#who spent a majority of that time alone in an apocalyptic wasteland

[neon-danger]

call me crazy but I don’t hate the umbrella academy season 4

[bubbl3zdaseaotter37]

Whumptober 2024

No. 11: SEEING DOUBLE

Convenience Store | Loneliness | “Leave no trace behind, like you don't even exist.” (Taylor Swift, Illicit Affairs)

A/N: So, I don’t really have a super clear plot for this one, I just love zombie apocalypse settings and Lockwood & Co, so HERE WE ARE.  Zombie apocalypse AU!

 I guess my general idea for this AU was that instead of being sensitive to psychic activity, certain young people are more resistant to infection.  It still affects them, but instead of turning into rabid, flesh-eating undead, it makes them hallucinate, get very, very ill, or go into a catatonic state like we see with ghost-lock, which can kill them anyways.  Nobody’s immune to being torn limb from limb (duh).  But as they get older their immunity gets weaker, the same way children deal with chickenpox than adults.

It doesn’t make complete sense -- this was a very rushed concept lol -- but that's the rundown. I hope y’all enjoy!

My first mistake was letting my guard down when I saw that convenience store.  It’s an easy thing to do, when your stomach feels like a gaping hole in your middle, and it was only for a moment, but I should have known better.  I wasn’t a survivor for no reason; generally, I like to think I was better than most at avoiding stupid mistakes, or the consequences of those mistakes at the very least.  But that time, during my first few days in London, was an exception.

For being such a major city before The Outbreak fifty years ago, I was shocked to find it so… quiet.  Sure, I could believe the stories about the gangs of dangerous bandits that I had heard from some in my hometown might have been an exaggeration.  And I knew of the two major safe zones here – that was the reason I had been so willing to leave the safety of my hometown’s makeshift setup in the first place.  Across the country, survivors knew the reputation of the two militarized areas, run by the two most powerful families, Fittes and Rotwell.  Everyone knew that they were racing for a cure, and that the people who worked for them got the best accommodation that existed in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  It was a position every Resistant envied, the running water, the warm beds, the steady food supplies no matter how bland.  And respect, of course.  To be an agent was a heavy job and dangerous, but when you protected them from the living dead, adults gave you more regard than they had before.

That was what we dreamt of, my best friend and me.  I arrived in London alone.

I had spent days making my way slowly through the suburbs.  Supplies were scarce, but I already had plenty of experience in the basics of survival.  Stay quiet, avoid loud weapons, and always carry something with you to cover your scent; infected relied mostly on their sense of hearing and smell, since their sight is mediocre at best.  Compost and other rotting things are the most effective choices, but people tend to prefer more pleasant smells, for obvious reasons.  Lavender, rosemary, woodsmoke, those are some of the most popular camouflages.  Move during the night; although they can’t see very well, use the darkness to your advantage.  If you can’t see them, they probably can’t see you.  Never under any circumstance back yourself into a corner.  Before entering a building, always ensure that there are multiple escapes.  And lastly, leave no trace behind, like you don’t even exist.  You never know who’s out there; infected aren’t the only danger.

Somehow, I managed to forget, disregard, or completely desecrate every one of those rules when I entered a little, rundown corner shop in Marylebone, Northwest London.

I was exhausted, hungry, and I hadn’t had a chance to find something new to block the smell of a girl who hadn’t properly washed in days.  Besides, it seemed innocuous enough, with its sad, crooked sign simply saying, “Arif’s.”  Most of the windows were boarded up, and the door was locked with a heavy padlock, but I managed to climb through a smaller, uncovered side window by clambering awkwardly onto a metal trash bin and squeezing through.

As I landed in an undignified heap on the dusty floor of a tiny room, the bin toppled over with a resounding crash, crash, clang.  I froze, biting my lip as I waited to hear the telltale sounds of infected homing in on the noise.  When nothing happened, my shoulders sagged.  I tasted the sharp tang of blood on my dry, cracked lower lip as I subconsciously ran my tongue quickly over it.  Even if nothing had heard that commotion, I wanted out of here fast.

I looked around to find myself in a tiny storage room, packed with empty, sagging shelves.  It was more of an oversized pantry than anything else.  To my relief, the door to the rest of the ground floor was unlocked.  Cautiously, I opened it a crack and peered through to scan for danger.  The area on the other side of the door was a cozy little shop.  Droopy, old baskets sat at the endcaps of each of the aisles.  Of course, it appeared that everything useful had been looted long ago, but I still thought it might be worth a look.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, no movement, no noise, no stench of death hung in the air, so I opened the door the rest of the way.

As it swung open, it caught something unseen.  A tiny hitch – followed by a resounding, multi-level crash.  My stomach dropped to the floor.  Something must have heard that.  There was no way that no one heard that.  The whole world seemed to hold its breath as I intently listened… waited…

A moment later, I caught a faint rattling sound coming from across the store.  A key!  Someone was unlocking the front door.

Sucking in a breath, I closed the door as quietly as I could with trembling hands, rested my back against it.  Frantically, I searched the little storage room for a weapon, a way out, something. But the window I had climbed in through was just out of my reach.  I would have had to move things around to build myself something to step up onto, and that would take too long, make too much noise.  The only weapons I had in my bag were a baseball bat I had picked up in a suburb on my way into London, and a few homemade stun grenades.  I had made a stupid mistake in trapping myself here, now I just hoped it wouldn’t be my last.

A friendly bell chimed.  I heard slow, measured footsteps on the other side of the door.

I had stopped breathing.  The knuckles of my right hand were white around the taped-wrapped handle of my baseball bat.  In the other, I clutched one of my flashbangs, though I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it.  They were loud, bright, and inevitably attracted the undead, no matter how “clear” an area was.

The footsteps stopped, what sounded like a good distance from my door.  A tense moment of complete silence passed, in which I silently shifted from pressing my back against the door, to crouching just behind it, bat at the ready.  The footsteps resumed, quieter this time, but I could now hear a second pair, hidden underneath the first ones.  They became so quiet, I couldn’t make them out from the pounding of my heart in my throat, but that was alright.  I didn’t need to hear them to know to strike as soon as the first of their ugly mugs appeared on this side of the door.

Tensing my muscles, I prepared for a one-sided fight.  Maybe if I were able to take them by surprise, I could slip past them and make a break for the front door.  That was my only chance.

The handle began to turn. 

As soon as it had opened wide enough, and I saw the shadow of two figures silhouetted vaguely across the floor, I burst out from behind the door, swinging my bat with a fierce war cry.  Aluminum struck the doorframe as my opponent ducked.  Almost immediately, a flash of light blinded me.  I lost track of the two figures, stumbled back, blindly swung again, leaving myself woefully exposed.

A whisper of metal, and I felt a cold, sharp point at my throat.  I froze.

“Hullo.”

I sucked in a sharp breath at the stranger’s voice, blinked rapidly as my vision began to return.  Slowly, I began to make out my two assailants.  Staring back at me were two boys, both of whom looked to be about my age.  One of them was tall, lanky, and wore a long, tattered black coat.  His hair, dark like his coat, hung loosely, but stylishly over his brow.  His eyes glittered curiously at me, his gaze as sharp as the rapier he now held steadily at my throat.

On the other hand, his companion was short, impressively stout for a world where food was scarce, and stared blankly at me from behind a pair of thick, rounded glasses.  His hair was a disheveled, dirty blond, like a clump of straw had simply been discarded on the top of his head.  Also unlike the first boy, he clutched a flashlight in one hand, and a stun grenade in the other. 

“And who might you be?” The first boy asked lightly, as though we were having a friendly conversation in the town square, and he wasn’t holding a sword to my throat.

I stared at him warily. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, I supposed that since you are in our neighborhood, I might be a good neighbor and get to know our visitor,” he replied with a charming smile.

A frown crossed my face.  Their neighborhood?  This certainly wasn’t what I had expected from the infamous “bloodthirsty bandits” of London everyone talked about back home.  If he really wanted me dead, he could have finished the job with a single flick of his wrist.  But he didn’t.  I was still breathing, and something about the way he was looking at me, that smile made me think that I could trust him.  Ridiculous of me, really.  Foolish, even, but I couldn’t help it.  I would later find that that smile of his had a similar effect on anyone he directed it at.

As it was, I hesitated for another moment, before replying, “My name is Lucy.”

The boy’s smile widened, and he infinitesimally lowered his rapier.  I could no longer feel its cold, iron tip brushing against my skin.  “Very good,” he said, and I believed him wholeheartedly. “I’m Anthony Lockwood, however you may call me ‘Lockwood,’ and this is my friend, George Cubbins.”

Behind him, George didn’t lower the activated flashlight that was still shining in my eyes.  “Where did you come from? I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“Up north,” I replied curtly.  Something about the way this other boy held himself, in the dismissive tone he directed at me when he asked me his utterly useless question, rubbed me the wrong way.

