#yes ive been in the stupid cave for an in game year

[trashcreatyre]

I want this stupid purple rock so bad

[fvedyetor]

points. zelda fan. did you play tears of the kingdom?

i've gotten thru like mooooooost of the main quest (as far as i remember) and tbh i think its like. my favorite zelda game. i love fusing stupid stuff together and making silly cars that don't work at all........ also skydiving.

do u have any like. favorite tloz games? :0 like totk is up there for me but im also very fond of windwaker, spirit tracks, and twilight princess <3

yes omg!! ive finished the main quest in totk and all the shrines and caves and lightroots! just missing some quests and a ton of korok seeds lol. totk is the only game that ive actually kinda completed so as of rn its my fave i think. lately ive just been trying to max all my clothes which has mainly been just harassing the dragons for their scales and stuff hehe i do it out of love <3

ive played through all of botw except for the final boss fight. actually recently restarted my game so i could start over bc its been years but ive been too busy to play T^T cant wait for summer omg

zelda is my all time favorite video games!! i hot young parents who i grew up watching play zelda games. i watched my dad play majoras mask and my mom play twilight princess and skyward sword so all of those have a special place in my heart <3 watching them play it is why i love loz sm. no other video game franchise can compare.

i wanna play more games tho!! i need to find a way to stop all the time passing around me so i can just play zelda forever lol

ive also played part of a link to the past (unblocked on school computer) and part of twilight princess (got the master sword and then just got too busy :((

i also have some zelda manga!! i have 1 and 3 for tp and then one that has both minish cap and phantom hourglass. on the hunt for more hehe

i also have zelda shrine. and a growing collection of printed images of totk ganondorfs on my door. and paper dolls of zelda characters. and OMG MY SLIDESHOWS. i have two slideshows about why ganondorf is objectively hot, a slideshow in progress of all the foods from totk/botw, and a bunch of other wips (loz geography, loz timeline, etc) all in order to educate my poor irl friends. OH I ALSO HAVE A LOZ OCARINA and a little book of songs from oot and other games hehe

aaaaaaa im sorry this is so long i had an excuse to talk about zelda and i ran with it hehe

ok but my faves are totk defintely and then also twilight princess and majoras mask are up there for sure. im so indecisive tho aaaaaaaa. for sure tho the cartoon is NOT up there i do not like the cartoon at all (except for maybe zelda... but i didnt finish the cartoon so who knows)

[comeonblub]

i do this thing where i write notes about my knowledge of a new media before starting it, my experience during it, and then my perspective after (if i finish)

separately, ive also been losing my mind about Outer Wilds for well over a week now. ive decided i want to share it

(if you notice that it's been years since ive posted on here no you didn't)

also if you haven't played the game, i recommended you do not read this and instead go download Outer Wilds

spoilers below

NOTES: Outer Wilds / before playing

- has that one song with annoying whistling that i always skip when it shows up on Spotify

- that one person i follow on Tumblr absolutely loves it it's like their favourite game

- seems like it might be emotional or something?

- uhhhh space aliens? i think??

NOTES: Outer Wilds / start playing

- omg the controls SUCk

- oh IM the alien

- lag lag lag and very not keyboard friendly (yes im playing with a keyboard no i don't have a controller)

- ...

- okay keybind + graphics adjustments, and ive made it ever so slightly better

- i do not want to talk to you

- I DO NoT know what i am supposed to be doing what what what

- maybe i shouldve talked to people

- uhhhhh did I do that?

- the world explodes and dies. why. bc of me?

- UHHh

- oh hey the game references the fact i died lol

- okay Doing this again i guess and won't repeat the thing that killed me i think

- don't fucking TouCH that thing it explodes worlds

- okay okay im getting good info i think def don't want to die this time unless i can save

- do i save at that one statue? let's try

- WAIT FUCK FUCK The World's exploding again WHY

- BUHHHH

- "you're lucky im in a timeloop because otherwise I'd be super dead" – LMAO OKAY I MAY BE WON OVER

- okay so the explosions are independent of me. im going back to that thing and fucking around w/ it

- ...

- 15 Hours Into Game

- brittle hollow and i are besties now

- the lore is intricate ain't it. at times i feel like i understand everything. at others im completely lost. if there's a strategy here i don't know it. im just compelled to explore

- the Southern Observatory kinda went off tho with that visual and music combo

- the Fucking Moon

- i got stuck in anglerfish overlook w/ rising sand and just had to wait to die by being scrunched on the ceiling. absolutely worst way to go was awful and i hated it

- 22 min......

- reading explanations that completely recontexutalizes things i'd took for granted or previously ignored is a trip and a half

- my worldview gets shattered every other loop, millions dead but don't worry death means nothing

- like "the sun station",.. oh. "22 min interval"... OH

- i don't know what else to do here

- giants deep whomst ive ignored

- THERES ANOTHER PERSON WHO STUCK IN THIS TIMELOOP WITH ME?

- !!!

- gabbro my beloved

- hhhngg these puzzles.. am i missing something. should i know it now. will i learn it later. the stupid watery core and electricity...

- ...

- 25 Hours Into Game

- i know this galaxy

- i know it intimately

- but there are some places that are just so stupidly challenging to get to. i get there once. i never want to have to do it again. (giants deep core– once. sun station– once. coleus' lakebed quantum cave– twice. centre of the interloper– twice. the vessel– once. high energy lab– twice.)

- ...

- quantum moon whoag

- uh hm what

- YOURE ALIVE

- solanum i love u

- "think of you as a friend" PLS CAN I HUG

- ...

- 30+ HOURS INTO GAME

- i figured out the ash twin core

- i chickened out of taking the thing to do other things instead. achievement hunting.

- it's simply much too scary. no fallback. what happens if no core, no loop

- oh

- .. oh

- fucking hell i didn't realize how much id become dependent on the safety net of a timeloop. of like, functional immortality

- the fear of the unknown. of something new. of actual death

- ...

- well then

- FINISHING MAIN GAME

- i took the core. i left the ash twin project.

- music immediately begins kicking up into something new and emotional and anticipatory

- I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS MORE TO DO

- i panic and warp back to ask twin project. return the core to the machine

- what a wuss. but i feel better

- think think think think

- where Have I Seen that before. the core

- okay i have an idea of what to do but. fear

- I PRACTICE. Practice! i do 3+ runs to test getting past those Fucking FISH

- AND THEN DO IT FOR REAL

- screaming and crying

- BUT I SUCCEED

- whhhjhb whoaggh

- eye...

- HhhHhh quantummmm

- what

- what

- what

- a guy

- what

- ... euuuu cry mine friendsss

- ayy the fucking hell im emotional

- goddamn. What A Game. that music. holy shit

- ...

NOTES: Outer Wilds / post playing

- even as i did the ending there was still a small part of me that thought... i can save them

- ... (there will be a way to save them)

- there wasn't of course. and it hurt. but... not in a completely bad way

- it's like. the small flickering hope i felt at the end of all things, it still meant something. it still got me TO the end

- i know it was just a game but. it makes me think

- ...

- BONUS Saga of me accomplishing achievements: the fact that i later was able to break reality and also talk to myself in game was fun and cool and sexy

- i WILL be playing DLC but i need to recover

[barnesandrogersfanfics]

Ocean Eyes - Part 12

A/N - Finally an update!! i promise to not leave it as long for the next part.

Please like/comment/reblog, it gives me incentive to write quicker if i know people are actually enjoying my madness 💕

"You okay?" Chris asked suddenly making me jump, i thought he was asleep! He was currently wrapped around me acting as the big spoon.

"Jesus christ! You scared the crap outta me!" I chuckled quietly feeling stupid that he made me jump so bad.

"Sorry dahlin" he chuckled close to my ear "but are you okay?".

"Yeah just can't sleep, I've got so much going through my head i can't switch off"

"Its not because you're in here with me is it?"

"No of course not, this is actually just what i needed. I've missed laying in your arms...." I had caved and agreed to stay in Chris's room tonight, no funny business just sleeping. I felt Chris smile before pressing a kiss to my neck.

"I've missed this too. So what exactly is it keeping you awake beautiful? Talk to me..."

"Honestly? The whole thing with Brian.... how did he find me here??".

"I have no idea, but its very creepy!.... then again we shouldn't really be surprised, he had a habit of always knowing where you were. I got bad vibes off that guy the second i saw him".

We had called the police to report Brian but they couldn't do much about it as he technically hadn't done anything wrong, they said to call them again if we saw him around anymore.

"I don't understand why he's doing this! Its not like i led him on or anything, I've never shown that man any interest. I barely even talk to the guy!"

"He's clearly unstable"

"It scares me Chris...."

"Hey, i won't let him hurt you.... i already warned him to stay away...." Chris said through gritted teeth.

"What?...."

"It doesn't matter...."

I turned in his arms so i was now facing him "yes it does, what do you mean you warned him to stay away?"

"The day Scott and I came to get you and Mason to bring you here, you remember how he kept going on about where you were going and when you were coming back....then he asked you to dinner?"

"Oh yeah, you kinda snapped"

"Yeah.....I told him nicely to stay away from my family, that you were unavailable and uninterested.... that he should move on. I said if i found out he was harassing you still id make his life hell" he looked a little sheepish as he confessed to what had been said between the two of them.

"Well I'm guessing he didn't like to be told to stay away huh?"

"Apparently not. But lets not worry about  him right now, you need to sleep"

"Ive been trying...."

