#whenever a member leaves the fantasy is broken/damaged

[hoseeok]

It sickens me that SM must know that the fragile illusion of riize being a kpop group therefore a well-constructed fantasy (the fantasy: in all groups the members are all invaluable and perfect and chosen, they love each other, they're not exploited in any way, they love living every second for the fans) is broken terribly, because seunghan was not protected and the other members' wishes are clearly ignored and their opinions hidden the moment they don't serve the company, because the only thing that matters is how much money the company will earn and which fans pay the most, and yet. and yet they did it. because they know that after a while the outrage will end, because 'the other members worked so hard and deserve our support', and then riize will keep going. the members will know that at the first step taken for their sake and not for the sake of the delusional fans' fantasies, they will lose their career. seunghan is just a bump in the road, there's money to be earned

[theangrypokemaniac]

Ma and Pa James's Second Biggest Fan (we plough a lonely furrow) continues to find Ma Jess's appeal mystifying, since everything about her is negative:

1. Signing up for Team Rocket suggests someone of a morally dubious character to start with, but the truth lies in the clothing, and she's in black!

Black!

It's code for her personality:

• Jessie wears white:

Pure, beautiful, innocent, sweet-natured, not really bad, dealt a severe hand in life but a fighter.

• Cassidy wears black:

EVIL!!! EVIL, EVIL, EEEEEEVUL!!! FOUL SIRENIC TEMPTRESS!!! EVIL HEARTLESS BITCH STEALING JAMES'S NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN WEEPINBELL!!!

Speaking of which:

2. She was Madame Boss's best agent.

You don't get there being kind.

To reach that standing requires hundreds of successful heists, and we aren't talking nicking gold bars. It's living things.

How many Pokémon do you imagine she stole with merciless efficiency?

How many children did she set upon, pinching every animal they had?

How many innocent lives did she ruin by depriving kids of the pets they loved, never to see them again, eaten away with the not-knowing and the false hope?

The glory of her reign ran on the fuel of blood and tears.

What fate do you envision awaited those Pokémon? It's not exchanging one master for another, it's entering slavery.

Jessie and James aren't the epitome of Team Rocket. They are minnows on the outskirts, despised and mocked by most of their fellow members. The actual group isn't particularly famous for prioritizing Pokémon welfare.

The preferable outcome is being handed out to agents to help catch other victims. Otherwise it's transformation into a war machine, forced to fight on and on to the point of exhaustion and death, no doubt tortured and tested on to boot.

What happens if they don't come up to scratch or are pushed for years until too aged and broken to be of any use? Are Team Rocket ready to pension them off to animal sanctuary?

As if. It's euthanasia or on to the streets to waste away, if not fed to the strongest first.

Ma Jess knew this and worse occurred thanks to her, yet paid it no mind, and felt not a single twinge of guilt in that time of service, then met her end trying to draw another Pokémon into imprisonment.

Some might say it was a case of what goes around, comes around. As her behaviour led to God knows how many Pokémon dying alone, leaving their loved ones to wonder and grieve, so in turn did she die alone in the snow, and Jessie had to carry on without her.

I'm not against Ma Jess, I neither feel like or dislike, but I don't understand how so many fans can happily overlook her murky past of inflicting pain, instead elevating her to a semi-divine tragic heroine, yet apparently Ma and Pa's heinous offences of not stealing and treating Pokémon well are beyond forgiveness.

3. It's the Red Ribbon Army! Save yourselves!

Jessie joined Team Rocket to follow in Ma's footsteps. James went with her. Both moved (upwardly in scale, downwardly in morals) from Sunny Town's gang of petty thief kids to a complex Mafia organisation stretching its wriggling tentacles around the world to crush the air from its lungs.

Why? Ma Jess's baleful influence led the two down that path.

Of course Jessie wants to copy Ma, how and where else can she feel close to her?

There's not even a grave to visit!

Rising in the ranks and Giovanni's favour is both to strike it rich and take her place, becoming Ma in essence. That would make her proud, which is all Jessie ever wanted.

What alternative is there? Stay with Chopper and Tyra forever, ekeing an existence pickpocketing and shoplifting, until mortality comes calling sooner than is welcome, or get loaded quickly and retire early?

James theoretically could've gone home at this point, but when it came to which angry redhead he preferred to beat him up, he chose Jessie.

He was henceforth obliged to go whenever she led, even if it meant following the ghost of her mother into the jaws of evil.

They have an excuse, but what was Ma's for getting involved?

However much they boast and revel in their wickedness, the motto proves the couple still believe themselves on a noble quest, despite everything to the contrary, and why?

Jessie isn't about to accept that Ma Jess, whom she's probably idolized as one of few people to love her and a role model of how a woman should be, was nasty or unpleasant. If she was in Team Rocket, it must be good, whatever the outer appearance.

Except Jessie and James are bad at being bad. They are not master criminals. All their plans fail, rendering them poor and starving in consequence. The inner circle of Team Rocket will always be barred to them because they lack the inner darkness it requires.

The joke is they flourish in any other occupation, whether that be Salon Rocquet, reporters, or flogging merchandise and food at the League. If employed elsewhere they'd be better off, but they have to stay because Jessie can't let go, or bear the thought she might be a disappointment to her mother's name. A different career looks unworthy by comparison.

What, so Ma and Pa have got no son because of Ma Jess? They just wanted him to be a gentleman!

If she hadn't set such a terrible example to her daughter she might have an increased quality of life, but then had she done so Ma wouldn't be dead in the first place.

4. Can't pick 'em can she?

What was it that first attracted Ma to Windy Miller? Does she go for the rustic charm, or the promise of a lifetime's supply of bread to feed the abundance of babies planned?

Don't do it, Ma! He's an alky!

Some birds are like that you see. It's the maternal instinct gone haywire. They find a local reprobate and somehow decide he's really a damaged soul crying out for love, the scapegoat of a cruel society.

He's not evil, he's just misunderstood!

This is why you get nutters wanting to marry the Yorkshire Ripper: they put his 'mischief' down to bad women mistreating his gentle heart, but they of course are devoted to his happiness. They can change him.

You don't know him like I do!

In their fantasy, under the influence of a 'proper' woman he'll transform in to a flower-picking hippie, but not too much, they still like him to be dangerously 'manly' (keeps 'em on their toes), then they can feel smugly superior and more truly female than the 'lesser' breed who failed to tame his sexy pashuns.

And if there's one thing Windy has in abundance, it's raw animal magnetism.

Stop it, Ma! You can't help those who don't want helping!

She put up with the boozing, the flour dust and his somewhat limited communication skills, but what really let him down was the company he kept.

Ever after she would insist Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub led him astray. That's firemen for yer.

Cuthbert? That name's died out.

Sure enough, some point after Ma Jess was stuffed up the spout, old Windy legged it back to Camberwick Green, like the rascal he is, and not a sweet penny piece did she receive in maintenance, the bastard.

At least Ma James got pregnant by a man who stood by her.

She wasn't married to Windy Miller!

Oh, you mean they were living over the brush? I see.

It's all in your head!

Do it my way, and we have Pa Jess. Do it yours, and we're back to a cavernous emptiness. Unless you can supply a picture of the 'real' (pffft) Pa Jess, this is the best available.

Anyway, 'Jessie Miller' just sounds right.

Coincidence? I think not.

5. She went to look for Mew dressed like this.

I could forgive it had she gone in her normal uniform, that's just whimsy, but to have made some effort emphasises that it's not enough!

Some part of her understood a mountain might be a bit parky out, but this was deemed sufficient coverage!

What happened?

She bloody died didn't she?!

6. Ma Boss points the way to doom.

Ma Jess was at least loyal to the mistress she served, but it was a wasted dedication. She squandered her life obeying a heartless virago who could cast aside apparently valued staff without a qualm, whatever thanks she owed them.

The millions Ma Jess accumulated for Madame are probably uncountable, yet she was so worthless that, when dispatched to the mountain, on her own, expected to catch a Legendary Pokémon, by herself, which many doubted even existed, and wasn't likely to come quietly, or put up with orders, but then didn't come back, Madame Boss allowed her only child to sink into poverty and the infamous 'care' of the State.

Everyone knows what goes on there. Entering a home has replaced the workhouse as the place of dread.

Jessie might have been killed or attacked and it didn't remotely concern Madame Boss, unwilling to spare a meagre fraction of her massive fortune to give the girl she made an orphan any comfort or security.

What did she matter? Her mother failed. Why reward that?

In her turn, Jessie became just as obsequious to an undeserving master, who went further than his mama and actively tried to murder her, and still she suffers to please him.

Team Rocket devoured her mother, and now it's swallowed her.

Oh, and Madame Boss got her way upon discovering Mew's fossil, so Ma Jess died for nothing.

7. This.

I'm not surprised Mew wouldn't go with Ma. She probably sensed the vivisection awaiting, and didn't give a toss about the avalanche in revenge.

Mew hasn't got where she is today falling for any old shallow promises from a stranger, thank you.

Suppose the mission had worked, with Mew caught and gift wrapped for Madame's delectation: what then?

Perhaps Mew's power, proving so impressive, would've pushed any cloning scheme aside, leaving Mewtwo unborn and Mew as the mightiest weapon. Or in greed Madame Boss demands more, and in arrogance the scientists promise the earth, the seas and the heavens.

Mew I could see subjected to some non-lethal form of dissection, just to understand how she ticked, that is if they could build the cage to hold her.

As they couldn't, and catching Mew was never a possibility, then Ma Jess's sacrificed herself on a fool's errand, which was obviously one from the outset. If Mew was easy to handle she'd have been captured long before now.

Either Ma dies, Mew's safe, but Madame Boss starts the cloning scheme anyway, or Ma's victorious, Mew is a tool of Team Rocket and the scientists have more sample to experiment upon. Mewtwo is still made, alongside short-lived creations and dozens of unseen freakish abominations preceding.

Now Mewtwo isn't what you call at peace with himself, nor has he received a particularly wholesome experience. One could think Ma indirectly caused that. Her branch of the project may have fizzled to cinders but she still played her role.

What would her legacy have been but to help bring forth the being that wiped out mankind? Where's the future for Jessie when there isn't one?

It's not her fault, but she died in the name of cloning a biological disaster, the creation of synthetic life leading to the destruction of it all.

8. Let's have a gander at Ma in the anime:

• Can afford rent.

• Can afford a tray.

• Can afford crockery.

• Can afford condiments to add flavour to food.

• Can't afford any actual food.

Something's wrong there.

I intended to include affording clothes too, but now I'm not so sure.

I never took Ma to be a brown-all-over kind of woman. At least she gave the fancy stuff to Jessie.

For years I've assumed she wore a brightly coloured jacket, but now I suspect it's a red one heavily patched up, because buying a replacement isn't an option.

Really old clothes are being mended with whatever can be salvaged from even more worn-out clobber.

Best agent Madame Boss has and she's practically living in her own filth.

Team Rocket takes care of its own, eh?

Oh no, let's not get a proper job, one that allows me to provide for my daughter and doesn't ask for my life. Let's stay in this one!

9. Look at Jessie's face!

By her own admission, being tricked into eating snow is the best thing that ever happened to her during an 'otherwise wretched childhood', to the extent she doesn't know it was wrong!

I don't hear Ma and Pa doing that. The only ice James got was an ice-cream sandwich.

What kind of infancy did Ma Jess give the girl for her to be nostalgic about almost dying of malnutrition?

If we say that's a foster mother as in the sub, it means Jessie's fondest memory is after Ma died, which is too brutal for me.

Yeah, thank goodness she's snuffed it.

You think Ma might have taught her not to eat snow! She left her so ill-prepared!

Consequently the sub version makes Ma Jess an awful creature, although I don't see why that Jessie would so desire to mimic a mom she apparently doesn't care about.

10. She's not even bloody here!

I have no picture to signify absence, therefore I must show whom she left behind.

Ma Jess is Pokémon's answer to Bobba Fett: background figure, barely involved, no information, dies early, yet became a fan favourite nevertheless.

If nothing really exists, what is there to like? Why are you contented weaving smoke?

When Rocketshippers put forward the manga as proof, the Anti-Ships used to insist that it 'didn't count' for being set in a 'separate universe'.

If that still goes, and only the contents of the anime apply to the anime, well then it's bye-bye to Ma Jess and Madame Boss, because they aren't real either.

I sometimes think that's true. However traumatic, would Jessie not have acknowledged her mother by now otherwise?

We grasp the characters all had two parents in a nebulous fashion, although not being real people means they don't 'technically' need them, but Ma Jess is the only one who vanished to be granted a face. Why is she then ignored?

She's briefly glimpsed in a passing scene of a single episode of the first series and is never seen or referenced again. The sub doesn't even have that. Where was the use in creating her if only to leave that thread of the tale billowing in the breeze?

We may decide her actions affect Jessie's but we're only imprinting assumptions. She might as well have remained unwritten for all that's made of her.

What we can glean doesn't bode well, irrespective of things left unmentioned.

Her one redeeming deed was dying, thus at least she didn't choose to abandon Jessie. We may presume she'd have stayed with her girl given the chance.

By my reckoning that puts her as Fifth-Best Mother Of Pokémon, behind Ma Brock, Ma James, Dame Ketchum and Ma Boss, in that order.