“How far north?” He pressed.

Before I could reply with a rude comment about “as far north as his mother’s house,” Lockwood intervened.  “I’m so glad that the two of you are so eager to get to know each other, but I believe there will be time for proper introductions later.  For now, I think it best that we evacuate the premises before the wave of the living dead that heard all the commotion in here find us standing here having a chat.”

A shock of adrenaline shot through me as I realized that he was right.  If Lockwood and George had heard the commotion I made, then the infected were likely not far behind.

Lockwood’s smile turned serious, and he gazed directly at me.  “I am going to lower this sword, and I expect not to be clobbered with that bat, because I have a place nearby with plenty of food and water for all three of us where we can all take shelter.”

Even with my wariness surrounding these two strangers, the mention of food would have been enough to get me moving.  I nodded, and the blade dropped the rest of the way from my chin.

“Very good,” he said, smile returning.  “Now, let’s get moving.”

The three of us began quickly making our way to the front door.  The friendly, little bell jangled again as we burst out into the street.  Lockwood, his rapier now swinging stylishly alongside his billowing coat, led the way down the residential street marked “Portland Row” by the street sign on the corner.  Having tucked away his flashlight in the waistline of his baggy pants, George asked me, “is anyone else with you, or did you come along?”

To my surprise, I felt a stab of sadness in my gut as I replied, “I’m alone.”

Abruptly, Lockwood came to a stop in front of one of the big-boned, Victorian style houses, this one with an elegant, iron gate leading into the front yard.  I could hear the distant, but rapidly approaching growls and gargles of infected as we briskly made our way to the front door.

With a grin back at George and I, Lockwood swung the door open. “Well, Lucy, welcome to 35 Portland Row.”

We ducked inside just as I caught the first whiff of death on the wind.

[shamrockqueen]

Wasteland paradise

Chapter 1

Pairing : Boyka X Reader (Post Apocalyptic AU/ inspired by but not in the universe of Fallout new Vegas)

Warnings : R18, human trafficking, purchased reader, eventual Smut, rough smut, eroticism (not every chapter has smut), death of minor characters.

Word count : 1498

Scott Adkins Masterlist

They say that the decay was gradual, overtaking humanity like a spiderweb of cancer and bleeding into the very bones of modern society. The elite sat comfortably on their pedestals as the earth below them crumbled—that is, until the rot reached them too. They say that when the tallest tower finally fell, it was already too late.

The underbelly was all that survived, becoming this new aristocracy within what once were major cities. Those who fled were left with the scorched landscape they had left barren. Some founded small communes; others formed almost farel gangs that roamed further out into the wasteland. Some settlements fizzled easily; some were attacked and picked clean by invaders; but a few seemed to live long enough to spawn other generations.

You’d never know what that modern world was truly like, and sometimes you’d find yourself wondering how your life would have been if the older generations had ensured a better future. It wasn’t worth thinking about anymore. No, living through the week has greatly outweighed depressive fantasies.

You found yourself alone—finally and horribly alone.

You tried your best to wash the blood stain out, but no amount of scrubbing could make the dress clean again. It felt low, repurposing the very clothes your mother died in while she lay naked in a shallow grave, but you couldn’t afford to waste the fabric. The dress would never come clean, but the pattern was a beautiful yet slightly faded floral blue, so the cleanest part of the fabric had to have been worth something. Anything to put some food on that empty table now that you’d be the only one left to provide for it.

Almost all of your time had been spent taking care of your mother until her slow demise, which had her coughing up most of her own blood. It was always hard to look at her while she was in that state, and the only hope now was that she would be at peace.

You looked at the once-beautiful dress you had bundled in your hands. It had been her favorite, but it was too late to bury her with it now. You pulled the small switchblade from your pocket and began cutting off the stained portion of the fabric. You didn’t bother to cut the seams, as whoever bought it off of the trader once it left your hands would just do it themselves.

You bundled the dress under your arm and left your little home. You had shared this poorly constructed, one-room shanty house with what was left of your family. The small shanty village wasn’t very big and didn’t yield very much production, but the few traders that came through were often a godsend as they brought in many much-needed supplies. A tiny smudge on their map, and they still remembered to visit all of you.

You hoped to get there early so as not to be stuck in the hot sun for most of your day. The caravan was normally parked over by the moonshiners shack, an old man who made a pretty good hootch and would sell a lot to the passing traders.

It was the main reason the caravan came at all and often a great reprieve from everyday life since he’d let the townsfolk get drunk at a hefty discount.

He was nice enough for an old coot, and more often than not, he could be seen sitting in front of his home with his dog Trixie, waiting for the traders to show up.

Old Trixie was sweet and would wonder over and nuzzle up to passersby in search of extra affection and maybe a bit of food. She usually rushed the hill when anyone got close, but when you rounded towards the shack, she wasn’t anywhere in sight.

You crested over the hill and looked down at the lonely little shack at the bottom. There were vehicles all around the house, alongside the trader’s trucks, but you didn’t see any people. You used your hand as a visor to shield your vision from the bright sun overhead to get a better look at the scene before you.

A mound of fluff lay motionless next to the door. Trixie’s telltale brown and white spots were stained in a deep, terrifying red splattered along her small body.

More bodies, larger and human, came into view, all of which lay slain by the side of the caravan. You stopped walking, shaking in your boots at the prospect of getting caught by whatever had caused this entire scene. You nearly pissed your pants off when the mirador walked out of the shack with a jug of hooch in each hand. He wore a torn armored vest doused in a fair amount of blood that most likely wasn’t his.

He turns back towards the house as if to talk to someone behind him, and you take this chance to turn tail and run back the way you came. The fabric was let loose from where you’d clutched it under your arm, kicked away by the dusty wind in exchange for your meager life. The desecration, the sacrifice, the loss—none of it was worth anything now, and all was forgotten in the wake of a possible bullet to the teeth.

The only sound you could hear was the crunch of dirt under your boots as the blood rushed to your ears. You sprint off as fast as you can, propelling yourself down the hill almost faster than your legs can keep up with.

You barely caught the sound of someone shouting after you with a jovial “Woah, where’s the fire?”

All were silenced after a loud bang of gunshots went off not far behind you. Everyone scattered like ants as more shots rang through the air.

You make the mistake of turning back to look at the whirring of a spiked vehicle as it rounds over the hill. You tried to run as fast and as far as your feet could carry you until you could find ample cover from the impending doom.

The flicker of the blue plastic tarp as it got caught up in the breeze stole your sight as you switched your direction towards possible safety. Your boots nearly slid out from under you as you dove towards the tarp. It proved to be a small, unused alcove between two shanty houses, with the plastic cover leftover from a collapsed partial roof.

You kick yourself underneath it and fling the tarp back over your body. You had to squeeze in among the long-forgotten junk as you tried to steady your heart.

You watched as the shadows flickered from the outside of your small cover; many were from those running away just as you had, but others were larger with more sharp edges. Your stomach ached as the shrill and broken voices of your neighbors disappeared into the distance, but it would be the first crack of gunfire that made your guts drop entirely. The cries of the fallen were quickly devoured by the roar of scrap metal against the rough terrain vehicles that rolled by.

You held your breath to keep from hyperventilating, digging your teeth into your bottom lip as tears dribbled tracks down your dirtied cheeks.

You hear heavier, slower footsteps that clinked as they hit the dirt. The sound of it was horribly clear as they got closer and closer to you, hidden only by a tattered blue tarp. When the cracked leather of the side of a boot came into view, you had to choke down every ounce of fear that wanted to burst forth, practically forcing it back down into your lungs as it twisted your face in horror.

You wait just as they wait. The boots don’t move for however long it takes to make your heart nearly beat out of your chest. Then they started to turn towards you.

The next sound is deafening as bits of rusted metal go flying as the blue sheet is ripped right off of it. Old car parts clunk and scrape together, and you have to cover your head with your hands as the small avalanche of junk falls over you.

As the hot sun hit your body once again, there was no use in staying quiet, and a scream finally forced its way out of your body.

To your dismay, you weren’t shot; you were only dragged out by the roots of your hair as the raider dug his fingers into your scalp. You're barely kicking as your legs fight, only to wiggle out from under the junk pile.

He pulls you out onto the road before giving you a kick and a quick order of “get up, off the fuckin ground.”

You scramble up, hands over your head, his rusted gun pointed to your face. He barked out “walk” through his broken teeth, pointing ahead of you with his weapon before kicking the back of your knee when you didn’t already turn and start moving. Your leg buckled but kept you upright as you limped ahead of him towards the chaos they had created.

Shanty houses were lit on fire after being looted and knocked over. A few children were being pulled away from the corpses of their parents left laying in the street; some were caught in the crossfire and laid not far from their fallen family.