"Come here" Chris said and rolled onto his back pulling me close until i was laying with my head on his chest, his hand stroking up and down my back. Back strokes were my weakness and he knew it! "You'll be asleep in no time" he mumbled pressing a kiss to the top of my head. And he was right, with the steady thumping of his heart and his fingers stroking my back i was a goner.

I woke up alone, the bed already cold meaning Chris had been gone for a while. I reached for my phone on the bedside cabinet, it was nearly 10am!! I quickly got up and headed to the bathroom to pee and check how bad i looked. Once i was done i headed downstairs to find Chris, Mason and Scott.

"Hey" Chris smiled at me as i entered the kitchen, he was sat at the dining room table in front of his laptop.

"Hey, why didn't you wake me up?"

"You looked too peaceful, besides you didn't get to sleep til late"

I nodded walking over to kiss him "thank you" i smiled running my hand over his bearded jaw "you're the best".

Chris pulled me down into his lap and deepened the kiss until i had to pull back enough to catch my breath and we both laughed.

"Where's Mason?"

"Walking Dodger with Scott, i gave him breakfast and helped him get dressed before they left"

"He wasn't any trouble was he?"

"Not at all. He's like the best behaved kid I've ever met"

"He has his moments don't be fooled" i chuckled thinking back to some tantrums id witnessed over the years.

"I don't believe you, that kid is an angel"

"You just wait and see Evans" i laughed before getting up and walking into the kitchen so i could get a coffee and some toast.

"So um, I've got to do an online interview tonight with Jimmy Fallon" Chris followed me into the kitchen.

"Okay" i nodded.

"I just thought id let you know i'll have to disappear for a while"

"Thats fine, Mason will probably be in bed by then and i'll just stay in the living room watching a movie with Scott"

"Now i feel left out" he pouted.

Later that day we all went outback and played some Wiffle Ball to pass the time, Chris and Scott getting competitive again.

"Mom I'm tired" Mason said wrapping his arms around my waist and cuddling up against me.

"You wanna go take a nap before dinner buddy?"

"Yeah"

"Come on then" i picked him up and he rested his head on my shoulder "guys Mason needs a nap, i think you've worn him out"

"I think i need a nap too!" Scott laughed.

"Well I'm gonna make a start on dinner, you have time for a nap if you wanna"

Walking back up to the house i started struggling with Mason, he was getting too big for me to carry around now! My baby was growing up too fast!

"You want me to take him?" Chris suddenly asked, i nodded and come to a stop before passing a sleeping Mason over to Chris.

"Thanks, he's getting heavy" i said sadly.

"No problem"

"I hate that he's getting too big for me to carry him when he's tired"

"I know but its okay, I'm here to help now"

"Who's gonna carry me? Im exhausted!" Scott added making us laugh quietly so we didn't wake Mason.

The evening flew by, we all had dinner then sat and watched Toy Story with Mason. When it came to bedtime Mason insisted that Chris read him a story and of course he couldn't say no. Once he was asleep Chris headed to his office to get ready for his interview while Scott and I headed to the living room to find a movie to watch.

"Sooooo....." Scott said dragging it out to sound scandalous as he wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"What?"

"What?.... don't you what me Missy! I know you spent the night with Chris! So come on spill the tea sister!"

"You're ridiculous you know that?" I rolled my eyes at him and laughed at how comical he looked right now.

"Like i care" he shrugged "come on! Tell me what happened"

"Sorry to disappoint but nothing happened we just slept"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, we're taking things slow"

"And who's decision was that?"

"We both said we don't wanna rush it"

"But you suggested it right?..... hey I'm not judging you for that" he quickly added when he saw me look away sadly.

"You're scared you're gonna get hurt again aren't you?"

"Wouldn't you be? I just wanna make sure we're gonna be okay, that its more than just sex. We were always good at that, the emotional stuff.... not so much"

We were halfway through the movie when Chris rushed in asking Scott to join him for a game that Jimmy Fallon wanted them to do.

"Really? I can't just leave Y/N on her own....."

"Go i'll be fine" i chuckled.

"Sorry dahlin, i hate leaving you on your own.... we wont be long though 15/20 minutes tops.

"Go do what you gotta do, I'm fine here watching this" i nodded to the TV.

While they were off doing the interview

I texted my mom and Hannah to check in, they were doing good all things considered. I quickly settled back in to watch the rest of the movie but was interrupted again by multiple message alerts on my phone. I looked to see it was Hannah blowing up my phone.

When i opened the thread i gasped, my heart was racing so fast.... i felt sick as my eyes landed on one thing in particular....... the headline!

"CHRIS EVANS HAS A SECRET FAMILY!"

Everything taglist: @jesseswartzwelder @dumblani @barnesandrogersworld @patzammit @rynabarnesrogers-reading @rainbowkisses31 @rororo06 @supernaturalwintersoldier @fairlightswiftly @hiddelstannerbarnes @bellamy-barnes @buchanansebba @rosalynshields

Ocean eyes: @supraveng @michelehansel @melissaglenn5 @denisemarieangelina

@mrsjeffwittek @mery-be @marvelfansworld @cmalass @capstopavenger @fallenoutofrose @kelbabyblue @biebsmylife95 @loser-alert @traceyaudette @w3lissax @jennmurawski13 @ford66steal @saiyanprincessswanie @christocrave @jakiki94 @torntaltos @my-dearest-agent @ms-betsy-fangirl

If your name is crossed out i couldnt tag you.

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy III Review

Year: 1990

Original Platform: Famicom

Also Available on: Nintendo DS, iOS (DS port), Android (iOS port), Ouya (Android port), Steam (Android port), PSP (iOS port)

Wii/3DS/Wii U Virtual Consoles and Nintendo Classic Edition releases are only in Japan.

Version I Played: DS

Synopsis:

Four orphans (originally only named by the player, DS remake gives them names) fall into a crevice after a sudden earthquake. There, a mysterious crystal warns them about the oncoming darkness that will engulf the world. The four orphans must band together to restore the balance between light and dark.  

Gameplay:

ARE YOU READY TO GET YOUR ASS BEAT?

YOUR BALLS ROCKED?

I’m warning you – this is the most difficult Final Fantasy game to date.

There are no ethers - only elixirs, which you should definitely reserve for the hardest battles. Also, phoenix downs cannot be found in stores - only in treasure chests and as dropped or stolen items from enemies.

The gameplay returns to that of the original Final Fantasy –  turn-based combat and the Job System, only this time the Job System is greatly expanded. Vikings and Geomancers and Bards and Dragoons and the list goes on. Summons are introduced to the series via the Evoker job, which later gets upgraded to Summoner. The expanded Job System allowed for greater customization of your four characters than in the original Final Fantasy.

This game is notable for the Onion Knight. In the beginning of the original Famicom game, the default job is Onion Knight. If you continue playing as an Onion Knight, your stats remain relatively low. However, if you dare to play the entire game as an Onion Knight and reach level 99 – the Onion Knight suddenly turns into the most powerful job in the game.

The DS remake does things a little differently. Instead of the Onion Knight, you start out as a Freelancer – a new job that has a little bit of everything. However, the longer you use the Freelancer job, the weaker you become. This is a good incentive to have players naturally explore other jobs.

The unfortunate feature of the DS remake though is that the Onion Knight is ONLY available after performing sidequests via wireless with friends. This is impossible to do now since the wireless features for the original Nintendo DS (and also the Wii) have been discontinued. HOWEVER. Playing the DS remake through Steam allows you to unlock the Onion Knight by completing at least 25% of your bestiary. You will then receive a message via the Mognet to start the sidequest.

Final Fantasy III is notorious for its high difficulty. The trick mostly lies in constantly switching between jobs and finding the right balance for the right moment. However, changing jobs requires you to level up that job. This means grinding – lots and lots of grinding. Insane amounts of grinding. This is Final Fantasy: Grind City.

In retrospect, Final Fantasy II was hard as well, yes, but more in a stupid way. Leveling up there was annoying but people could find tricks around it like finding weaker enemies and purposely hitting yourself and healing yourself to raise your HP or defense stats.

Final Fantasy III is difficult but it hurt so good. This game turned me into a masochist. There's two types of video game rage - the good and the bad kind. The bad kind is usually because the game's mechanics are irritating or virtually unplayable. The good kind is cursing out loud but then saying, "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME!" and actually being pumped about trying again because you see it as a challenge.    

The game has an explosively difficult finale. The finale takes place in the Crystal Tower, which is surrounded by Ancient’s Maze. You have to walk through the maze, then through the tower, then fight multiple bosses through other events which I won’t spoil here. The entire ordeal can pretty well take up an entire hour. At least (in the DS version, I don’t know about Famicom) you can save before entering the Crystal Tower. But if you ever need to venture out into the world map again to get something you forgot, you have to go through the Ancient’s Maze. Once you enter the Crystal Tower, you cannot save the game. It’s one long shot to the final of final bosses. In the Crystal Tower, you get to walk around seemingly endless and maze-like floors such as this:

 YAY.

Seriously though - I still enjoyed the challenge and thought it was epic. If you're going to hit me hard, you might as well go all out. Nothing in this game is held back. Also, the expanded job system allowed you to try out so many different things.

I tried for the longest time to play Final Fantasy III on an emulator but for some bizarre reason, I couldn't save, not even on save states. When I have the time, I definitely want to go back to that, try a different ROM or something, and experience the original. But I played enough of the original to know how hard it is. I died right away when I ventured outside the first town.

The DS remake mostly retains the difficulty of the original, which I admired, unlike the watered down PSP Anniversary Editions of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II.