Then they're those who claim she never died, so she just pissed off like everyone else, rendering her devoid of a single positive quality.

This is the woman you sigh and agonise over for decades.

Ma and Pa are right there, man! Show 'em some love!

[ramblinganthropologist]

Aftershock

Summary: Joker finds it hard to adjust to a new Normandy, and it’s not just because of the leather seats. What the fuck do you even say to the guy you got killed because you wouldn’t abandon ship?

---

Alright. He had this.

Joker was doing his best not to fidget as he sat there, waiting. On the other side of the door, he could hear the conversation. His new boss was introducing the newest member of the team to what they had been working on while he was out. For most people, that was normal.

Problem was, his boss was the Illusive Man and the other guy in the room had died two years ago.

Honestly, he still couldn't believe it. Even when the man had come to him to swipe him from the Alliance, it sounded like a fantasy. After all, even the best scientists couldn't bring back the dead – fuck, they couldn't even fix his bones. The fact he was insisting that somehow he managed to...

It still hurt to think about. Joker had tried to avoid thinking about it over the last two years, but there was no denying the fact he had gotten the first human Spectre killed in his attempt to go down with the Normandy. It was impossible to – whenever he saw any of the old crew, it was there in their eyes.

Like he needed reminding.  Every time he closed his eyes he could still see the commander drifting further into space.  

Speaking of the commander... he could hear footsteps. Shepard had always been a light walker – he was pretty sure Chakwas had said he walked on his toes too damn much. Something about arthritis or something; maybe Cerberus reinforced his toe joints. That's what he would've done anyway if he was in charge of putting the man back together.

That, and maybe throwing a dick in. The commander deserved that much.

“The fuck is going on...”

A soft, Irish-accented voice sent a shiver up Joker's spine. It was a voice he would have never expected to hear again, at least not live. There were already a few Shepard VI's out there, but they never got the accent right. This one was right on the money.

He got to watch as the man of the hour entered the room, his back to him. Joker felt his heart stop, then restart at the sight of Shepard walking through the door like two years hadn't just passed.  He looked... whole. Alive. Not being sucked into the vacuum of space.

“Hey, Commander. Just like old times, huh?”

Joker's mouth worked before his brain did. It was a common affliction he was often used to dealing with. Honestly, he had wanted to at least, you know, apologize for getting the guy killed and all. That was going to have to wait for later, because the man of the hour turned to face him.

They'd fixed his eye.

“Joker?” Two blue eyes blinked – he probably wasn't used to seeing out of both. Couldn't exactly blame the guy if he was adjusting to double vision all over again. He looked weird without the scar cutting through the right side of his face.

Luckily, he had plenty of open wounds glowing bright fucking red to make up for it.

Joker's stomach flopped. Shepard's face had a long cut along his jaw and across his right eye. You could almost see under the skin, to the glowing implants that hadn't finished healing over just yet. Maybe a few more months under would have closed that up, but they hadn't had the time. Now they were just big gaping slices.

His weak knees shook, but he stayed firm as the commander walked through the door. At least he was still the same shrimpy height – came up to about his jaw in the heavy boots he wore. Joker braced for anything. Hell, he'd probably deserve getting biotic blasted into a wall at this point. Hopefully they had a medic on hand for all the bones he was about to break.

“Wasn't expecting to see you here.”

Shepard's eyes and voice were as calm as ever as they started walking, Joker just a half step behind. With the bigger guys – like their old XO – he'd be almost two. Shepard was slowing down for him probably, given they both dealt with the same issue of having to run after bigger people. He was a good guy that way.

“Look whose talking, I saw you get spaced.”

Open mouth, insert broken foot into shattered jaw. Joker regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. Immediately he braced for the biotics, or at least to be told to fuck off. Neither of those came. In the end, it wasn't this Shepard's style.

Instead, he offered an awkward grin that didn't quite reach his repaired eye. “Yeah... well, I got better. Mostly.”

His hand twitched towards the gaping open wound on his jaw, but stopped somewhere around his shoulder. Then it went back to his side, looping into the empty holster where a little red pistol should have been.

Last Joker had heard, his sister had that. It was one of the few things  they had found from the commander, and it had been in so many pieces it looked like somebody had smashed it with a hammer. Probably would've matched its owner now.

A lump formed in Joker's throat. “Look-”

“Hopefully the implants heal up. I really don't enjoy walking around like a living light display.” Another awkward grin. “Besides, I've been told red makes me look too ruddy. Think I could hack them to blue without breaking anything?”

Sometimes, it was hard to understand Shepard. Joker chalked it up to a biotic thing, or maybe it was brain damage from one of those N7 training missions. It was one of those moments where he just couldn't get what was going on under that mop of red hair.

He would've been mad. Shepard should have been ready to fucking kill him... he would've deserved it, after all.

“Just don't turn your pancreas off, it barely functions now.” He fell back on jokes as they started to walk towards the window. Their new ride was waiting for them – all it needed was a name. At least this helped him feel better, even as the guilt ate at his stomach.

“You think they would've replaced that.” Shepard shrugged his shoulders. “Anyway, you're supposed to show me something? I hope it's a new hamster cage, I need something small and furry in my life again.”

Leave it to the commander to fall back on his husbandry. Still, it allowed Joker to grin a little as he approached the window. Below them, the SR-2 slowly cruised into view. Thanks to the angle, the pilot got a perfect view of his CO's face. Both of Shepard's eyes widened as he braced against the glass as if he was seeing his lover at the spaceport again.

“It's good to be home, huh commander?”

Even through everything, Joker had to smile as they started their descent towards the docking bay. In a matter of hours, they would be in the air again. It would be like it was before... or at least that's what he hoped for as he limped behind his commanding officer.

But... he still couldn't shake the feeling in his stomach.

---

“You seem upset, Mr. Moreau.”

Yeah, anyone would be with fucking EDI in the cockpit.

Joker shot a glare over his left shoulder as he leaned back in his seat. “I'm fine, EDI. Don't try to play any AI mind games on me.”

“That is not in my programming.” A likely story. It was built by the Illusive Man, therefore it got his asshole personality. “A data scan shows elevated heart rate and - “

He tuned the AI out as it rambled off his symptoms. Instead, he kept his eyes on the glass in front of him. Right then, they were in a holding pattern at a docking bay. The shore party had left about two hours ago, and the lack of echoing gunfire gave him the feeling things were going pretty well. Shepard could be the model of ammo conservation for how he tried to use his words over a pistol. It would have been admirable, but it stopped being so when people tried to shoot him anyway.

Still, he tried. A for effort.

“- decreased serotonin. Your focus is off.”

EDI's voice drew him back to reality. He glanced over at the blue orb to his left. It was flashing, probably waiting for his input. So Joker turned his chair around so he could ignore the damn thing and its blue light. Let it wait, it wasn't its business anyway.

“The shore party is returning from their mission and heading to decontamination.”

That made him sit up in his seat. He could see them now, off to the left and heading for the docking bay. Apart from some dirty armor, the trio looked pretty good. Even better, he was getting a call to Alliance command. Guess they had gotten the guys out after all.

“Leave it to Shepard to talk his way out of shit.” He turned in his chair, towards the Normandy's entrance. It would open with a slight hiss once decontamination was complete and everyone was safe. After that, Garrus would head to the battery to calibrate the stick up his ass, Mordin would go play god in a lab, and...

He frowned as he watched the door hiss. The three stepped into the small hallway, weapons holstered. Mordin was talking about three hundred miles a minute about something, with the other two party members giving their tech input. Leave it to a bunch of nerds to come up with something like that.

“Commander Shepard has returned to the ship. XO Shepard stands relieved.”

Joker watched as the only human in the party nodded towards EDI. He held his breath, watching as the man's eyes started to slide towards him. Just as they started, they stopped dead. Then his shoulders sagged under his black armor and he turned on his heel to walk to the nearest terminal to send off a message.

“Right... good talk.”

The words died under his breath as he turned in his chair back to facing out to space. Once Shepard gave the order, they'd be back in FTL drive to the next planet that needed his special touch. Another mission where he wouldn't look at him.

There were 7 of those now.

“Mr. Moreau, your-”

Man, he wished that damn thing had a mute button.

Joker shot the blue orb a dirty look as his fingers found the controls. Might as well be ready for when his commanding officer needed him to do his job or something. Better yet, it made it less likely for EDI to want to continue the conversation. He might not like the AI, but he was learning how to fuck with it.

“I'm fine, EDI.” Even he had to wince at his tone. With any luck, the AI wouldn't pick it up. Of course, its damn orb surface was flashing like a Mass Relay on red sand, so it was working through something big. Whatever it was, it could shove it up its nonexistent ass.

Where would that be on an AI anyway? In the central core? He'd go down there and shove it in himself if it kept him from having to hear it.

“Your stress levels suggest otherwise.” Something about that even, pleasant voice really pissed him off. Sadly, it wasn't work breaking another finger trying to find a mute button. All Joker could do was sit there and scowl at the damn thing. No matter what he did, EDI just kept flashing away with that metaphorical dose of red sand.

He was pretty sure the Illusive Man had set that port up in the cockpit just to fuck with him. What a nice guy.

“We've got the Collectors on our ass, anyone would be stressed.”

“Your stress spikes whenever Commander Shepard returns from a mission. Most evidence would suggest the opposite.”

Well, EDI could shove that up their nonexistent ass too. Hopefully it was big enough to fit all that. Maybe with a little pushing, he could make it work.

“The guy gives people ulcers, what can I say.” He shrugged, carefully, to avoid breaking something. “Never know when he's going to bring some new alien in as a friend.”

Speaking of – his com channel was blinking in the way it did when Shepard was trying to call him. This button he definitely risked breaking a finger on as he pounded it. Judging from the lack of static, he was out of uniform.

“Joker? We're going to need to head back to the Citadel. The council wants to see me.”

Normally, it was hard to tell how Shepard felt about things. As long as he had his meds, he was pretty calm and even tempered. Even off them, it wasn't that bad. This, though? Joker had to wince as the pure annoyance leaked through like never before. Hell, he sounded like he was gritting his teeth as he spoke. That... was new.

“The Citadel? That's a bit of a jump. They can't do it over a vid?”

He swore he heard Shepard growl, but that was just impossible – he was pretty sure the man's voice didn't get that low. “Believe me, I asked. I guess they want to bother me into my second grave.”

That made Joker's stomach drop even further as he primed the Normandy to go. The ship was humming to life around him, and he felt it through his chair as he went through the motions. Normally, this was one of the best parts of his day. When he was in space, with FTL drive in high speed, it felt like he was floating.

Now, though? He felt like a rock lodged in cement at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

“We'll be there in about 12 hours.”

“Great. I'm going to...” Shepard paused, voice faltering. When he spoke again, it was calmer in the way he got when he was painfully aware of how in control he had to be. Joker hated that. “I'm going to get some work done. Thanks, Joker.”

The line cut after that, leaving the helmsman alone with his thoughts and a growing sense of anxiety deep in the pit of his stomach. Jumping to FTL drive didn't exactly make it easier. They said that feeling motion sick was just psychosomatic, but damn if his gut didn't roll through the first few pulses and waves as they hit the relay. Normally the blue light and tingle that rang through his aching bones did wonders for that, but now he just felt cold.

Cold and needing to be anywhere else but in that cockpit. Damn it all...

---

Everything hurt, and that was saying something.

Joker wasn't having the best day as he limped away from the cockpit. All he wanted right then was to go to bed and maybe try to shove something down his throat in the way of food. Of course, the doc would insist he take his meds before any of that. She got all frowny when he didn't, and there was the whole bone breaking thing he had to worry about, so thus the limping towards anywhere but a place to sleep.

Why did the medbay have to be so fucking far?

The ride down the elevator made his insides rattle, especially as it hit the floor and opened up. He was probably lucky he hadn't broken something as he made his way out. There was plenty of noise here, but none of it could really distract him as he limped away from the elevator towards the waiting medbay and his pills.

How big was it going to be today? Fuck...

Normally, when he got in this kind of mood Joker didn't notice much around him unless he was about to walk into it. There could have been naked dancing krogan as far as he was concerned, it just didn't register. Unless four testicles hit him in the face, he had tunnel vision. Yet, there they were metaphorically tea-bagging him.

What was Shepard doing in the observation area?

Joker cocked an eyebrow as he crept a little closer. No doubt about it, the person sitting there was Shepard – he was the only one with hair that red on the Normandy. He wasn't moving either, just... sitting there, facing the open window.

He should have just kept walking on to take his pills. After all, biotics were weird. Maybe it was some space meditation technique to keep their brains from frying over. Yet he kept walking towards his commanding officer in a perfect example of curiosity killing the cat.

Oof... even thinking that hurt.

“Commander?”

Shepard didn't respond as he entered the observation room. With his back to the door, he was just sitting there, staring out the window. Joker was practically on top of him, but he never broke his sight on what was in front of him.

“Hey, you ok there, Shepard?”

With his words, Joker broke a spell. Shepard snapped to life, and sweat trickled down his brow as he rounded on the man. His skin was practically white, and his eyes were as wide as softballs as his breathing began to slow. Before that, it was like he hadn't been breathing at all.

