#yes it is a jacob/dev fic how did you know?

[vhanitas-monstr]

it’s been a bit since I’ve posted some Redfall content, so have some content :)

He observes them from a distance. Roosted atop a nearby building, he’s ever-cautious in his watch for danger; raven scouting the perimeter of the gas station they’re combing through, his sniper sits ready should anything hostile decide to make itself known. It’s a role he’s no stranger to, one he plays well, and he intends to keep it that way. …But today – besides vigilance – there’s another thing on his mind, and Jacob’s eyes fall yet again to what’s drawn his attention more times than he’d care to admit.

that's it, that's the content, the beginning blurb of a fic that's been a work in progress for uh... some time.

[funnyscienceman]

Ok but like WHYY did ubisoft have to insist with the one game a year thing. Why couldnt they let syndicate cook in the oven more. Why do they have THREE queer men in the same game and not do ANYTHING with them!!!

Like yes, yes, i get it, i get wanting to for once make a story in a fun setting where you dont have to think about real life prejudice and hardships and bigotry and just have characters be silly, i love that too. I do! And id be all for that if doing it just didnt waste a potentially banger study of the characters and the setting ;-;

Like god i go back and forth on this constantly. I already love syndicate as it is, i think it's fun and neat and the happy gaming vibes about it is core to its identity, it's just that simultaneous to that, three queer men in the same game!!!

like GOD im still miffed that there are only, like, two or three fics about this, and so far i havent found any discussion or anything of it, but oh my god how different all three of them are from each other. You could do so much just with having any of them in the same room — and they are often enough in the same room (jacob and either ned or roth at a time), but nothing's really done there!

we have roth who sees fcking nothing wrong with getting kids hurt, because he doesnt actually care about anyone or anything, he's just some fucking joker wannabe that yeah, sure, probably has some anger and resentment at society because he's a gay man in his 40s or 50s by now, but jesus fucking christ retaliation against homophobia does not equal rampant needless unproductive violence roth!!!

then we have ned, who — i mean he doesnt ever give his opinion on whether kids deserve any respect or anything but considering in every other department he's pretty much just Some Guy, it'd be fair to assume he also has the extremely average stance of 'dont fcking kill kids and dont blow up buildings for no good reason??' in the grand scheme of the templar-assassin stuff he has just about as much relevance as roth: roth was just the boss of the blighters, ned just finances the fryes by virtue of them working for him. He probably doesnt even know about it, and tbh i dont even know if he'd care??? But like i imagine roth doesnt care in the way of 'as long as you dont get in my way, it's all set dressing,' ned i imagine would be smth like 'are yall fckin serious? are you kidding me rn? i have to skirt around transphobes on a daily basis, now youre telling me there's a secret society on top of that with even worse ideas?? What the fuck???'

like uh, not caring about it as in 'I cant deal with this rn i need a nap'

HE'S JUST AN EXTREMELY REGULAR PERSON (besides the crime lord stuff) IS WHAT IM GETTING AT.

then there's jacob, who's the youngest out of these guys btw, fckin 21 good god he should be at the club not trying to disassemble systemic oppression— ANYWAY

(ned is 27-28 over the course of the game, btw; we dont actually have a solid timeline for anything, just the year, so tbh jacob could've also been 20 and not 21 yet during the game. both he and ned have late birthdays, just a month apart)

so, yknow, being extremely early 20-somethings, both frye twins just take a train to london completely on impulse and dive headfirst into undoing the templars that've had an iron grip over the city for basically as long as they've been alive, yknow, as you do; and throughout the game jacob has to deal with goddamn daddy issues and fighting with his sister and insecurity and trying to be an assassin — and that's a lot for a guy to handle!! Especially one who's still just a couple years out of being a teenager! That's a fucking lot and if the devs are right, then he hasnt even realized that he's bi yet! Not until roth fucking kisses him while jacob's got a knife in his throat for the aforementioned indiscriminate, unproductive violence!

i mean, granted, yeah there were gay undertones during sequence 8, but i have to admit my bias here because i honest to god cannot take those missions seriously. Roth fucking preaches this and that about freedom and whatnot and then im plopped into the mission and it's the most rule-heavy shit ive ever seen in my short life as an assassin's creed player. Like what the hell, those missions were atrocious. Apprently i need to detonate the bombs a specific way, i cant just shoot them from a distance, i have to hold a button crouching down right next to the bombs, and then run the hell away! I have to avoid THIS and THAT while kidnapping xyz! Like there's freddy's apprehend missions and then there's THIS.

at least with ned's missions all you have to do is get the shit and go… i'm still salty that ubisoft cut his questline because they fucking insist on releasing a game a year >:((

my battery's dying. All these guys are different flavors of queer on top of just being pretty different and pretty similar in various ways, and there's just… barely anything about it. Ned especially, since he's just a quest giver whose screentime totals to, like, 2-5 minutes. I just wish they really did more with the setting; not just the queerness and these three specifically, but like, evie, henry, the class conflict — like there are shreds of it, seeds, but there's not much before you kill starrick and credits roll :((

idk. im just gonna refresh ao3 again cjemddjekjx

[gretavanlace]

Ok, I’m gonna do it...