Graphics:

The original Famicom game definitely has a lot more going on than the first two Final Fantasy games. Battles are still 90% black space but the rest of the game is 8-bit Heaven. 

The DS remake is AMAZING. I would argue that Final Fantasy III DS is really the first great Final Fantasy remake. They got a chibi thing going on and it works here. It’s cute without being obnoxiously cute.

The FMV sequence for the DS is staggeringly beautiful.

I also kind of laugh at this one part where Luneth and Ingus are arguing and it’s the equivalent to a stock photo of two people arguing.

I only wish they added an ending FMV. That would have been the cherry on top for the remake. 

Story:

Final Fantasy III is kind of like crossing the original Final Fantasy with Final Fantasy II. The story is wider in scope and more epic. The fictional world is much more interesting. The score has a wider repertoire. You fly many different airships. It also begins what I like to call the "Crystal Trilogy." Final Fantasy III, IV and V, as you'll read later, are quite similar in their general plot, which utilizes crystals as important plot devices.

There’s more to the story than people give credit for. You venture into the world and run into secondary characters who have their own stories, such as Cid, Desh, Princess Sara (reference to the original Final Fantasy), Prince Allus, Priestess Aria, and even four imposters of the four heroes of light. You save towns with a variety of problems, from a village cursed by a genie to finding a missing precious stone for the dwarves. Then you discover the truth behind the world you live in. . .

The DS version elaborates on the story by giving the four orphans names: Luneth, Arc, Refia, and Ingus. This sharpens the story by connecting more dots. The DS story starts with Luneth and Arc as childhood friends. They later meet Refia, a runaway who was tired of her guardian's blacksmith trade, and Ingus, a knight of Sasune who protects Princess Sara. I was disappointed by one rather misleading thing in the DS remake. The opening FMV sequence seemed to imply that Priestess Aria plays a wider role in the story – she doesn’t. That disappointed me.

As I’ve said already, the DS version is a wonderful remake of the original. I very highly recommend it. It enhances everything about the original and more. The remake's heroes hardly get any recognition in other Final Fantasy media and that’s a shame.

Music:

As Final Fantasy games keep getting bigger, so does the score. Uematsu shone here. He did some unique things for a Japanese composer at the time. An example is the illusion of having chords in the track Crystal Cave.

Final Fantasy III’s soundtrack is twice as long as Final Fantasy II’s. I’d say that out of the entire Famicom/NES era, this game probably has the best soundtrack. The battle theme has a sexy bass with more drums added to it. Eternal Wind, the world map theme, is definitely the greatest map theme in an RPG. Period. It truly gives the feel of wandering around a fantasy world.

The DS version reinvigorates the entire score. I loved every second of it.

The way Uematsu composed the final of the epilogue is reminiscent of how John Williams does his finales in the credits for Star Wars or Indiana Jones films. In this case, he references the Final Fantasy Main Theme at the end of the credits.

The result is a wholesome feel to the game. Final Fantasy III has a fantastic score that is perfect for closing the 8-bit era of Final Fantasy.

Notable Theme:

I'm split between Eternal Wind and Priestess Aria's Theme. Fortunately, the DS opening cinematic includes both. It has a great orchestrated rendition of the classic themes.

Verdict:      

The hardest out of all the Final Fantasy games (so far). At the same time, there’s so much to enjoy – but it’s not for everyone. Because of the difficulty, I would save this game for last. There’s something about this game that actually gives me a true “final fantasy” feel. The final stretch is so kick-your-nuts-hard that nothing else in the series can compare to it.

If you go for the DS version, however, that can be a tad bit easier. Just a tad. A smidge. Nothing more. It’s one remake that I highly recommend. They did a good facelift on both the game itself and the story. The DS version was adapted into Android and then ported into Steam, so you can get it there. 

Direct Sequel?

No.

[deadbiwrites]

PROMPTS!! I want a pumpkin picking date with Kara pouting a lot bec Lena said they can’t just casually take the 800lbs pumpkin home. Bonus points if Lena caves and ends up paying some guy enough money to buy it and supergirl flies it back to their apartment to carve it. Maybe it can’t fit through the door?? I’m not sure.

(Oh my WORD, it took forever and a day to get this to post but I did it, dammit! @valkyrieskwad , this one's for you! Cross-posting it on Ao3!!)

"You want to what?"

Kara grins and bounces in place, totally unperturbed by Lena's decided lack of enthusiasm. "Pumpkin picking! There's a patch, like, an hour away. It's so cute, I follow them on Instagram, and everyone looks like they're having so much fun in the pictures! It's almost Halloween, too, so we need to go soon or all the good ones will be gone."

"The good ones…?"

"Pumpkins,  Lena! Pumpkins! C'mon, please?"

"Isn't this exactly the sort of thing Alex makes fun of people for? Being basic?"

"Alex doesn't know what fun is if there aren't guns involved, so who cares? Please, babe? Be basic with me!"

Lena arches a brow at her, already caving under the weight of her girlfriend's boundless enthusiasm and the rare (and doubtlessly strategic) use of 'babe'. "Is it a muddy field?" she asks suspiciously. 

"Uh… wear boots?" Kara tries, still smiling. "We can take the baby. He'd love it, and we need to work on socializing him, right?"

Lena turns her attention to the little white puppy snoozing on her lap, running a hand over his back absently. "I mean, yes, we do, but a farm?"

Kara's affronted, or at least playing at it. "Uh, I halfway grew up on a farm, thank you."

"And look what's happened because of it."

Kara laughs, shaking her head, somehow charmed even though Lena knows that she's being a brat about this whole thing. "Why do you hate pumpkin picking?"

"I don't like doing things unless I'm already good at them."

Kara scoffs at this. "You can't be bad at picking pumpkins, Lena. It's just like when you were a kid."

The long stretch of silence at this is telling. 

"Lena," Kara says slowly, "have- have you ever been to a pumpkin patch?"

"I buy pumpkin at the store in a can, like a regular person. Half the work, half the price."

"But you can't carve a can of pumpkin puree!"

More silence. Krypto wakes up, shakes his whole roly-poly little body, and lays back down for another nap, snuffling as Lena rubs between his ears.

"Lena. Please tell me you've carved a pumpkin."

"I- I've seen people do it, so-"

"Oh my GOD."

"Kara-"

"What- what did you do at Halloween? No pumpkins! That's like half the fun, aside from all the candy and costumes, and…" Horror spreads across her face almost as fast as a creeping red flush spreads over Lena's. "Honey. Sweetie. Baby. Please, please tell me that your childhood included just one iteration of a normal American Halloween…?"

"Define normal..."

Kara jumps up from the couch, fuming. "I'm gonna punch your mom in the boob. Is it Tuesday?  They do visits at the prison on Tuesdays, right? Because, like, I know she's in prison, repaying her debt to society,  or whatever, but I'm still gonna go punch her in the boob."

Lena grabs Kara's hand, tugging her to a halt. "Alright, first of all, I appreciate and share the sentiment. Second, please never put your hands anywhere near my mother's boobs. Third, we're gonna stop talking about my mother's boobs, forever. Starting now."

"That's just… why does she suck so bad. Like, so, so badly, she sucks as a person. So bad. Badly sucks."

"Okay, yeah, you're doing that thing where you're so mad you make word puzzles, so I need you to sit down and hold this puppy." Lena lifts Krypto (who growls his fiercest growl and bites her fingers for disrupting his 18th nap of the day) and pushes him into Kara's arms, gratified when she instantly melts, just a little. "Better?"

"Yeah." She heaves a sigh and drops onto the couch beside Lena once more. "Look, if you really don't want to, we don't have to. But it is fun, and it is a disgustingly cute couple-y thing to do, which I know you love even if you pretend you don't."

Lena scoffs. "Prove it."

"You drag me into every photobooth you see and have a collection of all the photos in your desk at work."

Lena flushes a little more, knowing that she's been caught. "It's fun?" she asks quietly, spinning her chunky silver ring around and around on her finger.

"So fun. And it's a good excuse to get out of the city for the day." Kara scoots close, tipping her head so it knocks lightly against Lena's. "Instead of beating up your mom, what if we just make sure you get to do all the stuff you missed, like pumpkin patches and carving Jack-o-lanterns, and all that jazz?"

Lena considers this. "So, we're doing this at least partly to spite my mother?"

Kara beams at her. "Yep! You're gonna get all muddy doing something frivolous just because it's fun. She'd hate it."

"When are we going?"

It's a few days later that they're piled into a borrowed pick-up truck and coasting out of the city in the early morning. Lena has relented the wheel, for once, conceding that she hates driving outside the city and she has no idea where they're going. At least Kara was right about one thing- Krypto is already having a blast, trying his best to stick his entire upper body out the window, and yipping in annoyance when Lena continuously pulls him back into the cab.

One benefit, though, is Kara in what she calls her 'farm clothes', a heretofore undiscovered genre that involves a sturdy and well-loved pair of leather boots, what is clearly a men's flannel shirt tucked into a pair of faded jeans secured with a heavy leather belt, and a goddamn trucker hat.

Lena's really annoyed at how much this look is working for Kara.

Totally annoyed. No other emotion. Or like, squirmy feelings about it in general.

None at all.

"... and of course we'll get some breakfast- hot cider and doughnuts sound good to you?"

Lena blinks, realizes that Kara's been chattering this whole time. "What was that?"

"I asked how you feel about getting some breakfast. You okay? You're kinda spacey today."

"Says the girl from space," Lena snarks.

Kara rolls her eyes, amused. "That joke was only funny the first hundred times."

"Still makes me laugh."