“Shepard are you-”

“Close the window.” He added a “please” at the last second as he shut his eyes tightly. The pilot didn't need to be told twice. In fact, he almost broke a fist hitting the button. The window shut closed on them both, and the room dimmed slightly before the lights had time to adjust.

Then it was just him and humanity's fist Spectre, sitting like two idiots in a dark room.

Joker felt the sweat trickle down his brow as he settled in. “Am I interrupting some biotic thing? You're not going to take a wall out, are you?”

Shepard let out an uneasy laugh as he ran a hand down his sweaty face. “No... just trying some self administered exposure therapy. I don't think it's working very well unfortunately.”

He opened his eyes – they were smaller now. “Don't you have a date with Dr. Chakwas in the medbay right about now?”

Yeah, but that was before the universe stopped moving.

Joker felt as though he had been hit by a bolt of lightning as he stared at his commanding officer, and then to the closed window. Details were streaming in at about a thousand kilometers a second, and he was about to hit the mass relay at “I'm a fucking moron” station. He tended to visit that one a lot – it was his favorite those days.

It was hard to make his mouth move, but Shepard was expecting something. “Well, had to make sure you were keeping on your weird biotic regimen.”

“Don't worry, I am.” Shepard smiled and his stomach flopped. The man stood, attempting to stretch casually. His form was far too stiff for that – it just came off looking painful. “Come on, I had to talk to her about something anyway. Might as well get it over with, right?”

He was doing it again – the biotic always cared way too damn much about other people. He looked like he was about to keel over, but Shepard was trying to put him at ease. It made Joker's stomach flop uncomfortably as he stood as well, bones creaking at the effort. Nothing but his heart was breaking right then.

Damn it all...

“Commander... I'm sorry.”

Shepard smiled at him again as he waved it off. “Nothing to apologize for, like I said I have to stop by there. She wanted to take a look at my implants and make sure I hadn't tried to hack them yet. You make a joke once about trying to match your aesthetic...”

He chuckled to himself as the door opened on them both. The pilot wanted to say more, but he realized as they made it through the mess that there was no point. He might have blamed himself – and plenty of others did too – but Shepard never would.

God, he wish he would...

All he could do was stare at the man's back as he threaded his way towards the medbay. Whatever else he wanted to say died in his throat as he watched a risen Spectre act as though this was Tuesday for him. Hell, he was fucking glowing thanks to those implants!

Glowing because of him...

“Joker, you ok back there?”

The man stopped – blue eyes were focused on him. Words were born and died in the space between the two, in what felt like a lifetime to the pilot. In the end, he swallowed them down. None of them would do him any good anyway.

“Just keeping up. Got a little stiff making sure we don't crash into shit.”

Shepard smiled and nodded. His footsteps slowed ever so slightly – how could a man's pace make him feel worse? “Yeah, that whole not crashing into shit thing is pretty important. Planets get mad when we make our own docking bay.”

They both laughed over that, but it was anyone's guess if that was genuine. After all, they were headed to the medbay with a mountain of weight between them. The best Joker could do was have his commander's back, like he should have that day.

Maybe it would've been easier if Shepard hated him... then again, he was pretty good at doing that himself those days.

Fuck....

[tran5rightsos]

Forget Your Feet and Where They Fall

Summary: Awsten hangs out with his friends Ashton and Luke and ponders the nature of the universe.

Tags and Warnings: Capitalism, Body Horror, Outer Space, Angst, Brain Damage

Word Count: 1602

Leave Kudos?

“Hey, Luke,” Awsten called as he approached the airlock.

Luke started, as if Awsten had broken him out of deep thought, and turned his head so that he could see him with his right eye. He’d lost his left and a degree of put-togetherness years ago, the scar running from his lip to his eyebrow hinting at what had happened to it. If you looked at the scar from the right angle, it was perfectly straight.

“Awsten!” Luke grinned and stood. “Going out?”

“Nah, I just finished up at the drills. I got you something,” Awsten told him, digging through his pocket. He pulled out a piece of stable dranix and handed it to Luke. “It’s waste from the engines,” he explained.

Luke turned the glassy substance over in his fingers, transfixed by the rainbows glittering within. It looked much cooler in bright light, but the lights along this hallway were kept low to minimise Luke’s headaches and prevent seizures.

“Woah. Why is it small?”

“One of the waste coolers was leaking and some cooled on the floor,” Awsten explained, “Ashton’s fixing it now.”

Luke grinned. “Ashton’s good at fixing engines.”

“Yeah, he is.”

A buzz sounded over the speaker above the door and Luke pocketed the stable pranix. Once his gloves were on, he gripped the lever for the outer door and pulled it closed for whoever was waiting, muscles straining with the effort. People could say what they wanted about Luke being deadweight, having someone whose only job was to open the airlocks was a fucking gift. On most vessels Awsten had worked on, you’d have to wait like half an hour for someone to become available to do it. On one vessel, the airlocks would only be opened every six hours for shift changes. Awsten shuddered at the memory.

Luke flooded the airlock with oxygen and opened the inner door, allowing Otto to step inside as he took off his helmet and shook out his hair.

“Hey Otto,” Luke greeted, flopping to the floor with a huff.

“Hey,” Otto returned as he set off to wherever the fuck he was going.

In a way, he and Luke had the perfect friendship. Otto was bad at being friendly and Luke was bad at telling when people were coming off as unfriendly, happy with just getting brief hellos from anyone who passed.

“You wanna go to the bridge when your shift ends?” Awsten offered when Otto was gone.

Luke looked confused, probably needing a moment to switch from door-opening mode to conversation mode. “Why?”

“The stars are really pretty from this asteroid. We can see them if we go to the bridge.”

Luke’s face lit up. “Can Ashton come?”

“Sure.”

Luke and Ashton were both at least five years older than Awsten, but they’d been cryofrozen partway through a mission when an attack on the vessel they were working on had left them grievously wounded, Ashton by a cleaver through his wrist and Luke by a saw to the face. They were a package deal when it came to employment as Ashton refused to take any job that wouldn’t allow Luke to go with him. Most people would never bother to take on someone who could barely walk without getting dizzy, but Ashton was hard-working and a genius with dranix engines and he made it worth allowing Luke to tag along.

Awsten had been skeptical of their arrangement at first, wondering why Ashton would bother working to support them both when he could just drop Luke off at some station or outpost and set his sights on retiring before his body broke down and left him penniless. Luke was talkative, though, and Awsten quickly got the impression that Ashton likely blamed himself for Luke’s “brain getting sawed in half,” as Luke had put it with a big, crooked smile.

When it came to reattaching Ashton’s severed hand, something had to be said for the miracle of modern medicine, but, even with all the implants they’d put in to alleviate symptoms, Luke just hadn’t been as lucky. Sure, being friendly and optimistic was nice, but it didn’t buy food.

Usefulness aside, Awsten had to admit that Luke had grown on him in the past months. It was nice to have someone on board who was always excited to see him and Awsten had learned that they could have some pretty good conversations if he didn’t change the subject too quickly.

Ashton showed up a few minutes later, sweaty, grimy and somehow making his short-sleeved utility jumpsuit, welding goggles and boots look almost sexy. In another life, he probably would have been a model. Luke too, now that Awsten thought about it. They were pretty attractive men.

“How are the engines?” Awsten asked conversationally.

Ashton shrugged as he took off his goggles. “They’re shit.” He always said that and Luke always laughed. “The artificial gravity might fuck itself up tomorrow, so watch out.”

“We’re going up to the bridge to look at the stars,” Awsten told him, “You wanna come?”

Luke looked between them, eye gleaming. “Really? Can I come?”

Awsten pat his shoulder and gave him a tight smile. “Yeah, of course!”

Ashton looked like he wanted nothing more than to pass out in his bunk, but he nodded. “Sure.”

While docked at asteroids, Captain Hand liked to keep the doors to the bridge open so that crew members could come and go whenever they needed anything from him. Awsten liked that he was a lot more laid back than other captains he’d had, never demanding appointments and shit.

“Hi, Captain!” Luke said as they entered, thrilled to see him even though a moment earlier he’d looked like he was about to throw up from the dizziness of walking here.

“Hey, Luke,” Lucas returned, “What are you guys doing up here?”

“Just looking at the stars,” Awsten told him as Ashton led Luke to a seat.

Luke gazed up through the windows in wonder, already a million miles away from the bridge, the asteroid, the endless struggle to survive. Awsten wished he could do that too, just look at something pretty and forget that the universe was cruel and life was agony. Maybe Luke’s inability to focus on more than one thing at a time was actually his greatest gift, an art form everyone else could only dream of.

Unfortunately, even Luke couldn’t remain at peace for long. After a few minutes of silent staring, he grimaced and rubbed his head.

“You okay?” Lucas asked worriedly.

“Head hurts,” Luke mumbled.

“C’mon,” Ashton prompted, heaving himself up from his seat, “Let’s get you showered and lay down, yeah?”

Luke nodded and allowed himself to be helped up and led out of the bridge, less balanced on his feet than he’d been a few minutes ago, though he still smiled through the pain at everyone they passed. Maybe he was onto something there.

Awsten shook his head. Luke Hemmings had the secret to the universe figured out and he didn’t even know it.

“Lazy dumbass,” someone muttered in response to one of Luke’s greetings, not even looking back as they turned down a corridor.

Luke’s face fell as he stopped and looked where the guy had disappeared. “I’m not dumb,” he said softly, “It just takes me a while to think.”

“Hey, he’s just an asshole,” Awsten assured him, “He’s bitter ‘cause you’re prettier than him and you have a badass scar.”

“I used to be good at fixing stuff,” Luke told him sadly, “It’s not my fault I can’t do it fast enough anymore.”

“I know,” Ashton murmured as he nudged him to keep walking, clearly convinced that it was his own fault.

Awsten frowned. It wasn’t right for Ashton to silently punish himself for what those pirates did.

“Where do you wanna live one day?” Awsten asked Luke, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Huh? Oh.” Luke thought hard. “Maybe Venus?”

“That sounds cool. Living underground. Maybe you could get a cool Venusian girlfriend who doesn’t know what the sun is.”

“I’m gay.”

“Boyfriend, then.”

Luke looked dreamy. “Yeah.” He nudged Ashton. “We could be neighbours!”

Ashton smiled at him. “That’d be cool.”

It was a nice fantasy. Awsten looked at his hands, at the dirt that he could never get out no matter how hard he tried. Maybe one day it would mean something, the years of sweat and pain. For now he could just fantasise, imagine all the lives he wished he could have and hope that he was heading towards one of them.

[oropher]

Sawkill Girls (Review)

Sawkill Girls

by Claire Legrand

Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep. He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

REVIEW:

I think I first saw this book on booktube? Or maybe it was bookstagram and I was very intrigued by the cover and then, I went to Goodreads like a good girl and found out more about it. I wasn’t sure if it was my kind of book but then, recently, I went on an e-book spree and bought it. I am so glad I did.

“Come for a while, reads the sign at Sawkill’s ferry dock, and stay forever.”

This was first Claire Legrand book and what a smashing introduction to her writing and imagination! I should mention that I read it in a single day and it was simply because I couldn’t really put it down and leave it. It just wasn’t possible for me. So, I read on, there were moments when I was really left wondering ‘What the hell is happening in this book? Am I ever gonna really understand?’. That was in the beginning but as the plot evolved and more mysteries unfolded, I could really see what was happening and then, I literally couldn’t put it down.

“Decades of dead girls. Poor girls and rich girls. Black and brown and white girls. All of them Sawkill girls.”

Sawkill Rock, a lovely place full of lovely people and lovelier woods but it holds a history of sadness and horror. Girls have been going missing and assumed dead far more often than people might feel comfortable with. No amount of search parties or wish-making is able to help them find the girls. They just vanish and never come back. The way Claire Legrand describes the island and the people just makes me wish I was there. Almost. Considering everything else, I would rather not, you know?

“Tragedy had touched Sawkill, again and again and again, but after each girl’s disappearance, once a respectable amount of time had passed, everyone seemed to stop caring.”

There are three main characters, all of them, heartbroken in their own way. Marion, a young woman who has lost her father and is trying her best to make sure that her mother and her sister are alright in the face of such loss. She hasn’t really had the chance to grieve for her father in the same way as her family because she’s become the rock that carries them forward. She is also plus sized and whose sexuality I wouldn’t want to define but she likes girls? Then we have Zoey, she’s black and sort of on the asexual spectrum and has had a tough time since she lost her best friend to island just like untold number of girls. Her father is the town sheriff and she has a really good relationship with him that is tested as the story progresses. Lastly, we have Val, who belongs to one of the most prestigious families on the island and who has some pretty dark secrets which are damaging not only the island but her too. She has had relationships with guys but she is also attracted to girls. Her sexuality isn’t quite defined and I wouldn’t want to.

There’s also a few more secondary characters two of which I am not even how to describe but one of them I can happily talk about. Grayson. Zoey’s ex-boyfriend who is best friends with even after the break-up. He’s a precious bean and I was so happy whenever he was the page. Seriously. Such a bean. There’s the island itself, yes, it’s a character with feelings and thoughts and strategies. The Rock has its own role to play in the whole mystery and the parts are written so well that sometimes I just read them again for the sake of it.