“There’s almost nothing here aside from the hooch and the cargo from the caravan!” One man shouted out to the one following not far behind you, his gun still pointed to your back.

“Grab some survivors and load'em into one of the empty wagons. We can sell them off at the trade center for good money.” The voice behind you called back. “If they try to fight you, just shoot’um.”

When your knees shook, it slowed your pace, and you heard him yell at you, “Move, damn it.” And you picked your feet up as quickly as you could towards the caravan.

True to their word, anyone who fought back was shot immediately. They would say that they could still get plenty of money for a few of you, so losing 1, 2, or maybe 5 wouldn’t be an issue.

When everyone was loaded into the wagon, it pulled off with a kick of dust. You watched your old town smolder and smoke in the distance until it disappeared into the wasteland. You’d never see the shanty town again, not that there would ever be anything left to look for.

Chapter 2

Tags : @annwoods91 @jasminrt1

[writingonesdreams]

Novel Prep Tag Game

Original tag game by @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz. The questions are great, so I wanted to participate - it made me look at my WIP from a new angle, so thanks! 

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! Even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

A wolf that can take on a human form befriends a human boxer Rhys and accompanies him on his journey across the desolated wastelands between the big cities to find his little brother Oliver. On the way they meet the thoughtful scribe Anise and are followed by the dedicated hunter Cole. 

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

A novel for now. 

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

Desolated wastelands, big cities scattered across the continent, dried up earth, sand and dust, wind, cloudy and misty weather, dust and smoke covering the atmosphere, wolfs, ruins of smaller cities and villages

4. What other stories inspire your novel?  

Mostly anime series like Wolf’s rain, Megalo Box, Banana Fish, books like Darker shade of Magic, Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, White Fang by Jack London 

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

6. Who is your protagonist?  

Vincent, the wolf, that was seperated from his pack and aimlessly traveled human cities. He takes on the human form to fit in with humans and to hide from hunters. 

7. Who is their closest ally?

Vincent meets and befriends Rhys, the reckless and driven boxing prodigy that needed help to cross the desert to reach his hometown to reunite with his younger brother Oliver, he didn’t see in 6 years. Vincent grows quite attached to him, starts to feel responsible and incredibly protective of him. Rhys has bit of intimacy issues, but learns to trust Vincent and regards him as sort of a brother. 

8. Who is their enemy?

Cole, the disciplined and dedicated hunter. He trained boxing and martial arts with Rhys and joined the hunter association to hunt and sell wolf’s skin. His father is the ruler of Holland, charged with Amsterdam - the most populated city of the West (since all people live in the few big cities left) Cole’s parents have made him see wolves as enemies for infiltrating human cities. Cole made it his goal to hunt them to meet his father’s vision of protecting people from the wolves. He is perfectionalist obsessed with improvement - he wants to create order in the chaos the world was left in after the catastrophe and is willing to do anything for it. His goal to hunt wolves is based on this desire to improve the world. 

9. What do they want more than anything?

Vincent wants to be loved and needed, a part of a family or pack so he could have somewhere to belong to.

Rhys wants to find his younger brother, but what he actually needs is to find peace of mind. He wants to prove himself and have someone to believe in him.

Anise wants to find meaning and purpose in the starving world around her where everything has to have a purpose and people try so hard to survive, yet forget to actually live. She wants to collect and organises books, since she values knowldge and firstly joins the duo to search for new books in the abondened cities. 

Cole wants to improve the world and create order and security.

10. Why can’t they have it?

Vincent can’t be with his original pack, because wolves are hunted by humans and it’s easier and safer to travel alone then in groups. 

Rhys feels worthless for only knowing how to fight and wants to reunite with his brother, because that was the last time he felt full and at peace. But since they parents divorced and he didn’t get along much with his father, he didn’t see either his mother or brother in last 6 years and spent them in fights a lot. Now he doesn’t know if he has any worth outside of fighting and that’s what makes him restless and self-destructive. 

Anise works as a scribe and teacher, because that’s the role people consider useful in this decayed world. She doesn’t believe all that much in her work, because she thinks people should be learning from books from Before the apocalypse and not just recording what happened After. 

Cole considers wolves to be the natural enemies to safety of  humans since the discovery of their ability to take on human forms. He doesn’t understand how they survived after majority of animals and natural life perished and fears they want to take over humans.  

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

Rhys believes he has to fight everything to prove his worth and that emotions and needing help are a sign of weakness.

Vincent believes he can’t have a family or bonds anymore because he is a wolf in a human world.

Anise believes her life doesn’t have meaning outside of collecting knowledge.

Cole believes he can improve the world by hunting down something he doesn’t understand. 

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

Vincent looks like a slim young boy with messy dark brown hair, pale skin and  icy blue eyes in his human form. In his original wolf from he is a white wolf with amber-yellow eyes.

Rhys is muscular and tall with dark olive skin, black curly hair and dark eyes. He is covered in scars, most notably on his arms and on his right cheek. 

Anise has long blond wavy hair, grey eyes and ivory skin. 

Cole is tall, but less muscular then Rhys. He has black hair falling in his green eyes and fair skin.

Plot Points

13. What is the internal conflict?

Rhys is so set on fighting and reaching his external goal - reuniting with his brother and protecting him - that he doesn’t realize he actually needs to accept himself and his faults and find internal peace in caring about people and living with them. He needs to realize he doesn’t have to prove anything, doesn’t have to be strong every minute to be useful and worthy of love and recognition. 

Vincent mostly only has a bit conflicted emotions regarding his storng protective feeling towards a human, when humans are the ones that drew his pack apart and hunted him for so long. Otherwise he just wants to belong somewhere and enjoys his new pack.

Anise wants to find meaning - she was afraid to want anything, always concerned only with activities that were neccessary for survival or for being useful in the dying society that has few resources. She values knowledge and wants to find and collect the books left abondened through out the country, so the cognition of the pre-apocaliptic world would be saved. Through knowing Rhys and Vincent she sees how someone can still have desires and enjoy simple pleasures like watching stars or dancing and finds her meaning in living, fullfilling her dreams in hunting for the lost books. 

Cole struggles to improve the world but isn’t going about it in the right way. 

14. What is the external conflict?

The journey to cross the wastelands is difficult and is very rare for someone to attempt to go on one. People are gathered only in their big cities, valuing their resouces while other cities and the country have been abondened. Smaller cities that still have inhabitants are rules by violent gangs, the routes are long and one needs a lot of supplies since there is nothing on the way to eat or drink, with unpredictible weather and frequent sand storms. 

Additionally Vincent is hunted by Cole and since Rhys defends him, he is in danger too. 

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

Rhys failing to find and care for his younger brother, which he would see as a sign he is worthless and deserves all the bad that happened to him. 

Vincent never having a pack again and no one he could be himself with. 

Anise staying static, living a planned out life in the city full of anxious people and doing something she doesn’t believe in. 

Cole feeling like he failed to contribute to helping the world get better. 

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?  

It's not that much of a secret as a bit of a plot twist that Oliver, the younger brother that the main characters looked for the whole time, actually didn't want to be found and wasn't very keen on seeing his older brother again, since he was very angry with him. But the issue gets solved, when the brothers reconcile at the end.

17. Do you know how it ends?  

Not exactly sure, just that Vincent, Rhys, Anise, Oliver and maybe Cole stay together, either make a living by continuing to travel and collecting lost objects or finding place to stay and build together.

18. What is the theme?  

What self-worth is based on for people - family, higher purpose, dreams, success, abilities.  Finding a meaning, fullfilling a purpose or recovering when one’s purpose or dream was lost. Having dreams and meaning when the world is falling apart starved and if every activity has to have a point and what does it mean.

19. What is a reoccurring symbol?  

Wolf, moon, wind, clouds, dust, whirlwind, books 

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)  

The story is set in post-apocalyptic future Europe, where earth has dried up and smoke and dust have cover the sun to the point that it’s hard for people to survive. So people migrated from all over the country into big cities, where they live very closely together. The land inbetween pretty much turned to uninhabitable wasteland, with many cities and villages left empty. 

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?  

Yes I have several scenes in my head, that I’m working on connecting into a logical plot. 

22. What excited you about this story?

The growing trust and protectiveness between Vincent and Rhys, the bonds Vincent forms with Anise and Oliver, how the enstraged brothers Rhys and Oliver reconcile again and Cole’s transition from an enemy to friend. I’m also exicited about Anise’s romance with Rhys, who at first challanges her views and believes. Also Cole serves as the main bad guy, but is actually an antagonist, who will redeem himself and befriend the other characters in the process. 

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

I always start with characters that I stick in different scenarios or in my favourite movies and series or books and let them interact. From those I mostly get inspiring scenes that I try to connect through a plot. Afterwards I work on characterisation, world-building, research details and outline stuff a bit. I also write little snippets that sometimes turn long and can be used as chapters. 