"Fine, fine. But you're good? 'Cause I can hear you thinking, over there."

"I'm good, I just… is it stupid that I'm nervous?"

Kara takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. "Not at all. But you don't need to be nervous or anxious, because it's fun. Okay?"

Lena nods. "Okay." She shifts a bit on the old-school bench seat in the truck. "Why did we borrow this thing, again? My cars are a lot more comfortable."

"Well, Frank would yell at me if I got mud all over one of your cars." 

Lena snorts. "He would not, he loves you."

"And, this way, we can get a big one." There's an almost manic gleam in Kara's eyes that's distinctly disturbing. 

Lena chooses not to ask questions. 

It is not a muddy field. 

The dirt road they pull onto doesn't look all that promising at first, but the pumpkin patch itself is pretty, in a rustic, outdoorsy sort of way. Even early in the day there's a decent crowd here, and Kara grins at the sight of the picturesque red barn a ways away cheerfully advertising cider and doughnuts inside. "Nice! I hoped they'd still be doing the cider and stuff!" She hops out of the truck and rounds the front to help Lena down- whoever this behemoth belongs to had installed a lift-kit to it, and it's a fair few feet to the ground.

"I thought this was a pumpkin patch?"

"Well, yeah, but there's an orchard next door or something, so they have apples and pumpkins. And pears, apparently. Ha! A-PEAR-ently! I'm funny," Kara cackles, settling her hands on Lena's hips.

"You're lucky you're so cute," Lena snorts and scoops Krypto up, bracing a hand on Kara's shoulder as she's lifted easily out of the truck and onto the ground. "But you being able to just pick me up like that? Always a turn-on."

Kara laughs, loud and surprised as a flush creeps up her neck. "Good to know."

Lena smirks and sets Krypto onto the ground, and their day begins.

"So," Lena drawls, chewing an admittedly delicious cinnamon cider doughnut, "what constitutes a good pumpkin?"

"Well, obviously,  you don't want a squishy one."

"Obviously."

"Tiny ones are cute, but it's really hard to carve them."

"Noted."

"Other than that, it's all personal preference. I say go big or go home, Alex likes the really round ones, Eliza likes hers to be smooth, and Jeremiah loved ugly pumpkins."

"Ugly pumpkins...?"

"Oh, yeah, like, the weirder and bumpier the better. He was really good at carving them, so he could do, like, super cool faces and stuff. He made a witch one time that was really creepy."

Lena pushes up onto her toes to plant a kiss on Kara's cheek. "He sounds like a fun dad."

Kara smiles a little sadly. "He was." 

Sensing a rapid downshift in mood, Lena resolves to perk the fuck up. "So! We did doughnuts for breakfast- which I strongly suspect was your real motivation for this little venture…"

Kara's mouth drops open in shock,  but her eyes are sparkling with humor. "I would never!"

"Sure. So, as long as the pumpkin isn't soft, it's fair game?"

"Yup! Go nuts! I couldn't get a pumpkin last year, because of that guy from Yavin IV, I'm gonna get a big one this year to make up for it."

Lena fixes her with a look. "Not too big, though, right?"

Kara smiles innocently, letting Krypto tug her a pace or two ahead. "Of course not."

Lena sighs. 

Kara really is a terrible liar.

"Lena."

Upon seeing what's caught her attention,  Lena nearly drops her own perfectly round pumpkin. "No. Under no circumstances are we getting that one."

Kara's starry-eyed as she stares up at the truly gargantuan squash before her. "It's beautiful."

Lena strongly disagrees- this pumpkin is decidedly ugly, misshapen and lumpy and a shade that's not quite orange or green, but a rather sickly combination of both.

But what it lacks in general aesthetic appeal, it more than makes up for in sheer size. It's wider than Lena is tall, likely taller than she is, too, and is, in general, what Winn would call 'a threateningly large vegetable'. It's on a little platform, a plaque proudly boasting that it'd won some award or other at the state fair a week or so ago. And also its weight:

One thousand two hundred eighteen pounds. 

Lena tries for reason. "Kara. Darling. Love of my life. This… thing won a prize. They bred it especially to be giant. There is absolutely no way they're going to sell it to two city-slickers."

And then it happens. After almost a year of dating, and several years of friendship, Lena is well aware of Kara's pout, and especially aware of her own susceptibility to it. She can almost sense when it's about to happen, these days, and she senses it coming now, tries to steal herself against it.

But it's no use. Kara, she could maybe handle. Maybe. But when she bends and scoops up their three-month old puppy to help her pout, Lena is powerless against the assault.

"Alright, that was unnecessary," she complains. "No using our son like that. He doesn't even know why he's pouting."

"But is it working?" Kara asks, hiding her face behind Krypto's and talking in the goofy voice she reserves for narrating his thoughts.

Lena groans, because yes, of course it's fucking working. "No. Kara, they worked hard to make that... gourd. Can't you get another one?"

"I mean, I can," she agrees, peeking over Krypto's head so just her eyes show. "But think about how awesome that's gonna look when I carve it."

Lena sighs. "Kara,  they're using it as a draw to get people to come here."

"They're making it like a display in a zoo. People just come and point at it! We can give it a loving home!"

Lena arches a brow. "You literally just said that you want to cut it open, scoop out its insides, and carve it.."

"Well, yeah, but like, lovingly."

Lena snorts, knowing she's lost. "Fine! Fine, we can go ask."

Kara cheers, hopping a bit in excitement and darting forward to press her lips to Lena's in a silly, smiley kiss.

As predicted, the farmer is initially reluctant to sell his prize pumpkin. "It's not the money," he clarifies hastily when Lena doubles her offer for the damn stupid pumpkin. "I need the seeds, to plant next year. I won big at the fair this year, and with those I'd have a hell of an advantage next season. You understand?"

"What if we save the seeds and bring them to you?" Kara offers earnestly. "I can drive them out whenever."

The farmer looks skeptical at this, but Kara's offer doesn't waver under his glare, and he sighs, reaching out to shake Lena's hand and seal the deal. "Fine. Only because your girl is cute."

Lena huffs out a laugh, and Kara positively beams at him. "Thanks so much!"

"But Jake has the tractor out in the maze right now, won't be back for an hour or so to move it for ya."

Kara's grin only widens. "Don't worry, I called a friend for help moving it."

The farmer shrugs, and Lena groans, knowing that one spectacle at the pumpkin patch is about to be replaced by another. 

Lena hands the farmer his due for his prize pumpkin, and he turns away before she calls out, catching his attention.

"Sorry, I almost forgot, how much for this one?"

He eyes the normal-sized, perfect pumpkin in Lena's arms and his mouth quirks up in a grin. "For you? On the house."

Supergirl makes a very showy entrance, to the delight of most in attendance (the exceptions being a 74-year old man who thinks anyone who flies should have to get a license,  and her girlfriend who is rolling her eyes fondly and wrestling to keep their puppy from revealing her secret identity), landing with a flourish. She smiles brightly at the crowd waving and laughing, high-fiving anyone who offers before shouldering the massive gourd. "Sorry, guys, I'm on a very important mission. Support local farms!" 

Lena snorts, loudly, and Supergirl takes off into the air as her ears turn a little pink. 

The farmer sidles up to Lena at the back of the crowd, looking a little star-struck. "Wow."

Lena grins, dropping a kiss to Krypto's nose and blowing in his face when he nips at her chin. "Yeah," she agrees. "Wow about sums it up."

The truck rides notably lower on the trip back, the massive pumpkin weighing down the truck bed probably more than is entirely safe.

"So, how was your first trip to the pumpkin patch?" Kara asks with a grin.

"I hated it," Lena deadpans, cradling Krypto in one arm and her pumpkin in the other. On the seat between them are three dozen doughnuts,  four gallons of cider, and three bottles of hard cider the farmer's wife had slipped into their bags with a wink.

Overall, it's been a very pleasant experience. 

"Oh yeah?"

"Absolutely awful. Hated everything."

"What was the worst part?"

Lena reaches over, grabbing Kara's hand and threading their fingers together. "Spending it with you."

Kara clicks her tongue, shakes her head. "Yeah, that sounds awful. I'm a pain in the butt."

"Yeah. You're kinda cute, though, so I guess it's fine."

Kara chuckles, brings their clasped hands to her mouth and kisses Lena's knuckles. "Good news for me."

Lena smiles, turning her attention back to the window and watching as fields fairly fly by, the low sound of Kara singing in the background making this almost unbearably perfect. 

Almost.

"Um… so, funny story…"

Lena arches a brow expectantly, and Kara scuffs her red boots on the floor. "Oh?"

"Yeah. So, the thing is, I tried everything, with the pumpkin, and… it won't fit through the door. None of the doors. Or any of the windows…"

Lena bonds at the waist and laughs until she cries.

That year starts a long-running and much beloved tradition, wherein a truly massive and skillfully-carved pumpkin appears in L-Corp's opulent lobby the first weekend of every October. It later years, it's joined by other, smaller ones, dozens, carved by the children of employees, including those of the CEO herself. 

It's a family tradition, after all.