“What I’m saying is that girls hunger. And we’re taught, from the moment our brains can take it, that there isn’t enough food for us all.”

This book, along with the horror and the fantasy element of it, also deals with how girls are viewed and raised and pitted against each other in littlest of ways. How they are generally underestimated without much conscious thought, it’s just almost default thought process sometimes and that speaks volumes. It also deals with how people, even people who know better, sometimes can’t help their thoughts. It dealt with the asexuality spectrum in a way that felt realistic. Because even when people understand, there are times when words leave lips that aren’t well-thought out or deserving but are only the after effects of emotions. Those words are unforgivable and yet, we are shown how those things can happen. Ace-phobia is very much real and very different from homophobia but just as important and I am so glad Claire Legrand addressed it in such a way.

This book is very feminist and I am glad for it, it shows three very different girls from different backgrounds who are trying to deal with loss and grief and life in general in their own way. They are brought together because of tragedies around them and are then almost made part of the cult and sacrificed but they change the cliche. I had and still have mixed feelings about the cult shown in the book, the way the men are shown to be very one-dimensional and almost too offensive. I understand that was the way they were supposed to be and one of the members did have doubts and decided to be better but on the whole, I wanted a bit more flesh? More personality. I understand that they were supposed to represent the entitlement that men have enjoyed for far too long but well, something didn’t sit well with about that, hence the four stars and not five.

“You are mighty. You are one, and one, and one. You are fragile. You can move mountains. You are breakable. You will never break. This power is mine. And now it is yours, too.”

Another problem with the book was the main villain, the Collector. Initially, I was really intrigued and frankly, that was one of the reasons I couldn’t put it down but near the end of the book, I was left a bit disappointed? I mean, the way it all worked out even with the background information we got about the Collector. I was…sort of not in awe. Also, the ending. It’s not that I didn’t want a good ending but the way the plot had moved in the last few chapters, I had sort of got my closure near the end and then to read the actual ending. It was…not bad? But not what I would have expected from all that happened in the book so far, you know?

However, overall, this book is really good. I am seriously so, so glad that I picked it up. Claire Legrand’s writing is so good and the atmosphere and the aesthetic of the whole book just made it so easy to get lost in it. I would definitely be on the lookout for her next works and I want to read Furyborn too! If horror and fantasy along with some gore is your thing, then you should definitely pick it up. There are some trigger contents and if you are uncomfortable about the following things then probably don’t pick it up. Violence, grief, loss of a loved one, gore, parental abuse, sexual abuse, blood, bleeding, talk of miscarriage, animal death, descriptions of murders, etc.

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 7AM CEREMONIAL, HAN MINA, A 25 YEAR OLD ILLUSIONIST WITCH

idiosyncrasy

Kind, loyal and clever

Bossy, sneaky, possesive

proficiency

Mental Hallucination: Can induce someone into a very believable illusion, depending of the energy spent/applied, the more powerful or “realistic” the illusion can be. Of course without physically hurting the other person as the psychosomatic illusion ability would. If someone realizes they’re in an illusion, it could be easily broken, and everything turn back as how it is.

Selective Illusion: Inducing illusions or hallucinations to specific targets without affecting others. Easier if the other one is sleeping, however is not impossible as long as she’s a few meters close to the target, needs lots of concentration and preferably a quiet place, however even with a lot of noise she can still manage to focus on person as long as they’re in her eyesight. If lost eye contact, the illusion can be stopped, changed/morphed, uncontrolled or even affect the people around for a few seconds.

ineptitude

Psychosomatic Illusion: Ability to cast an illusion powerful enough to cause physical effects on the target. In order to not hurt said target (specially an innocent one) she needs to fully understand her magic to avoid unnecessary casualties.

Illusory combat: Incorporate illusions into one’s fighting style. First she needs to manage a real combat in order to work on the illusion. Without actual knowledge and depending more in the imagination, it will drain her more energy than necessary. This one can be broken when the target becomes aware of being in an illusion.

sanctions

If used to hurt an innocent (even by accident), the magic induced will bounce back to Mina.

If that’s not the case the mere use of such power will make her own mind grow tired and slowly damaged if not treated correctly. In time and if overused, specially by the wrong reasons, it could lead her to either amnesia, madness itself, or both.

If she’s connected with a target too long, she may feel whatever the other is feeling which, in case they’re negative symptoms it can affect her as well, not as powerful as the target but enough to tempt her to stop the illusion.

memoirs

After giving birth to a son who wouldn’t be gifted by magic, the Han family believed it was a sign to try to understand the regular world, for new knowledge for the future members. Every time magic would skip a generation they considered it the time to stop and learn. Like every moment of change, this brought certain disagreements between the eldest and the newest generations. When the boy grew to become a man protector of the family’s secret to the social world, he found love after graduating from university as a teacher, in a lovely cook-to-be lady. While at the beginning it was hard to understand for the woman, she came into realization of how the world was full of secrets, and truly they were so far away to really accept such knowledge.

Despite the first trials that came from the beginning –confusion, fear, anxiety- their love was stronger, soon both married and wanted to start a family of their own (as normal as possible), being the first ones to return magic to a new baby girl. Han Mina.

From a very young age, Mina found herself interested in things out of ordinary, partly because that’s what others seemed to like to call her and partly because most of the fantasy books she loved to read were related to such topics. Usually you could find her sitting alone drawing impossible thoughts and discovering impossible worlds through pages.  

With her father as a teacher, a loving mother as a cook and an eccentric grandmother that came to visit from time to time, the girl never felt like she missed anything. Although, when her sibling appeared in the picture, if anything the colors around her world became brighter. While there were many times when they disagreed and used to compete a lot, they got each other’s back.

The real tragedy came when her mother fell ill little after Mina’s 11th birthday, it was cancer.  

“There will be times, when strange things will happen around you.” she would say to Mina as she caressed her head while the girl was falling asleep the night before her 12th birthday. I’m already strange, Mina thought, “Unexplainable things, it might scare some people away but you must not fear it, all right?” mother replied as though she could read her mind, “The right people for you will come in time, they will understand and accept you for who you are.”  

Mother knows best she believed after a few months.

Small things that weren’t supposed to be there started to appear on her vision radar, sometimes other people would see them too. It started simple, almost like a whisper, calm like her nature. It started with utensils, or books, whenever she was stressed or scared. Sometimes, weird shadows or figures would appear, many, including her would run away. That’s when rumors began about school being haunted, later as visions started to be more prominent, rumors changed of Mina being the one cursed.  

“That’s enough, only those who aren’t satisfied with themselves make stories like that. Go!” Soo-Young, a classmate of hers defended one time, and ever since both built a very sweet and protective friendship of each other. Let’s not get too carried away, it didn’t last long. One time when in need of advice and comfort, Mina started to tell him to imagine beautiful fields, flowers and mountains. Soo-Young did saw them, and run around as he found the peace he needed at that time however, his reality was different than ours and while not paying attention he fell down of a cliff. “Soo-Young! Wake up!” Mina cried.

Ambulance, police, everyone was there, the boy did woke up fortunately, however he knew this was something Mina did, and while he didn’t directly accused her… His fear got the best of him and remained as distant as possible. It was well known a few years later, Soo-Young couldn’t really tell the difference between his reality and ours anymore. Sometimes it looked like sleepwalking, sometimes it wasn’t.  

That night Mina had an extreme nosebleed as well as her energy drained, she slept for three whole days, waking up only to eat, by her mother. “We didn’t told you sooner because we wanted you to have a normal childhood…”, her father said calmly when she regained full consciousness. It was a long talk and Mina could barely understand everything that was happening, fortunately Grandmother tried best to illustrate Mina about their ancestors history, how powers changed according to different traits, and skills. She mentioned something about illusion, casts, spells, and other things, the girl grew afraid but as she was stressed things surrounding them were starting shake and eventually levitate.

Grandmother was proud, father tried to calm Mina’s sibling, and her mother looked straight at her with an unexpressive look. “The very basic of magic itself, you have the power, but you’re unstable. I’ll teach you the basics, and the rules. The rest, will be up to you.” Grandmother explained, but Mina was afraid of everything, of herself and what she could or couldn’t do. This is when mother came into scene, between her arms she was safe, between her arms she was normal.

After a full year of training, Mina didn’t understand magic, or her own self, who was she really? Strange Mina who loved her alone time while baking cookies and cupcakes? Witch Mina who had the ability to play tricks like making your tea cups float and playing with your mind? The young teen didn’t had time to question this for long, since it was in the year her training sessions stopped her mother fell worse than ever. After years of therapies in the end cancer was winning her battle, during her last night she asked one moment alone with Mina who approached her and held her hand, trying to be as strong as she could.

“It’s okay for you to cry, all right? You can do it for a year, afterwards you can carry on. You have to.” mother said with a gentle smile, “I’m proud of you, not because of your grades… not because of your power…” she placed a hand over the girl’s chin, “Because you’re mine, darling. My Mina.” A tear streamed down her face and the girl made her way to lay down with her mother and hug her tightly. “Leaving you and the others so soon, leaving without fighting a little more, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. You did well.” Mina mumbled holding her mother tighter than ever.

After a few years she grew a little more isolated, focusing on her studies -both regular and magical- while trying to get a normal as possible future. Mina always wanted to open a cafe when she grew up, however while still far, the girl kept working hard to get on the top and make that wish true without the need of magic.

Han Mina might’ve regret many things, probably not being too daring, or perhaps never seeking Soo-Young out again to protect their friendship. Perhaps not spending more time with mother, or helping her to feel less pain during her last day of breathing, maybe she regretted not paying more attention during the training of the very basics, instead of fearing her own grandmother. Although one thing she didn’t regret, was to be alive.

She’d to live, for her family, for mother, and while still internally intimidated by all these powers, and things she’s only recently starting to figure out. Magic won’t define her, she was not going to be evil.

[mirageofthecrystal]

Character Building Exercises #2: Five Lessons

So, in an effort to make a more fleshed out character, I’m taking a shot at adapting The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide by James D’Amato to the backstory of a Final Fantasy RP character. These exercises are a little more geared to tabletop roleplaying, and I’ll be skipping some of the ones that don’t work as well in a setting that is so established as Final Fantasy XIV.

These are five lessons your character learned growing up and in training that helped shape his or her identity. Answer the prompts to discover what they are.

Growing up you experienced something that you never wish to revisit. It could be the desperation of extreme poverty, the isolation of social rejection, or even the guilt associated with having done something wrong. 

What have you learned should be avoided at all costs? What measures do you take these days to avoid this?

Growing up in Ishgard in a semi-prominent position as the son of a knight and a lesser member of House Durendaire, Faiolan was given an early introduction to the blind fervor and faith of the Ishgardian people. The people hold the words of the Archbishop, the Church, and those appointed by said institutions as above all else. And yet, when the finger points wrongly and the innocent are thus accused, there are almost none that would question that same word. As Faiolan would discover, the faith of the Ishgardian people is not a strength, but a weakness, as none stood beside him in his gravest hour, when he himself was accused of the very heresy he swore to fight and protect the people against. It has wrought him into a faithless individual, one who sees the light of such faith in the eyes of others as a blindness. He constantly reminds himself that no higher power is worth swearing oneself to if it robs you of your ability to make your own decisions. In each prayer that falls from another’s lips, be it to god, church, or ideal, he only hears emptiness. 

Before you truly understood your abilities, you unintentionally caused harm with them.

What did you break or whom did you injure? How did you make up for your mistake? What did this situation teach you about managing your strength?

The practice blade, formed from worn wood of Coerthas’ native trees, felt heavy in his hands. The weight of it pulled him to and fro as he swung, blocked, parried, and practiced his footwork. But one stroke too far, too much strength behind the blow for a mere practice weapon, and things quickly went beyond his control. There was a flash of red, a sickening crunch, a cry of agony and one of surprise. The cartilage of Brielle’s nose had given way to practice sword, the source of the unsavory sound and sudden rush of blood. She collapsed backwards, clutching her face, while Faiolan was consumed by shock. The sword fell from his hand as his mind struggled to reconcile the scene in front of him. “B-Brie!” He suddenly cried out, rushing towards her and trying to get a sense of the damage done. She was stubborn, refusing to let the tears welling up in her eyes from running down her face, and refusing to allow her brother a closer look. His panic gave way to compassion and patience, waiting until she acquiesced to his assistance, allowing him to examine the wound. A light application of rudimentary healing magic was enough to at least staunch the bleeding, but the crooked, swollen, bloodstained mess was beyond his abilities to mend. He begged her forgiveness, which she easily surrendered. She could not blame her brother for allowing his unknown strength to get away from him. He was growing, becoming more adept at swordplay. But Faiolan from then on suffered from anxiety and reservations whenever facing her in a friendly spar, always plagued by the memory of that innocent accident. Strength is but a tool, but to wield it unmeasured can cause unnecessary bloodshed.  

As an adolescent you stood up against something stronger than you to fight a perceived injustice.

What did you lose in pursuit of your ideals? How did this event shape your response to wrongdoing as an adult?