[mojaveimpulses-archived]

Fallout OC Questionnaire

Taken from: @codename-whisper

Some questions have been omitted for preference / personal reasons. Located under cut.

1. Which Fallout game are they from?       New Vegas // Originally from Four, changed due to preference and ease of access.

2. Which factions did they join and which did they destroy? Why?       If he had to pick, he would be independent. Definitely up for destroying the Legion, although despite his dislike and suspicion of the NCR he wouldn't act so readily to get rid of them. The Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood isn't prevelant enough for him to really care, though he is slightly intimidated by their armor and guns.

3. What is their S.P.E.C.I.A.L.?       Check here

4. Give us a summary of their backstory.       He was born in Freeside in 2264. His father, Michael, is retired from the NCR MP, and his mother, Heather, used to work in The Strip at Gamorrah. When he was six years old, Heather left Freeside and never returned. Archie never found out where she went to, though outside of his knowledge she had hitched a Caravan to the Commonwealth, and then eventually made her way to Maine. He spent most of his time outside of his house in Freeside with a boy named Castor and Castor's sister, Neta. When Archie was at home, he was the sole recipient of verbal, physical and mental abuse. When he turned fifteen, he fled Freeside. He's been wandering for two years, and has yet to settle into a new living situation. He takes whatever jobs he can find to make at least some Caps.

5. What’s their full name and does it have a meaning? Do they have any nicknames and how did they get em?       Archie: Diminutive of Archibald. This name is borne by Archie Andrews, an American comic-book character created in 1941.       Archibald: Derived from the Germanic elements ercan "genuine" and bald "bold". The first element was altered due to the influence of Greek names beginning with the element αρχος (archos) meaning "master". The Normans brought this name to England. It first became common in Scotland in the Middle Ages.       King: From a nickname which derives from the English word king, ultimately from Old English cyning.       Bancroft: From any of the various places of this name, derived from Old English bean meaning "bean" and croft meaning "small enclosed field".       He chose the name 'Archie' for himself while looking through Pre-War books, and no one after his escape from Freeside would or will know his birthname but himself. He doesn't really have any nicknames specific to him.

6. What’s their sexual, romantic, and gender orientation? Do they feel comfortable telling other people?       Note: I don't believe that romantic attraction is different from sexual attraction. Archie is a gay trans male, and uses he / him pronouns. The only thing that would bar him from 'passing' on the outside would be his voice, which definitely could be worked on. Other than that, it would actually surprie him if someone saw him as a girl.

7. Do they have any mental illnesses? How do they cope?       Bipolar Disorder Type II, Major Depressive Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder. He also suffers from constant nightmares. He's never really had any great coping mechanisms. Archie's constant manic episodes tended to lead him to do dangerous things and as a result sustain numerous injuries. Certain sounds are genuinely painful for him to listen to, such as the sound of chewing and even sometimes laughing. CPTSD has led to a mild fear of physical contact, sometimes turning severe depending on his current state. He just tries to get through each day and hope he doesn't tear someone's head off for something.

8. Do they have any medical conditions? Is medicine / treatment available for them?       He has pigeon-toe syndrome, which causes his kneecaps to be slightly misaligned. It isn't a big enough problem for him to be constantly bothered, but he has trouble standing and walking for long periods of time. It affects both of his knees, but primarily the left knee. There's not much he knows of that can fix that. He used to have glasses for his bad eyesight, but they were broken when he left Freeside. He can't wear any other pair that he's found so far without getting migraines. Suffers from an intolerance to eggs and dairy, although he doesn't encounter either of these often enough for it to be a problem. If he ingests too much of either, however, it causes his asthma to flare up.

9. How much do they care about their outer appearance? What’s their “beauty routine”? How often do they shower/ bathe?       He tries to keep his hair shorter than his ears, although that never really works out. That's probably the only thing he really cares about. Archie tries to clean himself as often as he can, although he tends to forget half the time.

10. What do they fear the most?       A lot, but mainly his dad. Especially being returned to his dad, because he has no idea what would happen after running off for two years.

11. Their biggest flaw? Do they recognize it as a flaw?       Archie's biggest flaw is his timidity and his naivety. He's scared of everything, and yet he puts too much trust into people he just met. He doesn't realize this, however. He's also too stubborn for his own good.

12. What is their biggest insecurity?       Not being able to tell people 'no', and being somewhat of a doormat.

13. What Wasteland threat do they fear the most?       Check here

14. What’s their zodiac sign or which one do you think they relate to the most? What are their placements?       Aries sun, Capricorn moon.

15. What’s their Myers–Briggs Type?       INFP.

16. What Harry Potter house would they be in?       Check here

17. Which Pokemon GO team would they choose?       Check here

18. Out of the nine forms of intelligence (rhythmic, spatial, linguistic, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential) which one(s) are they really good at and which one(s) is(are) their weakest?       His strongest intelligences are musical / rhythmic and naturalist, while his weakest are interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic and mathematical.

19. What natural alignment are they?       Archie has been described as both Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Good, so either one works.

20. Do they have a favorite holiday? How do they celebrate it?       There aren’t many holidays in the Wasteland, but he’d probably enjoy Christmas and any big candy-related holidays [ Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Easter ] if they were still around.

21. What’s their favorite season?       Despite the heat, he really likes spring and summer. It’s a lot sunnier and he prefers the sun to clouds.

22. Do they have a temper or are they level-headed?       Check here.

23. Do they express their emotions freely or hide their true feelings?       He tends to spill his emotions pretty freely without realizing it.

24. Are they a leader or a follower?       Follower

26. Do they prefer to travel alone or with company? Who have they traveled with if any? Current companion if any?       Lore-wise, he doesn't travel with anyone. In-game, however, his current companions are Vulpes, Veronica and Boone. Planned companion setup is Arcade, Boone and Benny.

27. Do they prefer to solve things diplomatically or using violence?       He tries to solve things peacefully, unless he knows he'll have to end up fighting sooner or later.

28. What is their combat style? What range do they prefer? Do they sneak?       Melee, close-combat. He's horrible at sneaking, and prefers to just dart behind things and hope no one saw him.

29. What weapon do they always carry with them?       A machete, a straight razor and a shovel.

30. How’s their aim? Do their hands shake while pointing a gun?       He couldn't shoot a can a foot in front of him to save his life.

31. What are their thoughts on having to kill on a daily bases in order to survive? Does it take a toll on them? Or do they shake it off rather easily?       He knows it has to happen sometimes, but he tries to get by as much as he can without having to kill things. Depending on the type of person he's killed however, it might make him more than a little uncomfortable.

32. Thoughts on death if any?       Absolutely terrified of it.

33. Do they move around a lot or prefer to have a place to call home?       He wishes he could find somewhere to settle, but for now he moves whenever he feels he needs to.

34. Their opinions on ghouls, feral and not feral?       Archie thinks non-feral ghouls are cool, although he's a little unsure around them sometimes. Ferals, however, scare the fuck out of him.

35. Do they scavenge for their supplies or simply buy them?       He either scavenges or steals.

36. Are they the type to get distracted and go off to an unknown nearby location or do they stay on track?       He gets distracted way to easily for his own good.

37. How do they sleep? Are they picky about where and how or can they sleep basically anywhere?       Check here.

38. What’s their favorite radio station and song?       Radio New Vegas and Blue Moon by Frank Sinatra. Songs that he enjoys that aren't present in the canon game files are also Five Card Stud by Lorne Greene, No Tears Milday and Running Gun by Marty Robbins, Rockin' Robin by Bobby Day and Come on Let's Go by Ritchie Valens.

39. What’s their favorite post-apocalyptic food? Are they a picky eater? Do they know how to cook?       He's an incredibly picky eater. Archie does like Brahmin steaks, however. He doesn't know how to cool incredibly well, but he can at least tell when something's raw versus cooked fully.

40. What’s their favorite beverage? Do they drink alcohol?       Just purified water. Nuka Cola feels like sludge in his throat and it makes him want to vomit. He tried alcohol once but regretted it; said it felt like his chest had been set on fire.

41. Do they have any tag skills?       Melee, Speech and Survival.

42. Are they good at disarming traps or do they constantly miss them?       It's a miracle he hasn't taken off a leg or an arm yet.