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its ur favorite tumblr user back at it again with another great post. thats right, as promised here is a more in depth look at the recent dragon themed time sensitive event!

this event takes place in year 6. bill is graduated but has been coming back to the school periodically to teach us bootleg DADA just like harry did in the books. it is on one such occasion that bill lets it slip that his next job from gringotts involves him going to the dragon reserve that we know charlie will eventually work at. bill had not told charlie about this job prior to this discussion precisely because of what happens next, which is that charlie wants to go.

this brings me back to year 4 days with the first charlie focused sidequest, where we scrounged up money to by what may or may not have been a dragon egg (it was not) from a strange man who had been seen trying to approach other unaccompanied minors walking around hogsmeade. this pure of dragon centric heart, but dumb of dragon centric ass quality was what made me start liking charlies character in the game in the first place. he begins negging his older brother in a way that is very familiar to me as a younger sibling. i as the mc of course jump on the bandwagon with charlie immediately. 

bill sounds very defeated in this part because he knows the negging wont end, and/or knows that he will eventually cave to charlies demands. “no you cant come.” he says with a sigh.

but well see about that, because charlie and i go ambush bill at work to ask again. 

as stated previously bill works at gringotts bank, which is run by goblins. i already had access to the location diagon alley, but before this event gringotts itself was closed to me. newly unlocked, charlie and i walk inside. unlike the hogwarts kitchens, it does not feel like walking into hell for me to do this. unlike house elves which only have 1 basic model used for every elf except for the 1 named elf, there is some variety in the goblin designs. there appears to be one basic goblin face that i can tell, but its paired with several different outfits and hairstyles, giving them the illusion of originality typically spent on unnamed background characters. there are also 3 named goblin characters with all their own stuff.  

the first is obviously griphook, the only real goblin character from the books. hes bills supervisor. in the books hes a pretty unlikable guy but here, though hes not nice exactly, he seems at least kind of chill. he doesnt kick charlie or me out for barging in and says its ok for us go on the mission with bill. its nice to see him unstressed. 

the other 2 goblins are the perhaps, hopefully, cool ones. one is younger than the rest and has some friendly dialog with you and his other named goblin friend, who possibly exists so the first one has someone to banter with. they dont do anything else this event but gringotts stays open after the event is completed so hopefully they will come back again and get their own plotlines. 

anyway, charlie and i harass bill at work for a bit. his boss comes in, hears our plea, and doesnt immediately tell us to leave.  instead he tells us the rundown of bills mission: a long time ago a goblin boasted that he could craft a golden dragon egg that would be indistinguishable from the real thing. he did, and it was. so much so that a dragon destroyed his house and stole it, i think he died in the process. 

“so,” says griphook, “that is why we must send you, 18 year old we just hired, to go to a remote location filled with dragons by yourself to rifle through their nests and bring back what is rightfully ours. no we dont know which dragon took the egg or even the type. yes you can bring your little brother and his friends.” 

sounds legit. charlie and i convince bill to not only let us come with him, but also our other classmates from his DADA class due to scheduling mishaps. we go gather the rest of the class to tell them about this but only merula, penny, and barnaby show up and so only they get to go on the field trip, which is convenient because otherwise wed have half the school out there and that would be entirely too many characters for the devs to write at once. 

we borrow the same tent the canon characters will eventually use in all their camping shenanigans in the book from hagrid and get to the dragon reserve via portkey. the reserve now appears on the stairs screen as a permanent new location, not a fleeting one as i once thought. theres dragons flying all around, majestic as hell. 

its too late in the day to start searching so we set up camp and settle in, roast marshmallows, barnaby tells a story about a vampire broomstick. then we go inside the tent and play truth or dare. im asked to pick at one point which of my friends id most like to have with me if i were to get lost in the woods. i pick barnaby because hes the one who asked, but really id probably want merula there more. barnaby is supposed to be into dueling but ive never seen him in a real fight. ive seen merula take a Cruciatus curse and then get up and walk. pennys whole thing is potions too. i thought this choice would be relevant to something in the event but it was not. 

in the truth or dare game, merula gets bill to tell some embarrassing stories about charlie as a kid. he talks about charlie putting wings on their rat and a dragon mask on their owl, pretending that they are real dragons. everyone laughs.  this his a cord with charlie though and he storms out. we wrap up truth or dare and go to bed. 

the next day we begin the search.charlie has not come back yet. we realize this and begin freaking out, start looking for him instead. we scare a mother dragon off its nest for unfathomable reasons. eventually we hear charlies voice coming from inside a cave. we go in, charlie is alive and uneaten, but has a broken leg. he ran off to find the egg by himself in order to prove himself as teen boys are wont to do. bill and i then realize the other 3 didnt follow us into the cave, and a big ol dragon walks in. i gotta fight it singlehandedly while bill heals charlie in the back. 

the boss fight was actually pretty hard. it took me like 5-6 tries to beat the dang thing thing. much enjoyment many high stakes. i put a sleeping spell on it to stop its attack at the end, though i had the option to use the Cruciatus curse which seems a little intense, game. then the other 3 run in and are like cool your safe! sorry we couldnt help u fight the dragon, there was a dragon. im like “yes, understandable.”

bill had given up on finding the egg at this point, but then charlie finds it! its a gold egg. in retrospect this egg might have been the egg that will inspire the gold egg stealing challenge in hp book 4 but i forget if that was inspired by a story or not. 

then we have a cool down level with bill and charlie, where they both apologize, and charlie says what he did was stupid, but i insist its wasnt stupid it was cool and good even though that is factually wrong because thats what i would say in real life regardless. bill and charlie promise to never speak of this trip again, especially not to their mom. 

the last level is us going back to gringotts and regaling griphook with the tale of our journey, including the marshmallow and truth or dare bits. he says “great job, teens!” and then we all jump up in the air and the theme song plays as we freeze midair and the colors fade to black and white. we all learned some valuable dragon based lessons today friends. it took me 2 full hours to write this and i have to wake up at 6 tomorrow. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Giovanni

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Over the years, Pokemon has had a great many antagonists and a great many evil teams, but few have ever surpassed the sheer notoriety of Team Rocket. And at the very top of Team Rocket is the man, the myth, the legend: Giovanni. The Viridian City gym leader as well as the head of an international pet-stealing criminal organization, Giovanni is the original twist villain of the franchise, with his ultimate role as the final gym leader of the Generation I games likely coming as a shock to many players back in the 90s. But what is it about Giovanni that has kept him as such an enduring foe of the franchise to the point that he helped send the franchise off in a blaze of glory at the end of Generation VII, letting them transition from handheld to hybrid consoles?

Motivation/Goals: Part of what makes Giovanni so unique is that he, by the incredibly simple nature of the Generation I games, has an incredibly simple goal: make money and steal Pokemon. That’s basically all Team Rocket does, to the point they kill Pokemon and harass anyone who gets in their way. The thing is, over time and through the dozens of remakes, Giovanni’s true goal has been hinted at and reimagined in numerous ways. The most impressive reimagining is his role in the Rainbow Rocket postgame questline in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, in which he gathers versions of all the franchise’s villains from across the multiverse into one team and tries to conquer Alola. Here, it is revealed that he has Mewtwo on his team, which seems to imply that, at least in the timeline established from Gen VI until this point, that Giovanni’s true goal was in line with his anime counterpart’s and that he had a hand in the creation of Mewtwo for his own nefarious purposes. Whether this is true in games like the Generation I games and their remakes is pretty much up in the air and open to interpretation, but one thing is for sure: Giovanni wants power, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.

Personality: While Ghetsis of all people describes Giovanni as pure evil, Giovanni certainly doesn’t show it. His own men view him as a benevolent boss, and in games like Yellow and the Let’s Go games he pretty much has to be somewhat decent to his employees if he allows goobers like Jessie and James to stay in the ranks despite their incessant blundering. Obviously Giovanni is tough and intense, and if you ask Silver I’m sure you’ll be told he’s not a very good father, but I think there is at least some honorable traits to Giovanni. Even after you defeat him in the Rainbow Rocket plot, he concedes to you gracefully and applauds you for defeating him, showing he is very much not a sore loser as some other villains are.

Final Fate: In Gen I, Giovanni claimed he was going to reform before disappearing, with his presence being felt heavily in the Gen II games as Team Rocket tried and failed to get him to return to lead them again. Later games and the remakes would retcon this, showing that Giovanni would never truly give up on his dreams of conquest, and at least one version of him would go on to be a dimension-hopping menace who attempted to invade the Alola region.

Best Scene: Basically any climactic battle against him, particularly the battle at Silph Co. and his gym in Gen I, his special event battle in the cave by the waterfall in Gen IV, and the final duel against him in  the Rainbow Rocket plot of Gen VII. All but the battle in Gen IV are sure to be a tough, challenging duel that will test your skills (unless you packed a Water-type, anyway).

Best Quote: After defeating him during the Rainbow Rocket plot, Giovanni has this to say: "Having a kid stand in front of me like this... Such a thing should never happen. But for some reason, it also makes me feel nostalgic."

As this line comes on the last games to be released on the last true handheld consoles of Nintendo, it feels all the more special and poignant. Giovanni was there at the start, and he was there at the end, bookending the series’ time on handhelds in a way that, yes, does invoke feelings of nostalgia.

Final Thoughts & Score: Giovanni is most definitely a simple villain. But I think that as far as simple villains go, he is a pretty impressive one. I think that because he is so simple and because a lot of his true goals are only hinted at by the games, it allows players to come to their own conclusions about what evil schemes he might have in ways you can’t with the more straightforward and unambiguous villains of later titles like Ghetsis and Lysandre, who spell out their evil plans. Meanwhile, Giovanni here straight up tells you you’re a foolish kid who could never hope to understand what he’s doing and straight up tells you nothing. What a boss.