The Temple Knight sneered, yanking Brielle by her hair. “Best behave, lest you show your true colors. Would be a shame to discover a heretic amongst your kin.” She had bumped into him while making her way up from the Crozier, arms filled to the brim with goods now scattered across the ground. They demanded she offer some sort of recompense, but she swore it was an honest mistake. And for that, they would make an example of her. The little detour had consumed quite a bit of time, however, causing her parents to worry. They sent Faiolan along to fetch her, hoping she had not suffered some untoward mishap. When he found her, she was already in the grasp of the Temple Knights, who had formed a small circle around her. Their intentions were quite clear, and Faiolan rushed forward shouting for them to stop. one of the Knights delivered a kick to the gut, dropping him like a sack of wheat. “What’s this? Another little heretic, come to save the day?” He tried to struggle to his feet, and received a solid boot to the ribs. “Stay down, whelp,” the Knight warned. But Faiolan was nothing if not stubborn. Again and again the Knight beat him down, breaking several ribs, stomping down on his leg, kicking him in the head, all while his fellows guffawed and his sister screamed for mercy. Her cries eventually drew the attention of a few witnesses, one of them a Dragoon recently back from a hunt. The Knights scattered, leaving the two children in varying states of duress. Faiolan’s faith was shaken, as the Temple Knights were to be the best of them. His dignity had taken a foul strike as well, as he could hardly breathe without pain shooting through every fiber of his being. Rashness often makes more of a fool than a hero... but it is also worth suffering when doing the right thing. 

When you were a child, someone close to you hid a truth from you. As an adult you realized that person’s deception.

How did the lie shape you? Did the truth hurt you? How do you approach deception as an adult?

Faiolan’s uncle had once been a dragoon, vaunted for his strength and the efficiency in which he slew the Dravanian mongrels. Off the field, however, he was a man of great compassion and love for his niece and nephew. He would bring them gifts from some of his travels, when his duty brought him further than just the Highlands outside the city. He would regale them with stories of his and his fellows and their hunts for the mighty enemies of Ishgard. He was like a second father to them, as their own father was constantly consumed with his duties as a Knight of Durendaire. That was, until one day, when the man simply disappeared. None could speak of where he had gone, not even Faiolan’s own father. When pressed, he insisted that his duty had taken him far from Isghard, farther than ever before, and that he would not return for some time. ‘Some time’ turned into years, over a decade, until Faiolan sat in trial before the Holy See, accused of heresy. To support the accusations, the accusers pointed to a history of misdeeds amongst the family. Artemoux Penderghast had consorted with dragons, abandoning his principles and his people. He had escaped their custody and fled to join his heretic brethren. With this evidence, it was no wonder that both Faiolan and Brielle had been so thoroughly corrupted. But Faiolan, now confronted with a new reality of his uncle’s fate, could never believe that they man he once knew had betrayed his ideals and his countrymen. He himself fled Ishgard rather than suffer punishment for heresy, and he thought of his uncle as he fled. Had Artemoux too been convicted of false crimes, and forced to flee? Had his father known the truth, or had the Holy See filled all their hearts and minds with lies of Artemoux’s fate? Trust is hard to gain and easily broken, and when those whom you have placed all your trust in betray you, it is hard to trust anyone ever again. 

During your training you risked your life for something and were rewarded for it.

How close did you come to death? What was the nature of your reward? What do you take into consideration when risking your life these days?

As a young knight-in-training, Faiolan relished when he was sent beyond the walls of the city, on patrol for heretics, dragons, and other threats to the land. He did not mind the coldness of the wind on his face, the way the chill seeped beneath his armor if he stood still for too long. He was thirsty to prove himself worthy, blade and shield in hand. He dreamed of the day when he would be a mighty slayer of dragons, like his uncle had been. A hero and protector of Ishgard, and they would speak his name with raised mugs in the tavern, cheering his deeds. Most patrols, of course, went off without such things. Signs of heretics that were days old, the trail disappearing beyond the shifting snows. Scorched earth and charred corpses of beasts reminiscent of lone Dravanian forays. Occasionally there were bandits to drive off, but even that was a rarity. This patrol would be different, however, as sightings had been confirmed of a small horde of Dravanians amassing near Camp Dragonhead. Faiolan and his fellows, including his master and mentor Reynard, had been dispatched to investigate and report back with any evidence to support these worrying claims. The dragons set upon them with unimaginable swiftness and ferocity. Two of them were dead in moments, consumed by flames. Faiolan, faced with a true threat, found his courage suddenly fleeing. Reynard shouted over the roar of the beasts, bidding him to flee. He was too young to lose his life here, the Knight pleaded. But Faiolan’s legs were heavier than the steel he wore, and could not force himself to move. One of the Dravanians plummeted from the sky, slamming into Reynard and pinning him to the ground. The beast’s maw opened, prepared to incinerate the Knight as it had the others. Faiolan, some semblance of bravery surging through him as he saw his teacher about to lose his life, barreled into the beast. His shoulder slammed into it, pushing it off Reynard. But a gout of flame still left its maw, Faiolan’s armor absorbig most of it. He could feel that his flesh had been singed, and a great set of claws made short work of his cuirass, tearing it asunder and parting his flesh. Reynard took the moment’s diversion to impale the beast through the skull with his blade, before dragging Faiolan out from its grip. Blood stained the snow, and the scene faded into blackness and he lost consciousness. When he at last awoke, a fire crackled in the corner. They had fled back to the Camp, and a chirurgeon tended to his wounds. They would leave scars, but his body was no more mangled than perhaps his pride. Contrary to his belief that he had failed, however, Reynard beamed with pride. Such a young, inexperienced fighter taking on a dragon like that was a recipe for certain death. But because of Faiolan’s actions, some of them had been spared from the dragon’s ambush. He would return to Ishgard with the merits of a hero, and one day Faiolan would be chosen to squire for one of the knights of the Heaven’s Ward as recompense for his selfless bravery. The act of laying down your life for another is not one made with thought, but with intuition, and though circumstance have changed, one of the few things Faiolan still believed was that in that moment, when had almost given his life to save a good man like Reynard, it had been worth the chance of death. 

[ramajmedia]

FF8 GF Guide: All Locations & Abilities Explained | Screen Rant

FF8 Remastered is introducing a whole new generation of players to GFs (and their locations and abilities), just an example of innovative but misunderstood features in one of the most underappreciated games in franchise history. The GF system is extremely divisive among fans, with opinions ranging wildly between assertions it's one of the best or worst summon mechanics in Final Fantasy. A design that allows players to accidentally miss some of the most powerful summons in the game is sure to invite some less-than-favorable feedback.

As is often the case, though, the truth about the FF8 GF system is somewhere in between. FF8 Remastered is in an interesting position. A re-release two decades after its initial launch could be disastrous, but it's also a chance at redemption. One of the first things players will notice about FF8 Remastered is that many of its gameplay elements that were targeted as flaws during its time on the PlayStation One have aged miraculously well. In fact, as JRPGs have gotten more complicated and storytelling has gotten more ambitious, it's well worth considering whether or not FF8 Remastered is better suited for 2019 than it ever was for 1999.

Related: Shadowbringers Is Great, But It's Not The Highest-Rated Final Fantasy Game

Controversial opinions aside, FF8 Remastered GF locations and abilities are a fundamental element of the game that isn't necessarily explained well. Squall's turn in the remastered spotlight of FF8 Remastered's improved graphics has been criticized as somewhat obtuse about many of its features, and FF8 GF locations and abilities are unfortunately a very real part of that. Luckily for those who don't want to miss out on a summon or a chance to use them in a really fascinating - or sometimes broken - way, Screen Rant has compiled a guide to help players navigate FF8's choppy summoning waters like an expert JRPG navigator.

This will be player's first GF and, as a result, Quezacotl is unmissable. It's either obtained automatically during the trip to the Fire Cavern for the SeeD Exam mission or any time Squall accesses his study panel before that mission. Quezacotl is the Thunder-based summon in FF8 Remastered and has one of the most important abilities in Card and Card Mod, two useful options that will help players obtain cards outside of Triple Triad and convert them into useful items later.

Important Abilities: Card, Card Mod, Mid Mag RF, MAG +20%/40%

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Irvine

Worst Compatibility: Squall, Selphie

Summon Attack: Thunder Storm (deals Thunder damage to all enemies)

Shiva is also unmissable, and can be obtained early by using Squall's study panel and watching the tutorial on GFs. Otherwise, Quistis will give Squall Shiva before leaving for the Fire Cavern. Shiva is the Ice-based FF8 GF that allows players to unlock Doom as an ability. Otherwise, she offers two key stat bonuses after meeting the requisite AP requirements during battle training.

Important Abilities: VIT +20%/40%, SPR +20%/40%, Doom

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Quistis

Worst Compatibility: Zell

Summon Attack: Diamond Dust (deals Ice damage to all enemies)

We promise that some FF8 GF locations are important to know and can be missed, but Ifrit is yet another that will be simply given to the player for progressing through the game's first real mission at the Fire Cavern. Ifrit is fought as FF8's first boss and will then be added to Squall's roster of GFs once he is defeated. Ifrit has a unique ability in Mad Rush that has been abused by some party builds that focus heavily on physical attack damage to push through difficult enemies.

Important Abilities: Mad Rush, Ammo RF, STR Bonus (grants +1 to STR stat every time a character levels up), STR +20%/40%

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Zell

Worst Compatibility: Quistis, Irvine

Summon Attack: Hellfire (deals Fire damage to all enemies)

Finally, a FF8 GF that can be missed! Siren is actually available very early in the game and is thus one of the most commonly missed GFs in the game, as players are still acclimatizing to the many complex systems in FF8 and might not think to cast Draw on a boss monster. Siren is held by Elvoret, one of the bosses during the Dollet SeeD Exam mission that players fight at the top of the communication tower. Players simply need to Draw Siren from Elvoret before defeating it. If Siren isn't obtained during that fight, it will be available as a Draw from another boss - only during the game's final dungeon, which severely hinders Siren's potential effectiveness over the game.

Important Abilities: Treatment, Move-Find, Tool RF, ST Mag RF, L Mag RF

Best Compatibility: Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Squall

Summon Attack: Silent Voice (deals Non-Elemental damage and inflicts Silence on all enemies)

Diablos is one of the reasons the FF8 GF system is so heavily criticized. The extremely powerful summon resides in a magical lamp that headmaster Cid gives Squall before he leaves Balamb Garden for Timber, warning him not to use it until he's properly prepared and powerful. Using the lamp summons Diablos, who must be beaten before he joins the party as a GF. The issue is that it's significantly better for players to attempt to beat Diablos as soon as he's available rather than waiting until later in the game. FF8 uses a system that sees enemies scale in strength with the player's level, so waiting until late game makes Diablos a much more difficult fight overall.

Diablos can be cheesed early, too. Diablos' best attacks are all physical, and if he's struggling to land them, players can take their time and ensure they're tackling him safely. Diablos has some incredible abilities for players willing to go the extra mile to acquire him as quickly as possible, including massive stat bonuses, the ability to damage enemies while thieving from them with Mug, and Enc-Half and Enc-None, two abilities that reduce the encounters players have with enemies or outright prevents them altogether. It's worth noting that FF8 Remastered has built-in cheats that allow players to disable encounters whenever they like, which does make Diablos a little less appealing but nevertheless useful.

Important Abilities: Mug, Enc-Half, Enc-None, HP +20%/40%/60%/80%, MAG +20%/40%, Ability x3, Darkside, Time Mag RF

Best Compatibility: Squall

Worst Compatibility: Zell

Summon Attack: Dark Messenger (deals Non-Elemental damage that is determined based on how much HP an enemy has)

Brothers is found in the Tomb of the Unknown King, but is buried deep inside the location, much further than players are required to navigate during the FF8 narrative. The tomb first becomes accessible when Squall reaches Deling City for the first time.

Here's a quick breakdown of what to do once inside the tomb: go right, left, right, left, right, straight, and interact with the statute. Battle Sacred until Sacred flees. Then leave the room and go straight, right, left, right, left, right, straight. Pull the lever on the left side of the room, then leave and go straight, right, left, right, left, right, and straight again. This will have players exit the temple. Immediately turn around, go straight repeatedly, and eventually enter a battle with Sacred and Minotaur, collectively known as Brothers. Defeating them earns the Brothers GF - it's actually pretty easy, too. Casting Float on the party renders nearly all of Brothers' Earth damage inept.

Unfortunately, Brothers isn't exactly the best FF8 GF in the game. Earth damage sometimes matters and for completion's sake, it's worth grabbing, especially since many players will have missed it during playthroughs without guides.

Important Abilities: Cover, Move-Find, HP Bonus, HP +20%/40%/80%

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Zell

Worst Compatibility: Irvine

Summon Attack: Brother Love (deals Earth damage to all enemies)

Carbuncle is obtained by using Draw on Iguions, two lizard monsters that are revived from their statue state and attack Squall and company during the Deling City Parade. Carbuncle has some amazing abilities that can make party compositions very flexible, so make sure to grab it. If missed, Carbuncle can be gained from using Draw on Krysta in the final FF8 dungeon.