[sending-the-message]

My friend has been living in an alternate reality - (Part 2) by Mr_Outlaw_

So, it’s currently morning. I didn’t expect to get much sleep last night and I didn’t. We just picked up some breakfast. Clint’s been eating like an animal. Guess I can’t blame him, though. But I don’t want to get off topic. He followed up by describing a rough layout of the world beyond that island:

By his account, oceans made up 85% of the surface. There were only two continents. Well, there used to be three, but one was essentially annihilated and made unlivable by a previous world war. There were also islands scattered throughout, ones like Dusk Blue. The two remaining continents were known as “Neo-Civitus” and “Heaven's curse.” I’ll discuss the latter first. Clint estimated that he’d spent around two months there - but that’s another story. To put it simply, it resembled an apocalyptic shitshow, with the vast majority of it being a desert wasteland. “If you thought Dusk Blue sounded bad, this shit was something else entirely.” Clint explained. Apparently the life expectancy for children born there was around 6 human years. The places where people lived ranged from lawless zones controlled by warlords to totalitarian fortresses and everything in between. It had a total population of 17 billion living in an area about twice the size of Russia. And those were only what we would consider to be humans. The place was also filled with some of the most incomprehensibly horrific things he’d seen. Any place that wasn’t occupied by a majority of humans was simply referred to as “Oblivion”. If you went out into those places alone, you may last 5 minutes at most.

Now, the creatures that dwelled within oblivion were a bit tough to explain. Clint’s experiences with them were limited. However, he’d heard that people had stopped trying to label them all. There were simply too many. He told me about some of the more infamous ones:

Harbingers

These were giant winged monstrosities with sharp spikes protruding out of every inch of its body. You could barely see their skin, and even the heads was mostly covered. These things were massive, about the size of a large shuttle bus. It was rumor that the spikes coming out of their skin put them in constant agonizing pain. Because of this, they were in a constant state of rage, slaughtering anything that moved. They were called Harbingers because whenever one arrived, many others were soon to follow. That meant unavoidable mass-scale death and destruction. These things weren’t easy to kill, and people had to prepare.

Butcher knights

Nobody really knows what these are. A theory floating around was that they were members of an ancient order of knights that had been condemned by some otherworldly being. They were now forced to roam Heaven’s curse for eternity, searching for human flesh to eat. Yes, they ate people. In appearance, they were ten-foot tall humanoids covered head to toe in crude black armor, resembling that of a traditional knight. Upon close inspection, it almost seemed as if the armor was welded to their skin, which appeared to be rotting. They’d attack human outposts with extremely large, rusted pikes and axes. If the initial blow didn’t kill you, the ensuing infection sure would. Fighting them one-on-one wasn’t an option, as they could easily overpower multiple humans at once. Steam cannons had to be used to take them out.

Weeping infernos

These were also humanoid in nature, except for the fact that they were always covered in fire. They rode on top of unidentifiable creatures. They almost looked like horses, expect for the fact that they had six legs and ran at ludicrious speeds. It's unclear if the riders are physically attached to the creatures, as they seem to have their own legs, but have never been seen to dismount. The way that they kill is actually not what you'd think. While the constant stream of flames that burst out of their bodies was certainly a cause for concern, a bigger problem was their persistent, ungodly shrieks. If you got too close to them, your brain would eventually explode. That's where they got their names from.

The Hunter

This was a rare one. People were unsure if there was only one of these... or if there were more. This stems from the fact that it only ever appeared by itself. But that didn't mean it was easy to deal with. Supposedly, this thing was seemingly indestructible - until proven otherwise, that is. But so far, nobody's made a dent in it. However, it was only really pursuing one thing - the strongest entity in the surrounding area. Somehow, it could sense them. That meant the more settlements would try and protect their most capable fighters, the more people would die when the Hunter tried to get to them. Eventually, communities would just give them up and hand them over whenever it came around. They'd fight each other and the Hunter would always win. Most reports of its appearance may have been falsified, since so little people have actually seen it. However, the most agreed upon one was a being more than triple the size of a butcher knight. It had no legs, but about twelve arms that it used to attack and move. Its hands were large, covered in a caustic liquid and could grab a human, simultaneously crushing and dissolving them in seconds. It also apparently had no face, just a large mouth filled with sharp black teeth on its torso.

Ultimately, these only scratched the surface. Heaven's curse was like the ocean, mostly unexplored and the vast majority of creatures still undiscovered. This was probably good. However, these weren't the only things that the inhabitants had to worry about. There was also a perplexing phenomenon that seemed to plague everybody who lived there. Nobody could explain it away, nobody could identify the source, and nobody even knew what to call it. They just accepted it.

A good parallel for this in our reality would be the "Glitches in the matrix" some people experience. On Heaven's curse, you could be simply walking around before getting disoriented for a second. When you'd come to your senses, you'd find yourself standing outside the civilization you were just in. Out in Oblivion. People also claimed to see things that weren't there, hear things that didn't have a source, and be having conversations before realizing that there was nobody in front of them. One of the most extreme cases were times where everybody around you would stop in place, have all their heads twist to look directly at you, and then their lips would stretch ear-to-ear in the most horrific grin you'd ever seen. After a couple of seconds, everything would go back to normal. Nobody would say that they'd ever even remember doing so. This happened to Clint once.

You may be wondering how there could still be a constant population of 17 billion, considering all of this. Well, there was one thing that people living there didn't have to worry about. That was sustenance. Now, Clint admitted that the food they had to eat wasn't very good, but it WAS abundant. The bark on trees were nutritionally dense, rain came regularly and didn't have to be boiled to drink, and various - albeit strange looking root vegetables could be grown almost everywhere, with shortages being unheard of. Additionally, these medium size insects called "Salvators" were rampant all around. But they were never a nuisance, never seemed to spread disease, and if cooked, could be used as a great source of protein.

That's why there were so many people. Children were being bred at a torrid rate. Emotional connection to your offspring wasn't really a thing, and the ones that survived attacks by the Oblivion creatures could be trained to deal with subsequent assaults. Since food wasn't an issue, the more there were, the better chances a settlement would live on. However, the population always seemed to even itself out.

The climate was also favorable. While the north and south ends of the continent had extreme temperatures, nobody really lived there. In fact, nobody knows what lives there. The rest of it could probably be compared to Australia - pretty hot, but still livable. There were no seasons, and the sky was perpetually covered in what looked like an orange haze, so sunburn wasn't an issue.

With that said, everybody still wanted to get the hell out of there. The quality of life was still absolute shit. They all wanted to reach Neo-Civitus, which they nicknamed "Heaven's Promise". And that was pretty much impossible, given the fact that they were separated by as much ocean as the geography would allow.

Now, Clint had never actually been inside Neo-Civitus. He’d only heard about it and read descriptions. Supposedly, it was only a tenth the size of Heaven’s curse, and it was named after the only city on the entire continent. Clint said that a physical description of the place would be akin to Manhattan on steroids. A mega-city that was host to a population of 275 million. It was a continuous stretch of brilliant buildings and skyscrapers that lit up the night. It was also a functioning society. People had jobs, could start families, and could engage in recreational activities. Nobody had to worry about anything beyond shit like taxes and public opinion. "It sounded like the rat race all over again" Clint exclaimed.

While the area outside the city limits was still somewhat hostile, it was nowhere near the extent of Heaven's curse, or anywhere else for that matter. Besides, there was a monumental metal-based wall about 400 meters tall surrounding the entire place. There were also heavily armed military personnel called "Apex Officers" guarding it. In fact, a lot of it was comprised of the enhanced soldiers guarding Paradise X. These two places actually had an agreement where a portion of the X-Soldiers would be flown from Dusk Blue to Neo-Civitus in exchange for firearms. And yes, they were the only ones who had access to air-travel. They were also widely believed to be the sole producers of guns and ammunition. Resources were scarce in this world, and most of them were on Neo-Civitus. The few other resource rich islands around the world were essentially picked dry by recon teams sent by the government. This was that world's only superpower. They called all the shots and went unopposed in doing so.

However, there was one thing that they did have to worry about. You see, there was one thing that Neo-Civitus had in common with everywhere else - the sky. It was always cloudy. Nobody could come up with a tangible explanation of why. It was always just like that. "Well, that's just what those people think." Clint remarked quickly. Strangely, he didn't elaborate on that. That's when I really noticed how weird he'd been acting the whole time he'd been telling me this. There was an increasing urgency in his tone. Anyhow, he went on. Apparently there was a legend of sorts that had permeated every community all around that world. When the day comes where the clouds finally part, true Armageddon will soon come to fruition. And nobody could stop it.

I'd been so caught up in this that I'd forgotten I actually had work that day. My boss had texted me in the morning, telling me I had to come in later, just for a few hours. I was already late.

"Shit." I told Clint. "Look, I gotta run to work quickly. Uh... just stay here, alright? Don't go anywhere. I'll bring back some pizza or something."

He responded almost instantly. "Yeah, do what you gotta do. I'll be here." He said this in the same urgent tone he'd been using before. However, I didn't think anything of it.

I'm currently at work now, but I can't focus on anything. There were still too many things that Clint had left unexplained. I need to figure it out. I need to know.