This will sound strange, but in some ways Giovanni is similar to DIO. Look: he’s a major antagonizing force in the first part, the part that introduces the series (Phantom Blood/Red & Blue), and then his actions loom large over other parts of the franchise (Diamond is Unbreakable, Vento Aureo, and Stone Ocean/Gold, Silver, and Crystal and their remakes), until finally things culminate in a huge, climactic duel that reveals secret parts to his plan no one realized before (Stone Ocean/Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon). He even has a son who is ultimately a better person than him, though Silver is a hell of a lot crabbier than Giorno. Obviously Giovanni is nowhere near as impressive and iconic as DIO, but for what Giovanni is, he’s still a 10/10.

I think a lot of Giovanni’s enduring appeal is because of the anime, which wisely kept him in the shadows and made him an undeniable badass due to him controlling Mewtwo and constantly be stroking his Persian a la Blofeld. Much like Slade would years later in Teen Titans, the ridiculous amounts of mystery surrounding Giovanni in the anime led to a world of speculation, with some of the more famous theories claiming that he was Ash’s father. Keep in mind, this is a character anyone watching the show would already be familiar with because they already played the games. Still, there’s no denying it was incredibly cool and effective for kids, and thanks to Rainbow Rocket drawing on some elements of the anime version of Giovanni, it’s nice to see the anime have a positive influence on the games as opposed to the stupid Ash Greninja or the numerous Ash hat Pikachus.

Bottom line: Giovanni is a cool, simple villain who does what he does with great style, honor, and intrigue, and as far as starter villains for an RPG franchise go, they don’t get much better than the Big G.

[memaha19]

Let’s Play Kingdom Hearts: Day 1, 2, & 3

(These were all supposed to be their own post but my tumblr app was acting really weird and not posing anything.)

Day One (May 20th, 2020)

Starting level: 1

Awakening: I did +sword/-staff, which is basically the only way I’ve ever played. I just learned a few days ago that the item you choose to keep changes the order you learn abilities, so that was news to me. I always pick the sword because I like getting Scan as early as possible so I kept it the same this time around. I picked the bottom three answers of the Selphie/Tidus/Wakka. I like to start “in the dead of night”.

Destiny Islands: I did not beat Riku and I definitely lost real hard to him in that stupid race to name the raft. (I was under the impression that it had only been a year or two since I last played KH but then I thought about it and realized it had been about six years and yikes I was very rusty with the controls.)

Traverse Town I: I did manage to back Squall into a corner and beat him, woo!

Wonderland

Olympus Coliseum I

Deep Jungle: It was getting late so I didn’t finish the level. I beat Sabor and called it a night. Had I remembered that there really isn’t much left after that point, I probably would’ve just finished!

Ending level: 14

Play time: About 4 hours

Day Two (May 21st, 2020)

Deep Jungle: Literally all I really had left was the Clayton/Stealth Sneak fight. I’m still scarred from the first time I played this game when I was 12 and I COULD NOT beat this guy.

Traverse Town II: So, full disclosure, up until this point, I was really committed to relying on walkthroughs as little as possible, and I made it through Deep Jungle just on my own memory of the game. But I got to TT and I could not figure out what to do after talking to Squall in the waterway. I went everywhere and talked to everyone and probably took about twice as long as I needed to in this area. So I caved and read a guide and saw that you have to talk to Squall twice to get him to tell you to go see Cid, which then sends you to Merlin, etc. So, anyway, I started using a guide from this point forward so I don’t spend 80 years in one level.

Agrabah: Nothing really to report here. I got my first “game over“, on the Jafar fight of all things. The Jafar fight!

Olympus Coliseum II: Went back and did the Phil Cup

Green Trinity Revisit: Went back to Wonderland, Deep Jungle, Olympus, and Traverse Town to do the green trinities.

Traverse Town III: Green trinity & first couple parts of 100 Acre Woods

Ending level: 25

Play time: About 3.5 hours

Day Three (May 22nd, 2020)

Monstro: Got my second “game over”, courtesy of the second fight with Parasite Cage, another fight that tormented me when I was 12. I keep forgetting that if you move around while you’re mid-cure spell, it cancels the spell out, so I thought I had healed myself. I hadn’t. I died.

Atlantica: This is a level I try and get through as fast as I can, because underwater levels in ANY game are the bane of my existence. (Another thing I just recently learned: you don’t have to go to Atlantica, I guess? You can skip and just do Halloween Town? But this is basically the only game where I’ve successfully gotten the secret ending and I want to do it again, so I sucked it up and did Atlantica.) For the Ursula II fight, I definitely employed the cheap strategy of swimming around the edges while Ariel and Donald beat her down to her last hit point, and then floating in and finishing her off. And yes, it took forever.

Olympus Coliseum: Did the Phil Cup with just Sora and the Pegasus Cup with everyone

Traverse Town IV: Since I had torn pages from Monstro and Atlantica, I did the next two 100 Acre Wood sections.

Ending Level: 34

Play Time: About 3.5 hours

Next up: Halloween Town, Neverland, and maybe the Hercules Cup

[secretsideofme95]

This Is My Story!

So, I’m just going to get all this out, I did something similar on new years, i sat down with someone and just spilled everything. I talked and talked and talked i just told everything, things ive never told anyone. But now i’m gonna get it all out, so here it is. My story.

I have never done anything like this so i am not quite sure how to do this but here we go.

Like many others growing up in primary school and secondary school i was bullied. I grew up with a lisp, i struggled with saying S and any words with it in. I had people older then me making fun of it i even had a teacher trying to convince me it was my fault and i just couldn't speak properly. At first i didn't understand why i was being asked to say words with S in it, but quickly i found out. it ended up making me so self conscious i got shy and quiet and just hid away and kept to myself. This was going on from like year 4 when i was 6/7 (i think i cant remember) Truth is from my childhood i dont remember anything good, i have no memories of anytime playing with friends going out having fun even just playing, only things i remember from my past at this time is just bullying.

In secondary school i remember again getting made fun of for my lisp, but also told i was ugly and that no one would wanna be with me. i had all these people making fun of me, i didn't fit in any of the groups i didn't even want to, i thought all this group stuff was stupid, so even just coz i wasn't part of the popular kids or the cool kids that ment bully me. people found anything to make fun of. i started self harming around 13. In school both primary and secondary i never really had friends so never had any after school activities, never went round someones house, i never went out with friends, i just went home. which i lived in a flat with my mum, a one bedroom flat. The council wouldn't move us despite my age, i had the bedroom my mum had the front room as her room. but ofcorse people still made fun of that coz we couldn't afford a house like they could.

Home, You would think that would be better but not really, i was a only child so i was on my own again, while at home i would do whatever i could to pass the time, i watched allot of movies, this is where i got into games, was a getaway, i could be someone else, i could pretend to be anyone. pretend i wasn't alone. so yes my mum was there, in a sense anyway. she would work all day and had an iron deficiency, so she would work all day, volunteering in a charity shop (another thing people made fun of me for) she would come home and just go to sleep, that was it she would go to work then go to sleep. I learnt to take care of myself, cook for myself. I became independent and i grew up i was basically living on my own at the age of 15. 

When i was 18, at college, there was this one particular day, one day that stuck with me, i came back home from college, and there was a padlock on the door and an eviction notice, the council had kicked us out. all i had was the stuff for college that day and that was it. my mum went and stayed with her boyfriend, i had to find somewhere to stay, with no close friends and no other family was harder then you'd think. luckily i found someone who i knew who let me stay a few days, it grew us closer together she ended up becoming one of my best friends, which was good coz i was homeless and for the next 7 months was the hardest time of my life, so many times i wanted to give up and end it, so many times i just couldn't carry on, i had not much of my stuff, i had no privacy, no room for myself, i had to revolve my life around everyone else, whoever’s i was staying at. for 7 months i was at college Monday to Friday all day 9am till 5pm then Tuesday till Sunday from 6pm until 11pm i had work. then then same every day. it was so hard all the stress, having to find somewhere new to stay every few days. worrying about money about college work. about normal work. about what if the day comes i wont be able to find somewhere to stay.

I wish i could say it ends there but it dosnt. since then to this day i have been homeless (well sofa surfing) 3 times. every time getting worse and worse. This really is not helping my mental health at all.

So this is not everything tho, around the time i was 18 i was dating this girl, She was blond, so beautiful, she was such an incredible girl she was perfect and i loved her. after 3 years we broke up, i still loved her, i was 18 i was stupid and acted before i though, we had got into an argument after we had broke up, started on twitter actually. Allot was said between both of us, but she was suffering from bad mental health aswell as i was, i said some nasty stuff we both did, but i tipped her over the edge, shes told me after this happened that it wasn't my fault, she was already at the point i just pushed it that tiny bit over, but she tried to commit suicide like 4 times, everything got too much for her, i didn't know about this, not until i went back to college and i saw her one day, i saw the bandages, i saw the marks, i saw what i had done to her, people have said it wasn't me shes said it wasn't my fault, but i cant help feeling guilty, i cant help thinking what if i hadn't got in that argument what if i reacted differently, it wasn't my fault yet i feel guilty to this day, 6 years later this still lays heavy on my conscience, seeing what it had done too her, i couldn't take it. This is what has made me so bad, what has turned me into this, this is what made me become this.

i have learnt from this, i think before i speak, im terrified of confrontation, im terrified of arguments, i cant walk away i cant leave people when they are upset or angry, even if i get in an argument, i cave in, i give in and i usually give them whatever they want, i dont want this happen again so i do what i have to to stop the argument even if its not what i want, even if it hurts. i cant go through that again, it would kill me and destroy me more then it already has.

This is why i dont think i deserve to be happy, what i did to her, what happened, im getting what i deserve. 