Important Abilities: Auto Reflect, Counter, VIT Bonus, Recov Med RF, Ability x3

Best Compatibility: Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Squall

Summon Attack: Ruby Light (casts Reflect on all party members)

Leviathan is obtained by using Draw on NORG, a boss during the Civil War event. If missed, Leviathan is also available as a draw from Trauma in the game's final dungeon.

Important Abilities: Auto Potion, Recover, Supt Mag RF

Best Compatibility: Rinoa

Worst Compatibility: Irvine

Summon Attack: Tsunami (deals Water damage to all enemies)

Another Draw FF8 GF that can be easily missed. Pandemona is in Fujin, the blue-garbed friend of Seifer that players will fight in their return to Balamb Garden. If missed, Pandemona is available as a GF Draw from Red Giant, another boss in FF8's final dungeon.

Important Abilities: Initiative, Absorb, Supt Mag RF

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Quistis, Irvine

Summon Attack: Tornado Zone (deals Wind damage to all enemies)

Cerberus is an optional boss in Galbadia Garden. It's found in the Atrium, in the middle of the yellow beam there. Beating Cerberus automatically recruits him as a GF, and he can be obtained as a Draw from the Gargantua boss in the final FF8 dungeon as well. Gargantua has Auto Haste, which is an extremely useful ability that can build out some interesting party compositions.

Important Abilities: Auto Haste, Ability x3, Alert, Initiative, SPD +20%/40%

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Quistis, Zell

Summon Attack: Counter Rockets (casts Double and Triple)

Alexander is available as a Draw from Edea, who is fought in Galbadia Garden as well. If missed, Alexander is available as a draw from Catoblepas in the final FF8 dungeon. Holy damage is a nice complement to party comps and Alexander also offers Revive, which makes it a great GF for the healer of the party.

Important Abilities: Revive, Initiative, Med LV up, High Mag RF, Ability x3

Best Compatibility: Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Irvine

Summon Attack: Holy Judgement (deals Holy damage to all enemies)

Easily in contention for being one of the best Final Fantasy names ever, Doomtrain is a gigantic train possessed by a demon that is summoned by using clues found in the Occult Magazines players can collect while playing. The game doesn't differentiate between those who have collected Occult Magazines and those who have not, though, so following guide requirements without the Occult Magazines is fine. Players will need Solomon's Ring, 6 Malboro Tentacles, 6 Remedy+, and 6 Steel Pipes, and will then need to use the Solomon Ring. This will acquire the powerful GF, which has several unique abilities, and is the only way to get Doomtrain in FF8.

Important Abilities: Absorb, Auto Shell, Junk Shop, Forbid Med RF

Best Compatibility: Rinoa

Worst Compatibility: Irvine

Summon Attack: Runaway Train (Bad Breath, Petrify, Doom & Vit 0 inflicted on all enemies)

Cactuar can only be obtained once players get the Rangarok Airship. Fly to a desert island east of the Centra Ruins. Occassionally, something green will spawn on the island. Coming into contact with it will start a fight with the Jumbo Cactuar, and defeating it obtains the Cactuar GF in FF8. Cactuar has some really nice passives that are worth investing in.

Important Abilities: Auto Potion, Luck +50%, Eva +30%, Kamikaze

Best Compatibility: Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Quistis

Summon Attack: 1000 Needles (deals damage equal to the first digit of Cactuar's level times 100 to all enemies; at level 100, 1000 Needles will always do 10,000 damage)

Bahamut, perhaps the most iconic summon in Final Fantasy history, is in the Deep Sea Research Center. Bahamut is only available once players have acquired the Ragnarok Airship, and then they'll need to fly to the bottom-left corner of the map and land there to access the center. There's a blue light in the middle of the room that players need to access - after engaging in battles throughout - and then answer three questions correctly. Here are the FF8 Deep Sea Research Center answers:

Question 1: It is not our will to fight.

Question 2: Never.

Question 3: There is a "hidden" third option - choose that.

Answering a question will summon an enemy. The final question will summon Bahamut, which will need to be beaten before it is acquired as a GF. Bahamut is, predictably, one of the most powerful GFs in the game and nearly all of its abilities are worth picking up.

Important Abilities: Auto Protect, Ability x4, Rare Item, STR +60%, MAG +60%, Mov HP Up, Mug

Best Compatibility: Rinoa

Worst Compatibility: N/A - after Rinoa, everyone else is pretty well on the same level in terms of Bahamut compatibility

Summon Attack: Mega Flare (deals significant Non-Elemental damage to all enemies)

Eden is only accessible before the final dungeon after acquiring Bahamut. Bahamut's defeat opens up a deeper section in the Deep Sea Research Center that contains Ultima Weapon, which Eden can be Drawn from. Ultima Weapon is an incredibly difficult optional boss, however, and Eden can also be obtained by using Draw on Tiamat in the final dungeon as an alternative method.

Important Abilities: Devour, Mad Rush, Luck +50%

Best Compatibility: Rinoa, Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Irvine

Summon Attack: Eternal Breath (deals Non-Elemental damage to all enemies)

Odin is a rare instance of a non-junctionable GF in FF8. Once Odin joins the party, he will simply appear at random and instantly kill enemies. Odin is found in the Centra Ruins as well, and can be obtained as soon as players go there. Upon entering the ruins, players only have 20 minutes to reach and defeat Odin. This is much easier if the player followed this guide's advice and grabbed Diablos early, because Enc-Half or, ideally, Enc-None make the journey a breeze. There are a few puzzles that require players to place eyes into a statue to open a door, but they're very simple, especially with no encounters. Fighting and defeating Odin recruits him as a GF automatically - although, again, unlike most of the summons outlined in this FF8 GF locations and abilities guide, Odin will not be usable.

Tonberry is also in the Centra Ruins, but it's much easier to acquire once Odin is defeated and the time limit on the ruins is removed. To get Tonberry, players need to beat 20 Tonberry enemies while in the ruins. Tonberry enemies are not the easiest in FF8 by any stretch of the imagination, so come prepared with healing items ready. After the 20th kill, the Tonberry King will appear. Defeating it will have it join the team as a GF and offer up some of the weirdest and unique GF abilities in FF8.

Important Abilities: LV Down + LV Up (manipulates enemy level to change their item pool and spell Draws), Haggle (reduces cost of items in shops by 25%), Sell-High (allows player to sell items for 1.5x sale price), Familiar (allows player to buy rarer items at shops), Call Shop (allows player to visit any shop they have previously visited in the game from the menu screen)

Best Compatibility: Selphie

Worst Compatibility: Zell

Summon Attack: Chef's Knife (deals Non-Elemental damage to a random enemy)

Phoenix a non-junctionable summon that can be summoned randomly by using a Phoenix Pinion item in battle. Once it's summoned for the first time, Phoenix has a random change to appear and prevent a Game Over. Phoenix Pinions are acquired from the 5th Floor Card Player in Prison, the Vase Pieces in Winhill, the Shumi Tribe sidequest, or by refining Mega Phoenix items with Med Lv. Up.

The popular FF5 villain Gilgamesh is also a non-junctionable FF8 GF. To get him, players need Odin before entering Lunatic Pandora and fighting Seifer. Having Odin causes an event and gives another turn after the event to summon Gilgamesh. Like Odin, Gilgamesh can randomly appear during battle, but unlike Odin, Gilgamesh has several different potential attacks upon being summoned - some of which are significantly more useful than others.

These summons are obtained through the Chocobo World mini-game. All of them are non-junctionable.

Boko the Choboco - summoned by using Gyshal Greens during battle

Minimog - obtained using the Mog's Amulet item acquired in Chocobo World; revives and heals all the party's GFs

Moomba - summoned using the Friendship item, obtained via Chocobo World; attacks an opponent to leave them at 1HP, or deals 9,999 damage to an enemy with more HP than that

Next: Don't Expect A New Final Fantasy MMO Soon

source https://screenrant.com/ff8-gf-guide-locations-abilities/

[ricepips-blog]

Timeless part 4

(Thank you to all who have read this! I’m going to post on AO3 when I get my account. As for this part, I wanted to explore Tessa and why she ended up in the situation she did. Such a waste of an episode!)

Part 4

The message came through to Chakotay’s personal console. Sent with the seal of the Admiralty.

“Searches for the missing vessel, Voyager, will be terminated by the end of the week. No sufficient evidence to suggest any recoverable material is present.”

Chakotay slams the desk hard and sinks to the floor. All these years, he’s worked alongside the top analysts, running simulations, plotting the potential locations of Voyager, and for what? For them to pull the mission? To end the search?

Damn them!

Eight years he’s given to this project, and for nothing? He paces the room, it’s pointless calling anyone. The decision has clearly been made. He can call all the people in the Federation, it won’t change the decision.

The fog inside his mind begins to descend again. For 8 years, he’s kept the despair at bay, held her back from his thoughts. Each setback brings her forward again, he can’t let it take hold. Her image begins to form and he squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head.

“Chakotay…” he hears her voice, but refuses to answer. “Are you with me?”

He sees the flash of a red uniform in the doorway, feels the touch of her hand on his shoulder. He can smell her perfume, feel her lips against his. His hands quiver at the feeling of her soft skin beneath them. Even now, after almost 9 years since she died, she comes to him so easily.

He starts to let the images flow, she’s sitting across from him on a boat, sipping champagne on a holographic Lake George. She’s laid naked beneath him on that final morning, the morning she died, her hands gripping his back, her moans and sighs of pleasure in his ears.

“Do you still love me?” she whispers inside his head.

“Yes,” he says out loud to his empty room.

His mind swims back and forth, images of her tumbling over each other, merging from reality to fantasy and back again. His hand is inside his trousers, wrapped around himself and as he thinks of being inside her, visualising her face gripped in ecstasy, and quickly he’s flying over the edge, crying out her name, his hand and pants the only recipient of his desperate love.

His name echoes through his mind and he groans to himself in despair.

He wants a drink, he moves towards his replicator and gets as far as keying in the first code when he realises what he’s about to do. He turns away, pushes the images back and sighs to himself.

He does the only sensible thing he can think of. He calls Tessa.

Tessa Ormond has been a constant in his life for some time now. A brilliant scientist, she shares his interests and has a desire to find Voyager. She never asks questions and has just been a comforting presence.

She answers his hail instantly and they meet up in a little cafe not far from the laboratory they have been working.

With sympathy, she listens as he reveals his frustration. She offers him hope, suggesting they can work together, under the radar. Keep the hunt going.

For the first time, Chakotay sees Tessa as a woman, a friend, a source of comfort.

That night he ends up in her bed.

He feels nothing the following morning, no guilt, no relief. Just nothing. He looks at Tessa and feels nothing. He can’t even sense Kathryn. His mind won’t let him think of her.

He thinks he could get used to feeling nothing.

Tessa doesn’t seem to court the idea of it being a one-night stand. She makes him breakfast, talks of their plans to keep the search going, she gives him hope and something close to love.

He thinks she’s what he needs. He makes it clear to her that he’s damaged. That he can’t offer her much.

Tessa doesn’t seem to mind. She merely shrugs and leads him back to bed.

Maybe she thinks she’ll change him. Maybe she thinks he’ll fall in love with her. Maybe she hopes he will forget.

He has no intentions towards any of that. He won’t change until he knows the answers of that day. He will never love anyone again, his heart is lost somewhere in the Delta Quadrant, on a ship, with a woman whose name he refuses to speak out loud, but, will never forget.

But, if they can offer each other anything, if she can make the nights seem that little less lonelier, then he’ll take it.

And for Tessa, she’s happy with anything he gives her. Life has not been kind so far, she’s learnt already not to expect much from anything or anyone. She learnt that when her Father left, followed quickly by her mother. She learnt it from each and every boyfriend, she was just Tessa, nothing special, nothing worth fighting for.

As time passes, she believes he has affection for her, maybe even something akin to love. He never says the words though. She says them to him and he always smiles back, kisses her head and leaves the room.

She thinks this should bother her. But, it doesn’t. She knows where his heart lies, back on Voyager, with a woman he won’t ever speak about. She imagines him in the bed of Kathryn Janeway, wonders what they talked about, how and where they made love. She has no idea if they even did have sex, but from the way Chakotay has totally shut down about her, she’s pretty certain they did. And it excites her. She’s always known she has been a masochist. She actually likes the pain of loving him more than he can give her in return.

Councillors would have a field day with her.

But, she doesn’t care. It’s why she suggests the plan to him and Harry. It’s why she convinces them it will work. The pain of the potential outcome of this plan is thrilling, exciting and if nothing else, it will end the torment of knowing he can’t love her in the way she wants.

She knows he loved the Captain of Voyager. Knows he’s still in love with her. He’s never said it, but she sees it in his eyes whenever she is mentioned. Hears it muttered as he sleeps. Tastes it in his kiss, she poetically thinks she can even taste her still on his lips.

Kathryn Janeway, the celebrated Captain, the woman who merged two crews from two different worlds. The woman who tamed the wildest members of the Maquis, the woman who had the violent Kazon Nistrim quaking in their alien boots. The woman who captured the heart of a Maquis captain and even in death won’t let him go.

She would love to hate her, but she envies her instead. She secretly reads everything about her. Imagines her. Fantasises about knowing her personally. Hell, she’s even imagined a threesome with the woman! What kind of spirit can take hold of someone without meeting them? What sort of woman does that make, Kathryn Janeway? And how can she, Tessa Ormond, even compare? What kind of woman does that make her?