EDIT:

I just came back and he's gone. I was somewhat afraid of this. It seems that he took a bunch of perishable rations, a few sets of my clothes, a laptop, and some cash. However, I did find something on the kitchen counter. It was an old, crusty journal covered in dirt and blood stains. There was also a sticky note attached to it. This is what it read:

"I'm sorry James. You've always been of the few people that I could actually bear talking to. Maybe you'll understand eventually. This journal should answer some of the questions that you still have. In the meantime, there's something that I need to do. Bye for now - Clint. PS: I'll pay you back sometime. You know I will. :)"

I smiled at that. It was true. He'd always kept his word. Deep down, I knew that he wasn't going to stay here forever. He just wasn't that kind of guy. Whatever he's doing... I hope he succeeds. In the meantime, it looks like I'm going to have some reading to do. Let's see what this is really all about.

[4colorrebellion]

4cr Plays - Banner Saga 3 (Switch)

The Banner Saga - a strategy RPG inspired by Scandinavian mythology - was one of the first huge Kickstarter hits. Unlike some of the other crowdfunding successes, Banner Saga delivered on its promises and went on to become a cult classic. Now, two years after Banner Saga 2, the final chapter of the trilogy has hit download stores on all of the major consoles. 

I’ve been intrigued by the series since it launched. The artwork is beautiful, and I love strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem. Still, for whatever reason, I never got around to trying the series. When offered a chance to play the third installment, I figured - why not? 

Here’s what I thought about it.

Right off the bat, I suspected that I shouldn’t have picked the third game in a trilogy as a starting place. The story picks up immediately where Banner Saga 2 ended, with the cast split in two. The basic motivating factor of the series is that world is being consumed by darkness, the sun is frozen, and the cold and monsters are threatening to wipe out all of civilization. When Banner Saga 3 starts, galf of the cast are encamped in the last human stronghold - Arberrang. Their task is to unite a whole host of warring factions in order to maintain some vague semblance of society. The other half of the cast have headed north, into the darkness, on a desperate mission to fix this entire mess. 

There is a recap video intended to get you up to speed on the highlights, but it doesn’t really explain who any of the characters are. Still, it did get the central themes across, and the genuinely good writing pulled me the rest of the way in. The central storyline is bleak, but fairly compelling, and there are some fairly memorable characters. The story calls on you to make frequent choices, and a few of those actually require some thought - as they feel like the tipping points where you could maintain or lose party unity. If you’ve played the previous games, you can import your save file to bring into account the past decisions you made. 

Of course, there is a game that takes place between these dialogue scenes. Banner Saga 3 is a strategy RPG, reminiscent of games like X-Com or Fire Emblem. The action takes place on a grid, where you take turns moving characters around the battlefield. Each character has a movement range that determines how many spaces they can travel in a turn. When within range of an enemy, you can choose to attack - ending your turn afterwards. Some characters can attack at range, while others must be in an adjacent square. 

One twist over many strategy games is that enemies have both a “strength” value - which represents both the damage they do and their health - an an “armor” value - which determines how much harm they can avoid or absorb on a hit. When you attack, you can choose to target their strength or their armor. You need to lower their strength to kill them, but if their armor is high, they will be able to simply ignore most of your attacks. It is tempting to aim for strength directly, but it is rarely the right move. It’s often far more important to chip away at the armor. 

You character also has a limited amount of willpower that replenishes over time. Willpower can be spent for a variety of actions, including moving additional spaces. It can also be spent to increase the power of an attack.  In addition to strength, armor, and willpower, characters also have an exertion stat that determines how much willpower they can spend to boost actions and a break stat that dictates the amount of damage a character can do to a target’s armor.

Each character has a race and a class, which determines their basic stat distribution and grants a set of special abilities. These abilities can do things like hit enemies with arrows when they move within a targeted area or allow you to perform a sweeping attack that hits a circle of enemies around you. The three core races that form your party are humans, the Varl - a race of giants with great strength - and the Horseborn - centaurs who tend to have high movement range. 

In addition to regular battles, with a fixed set of enemies to defeat, there are also battles where waves of enemies attack. If you can withstand every wave and defeat the boss at the end, you can earn special items. 

The battle system in Banner Saga is fairly deep, with layers of strategy to figure out. Story confusion alone might be enough to warn new players away from starting with the third game. If it isn’t, the gameplay is. Banner Saga 3 has a simple tutorial to teach you combat, but it really is not enough. Many systems are not explained at all, and I had to piece together the rules from trial and error. I’m still not completely clear how every ability or character class works. I don’t know if the earlier games do more to explain what is going on, but I felt like I was thrown in the pool at the deep end without a lifejacket. 

This feeling extended outside of combat too. Between battles and dialogue events, your party is wandering across a barren wasteland. As it turns out, you need to gather supplies to feed your growing armies. This isn’t explained - they just assume you knew this already. I don’t mean to complain too much. I was able to figure pretty much everything out. Still, it is worth mentioning. This is not a game that is intended to bring in new players. If you’re curious, start with the first game instead.

The combat is reasonably satisfying, but eventually got a little stale as the game went on. There is not a huge variety of enemies, and most maps have the same basic layout. Eventually, every battle feels about the same. The game is tough, but this is mainly because a reasonable portion of the cast is too weak to do much. Instead, I felt like I relied on a small portion of the characters - mainly my Varl - to win battles. 

My dissatisfaction with the combat was unfortunate, since the writing and the visuals - my god, the visuals - are so good. This game is gorgeous. The textures and art are hand-drawn, and the general style of the game is incredible. Each character is distinct and memorable. The locations you wander through are bleak, but stunning. This game looks fantastic. As it is mostly two-dimensional, it also performs well on the Switch, with no real technical issues observed during my time with the game. 

Ultimately, Banner Saga 3 was a gorgeous, well-written game that I didn’t love actually playing. The combat isn’t bad, but it didn’t suck me in enough to go back and replay the first two games immediately. It also is not a game that is particularly welcoming to new players. If you’re curious, I’d recommend going back and trying the first game instead - see if this viking-inspired apocalyptic saga grabs you. At some point, I might have to go back and give it another try from the beginning.

A copy of the game was provided by the developer, Stoic, for this review.

Official Website

Nintendo eShop

[archworks-gaming]

So, I’ve been playing Fallout 4 again recently.

Because whilst the story is kind of ham-fisted and unimaginative the raw appeal of being a lone-wandering scrap hunter/robot maker is too strong for my frail human brain to ignore.

So from that you can likely gather I don’t really enjoy the story. To be more concise I don’t enjoy the main story.

Y’see, I’m the kind of gamer that will ignore the story at all costs. Not on a first playthrough mind, but for all subsequent playthroughs? That story might as well not even exist to me. Specifically with western-style, open-world RPGs.

It’s the same reason I recently got my hands on the remastered Skyrim, but you won’t see many story trophies/achievements appear under that title for me, because I haven’t done anything story-related. I’ve played the story already, it was... OK at best. Now I want to build a character and have their journey.

To get back onto Fallout 4, something that really stood out to me during a recent session was when I went to Diamond City to do an intro quest for Piper.

I forget the name of the quest, but it requires your character to be interviewed for the Publick Occurrences newspaper.

And for the most part the game will allow you to make up stuff during this interview. And generally just let you get away with whatever you want to say. (Well, out of the four options it gives you per question anyway)

But then you get to one of the final questions. Which is in regards to why you’re travelling across the Commonwealth, why you’ve wound up in Diamond City. 

And the game gives you options for this, but only one of them actually does anything.

And that’s super disappointing. This isn’t a story critical conversation. I’m not going to lose anything by choosing the wrong answer. No matter what I say, Piper will publish it and then become a companion.

But for some reason at this point in the sidequest, Bethesda thought it would be best to force the player to pretend they give a shit about Baby Shaun.

I don’t feel like I’m alone when I say I couldn’t care less about Shaun in Fallout 4. And in fact the majority of the problems I have with Fallout 4′s story are directly related to Shaun.

“Oh but you have to feel attached to him because... He’s your baby, I guess?”

No. No I don’t. Because he’s not my baby, he’s a baby. Even without the gamer/game disconnect or the 1′s and 0′s argument, by this point in the game I had spent a grand total of about 30 seconds with him before he was taken.

We had one interaction with baby Shaun in the opening part of the game where we tickle him a little bit and that’s it.

That’s our full backstory with Baby Shaun. As a player I couldn’t be less engaged with this “character”. I’d spent more time telling the Vault Tech sales rep to piss off than I had actually interacting with what is supposed to be my son in Fallout 4.

I’ve grown attached to settlers more than I have with Shaun.

But for some reason, whenever my character is showing any kind of empathy towards another survivor in the Commonwealth the first words they’ll usually utter are:

“I know what it’s like to lose a child...”

Hey asshole, we’re in a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland! There are literal fucking monsters outside that like to eat us and use our bones for decorations! Safe to say pretty much everyone knows what it’s like to lose someone!