First and foremost - @gardenofgreta, my sweet Katie cat. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re a funny little thing, the weirdest in all the best ways, my squirrel...I love you more than all the salt in the sea.

@jake-kiszkas-smirk you’re one of my OG’s, and so much fun. Thank you for always feeding (and torturing me) with Jake content, for always checking in, and for just being you. I love you roller girl!

@shutupdevvie ahhh, my lobster! The sweetest of hearts. The queen of INCREDIBLE reviews. I swear, I write and live for your commentary. You’re so very kind, and your unhinged josh posts and thoughts are one of this fandoms greatest gifts. Also, thank you for always looking out for me. I’d have your back in a second, too. I stand by my previous declaration: DEV IS THE GOAT

@dvrkblooms Bobbie, I think you’re just about the sweetest thing in this whole world. I hope the kettle is still on, because one day we will have a cup of tea. You are so immensely talented and we are so blessed to be able to indulge in your work. I love prin and sir Jacob like the ocean loves the moon, and I thank you for them. I hope you know how wonderful you are

@asparrowofthedawn you’re a doll and your little is just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. You’re so warm and loving, open-hearted and funny. I’m happy to call you a friend. And yes, Oliver reed did fuck my mother

There are so many others! Every single one of you on my taglist, everyone who has commented, liked, or read my work...it means the world. When I posted my first fic, I was so nervous to do so, I never imagined the amount of love and support I would experience. The unbelievable outpouring of kindness and warmth. You are all amazing, and I hold so much love and affection in my heart for every single one of you

[firjii]

Okay I know it's an old game so I'll stfu about it after this, but even about a week after finishing it, honestly I'm?? so conflicted?? about Rise of the Tomb Raider in general.

Under a cut because I got random and rambly and a bit long and I know not everyone cares about this game/series.

Disclaimer: this was my first Tomb Raider game, I played it on easy, I didn’t do optional tombs, and I mostly played it for the story.

I still really don't know how to sum this game up. I wanted a shorter outing to make up for the enormously enjoyable but enormously long AC Odyssey that I finished a few weeks ago. I wasn't quite counting on such a steep learning curve for gameplay mechanics, but I also didn't expect to like the plot as much as I did.

The more I raged, the more intrigued I was to push on through for the story. The more I hated the survivalist aspects, the more I was motivated to finish up a mission with sheer luck in the hope of another character conversation. I can't say it's become a favorite game, but I also won't forget it. I didn't come away from this one impulsively wanting to play others in the series or even wanting to immediately replay this one, and yet despite a fairly conventional plot, it still hit me with the Ow My Feels(tm) factor.

I suspect that the jarring or weak points I found in it (gameplay and plot, respectively) were both due to the game being on the short side. Did it need to be a 50-hour game? Of course not, but the 20ish hours we got wasn't enough IMO. I've seen complaints about both characters and plot, but the writer in me says that almost all of the problems I found simply needed more time for explanation. I enjoyed what I saw - I just wished there was a lot more of it.

The environments are rad a.f. but it's not always that easy to stop and enjoy them because of combat, plot progression etc. The camera style adds to the suspenseful survivalist vibes but that's not a good thing if you're a nervous bean like me (also tbqf it set off my motion sickness more than a few times so the fact that I pushed through and finished shows just how curious I was about the characters/plot). 

Since most of the story is set in Siberia, a lot of the settings deal with crumbing old Soviet facilities. Some of these are super grim, but I'm impressed that they included them because that's part of modern(ish) history and I would've been upset if they'd tried to portray them as anything else.

Most of the documents and codices are well worth the effort to find because they add some welcome texture and scope (plus they got dramatized VA treatment and that just felt really special to me). A few also add pretty important details to the plot, so they tread a weird line between "technically totally optional but you'll probably enjoy some of the game infinitely more if you bother with finding the damn things." And again, the amount of times I had to leave them behind during practical game progression because "fricking frick I barely have ammo left because I'm a crap shot and I just need to finish this fucking mission alive" was frustrating.

For me, the gameplay pacing was a bit repetitive just because there weren't really any "lite combat" moments - yes, there were calmer parts mixed in with the panicky ones, but if you're shooting at people, you're shooting at a LOT of them. Add to that the timed events like making it to the end of an actively collapsing bridge and I - go ahead and laugh - was actually physically fatigued at times. 

I guessed a few big plot points long before they were revealed, but I didn't really mind, and maybe that was my writer tentacles feeling around and anticipating. The only real problem I saw was the sheer number of questions not only unanswered but unasked in the process. The writer in me wants to criticize it, but the gamer in me fully acknowledges that a) there are different kinds of games and stories in the world, and b) most games are ultimately rushed at some stage of production so tbh it's amazing that we EVER get coherent ones.

Some people have complained that the characters are underdeveloped. I do think that there was some missed potential, but that doesn't mean that what you DO see is a lack of development or bad writing (again, you can only do so much in a shortish game).

