place sets a precedent that he could "destroy the proper location' somehow? Like its clear that magic, cannonically considers displacement is something a "broken status quo" for Tiki to repair... oh... break the status quo... now THATS a creative semantic i wrote entirely by accident.. it's a bit meta but I love it... that's pretty much a "whatever i want" type of thing. like i know there is no way that even half of these will ever come up in cannon, but i hope the fanbase runs with it anyway.

[radiogaming]

Blue Prince

Proud owner of the highest score on Metacritic for a couple of days! It's Blue Prince!

In short, Blue Prince is kind of like a board game, if that board game also existed in a world with Myst-style puzzles where the clues to solve these puzzles are found inside the board game. It's a puzzle adventure game with heavy roguelite elements.

I played the demo in a NextFest a few months back and wasn't impressed at all, the roguelite structure instantly turned me off. After hearing the insane praise this game was getting on release though, with comparison to Outer Wilds and yes, my darling Lingo, I decided to give it another try.

And well... Around 55 hours and some 130 in-game days later. Yeah! I did really like Blue Prince after all! But I still think its roguelite structure and RNG elements are going to (and have) turn many, many people off. Personally, the compelling puzzles and mysteries helped me too look past the often-frustrating structure of the "board game" part of this game, but I get not everyone is going to get over that hurdle. There are a lot of tools you obtain along the way that allow you to mitigate and manipulate the RNG to make obtaining your desired results much easier, although it will take quite a few hours before you get there.

I think how much you get out of this game depends on how deep you're willing to dig down its seemingly never-ending rabbit hole. The puzzles of this game are divided in "layers" much like Animal Well, with the "main goal" of reaching Room 46 only being Layer 1. During my playthrough, I traversed all 4 known layers (at the time of writing), first reaching Room 46, then solving the Sanctum, reclaiming the Crown, and finally solving the mystery of the Atelier. I won't delve too far into details on these, but you can expect the puzzles to get increasingly abstract and cryptic as you delve deeper and deeper.

Although the puzzles are all intended to be solved with in-game clues and on your own (so there's no ARG or community elements required, unlike Animal Well), I did have to consult a guide for some Layer 3 and Layer 4 puzzles as they were just getting too complex for me. It's also unfortunate that the RNG continues to be frustrating even as far as Layer 4, when I have all the tools to bend it to my will. There's... also a very frustrating piece of game design in Layer 4, involving a watering can. It takes several seconds for a certain prompt to appear, making me think my save was softlocked (which at this point was somewhere around 50 hours in) due to a broken item.

Overall I really enjoyed my time with Blue Prince and ended up obsessing over it for some 2 weeks, but I'm not sure if I'd put it on the same level of Outer Wilds. It wasn't life-changing, but the puzzles were extremely solid, yet as many people have pointed out, it's all bogged down by frustrating RNG elements.

I'd give it a 8.5/10. It's unfortunate that removing the RNG would require a redesign of the entire game, because without that it'd absolutely be a 9.

[hischierlovebot]

☂️ for the ask game!!

I was convinced I had answered this already but apparently I wrote my whole answer, someone talked to me at work and when I went back to my phone I had lost the answer and the draft so. Sorry for the delay, in my head I had already replied jsjsjs

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

There are many if I'm being honest. The one i'm most excited for as an abstract concept is a heist au, because I love heists, but I am not sure if I can write one. I would like to try though. There are, however, a couple of stories that have stuck with me for a number of years and that I don't know if I'll ever write but it'd be cool! I'll leave some details after the cut of this will be never ending, so I present you with:

a murder mystery where the main character goes back in time to try to figure out who killed his high school sweetheart. I love this idea but it's been paused for a couple of years now for several reasons: the ending came to me before the rest of it and I had something very specific I wanted to do, but I think I wrote myself into a corner there. I need to have the story ironed out before I can tackle it, particularly when they're meant to be long/complex/long AND complex and in this one the details and justifications for the plot were crucial to it, and I never felt really satisfied with them, so even though I had quite a bit written out for it, I never quite knew how to pull it off. Besides, this was meant for the tokyo revengers fandom, until that went up in flames (did Not like the ending), and i could revamp it and find a new fandom but I still haven't found people I feel fit in the specific roles I had in mind. Maybe it's a matter of sitting down with it and reworking it, but there's some things I don't want to change and they make finding new people difficult, I don't want to simply change the names, it has to make sense for them to do those things, you know? This has been purposefully vague in case I one day do write it but if anyone liked tokrev/is interested in knowing where this was going, feel free to hmu!

This one has haunted me for years, it's my magnum opus, or it would be, if I managed to write it. It's a, again, murder mystery but with the twist that it's heavily inspired by my fave TV Show, Fringe (if you don't know it, it's a TV show that dealt with fringe science, so human experimentation, stuff that fell on the science fiction side of things). The story involves a murder in the main character's birth town, and he comes back to investigate it, because it's a murder that falls under the Fringe division, which is where he works. He left the town in less than ideal circumstances and he never intended to return, so now he has to deal with both a killer on the loose, and the consequences of leaving one day without even saying goodbye. Like the first one, it's a story that requires me to nail the details and I never quite did it. I had a chunk written for it but again, this was for a different fandom, back when I was a kpop writer, so this one has been in my wip folder for a number of years now, and I really would like to finish it, but I don't know if I ever will

This was incredibly long, sorry about that!! And big thanks for sending me an ask!!