And the thing is, for the most part your character will always go straight to “MY BABY WAS KIDNAPPED!” and never the more understandable: 

“MY HUSBAND/WIFE WAS SHOT IN THE FACE WHILE I WAS TRAPPED IN A METAL BOX MERE FEET AWAY WHERE I COULD SEE EVERYTHING! ALSO HELLO! I WAS ALIVE BEFORE THE WAR, EVERYONE I EVER KNEW OR LOVED IS MOST LIKELY DEAD!”

It’s amazing to me how little of a deal it is that you are a pre-war survivor in this game. The only time to my memory where the character openly states that they gave any kind of a shit about the pre-war world is in the epilogue.

Hell, most of the characters you talk to about this to either understandably don’t believe you, Believe you outright with no proof and honestly don’t react to it all that much or they knew you already.

And I feel that’s one of Bethesda’s greatest missteps in creating the story for Fallout 4.  We as the player have no reason to care about anything prior to what is happening right now in the wasteland. But are expected to regardless.

Even the player character doesn’t care enough about the world they were forced to leave behind because we and by extension they spent almost the entirety of it standing in front of a fucking mirror!

I personally pre-made my character’s appearance to look like they already lived in the wasteland, scars, bruises, that kind of stuff. And then they have to dawdle around in the pre-war section looking like their spouse says “I love you” with a hunting knife?!

This is the first time in a Fallout game where we’ve had even a glimpse of the pre-war world, let us have some fun with it! Let us have a reason to give a shit about it and not frantically mash buttons and jump hedges to get out of it.

If we’d gotten some sense of what the world, pre-war was like. If we’d been introduced to baby Shaun and given some actual time to interact with him, maybe even see him grow up a little bit because the next time you actually see “Shaun” he’s like 9-10 years old.

That section when you first enter the institute and are confronted by a Synth of Kid Shaun, that would have had so much more impact if that was what Shaun looked like when he was taken.

instead you’re yet again, FORCED to have your character lose all semblance of sense at the mere sight of a robotic ten year old. There’s no option for disbelief when you find Synth Shaun in the institute, despite the fact that your character is knowingly infiltrating the place where fucking synths come from!

Beyond that, Father’s devotion to the Institute would be so much more meaningful if he was old enough to take it all in when he was taken, instead of being basically tailored from birth to accept it.

It would make sense for an adult Shaun to release you from your cryo-pod at the start of the game if he was old enough to even remember you when he was taken, instead of this whole “Oh, I let my parent out on a whim, just to see how far they’d get” bullshit the game actually gives us!

And then there’s the games core “twist”...

“Oh no! my 1 year old son was taken whilst I was frozen, I should go looking for him with the expectation that despite being re-frozen after he was taken that he will still be a 1 year old baby!”

“Oh no! I have found my son and now he’s older than me and somehow dying of cancer in a future underground science utopia where they literally build human beings from scratch!”

... I’m not the only one who’d guessed that Shaun was going to be either long dead or an old man at the very beginning of the game, was I? It was just that blatantly obvious, wasn’t it?

I feel I would have been more satisfied if when you wake up in the pod after Shaun’s been taken, that Father had come to personally wake you up.

With cancer threatening his life they’d need a genetic back-up for the synth experiments and you’re the closest match. So out a sense of familial-fueled curiosity he accompanies the recovery team, but you manage to fight back and escape and you build up kind of an antagonist viewpoint of “Father” up until the moment you meet him in the institute, where he reveals he’s Shaun. Boom! Story twist.

It’s probably just as easy to see coming, but hell if it isn’t more engaging.

Maybe the reason Father has cancer in the first place could be because he tried to get out of the institute at a younger age and he got irradiated trying to find you? Then when he’s leader of the whole place he finally has the clout to force people to take him to you.

And with that kind of approach, when you possibly decide to take down the Institute his sense of betrayal towards you will feel a fuckload less hollow!

“Oh mother! I can’t believe you’re against the institute, especially since all they did was murder your husband, my father and kidnap me, putting you through almost literal hell trying to find me, only to find that they’ve robbed us of any meaningful time we were ever going to spend together, just so they can built robots that can more effectively kidnap and replace other people’s family... I thought more of you!”

And it’s fucking bullshit! You can’t even convince him that he’s wrong!? What kind of shit is this? I get that not everyone who’s committed horrible acts for “Good intentions” can accept that their actions were horrible. Some terrible people die safe in the personal knowledge that they’re probably not monsters.

But they are. And in the case of Shaun, this is a fucking videogame. A place where I as the gamer, the one in control, should have some sway in the matter.

Up until this point there has been an option to change everyone’s minds.

Fuck, I talked an armed chem dealer into not only leaving a place empty-handed but to also give me all his money before doing so. And he’s a chem dealer on the surface, he’s probably legitimately crazy.

So the apparent lack of any option to reason Shaun over to your way of thinking is baffling, since he’s so enamored with you that he actually names you his successor as leader of the institute (Which is another problem entirely).

If he values you and likely what you think so much why is there no option to persuade him to re-think his position? It’s mind-boggling!

To touch some more on the point I just made about how you can become the leader of the Institute, Why is there no active “good” option for this?

Why is it I can be named the Successor to the head-seat of the Institute but I’m not allowed to take this information to say... The Railroad and let them know that as soon the current leader is gone that I control the place where Synths come from.

Or take it to the Minutemen and tell them that in a little while Synth’s probably won’t be a problem and in fact might even serve as pretty good servicemen for the Minutemen (Especially the Gen 1 and 2′s).

Or I could go to the Brotherhood where I’d undoubtedly be shot on sight for saying I control the Institute.

Why can’t I choose to continue Synth production, but refuse to continue the abduction and replacement of humans on the surface?

Or why can’t I opt to halt Synth production to focus on things that can make surface life better? Like more effective water purification? Or something that can clean radiation from soil? Hell, even just make prosthetic limbs or organ replacements?

Admittedly, I’ve never seen fit to actually take the Institute option at the end. Even so, there’s a whole load of potential good that can be done with the place and for all my searching I can’t find a shred of evidence to suggest that any of it is actually possible... So far as I’ve seen the only difference you get in siding with them is that Synth’s take up control points on the surface and talk about how they control everything now.

In summary, the story is the weakest part of the whole Fallout 4 experience and it’s all Shaun’s fault.

[recentanimenews]

Craft & Wield Your Arsenal Against an AI Menace in DAEMON x MACHINA

There are only two things in this world that are completely and wholly synonymous with anime. The first is magical girls. The second is, of course, giant robots. In the decades since Mazinger Z exploded onto the scene in the early 1970s and established the mecha genre as we know it, countless anime fans in Japan and abroad have found themselves fascinated by these flying hunks of metal battling out among the stars. Many of anime’s most well-known and highly regarded properties are mecha, such as Patlabor, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenga Toppen Gurren Lagann, and the unforgettable Gundam franchise. Seriously, stop a random stranger on the street and show them a picture of your favorite Mobile Suit. After you correct them it’s not a Transformer, their next guess will probably be Gundam.

  This widespread fascination with mechas in media has also translated to the world of video games... somewhat. Plenty of games that let you pilot giant robots have risen over the years, though few have received widespread acclaim. The many Gundam and Super Robot Wars games have found their audiences mainly in fans of the shows they’re based on, while others carve out their own niches among mecha fans. Xenogears, Metal Wolf Chaos, and the Armored Core games may not rank among the most well-known franchises worldwide, but the fan bases they’ve found are nothing if not passionate about their mech games of choice. Armored Core in particular comes up more and more these days as a franchise that mech fans would like to see revitalized, especially given the FromSoftware pedigree behind it. Though it seems there’s no end in sight to the Armored Core drought just yet, a few series veterans have stepped in to fill the void with their new title DAEMON x MACHINA.

    DAEMON x MACHINA is a third-person action game developed by Marvelous for the Switch. This post-apocalyptic mech-piloting game takes place hundreds of years after the Moonfall―a cataclysmic event where pieces of the moon broke apart and fell to Earth. This unleashed a new form of energy across the Earth called Femto that corrupted AIs and turned them against humanity. Pushed to the brink of extinction, humanity now resides within a union of nation-conglomerates called the Oval Link. This Link is overseen by a group called Orbital tasked with contracting out various mercenary groups to forge the last line of defense against the AI threat.

  The stage that DAEMON X MACHINA sets for its story is a dire one indeed, though the game struggles with how much it tries to convey that. Players take on the role of “Rookie,” a custom-created character who sort of comes out of nowhere to join Orbital and wade into the world of mechs and mercenaries. After becoming accustomed to piloting the mechs (known as Arsenals) and passing the certification exam, you’re introduced to the Hanger, which is where you’ll spend all your time outside of missions. This enclosed area is your hub for viewing your Arsenal, purchasing upgrades, swapping out equipment, and accepting missions. The Hanger is populated with a handful of NPC mechanics with little to say, and outside of them the only other humans ever shown in the game are your fellow mercs. 