One who can never compete.

It’s this need to constantly bring pain to herself that sees her carry on working and sleeping with Chakotay. It’s what sees her end up on the wrong side of the law, racing towards changing the timeline and erasing the last 15 years of her life.

Sometimes, in the night, after they have had sex and Chakotay leaves her bed to stand by the window, she wonders if she’s doing the right thing.

But, as she stands on the broken bridge of Voyager, hears the final message Captain Janeway ever recorded, sees the look on Chakotay’s face, she knows she can’t change things now. Knows she can’t go back. Looking down at the frozen corpse of the woman she is giving up her life for, she offers up a, “You owe me!” before moving to comfort Chakotay.

Sitting in the cockpit of the shuttle in the final seconds of her timeline, even then, she loves the thrill of the heartache of it all. The fact he finally confessed his love for Kathryn, the fact he could never feel like that about anyone else, it’s terrifying and exciting. The exhilaration of knowing she’s about to die unloved by anyone kind of makes it all worthwhile.

[operationrainfall]

Title Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Developer Atlus, Nintendo Publisher Nintendo Release Date January 17th, 2020 Genre RPG Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating T for Teen – Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol Official Website

Let me just get this out of the way – I was a big fan of the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. I’m well aware of the so called controversy of the original game, and it in no way impacted my enjoyment. So when I saw the original game was getting an upgraded port in Encore, I knew I had to play it. Not only did it feature a revamped build of the original Wii U exclusive, it came packaged with the optional DLC as well as some entirely new content in the EX Story. Thanks to the kind folks at Nintendo providing us the opportunity to review the game, I buckled down and got through as fast as possible. Four years later, am I still a fan of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or did this Encore fall flat?

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The first thing you should all know about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is that it’s a game all about the theme of spreading happiness and creativity through art. In the game proper, that art is predominantly split between musical performances and stage acting. It embraces Japanese culture and all its many quirks, while showcasing the glamour of the entertainment industry. Besides that, the game is also a hybrid of two rather different series – Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem. You wouldn’t be faulted for wondering how easily those mesh together, but I can assure you it works shockingly well. Not only does Encore have key elements of both series, such as various character classes, a weapon triangle, exploiting enemy weaknesses and crazed extra-dimensional dungeons, it manages to also stand on its own two feet while inheriting the best aspects of both source materials. That said, for the majority of game, you’re going to see more SMT influence than FE, but once the credits roll, I felt both were well represented. This is also a game that benefits from being a JRPG, for one simple reason – this game’s strong suit isn’t the plot. That’s not to say the story isn’t interesting or entertaining, but after playing it a second time, I couldn’t help but notice several things the plot doesn’t adequately address. Thankfully, the genre is also known for having captivating personalities, and Encore has that in spades. You’ll really grow to love every character in the story, from the main cast to the supporting characters. They’ll all grow and become more fully realized as you play, and if you devote yourself to all the Side Story content (which I highly recommend), you’ll really get rewarded with some touching and hilarious moments.

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While the story (split into several chapters broken up with Intermissions) isn’t the tightest or most complex, it does provide a good structure for how things progress. Tokyo is under assault by invisible forces called Mirages. They are after the distilled creative essence of humanity, called Performa. It’s found in crowds that are inspired by music or theater, so every time some big event happens, Mirages strike. They drain our Performa until we’re just empty husks, and it provides a powerful boost of strength to these Mirages. You’re probably wondering how you fight back against such a threat, at least if you haven’t played a Persona or SMT game before. If you have, you know that it takes fire to fight fire. A small percentage of humans can see Mirages, and by joining forces with heroic ones, they become Mirage Masters. These humans are empowered by their Mirage, granted powerful armor as the Mirage itself turns into their primary weapon, called Carnage. Thus equipped, you and your band of heroes fights back, repelling these otherworldly invaders (portrayed on the map as floating red wraiths) and returning things to normal. Just be wary, since some evil Mirages have possessed prominent humans to do their bidding. There’s other parts to the story, such as the mystery of Tiki’s lost memories and an incident a few years back where a group of people vanished, including Tsubasa’s sister, but I’ll leave those portions for you to discover.

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Speaking of characters, let’s spend some time discussing the main ones. You play as Itsuki Aoi. He’s a mild mannered boy known as the Prince of Denseness, yet his support helps all his friends grow and reach their ultimate potential. He’s not quite an avatar, but he’s also the least fleshed out character in the game. Then there’s Itsuki’s childhood friend, Tsubasa. She suffered some serious trauma as a child, yet has still managed to grow into a loving and strong person. She’s also a ridiculous fangirl, and often gets so perplexed she walks into walls and gets tongue tied, inverting word order. Or take Touma, a hot headed action hero in training that uses confidence to hide his insecurity. There’s the old pro Kiria, entertainer extraordinaire and literal ice queen, at least until you reveal her soft and fluffy side. Then there’s Ellie, a girl of mixed ethnicity with a sharp tongue who has aspirations of Hollywood fame. For those who prefer innocence, there’s the sweet and demure Mamori, a young actress with her own popular cooking show that wants to protect those she loves. Finally, there’s the cold and brutally honest Yashiro. He starts out as a bitter rival to your team, but eventually you convince him to look past his misconceptions and discover the pain he’s hiding.

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But that’s just the main characters. There’s three other important supporting characters, and they’re all tremendous as well. Your boss is the busty and flirtatious Maiko, a one time model that runs the Fortuna agency with iron determination. There’s nothing she won’t do to help her stable of artists prosper, and that especially includes getting completely drunk while making connections. Or there’s Tiki, an ethereal green haired maiden whose name may sound familiar to Fire Emblem fans. Devoid of any physical form, Tiki only exists in the Bloom Palace, a extra-dimensional realm accessible from the Fortuna office. Though she has no memories, that doesn’t prevent her from showing off her loving and helpful side, always willing to help out her Big Brother! And finally there’s my favorite, Barry Goodman. A former metal rocker and Mirage Master, Barry has seen better days, but he’s always willing to train new talent. He’s also a worse fanboy than Tsubasa, and his brash and quirky personality provided some of my biggest laughs.

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Now, none of the plot or character would much matter if the game wasn’t fun, but Encore is a delight. In large part, that’s due to the complex and kinetic combat. You fight with a team of 3, and your goal is to attack the enemy to pinpoint their weaknesses. Once you’ve done that, by using a Skill that exploits it, you’ll initiate the titular Sessions. Essentially, this is a giant chain of attacks that proceeds from a single one, ignoring enemy defenses. Initially this only involves your current team, but eventually you’ll acquire the ability to include your sub cast of characters, leading to massive combos. When you have one foe left, you’ll deal Overkill damage, providing great rewards of cash and Performa. As you level up, your Carnage learn new Skills, and you get to choose which you keep and which you toss. Additionally, you can change out any member of your team whenever you want, other than Itsuki. This allows you to bring in the right character for the task at hand, and manipulate the field of battle to your advantage. Just keep in mind, only the characters in combat level up their Carnage, while everybody levels up their character level regardless.

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You also have at your disposal powerful Special and Ad-lib Performances. Special Performances use energy you’ve filled up in your meter by attacking, and has some tremendously powerful effects. Some of my favorite examples are temporarily increasing enemy weaknesses, healing your entire team, fatally killing enemies and much more. Ad-lib are also quite powerful, but only activate randomly when characters use Skills with the corresponding attack type. For example, if Ellie uses a Bow attack, she may use One-Sided Love, which damages all your foes and charms them to boot. If instead you use a Lightning Skill like Maziodyne with Itsuki, you might activate Back Chorus, zapping the entire field. Last of all are Duo Arts. You won’t have access to these until the latter portion of the game, but once you do, they make a big difference. They often trigger during long Sessions, and have two of your teammates join together for tremendous and powerful attacks. A great example is The Tunnel Home, where Barry, dressed like a giant dog, races to catch Mamori’s axe, and then charges the foe headfirst with it, ripping them to shreds. Keep in mind that while both Ad-lib Performances and Duo Arts are random, having a higher Luck stat seems to trigger them more often, since Ellie, who has very high luck, seemed to trigger these types of attack the most.

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Like any good RPG, you can upgrade your gear, crafting more powerful weapons. This process is called Unity, and it’s done at the Bloom Palace with Performa dropped by defeated foes. When you gather enough, you can have Tiki conduct a Carnage Unity, making a new weapon with enhanced stats and differing weaknesses by fusing the gathered Performa with your Mirage. Eventually you can craft +1 or higher versions of the same Carnage, which is useful when you can’t find the right Performa to make a new weapon. Also, whenever you make a new one, you have a chance to learn a new Special Performance, meaning it’s in your best interest to keep on fighting so you can make stronger weapons and learn more abilities. For the most part, I felt this loop worked very well, and only hit a wall that forced me to grind for parts a couple of times in my near 50 hour experience. Another type of Unity is Radiant Unity, where you use special Performa found only in the many Side Stories to learn new abilities that you don’t have to equip and which are constantly in use. A good example is Open Audition, which lets your sub cast of characters jump into Sessions. An integral one is learned by Itsuki, called Director Itsuki, which lets you switch foes after you kill one and keep the Session going. Finally, like any good Fire Emblem, you can change your class. You do this with (you guessed it) Master Seals, which are either mission rewards or found in hard to reach corners of dungeons. This lets you further customize your experience and changes the look of your Mirage, though I admit I found the starting forms preferable to many of the downright strange looking upgraded classes. But that’s just a matter of personal preference, you might find that you love the look of these new forms.

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Although the plot isn’t Encore’s strong suit, that isn’t the same as saying the writing falls flat. I found most of the dialogue very funny and revealing, whether it be conveyed in some grand speech or in digital messages called Topics. In the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Topics were relegated to the Gamepad, and notified you when one of your characters had something to say, or when you could start a new Side Story. Though Topics are alive and well here, instead they’re relegated to the + button. This wasn’t problematic per se, but oftentimes I would open up the main menu, which is separate from the Topic menu. This only cost me a few seconds to close it out and open the right one, but it was far less intuitive than originally on the Wii U. That said, the Topics are often hilarious, showing banter between Itsuki and his friends. The Topic menu also helps keep track of which Side Stories are in progress, and is where you’ll find the dungeon maps. I loved the Side Stories in the game, since not only did they showcase more of the cast’s personalities, but they provided powerful upgrades and Backup Skills for the sub characters. My only issue was when it wasn’t clear how to progress certain missions, such as when Tsubasa is on the hunt for a stray cat, and the clues you’re given are entirely open ended and unnecessarily vague. The missions that involved combat or just progressed like a Visual Novel were much more to my liking, since I get frustrated whenever I get stuck. That said, it occurred to me as I played that if there’s ever a VN made of Encore, it would most definitely be a Harem VN. Itsuki becomes the love interest of ALL the female characters, even though he’s too dense to realize it. Even the men all respect and admire him. In other words, there’s a universe in which Itsuki finally learns the full extent of Maiko’s many charms, and that’s a tale I would definitely read.

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The dungeons in Encore play out very much like a Persona game. Enemies will appear and chase you, though most can be stunned with Itsuki’s sword to gain First Strike during battle. There’s also terrifying Savage enemies, black wraiths that can’t be knocked down and which generally are 10+ levels higher than your team. Though dungeons aren’t littered with traps and false floors, they each have a unique gimmick that makes traversal a challenge. While the very first one is incredibly basic, the one immediately after that is a giant step up in terms of complexity and difficulty. It has you manipulate empty mannequins, raising or lowering their arms, then progressing through the cuffs to reach new areas. There’s another that is full of devious cameras that take your picture and return you to the very beginning, not unlike the Wallmasters in Zelda. Pretty much each dungeon is distinct looking and offers a robust challenge, and none other than the first can be breezed through. Most took me more than 2 hours, and the final one easily took 8 or more. Thankfully, early on Tsubasa acquires the Traport skill, which lets you transport yourself back to Fortuna HQ, where you can heal your team with a soda. Depending on the type of can, you will also increase the luck of certain characters temporarily. I had no issue with this, other than my confusion about the very first dungeon having a heal spot, and none of the others. But so long as you don’t mind a little back and forth teleportation, you shouldn’t have any problems getting through these dungeons. Just put on your thinking cap and get ready to fight back hordes of Mirages.

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It wouldn’t be a satisfying RPG without tough bosses, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore delivers. Every time I thought I was getting overpowered in the game, the next boss would prove me wrong. None of the bosses here are easy, at least on the Normal difficulty I chose. Most of them can wipe you out in a couple turns, especially if your team is weak to any of their attacks. Each boss usually has a posse of minor foes, and while that might seem unfair, since they can summon more, they’re there for a reason. Namely, so you can defeat the minor foes to build up your Session meter and then unleash powerful attacks on the bosses. I enjoyed the challenge provided by these fights, and only found a handful to be a pain. One was a doppleganger of Yashiro that could split himself into clones, and which would go into a counter stance to parry any physical attacks. Another was Excellus, a floating mechanical mage that changed his resistances during the fight, and which could hit my team with unrelenting magical attacks. There’s a couple others, but overall I wasn’t upset with the more difficult bosses. They just required I be willing to grind up my levels and equipment a bit, a skill I gathered recently thanks to games like Persona Q.