Sofia is among the rarest of breeds in media, a strong and self-sufficient woman who hasn’t paid for her competence through a huge onslaught of horrific trauma or by being cold. More depth would have been welcome, but to me, she felt like a complete thought as-is. Constantin starts out looking flat but develops into something reasonably intriguing by the end if you pay attention to the documents - but yet again, this was a case where he might have been far more in a longer game. Ditto his dynamic with Ana, who is ultimately driven by something easy to relate to but admittedly would need a lot more rounding out before I actually sympathized with her. 

And then there’s Jacob - FREAKING JACOB. I don’t know about the rest of y'all, but he very much falls into one of my favorite fic archetypes: people who never stopped trying their best but are so haunted by tough choices in their past that they’re terrified of allowing themselves a moment of happiness. Between the VA and the animations, I was - to put it quite simply - mesmerized. I can’t say I was surprised about what happens to him, but it still felt like some pretty cheap pantsing to me, like the devs had said “ok we made this neat char with possibly a lot of potential if we continue to treat him sensitively, but this has to be a self-contained story so uhhh lol bye.” Weirdly, the fact that it’s easy to predict what will happen to him wasn’t a total writeoff for me because the slow-building dread felt like a vague glimpse into Jacob’s mind.

And just ugh. Ugh. Everything that might have been, u feel?

[friedesgreatscythe]

If you're in the mood to answer asks; One, how do you think Jacob would react to a Dep who refuses to fight in his trials? Like, they just stay in the chair and keep "failing" on purpose again and again. Two, it's an option I'd have loved to have in the game, where it works like the secret ending in the beginning where if you do nothing for long enough it unlocks a different path. Three, it could be part of a Pacifist Run to the game that doesn't actually exist but a bunch of us wish was a thing

I wrote a commission fic about this for @deandomino, so if someone wants to see how I’d handle it from a slightly steamy/romantic standpoint, it’s right here.

In general though, I think he’d just be annoyed. The first few times I played those trials I fucked up (or I started running backwards), and he gets… delightfully annoyed with you. I dunno if annoyed is the right word, actually. He gets very strict and scold-y at your fuck ups because he expects more from you. It makes earning his praise all the more enjoyable, so I’m guessing the devs knew what they were doin’ with that one. So yeah, I think he’d just be irritated but have enough patience to sit there and wait until you obey.

Jacob’s focus on the Deputy hinges entirely around making them strong enough to kill Eli and (this is a theory) himself. If the Deputy refuses to participate in the trials, failing them again and again, they’re not only making Jacob’s work against Eli more difficult, they’re also wasting an opportunity that Jacob seized on. I can see that being massively frustrating for him, especially since it challenges his whole “tool for a purpose” mentality that he has about himself and is projecting onto the Deputy.

He tells the Deputy that if he had any say in it, he would have killed the Deputy a while ago, but Joseph has other ideas. So this indicates to me that Jacob and Joseph perhaps worked together to come up with the idea to make the Deputy be the “snake in the garden” for the Whitetails.* With this idea, Jacob now had to look at the Deputy in a new light–as an opportunity to accomplish his goals. Much like how John has to get the Deputy to Atone for him to reach the new Eden, Jacob needs the Deputy to be trained and endure and survive so his plans can come to fruition.

Now, all that being said–I really do like this idea. I actually wish it were a thing. It should be something like you continuously fail for 15 minutes (like waiting for Pagan Min at the start of FC4) before the game acknowledges that yes, you are not going to participate in this violence. Something people wouldn’t think to do but could do.

*What I like about this idea is that it ties into my earlier post about Joseph being the one to constantly cause his own problems/suffering. If he and Jacob worked together to come up with the idea to condition the Deputy to kill Eli, then that would give the Deputy ample incentive to kill Jacob, even if Joseph didn’t want his brother harmed/sacrificed. Hell, look at the way Jacob reacts to Joseph’s story about sacrifice. It’s clear he takes it far too much to heart. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he got the idea to be Joseph’s sacrifice.

Jacob, being Jacob, with all his heartbreaking problems, looks at the Deputy, sees their progress, sees all their accomplishments, and knows that their time together is at at an end. This is why he sneers, “Did you think you were free?” He’s saying that just as much to himself as the Deputy. And then his quiet, almost flat, “Don’t worry. You’ll be out of here soon enough”–again, said just as much to himself as the Deputy. Their time’s at an end. He accomplished his goal, and when he speaks to them again (in their mind!), it’s after he made them pass their test, and now they have to come find him. He doesn’t care if he doesn’t survive that encounter–he already succeeded at what he was told to do (train the Deputy).

I feel like with Jacob you need to give him less… direct orders. Because if he accomplishes them, then he just sorta enters a state of, “Okay, now what? Now what purpose do I have?” If you gave him a nebulous, vague-y kind of order like “Continue to protect the family and commit yourself to this every day,” he might have an easier time with it. That goal doesn’t have a set end or a deadline. It’s just something he constantly has to do.

This got a little away from the main point, so I’m sorry. But, yeah. Jacob would need the Deputy to obey much the same way John desperately wants the Deputy to take part in the process of Atonement. I don’t think he’d be very pleased if the Deputy refused to make that easier for him.