Every relationship ive had literally all of them except for this blond (including the ones before her) have all cheated on me, they have all used me, all played me. for one reason or another, i always get hurt. i pour my soul in, i give everything i can put in all effort and do whatever i can for them to make them happy, to give them what they want, and each one just takes me for grated and takes more, and more of me, slowly they are taking everything and soon there is going to be nothing left.

My family,  that dosnt exist, none of them talk to me, wanna know me, they dont even know anything about me, nothing happened just slowly they all stopped talking to me, now even if i try messaging them not a single one will reply, even when i was in the hospital for my operation. no one cared to even ask why. when i need help most, not a single one cared.

my friends, i barley have any anymore, those that i do dont live close to me. all my friends i had i lost, my 2 best friends were married (together) i was actually living with them until a month ago, until they decided to turn their back on me, give me 3 days to get my stuff and move out, they were even so nice as to give me no help, even got me fired from my job on the same day. 

my mental health gets worse and worse every day, not a day goes by i wish i was dead to be completely honest, i dont wanna live this life anymore i dont wanna live all this shit im done, but i carry on living through this shitty existence for those few people who still care. and every single day is hell fighting myself fighting my urges, being at war with yourself is the hardest battle to go through. every night i go to sleep crying, every morning i wake up wishing i hadnt. i would do anything to have a cuddle, i would do anything to just fall asleep with someone.

My love life, well thatch just non existent. in the last 4 months i had 4 dates, date 1, goes well have fun went out for a drink had a laugh blah blah blah, she said shed love to see me again soon, i was a lovely guy she really liked me. ofcorse i never heard from her again. date 2, go out for a drink to get to know each other, again goes well connected got on well im a nice guy how am i single, anyone would be lucky to have me, again, dosnt ever contact me again. date 3, so talking for ages been going round there spending time with here cuddling, then out of no where she tells me shes seeing someone after telling me she likes me but isn't ready for a relationship so might take some time for us. well that was bullshit coz she got straight into one with some other guy within a week saying she loves him. so date 4 a few weeks ago, been talking goes week meet up and yeah same story how am i single anyone will be lucky im the perfect guy shes looking for, so we arrange a date to go and have dinner together i was gonna cook for her, on the day tho she stops talking to me, dont here from her for another week, she tells me she ditched me coz she found someone. so once again same shit happens despite that she said she wouldn't and all that bullshit ... guys are not the only ones that can be dicks to people and fuck them over. i have given up completely, stopped looking, stopped feeling, stopped caring..

my sleeping is i dont even know how to explain it, i dont sleep much most nights im awake with my thoughts, i get maybe 2 hours a sleep a night if that, i just no matter how tired i am i cant fall asleep, i cant relax and switch off. im sitting here now running on no sleep for 48 hours and i cant fall asleep. so here i am writing this. when i do sleep i regularly have nightmares, bad nightmares, but ive got so used to them now, its normal to have them and dosnt even bother me anymore, used to terrify me. now i hope they are real i hope that that dream i die, is not a dream. when i sleep i feel nothing, its the closest to death ill get, its peace.

i broke my leg 3 years ago at a trampoline park, ever since then ive been in constant pain every single day, bad excruciating pain, im on strong opioid painkillers to try and control the pain, im on Tramadol, codeine and naproxen every day, and im still in pain, i cant straighten my leg, i cant walk properly. ive had surgery on it, ive done physio and it isn't helping, im stuck like this, im stuck in pain every single day and there is nothing they can do.

so you wanna know how i feel every day, inside my head im fighting a war, fighting myself, trying to find a reason to go on to get through another shitty day on this earth with things never getting any better, im tired of being alive, fed up of being someone that when things start going right or better, something rips it out from under me and pulls me back down even worse then before. im terrified of being happy, im terrified of good things. do you know what its like to be scared of just being happy, what its like being scared when you meet someone good, or make a friend.everyday im looking for something to make me feel something, because honestly now, i feel absolutely nothing, i feel empty. nothing affects me anymore,  nothing gets me low, gets me sad. everything is being taken from me. all this shit, my life has taken everything from me and the only thing that is left for this shitty life to take is my beating heat and my conscience. and im not sure how long i can hold out for, and the only reason i am is for the 1 or 2 people that actually care, they may not be close but i know it will hurt them. and i dont want them going through that. 

i would do anything to be a dad i wanna be one so bad, in my head anyway, in reality im terrified to have kids, i am terrified they will turn out like me, im scared they will go through this, im scared they will get the same thing as me, i wouldn't want anyone to live with this, i know that i dont. i defiantly would never want my own child too,

i need help, but i dont know what will, i dont know what can help. i think im too far gone and its too late. 

my life is and endless series of train-wrecks, only i have no intervals of happiness, i have no happiness or even anything close. just when i dont think things can get worse they do. 

everything one way or another fucks me over, everything one way or another at some point hurts me, /// i dont think some people are ment to be happy, and i am one of them. some people are ment to suffer. and i dont know how much more i can take. i dont see what more could happen, but im sure it will. and im waiting for the day it gets too much. i dont even know how i got this far.

I know that no one cares, not about this, not about me. but its ok.

im used to it. this is my life. this is my normal. this is the real me ... 

But this face smile, this mask ... this is what everyone else sees, ...

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Arc IV: Megamart of Darkness (2)

Chapter 2: They Paved Paradise…

           Honestly, I didn’t know what I expected paradise to be. Back in those days, the word made me think of one of two things: sitting under a blanket all day with my video games or those scented candles Mom always got for the bathroom.

A dinky little stock pond filled so high with trout their fins were breaking the surface was the last thing I would have thought of.

           Dinky or not, though, if I just sat there it was going to be my grave, and I acted accordingly: by kicking and screaming until I got what I wanted. Like the puppy dog eyes, I figured that if they worked on my parents, they’d work on these waddly little buggers. But natural selection must have been kind to those bird brains, because they did not relent in the slightest! It was like all the sympathy had been bred out of them over generations, and the rest was squashed by some rigorous training program. Heck, they seemed to work even faster after hearing me pout.

           There was a sudden feeling of lightness as they launched my climber into the air, followed by a splash as it slapped smack dab in the middle of the pond, my body still facing skyward. The sun was shining brightly that day; right in my eyes like it was taunting me.

           Then I began to sink. It was slow at first, like quicksand (I figure it was because of all the trout buoying me) but before long the sun was blotted out by a fifteen mile cloud of shimmering fish scales. By the time I’d sunk ten feet, it might as well have been night. My screaming got real bad after that, seeing how I couldn’t die and was probably going to spend the rest of eternity with my lungs caved in. And honest, I had no idea exactly how this equaled redemption. All I could do was let my last few bubbles of oxygen bounce right out of my mouth to the surface.

“Be calm, child.”

I didn’t know whose voice I heard, but it was like a loud, low gong going off in my noggin. Would have asked who was making it, if the source wasn’t already ten steps ahead.

“I’m simply here to help, and for any duress you may have experienced, I apologize. My followers can be quite… zealous, shall we say. Live action roleplaying is not a sport for those soft of spirit.”

Just like that, the trout started fleeing to the edge of the pond, letting enough sun in for me to see the bottom. I instantly wished they hadn’t. Because right in the direction I was heading came a dark walking tsunami of a beast with eyes like embers and teeth like steak knives.

I shut my eyes as the water started rushing around me.

                                                            .   .   .

When I finally got the courage to unseal my peepers, I realized it had all been a dream. Or had it? I was still at the stock pond, only I was on the grass next to it. Most importantly, I was free! Releif didn’t last long, though. Right next to me I could see the cat climber, ripped to shreds.

“Are you awake?”

The Voice!

I turned my head back and forth, trying to see where the voice had come from. It was night out, the only light coming from a rickety old streetlamp hanging over the pond. I would have wondered about the design choices that made the owners of Paradise decide to put a lamp there of all places, but frankly, I was more startled by the voice. There was something ancient, primal about it. Not in the pretentious way the Elves spoke, but something like rumbling thunder. Or an earthquake.

“Pardon me, but I asked, are you awake?”

Whoever was talking to me, they spoke in the dinosaur tongue. And not the street slang version I’d spoken in Hell. The real stuff.  Think listening to someone talk in an Italian accent, then hearing a real Italian. Like that.

So there I was, sitting in a little island of light, surrounded by darkness, listening to a faceless voice with only a few moths for company. It was a scene straight out of those stranger danger videos they made us watch back in 1st grade, right before little Georgie got dragged into the sewers by some faceless evil for believing a sewer might have delicious lollipops. Of course, besides the creeping dread of never finding out what exactly did happen to little Georgie, I couldn’t remember a single piece of advice from that stupid film, other than run, which clearly wasn’t an option given how dark it was.

Instead, I curled up like a snail on the grass. It was my only defense.

“I do not wish to harm you, Watterson Tostig. I only want to talk.”

A pair of eyes glowed like fire in the darkness, followed by the sound of wet feet on grass, coming closer, closer…

I screamed. It honked back.

Then there was… gasping? Wheezing?

“Sweet Osiris, child, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

           Barely heard it, though, as it was still dark and I was still scared and I was hollering my head off. Kept at it, too, for a good ten seconds before I was aware I was still alive, so whoever was talking to me must have some sense of mercy. All slow-like, with that creeping sense of dread you get at a good horror film, I opened my eyes.

           A goose. The thing I’d been scared of this whole time was a freakin’ GOOSE! Or at least the basic shape of one. Instead of the brown body and white belly of the other geese, this guy had a grey body with a black and white streak on the wing. Neck was different, too. Grey, not black, with a pink bill and a reddish brown mask over the eyes. Oh, and their tongue was covered in spikes.  