    There’s a civilization left to protect in DAEMON x MACHINA, but its complete absence from the game makes it easy to forget about. There are references to human refugee camps and settlements, but for whatever reason all your battles take place far, far away from them. The arenas you’ll be fighting in are total wastelands, complete with abandoned cars to throw and decaying buildings to topple on enemies. The saturation slider is turned up all the way as you battle under a blood red sky to industrial metal tunes as if to say “The world is already over, so just go hog wild in your giant robot.” DAEMON x MACHINA’s story is serviceable, and that’s all it really needed to be. I’m not saying that fans of mecha games don’t care about the stories at ALL, but let’s be honest, what the fans want most is to pilot giant robots and have fun doing it. 

  With that in mind, let me simplify things a bit. If you love to obsess over numbers, stats, and builds, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you. If you love convoluted control schemes that put you in situations where you’re holding virtually every button on the controller down at once, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you. If you love to feel like you’re actively fighting against the sheer weight of a zillion-ton metal behemoth while you’re playing video games, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you. If you like to build Gunplas and paint them purple and green like Unit 01, DAEMON x MACHINA is probably for you.

  Everything in DAEMON x MACHINA is designed around making you feel like an extremely cool person flying an extremely cool mech. The character customization options are rad, if a bit lacking in accessories compared to NPC pilots. The Arsenal customization goes far more in-depth, with loads and loads of swappable equipment to unlock and upgrade throughout the campaign. There are plenty of builds you can fashion for your mech depending on how you want to approach the mission. Whether you want to play go agile or tanky, melee or sniper, land or sky, the options are there for you. The customization goes even deeper as you can change your Arsenal’s paint job and cover it in unlockable emblems if you so desire. 

  In addition to affecting your own health and defense, the parts you outfit your Arsenal with have their own individual durability stats. If they take enough damage, these parts can break completely, leaving you more damage-prone and potentially missing an entire arm to attack with. Luckily, whenever an enemy Arsenal is downed in a mission it can be scavenged for parts. If you’re missing an arm or weapon, you can find a downed Arsenal and replace it with one of theirs. If all your gear is in good condition, scavenged parts are automatically sent to your Hanger for future use. While you can buy new equipment in the Hanger, scavenging off dead enemies was how I acquired nearly all of the equipment that I used throughout the game. 

    All these various stats and customization options were a little overwhelming for me, I’m not gonna lie. I found it hard to judge what builds to go for or what parts and weapons to bring to different missions because there was no real indicator what worked best against the enemies I would be facing. The most common enemy types all go down pretty quickly, but most of the game ends up being spent fighting other Arsenals. Without a database of them and their own builds its tough to get a sense of what works best against them without a bit of intense observation and a lot of trial and error. 

  This overwhelming feeling extended into the gameplay. Arsenals are big and complicated, and not only are you flying them all around everywhere, you’re doing it with a total of six different weapons attached. There are a total of sixteen buttons across both Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons, and most able-bodied people hold controllers with four fingers on a button at a time: both thumbs on the analog sticks and both index fingers on the triggers. At any given moment in DAEMON x MACHINA you’ll probably be holding down six buttons at once and still feel like you aren’t holding enough. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is all up to you. 

    While I did admittedly find it overwhelming (and frankly uncomfortable for my tiny hands) at times, I found it oddly appropriate. Have you ever looked at the cockpit inside of a plane? Imagine if that plane had two legs and arms and the dexterity to point accusingly at their archrival. It only ever became a hindrance when it came to the auxiliary weapons such as grenades. These weapons were mapped to the X button the Joy-Cons, so readying a grenade meant taking my thumb off the right analog stick to press the button. Problem is, that’s the stick that controls camera movement. Grenades were ultimately useless to me because there was no way to even aim them while inside the Arsenal. It seems like a major oversight, but fortunately controls are remappable and not every auxiliary weapon requires camera control anyway.

  While Arsenal control is awkward and clunky in an ultimately appropriate way, controlling the pilot outside of it feels plain bad. Your created characters in DAEMON x MACHINA aren’t solely there to look at in cutscenes, by the way. During missions you can bail out of your Arsenal and fight enemies on foot. However, I found there’s little―if any―reason to do so. The weapons at your disposal are much more limited and there’s no way to recover health if you’re hurt outside of your Arsenal. Also, the levels are clearly designed for Arsenals alone, so it’s easy to get caught on the collision of slight inclines that Arsenals just glide over. 

    You can eventually upgrade your pilot to a point where they can manually repair your Arsenal when outside of it, but the repair process is painfully slow and your Arsenal just takes more damage since it’s just a sitting duck out there. You can already find health canisters scattered throughout levels, so the only time being able to repair your Arsenal on foot would be when it’s destroyed and you’re automatically ejected from it. Unfortunately, the repair ability doesn’t work on Arsenals that have been destroyed. At that point your options are to either die or hope you’ve already taken enough health off any remaining enemies that you can just find a secure corner and cheese the rest of the fight out. Which, to be fair, that’s how I beat the final boss.

  The final boss, by the way, is terrible. It completely defies all strategies you’re taught to utilize up to that point throughout the game. Unlike every single other arena up to that point, there are no health or ammo pickups to be had. If your armor is destroyed, there are no enemies around to strip for parts. After trying it a few times I was so frustrated and in such disbelief over it that I turned to the internet for answers and found a good amount of others who had been stumped by it. I found out there’s a completely un-telegraphed gimmick to beating it that never actually worked whenever I attempted. I eventually managed to beat it and as a courtesy here’s my advice. Equip one of the katana weapons, upgrade chain attacks in the body mods, equip HIGH defense armor, and just go in over and over until it’s dead. If you can see ANYTHING other than the boss’s character model clipping through the camera then you’re doing something wrong. 

    Bee-lining through the story took in all about 16 hours, but there’s plenty left to do beyond that. As you progress through the story you’ll unlock side missions that can earn you parts and credits, and there are roughly as many side missions in DAEMON X MACHINA as there are story missions. If you’re tired of playing alone, there are also online modes available to players with a Nintendo Switch Online membership. You can play co-op missions with other players or face against them in 1v1 and 2v2 matches. My experience with the online modes is rather limited, but I found co-op missions went by extremely quickly given how many high-level players are there to farm for gear. I couldn’t find any 2v2 rooms open in the middle of the day on a weekend, but finding partners for 1v1 deathmatches was pretty easy. If showing off your cool mech design and challenging other players over who the better pilot is sound appealing to you, I’d definitely give these modes a shot. 

  The big question you’re probably still wondering though is, “If I like Armored Core will I like this?” As to that, well, I don’t know. I’ve never actually played a single Armored Core game before, and while DAEMON x MACHINA does seem similar to what I’ve seen of those games, for all I know the feel could be entirely different. I do know that there is some Armored Core pedigree behind it, though. Armored Core series producer Kenichiro Tsukuda acted as producer on DAEMON x MACHINA. Legendary mech designer Shoji Kawamori―who designed mechs for Armored Core, Macross, Patlabor, and many others―returned as well. The pedigree seemingly ends there, unfortunately. Marvelous developed and published this game, and a quick look into their previous output reveals few mechs and a lot of Senran Kagura.

    So while I can’t guarantee this is exactly what you want or are looking for, I can say that I had a real great time with it. There were things I found myself wanting from this game that it didn’t deliver. I wanted my character to be more like a character. I wanted to make decisions and bond with my fellow pilots. I wanted to join a group of mercs and fight it out among the rest for supremacy. The more I played and the more I wanted these things, I realized I was looking at DAEMON x MACHINA the wrong way. Those kinds of RPG elements might belong in game like, say, Battletech, but that’s not what DAEMON x MACHINA is about. Though limited in its scope, it dials in on what it believes matters most to mecha fans: having fun being a pilot. DAEMON x MACHINA bogs you down so many stats and parts and controls because it knows that’s what being a pilot means. And once you’ve finally crafted and mastered your own perfect mech, it sets you loose under its blood red skies and tells you to let ‘er rip.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Beautifully saturated wasteland environments 

+ Epic industrial metal soundtrack

+ Deeply customizable mechs

+ Controlling Arsenals feels clunky and convoluted in all the ways it should

+ Co-op and Vs. multiplayer options let you show off mechs and challenge fellow pilots

+/- Intriguing setting that the story does little to deliver on

- Control outside the Arsenal feels useless

- Abysmal final boss encounter

  Are you a fan of mecha games? Where does DAEMON x MACHINA rank among your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!

      -----

Danni Wilmoth is a Features writer for Crunchyroll and co-host of the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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