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Now, it wouldn’t be fair to talk about Encore without touching upon the new content. First of all, you have a rather silly (yet awesome) ability at the start to choose whether or not Tsubasa wears glasses in the game. As a fan of the sexy librarian trope, I opted for it. Besides that, the DLC which was previously only available to those that paid for it is part of the main package now. It’s essentially free, since this version of the game costs as much as the base version of the original, $59.99. The DLC, which opens up a couple dungeons into the game, includes 3 areas you can tackle. One is full of Savage enemies that reward you with Tomes which help level up faster; another area gives you Skill Books, for learning new Skills much faster; and lastly one has Detritus, which can be traded for stat boosting Incense. While I’m fine with these options, I didn’t use them much. Mostly cause there was no story there, you can’t save in these areas, and frankly Savage foes are a giant pain in the ass. What I would have preferred was an area full of Rare Mirages, which often drop hard to find Performa necessary for powerful Carnage Unity. In my entire playthrough, I maybe encountered 10 of these Mirages, and what’s worse, they aren’t tied to any specific area. That wasn’t a huge problem til later in the game, but it is worth mention.

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However, the real draw for Encore is the EX Story. It all takes place in a new dungeon called the Area of Aspiration, where supposedly your dreams are brought into physical form. I admit I was tentatively very excited about the EX Story, as I hoped it would provide an excuse to spend more time with this world. Unfortunately, I have to confirm it’s rather short and insubstantial. The story tied to the Area of Aspiration only involves Itsuki, Tsubasa and Kiria, and none of the others. While it’s cool you can find new costumes there, and I appreciated unlocking the use of Tiki, Maiko and Barry in Sessions, that’s also not the same as them being playable characters. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for tiny green dragons, busty ninjas and knights clad in dog-armor, but I also don’t feel like the process of unlocking them was fulfilling. In the main story, you progress in Side Stories and learn more about your teammates, and then those revelations empower them. Here, you just open a chest and get new features. Plus, I’m still not clear how Maiko and Barry, who lack Mirages, magically get the ability to fight Mirages, which the game states over and over again is the sole province of a Mirage Master. And though you can’t get through the Area of Aspiration all at once, since parts of it are gated behind other content, it’s still over way too soon. It only has 3 chapters and one boss. I was really hoping for a meaty dungeon to spend hours and hours in after I beat the final boss. Instead, I got maybe a couple hours of extra content that left me wanting more than the one new song, “She Is”, rewarded to you at the very end of the experience. Which isn’t to say I hated the EX Story, I didn’t. I just feel a game of this caliber deserved better.

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As for how the game game looks and plays, both are fantastic. Even though the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions was on the Wii U, and while the limitations of that console are still apparent (reused enemy models, limited draw distance, a seemingly sprawling map that’s only composed of a few areas), it in no way prevents this from being a beautiful game. I love how random passerby are rainbow colored, or how the Fortuna office gets decorated after various performances with posters, or even the neon portraits of your team during battle. Hell, even though they reuse enemy models with a new coat of paint, there’s a good variety of foes, from giant clown heads to winged raiders to hideous giants and top-hat wearing ghosts. Of special note are the game’s bosses, which each are stunning looking and showcase a distinct aesthetic style. And each of the characters’ different Mirages are all full of personality that is matched by their design. Musically, I love the game equally. While the main combat and exploration themes are somewhat laid back, I live for when the music of performances enters the fray of battle. I still tap my feet to the Duo Arts “Dream Catcher” and “Give Me”, and am always impressed by the Kiria’s bad ass tunes, such as her Ad-lib Performance “The Labyrinth.” There’s tons of rocking tunes in Encore, from a wide range of genres. I never thought I liked J-pop, but Tokyo Mirage Sessions may have proven me wrong. Oh and though I am not fluent in Japanese in the slightest, I loved the personality and pop provided by the vocal cast, in and out of combat.

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Now, while I like almost everything about Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, reviewing games for this many years has trained me to view things critically. As such, the following are minor frustrations that dragged the experience down a bit. One are the bestiary’s enemy locations. These can be viewed from your main menu, and are integral when you need to farm the right Performa for weapons and skills. Unfortunately, the enemy locations found here don’t correspond to the actual area map. Another issue is that I wish that once you see a scene, you can skip it entirely the next time. Often right before a boss fight there’s a ton of dialogue, and while you can speed through it, you can’t skip it, and you definitely can’t skip Topic notifications that are story related. This made the final boss fight all the harder, since there’s a massive scene right before it, and it takes a good minute and a half to speed through it. I also kind of wish the map wasn’t on the Topic menu, but the other huge main menu, since it can be time consuming transitioning between them. It’s also a bit irritating that you’ll get notifications of a side story about to open up, then have to wait til it’s triggered. This is after you level up your Stage Rank, which is in itself a nebulous process, since there’s no counter that tells you when it’s full, unlike character and Carnage level. And one last thing that really irritated me was that I always had tons of money in-game, literally millions, but not enough things to spend it on. The Carabia boutique has a very limited supply of equipment, and none that is really game changing. Even buying all the costumes from Harajuka left me millions in the bank. I almost wish this game took mechanics from a game like Persona Q, letting you farm materials that you trade in to create new equipment regularly. Other than these, I very much enjoyed the game.

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All in all, I’m still very much a fan of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE after beating Encore. It’s basically the same game, just with a bit of extra content thrown in and some minor quality of life improvements such as the Quick Session option and faster load times. While I was ultimately unimpressed with the EX Story, I still appreciate being able to play one of my favorite Wii U exclusives on my Switch portably. If you’re a fan of Japanese culture and love crazy RPGs full of heart, you owe it to yourself to play Encore. Now I just have to cross my fingers and pray we get a true sequel that improves on this already fantastic experience.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]

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REVIEW: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Title Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore

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Secret of Mana evaluate

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Secret of Mana evaluate

An important online game remake is usually a revelatory, even transformative, expertise. By latching onto the guts of the unique work and steaming away the musty whiff of dated parts, a remake can remind us why we cherished a traditional within the first place. It’d even give us a newfound appreciation for an older creation that by no means clicked with us earlier than. After all, a poor remake can even assist you higher recognize the unique for solely totally different causes, as Sq. Enix’s new remake of Secret of Mana demonstrates.

A groundbreaking 1993 Tremendous NES motion role-playing sport, the unique Secret of Mana cleverly mixed the mechanical depth of a standard RPG — the collection started as a Remaining Fantasy spinoff — with the immediacy of motion RPGs like The Legend of Zelda. Mild on the puzzle parts that Zelda perfected on Tremendous NES, Secret of Mana made up for the minimal complexity of its dungeons with an equally engrossing proposition: seamless, drop-in/drop-out, three-person multiplayer motion. To sweeten the pot, it even threw in some beautiful visuals and one of the progressive soundtracks ever constructed for a 16-bit console.

Visible overhaul apart, this remake consists nearly solely of the identical content material and mechanics because the Tremendous NES unique. One to 3 gamers embark on a journey to forestall the Vandole Empire from reviving a legendary tremendous weapon known as the Mana Fortress. As within the older sport, your get together collects eight legendary weapons and eight elemental spell units, leveling up every instrument and talent by way of repeated use in fight. And yeah, you continue to battle Santa Claus. It’s all right here.

One way or the other, although, this new Secret of Mana manages to recapture little of the older model’s attraction. Remakes ought to ideally strip away a sport’s outdated or damaged parts whereas enshrining its strengths. Secret of Mana’s remake as a substitute emphasizes the components of the unique that didn’t fairly work whereas leeching all pleasure from the components that did. What few issues it adjustments, it alters for the more serious. This can be a outstanding remake, however not in a great way: the form of replace that leaves you scratching your head questioning how they might hew so carefully to the unique and but handle to get every thing about it so catastrophically mistaken.

The issues start with the visible overhaul. As with Sq. Enix’s earlier Mana remake (Adventures of Mana), the builders have revamped the unique 16-bit sprite art work into middling polygons. I suppose whether or not or not this constitutes an enchancment comes right down to particular person tastes, however I’m not a fan. I’m additionally not bought on the brand new localization, which features a few welcome adjustments (the androgynous Sprite, Popoi, is now known as “them”) however largely simply tamps down the unique English script’s whimsy with out including any actual substance. And somebody on the market may even benefit from the weird remixed soundtrack, which I can solely describe as “accordion-based choral techno.”

The brand new visuals do objectively diminish Secret of Mana in a single sense: They take away the sport’s interesting physicality. Secret of Mana’s characters possessed a kind of floppy depth on Tremendous NES, in some way conveying the feeling of your heroes throwing themselves into each motion with only a few easy frames of animation. And since the sport took its RPG parts severely, enemies might solely hurt the participant’s get together with precise assaults, not by mere contact (as they do in different motion video games). So heroes and monsters would press up towards one another as they waited for his or her motion meters to refill, making fight shut and private.

That depth doesn’t come by way of right here. The remake’s canned polygonal animations come throughout as stilted and bland. The resized, visually inconsistent character fashions for each the protagonists and enemies not seem to exist in the identical world as each other, not to mention shove up towards one another in determined shut quarters as they used to. It’s a delicate distinction, nevertheless it drains the life from the sport.

The transfer to polygons introduces different shortcomings as nicely. Characters not must assault in cardinal instructions, as they did within the unique. Now, you and enemies alike can assault in all instructions. Which may sound like an enchancment at first. In observe, it turns fight right into a chore. The addition of 360-degree concentrating on makes fight cumbersome on your get together members. I discovered it way more troublesome to line up my actions right here than within the unique, particularly with projectile weapons, which slows down fight. Enemies can even hit you from any angle, which makes many sequences rather a lot tougher than they was once. Anywhere populated by tiny chipmunk archers (such because the Haunted Forest or the Desert Palace) change into infuriating homicide gauntlets right here. You possibly can benefit from their restricted concentrating on capabilities for hit-and-run ways, however now they’ll pepper you with rapid-fire arrows from all angles.

The Secret of Mana remake inexplicably breaks easy interface parts, too. The distinctive “ring menu” system (pop-up menus that allowed direct entry to any of your get together members’ battle instructions and inventories) not retains the reminiscence of which menu merchandise you final chosen. If you should, say, repeatedly forged a selected spell, you need to navigate the menus to achieve that spell each single time you forged it. Much more annoyingly, the rings now pop within the middle of the display screen relatively than above the character they signify, so that you don’t have an apparent inform for whose rings you’re navigating. These aren’t game-breaking points, however they’re annoying — and nonsensical, provided that the Tremendous NES model bought these quality-of-life particulars proper 25 years in the past.

You’ll additionally discover that the helpful synthetic intelligence “motion grid” has been eliminated. Now, every character has simply 4 command settings, which permit for a few helpful choices (the flexibility to assist a selected get together member is nice) however which finally show to be much more limiting than the 16-bit AI grid was.

On the plus facet, the remake does at the least retain Secret of Mana’s multiplayer ingredient. I can’t communicate to its efficiency, although; I reviewed the sport on PlayStation Vita, which doesn’t provide a Nintendo DS-style obtain play possibility because of the measurement and complexity of the software program. Every participant must have their very own Vita copy of Secret of Mana, and multiplayer classes contain ad-hoc ready rooms — there’s no drop-in/drop-out cooperative play on the go, solely on PlayStation four and Home windows PC.

The one genuinely new ingredient that the remake provides to Secret of Mana is the brand new character conversations at inns. Whenever you relaxation and save your sport, your get together members will banter about the latest plot developments. That is mildly amusing, nevertheless it actually simply quantities to riffing on the paper-thin characterization established within the characters’ first few interactions. What number of instances do we actually want one more gag about how Primm, the feminine get together member, is hot-tempered and has a crush on a man named Dyluck? The story advances by way of mildly detailed cinematic renditions of the older sport’s cutscenes, full with voice performing, however none of this actually provides a lot to the expertise — and no matter enhancements it represents actually can’t make up for the all of the methods through which this remake diminishes the underlying traditional.

Make no mistake, Secret of Mana stays a good sport, even on this broken state. However the lifeless spirit and newfound flaws of the remake emphasize all of the clumsy particulars that had been simpler to forgive within the unique. Its real-time fight will be clumsy and unbalanced. The early hours of the sport show to be terribly repetitive, sending gamers again to the identical handful of areas over and over. And the weapon- and spell-leveling mechanics make for many tedious grinding.

This new remake marks the third time I’ve revisited Secret of Mana prior to now yr: First with the Japanese launch of Seiken Densetsu Assortment for Swap, after which once more with the 16-bit sport’s inclusion on Nintendo’s Tremendous NES Traditional Version mini-console. The primary two experiences jogged my memory what extraordinary alchemy Squaresoft achieved with Secret of Mana. It was a kind of rarities whose creative appeal outdated its many flaws. I suppose, in a way, the remake reinforces that revelation. Now I’ve performed Secret of Mana with out its appeal, in order that solely the failings shine by way of, and it’s even simpler to understand what the unique sport achieved.

Secret of Mana was reviewed utilizing a ultimate “retail” PS Vita obtain code offered by Sq. Enix. You’ll find further details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.