The sight of that made me scream again.

The bird sighed, calming my nerves a tad. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that if he wanted to eat me, he’d have done so by now.

“Indeed, child. But I am no mere waterfowl: please, call me Bokrug.”

“Well, uh, thanks for saving me, Bokrug.” Most of my fear evaporated, replaced with relief I wasn’t going to be eaten alive.

“Many thanks to you as well, child, for most who have gazed upon my wretched form abscond into the night. Yet you have stayed. Would you, by chance, like to talk?”

Now imagine you’re a kid who had a goose walk up to him in the middle of the night, claiming to have saved your life. What would you do?

Long story short, I was there with Bokrug until sunrise.

We talked about… well I don’t remember this part too clear. Keep in mind I was still a ten year old who, at the time, was half asleep from exhaustion. Just that Bokrug had a lot of questions about how the world has changed in the last sixty years (apparently Elves gave him more ‘sacrifices’ than he’d ever need, but not one of the pretentious buggers could be bothered to pitch him a newspaper every once in a while).

“Once more, I would like to apologize for the behaviors of my… followers.” He sigh-honked the last part. “They have this odd habit of always sacrificing enemies to me, despite me being a pescitarian.”

“Pesci- What?”

“I eat fish.”

“Oh.”

“Watterson, I am truly grateful for your company, but before you continue on your journey back to the wretched Camp Sham (which I am sure is a long and arduous quest) there is a favor I would like to ask of you. You see, I cannot leave this pond, as I am a spirit bound to my bones. Bones residing at the bottom of this very stock pond.”

I imagined how pruned Bokrug’s feathers must have been after sixty years trapped in that dinky little fishing hole. It was not a pretty sight.

“But it was not always this way. Once, we Wood Elves lived in Paradise, usurped by a most befouled evil. My brethren shall explain in greater detail. Their skills of exposition far exceed my own. And there will be apologies, of course.”

Sure enough, I could see the little punks with their shopping carts hiding in the woods, beaks opened in shock as I made small talk with their God.

“Hey Bokrug?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not from here, are you? ‘Cause I’ve seen a lot of geese, but one with a little bandit mask over their eyes.”

“That, my child, is a story that began long ago, in a mystical land called Africa-“

“On second thought, nevermind. If it’s’ anything like the Africa stories Mom tells me, it’ll just make me feel bad about not finishing my broccoli.”

Bokrug let out a disgruntled snort as his white-cheeked worshippers waddled out from their hiding spots in the trees.

[thehalfworld]

Fanfic MST: ITS MY LIFE!, a Portal fanfic [part 12]

Oh yes, friends, it’s back! It’s been entirely too long (two years too long, to be exact) and I hope you’re all ready for some more vaguely Portal-flavored nonsense. 

No real warnings for this chapter, just typical MarissaTheWriter ridiculousness. And canon character death, maybe, depending on whether or not you take the events of this chapter at face value (and, if I remember this story correctly, you probably shouldn’t).

Recap: Chell and GLaDOS have fused into one entity, P-body is pregnant, and Marissa for some reason decided that Rattman is the only one who can prevent disaster even though dude is strictly a non-action guy. She located him and now the two of them are planning on taking down the Chell/GLaDOS fusion.

Chapter 1

Previous chapter

AN YOU GUYSARE ALL SO WEIRD! YOU WERE GIVIN ME GOOD REVIEWS THEN YOU SAY IM A TROLL AN THAT YUR GONNA KILL ME AN PUT SALT IN MY THINGS? 

That is pretty weird, yeah. 

(I’m not even sure what she’s referencing. Maybe a play on “assault”?)

IF IT WERENT FOR THE PEPOLE HOO REALLY LICK MY STORY LIKE THE BUZINESS GUY AN SEPHRAL AN CAT NOT BOUNCY ID STOP IT RITE NOW!

I dunno who Sephral is, but “the buziness guy” is user ASBusinessMagnet (later a recurring character in MarissaTheWriter’s stories; I’m pretty sure we got married at one point), and “Cat Not Bouncy” is Tumblr user catbountry, who was going by “Not Cat Bountry” on Fanfiction dot net and who did a dramatic reading.

PS - I NO THAT GLADOS IS SPELLED GLADOS I CALLED HER FUSION CHELLGADOS BECOS CHELL ALREADY HAS THE LS AN IT SOUNDED MORE COOLER!

See, I told you she’d explain that. All makes sense now, right? Perfectly logical writing decision.

ITS MY LIFE!

CHAPTER TWELF: THE FINAL BATTLE

Bit of a misnomer, since this is not, in fact, the final chapter.

(Actually, if I remember correctly, MarissaTheWriter may have been writing by the seat of her pants; it’s possible she initially intended this as the True and Honest Final Battle.)

Ratman an I were goin thru the air ducks to get to CHELLGADOSs layer were the final show down wold be. 

Oh my god, she means her lair, not her layer. That literally took me years to figure out. Holy fuck.

Wheatly was growlin an tryin to be scarry becos he didant have weapons so he was lick are cheer leader. 

Considering what happens when Wheatley actually tries to be the bad guy, I think this is preferable.

We intered the layer an saw CHELLGADOS buildin turrents but these ones was speshal becos they cold walk a round an shoot an stuff! 

Hey, I played Portal 2, I saw the turret assembly line. It’s pretty much autonomous. She doesn’t have to build them herself, and honestly I think she’d find it beneath her.

But maybe things have changed since I left the building.

"INTURDER!" One of the turrents called to CHELLGADOS. CHELLGADOS looked at me with all the angry she ever had.

That’s a phenomenal amount of anger. Surprised Marissa didn’t combust on the spot.

"Marrissa Roberts you have interfeared with my plans for the last time becos now I will kill you." 

All right! Time for some murder!

Then she seed Ratman an got more angry. "RATMAN IS A LIFE? NOW YOU WILL BOTH DYE!" 

I doubt she cares about killing Rattman, considering that she didn’t do so before and that he poses basically no threat on his own. Like I said… non-action guy.

CHELLGADOS taked out her portal gun wich was modified to shoot bullets lick a reel gun but cold shoot portals to just in case. 

Okay, but does it really shoot bullets? I ask because the turrets use spring-loaded action in order to fire the entire bullet, which is obviously a hell of a lot less effective despite delivering more bullet per bullet. Explains why Chell can take so many hits without dying.

Point being, there’s no evidence Aperture Science knows how guns are supposed to work.

She fired the portal gun an it hit Ratman with a boom an I thot he was dead for sure.

But Ratman gotted up! 

What? Is he still alive?

"Silly CHELLGADOS you cannt hurt me becos..." He pulled down his pants an I saw that he had replased his man thingys with... the space an rick cores! 

…I know we’re leading up to a “balls of steel” joke, and I shan’t comment on that, but this raises so many goddamn questions. How do you replace your testicles with personality cores? A personality core is a hell of a lot bigger, and heavier, than a human testicle. Also, Space Core is in space, so how did Rattman get ahold of him? Did he shrink the cores somehow? How did this make him immune to bullets? How did he fit two personality cores in his pants? Why did he need to flash everybody?

My brain is hurting over this and I know it’s only in the story because the author wanted to make a stupid pun. Moving the hell on.

"IVE GOT BALLS OF STEEL!" (Thats from a game called Duke Nukum Forever its funny) The space core was still thing he was in space but Rick was mad at been one off Ratmans tentacles. 

One of his tentacles? Are we in a hentai now?

"Well then ill just portal you into space like Wheatly an see how you like it you wont!" CHELLGADOS shooted a nother portal unner Ratmans feet an he was sucked into s space. "No dont you are my dotter Chell!" Ratman yelled as he got sucked in.

Uh… what? How? I thought Marissa and Chell were both Cave and Caroline’s kids in this story. Wasn’t that established several chapters ago?

"OMG HOW?" CHELLGADOS an me said at the same time to gether. "It all storted a long time ago..." Ratman gave us the down lo as he was just barely hanging on to the portal. "I used to work for Gabe Jonson affer he changed his name to Cave in onor of his dead brother. Caroline was got shot as you no Marrissa an was put in a robot body that was called... GLaDOS!" 

Right, we know. How is he hanging on to the portal? Can you do that? I don’t think you can do that.

CHELLGADOS o-mouthed at his shockin words. 

Did she forget she spent the beginning of this story being a goth emo over the revelation that she used to be human? Like… this isn’t news anymore.

"Gabe new he wold have to dotters named Marrissa an Chell but since GLaDOS was a prototip she an Cave coldnt make baby normal way an instead used the artificial enseamanation an grew test toob babys. 

Hey, what the fuck is the “normal way” to have sex with a giant robot? Seriously, please inbox me if you know. It’s for a friend. I swear.

But there was a miksup an my dna got used instead of Gabes for one of the toobs that toob was... CHELL!" Then Rutman coldnt hold on any longer an fell into space an died.

Why did Aperture Science have a sperm sample from Rattman on file? How did they get DNA from Caroline, since her physical human body no longer exists? How does Rattman know about the mixup? Who carried the baby to term? How did two white people birth a woman of color? How did two white people birth a woman of color? I don’t know if I brought this up earlier in the MST, but I am directing that question at every “Chell is Cave and Caroline’s daughter” theorist too. You’re not off the fucking hook.

Then CHELLGADOS started shackin an looked funny. Chell was fightin back a gainst GLaDOSs control! "Marrissa there is not much time left you must kill me to stopped GLaDOS once and four all!" 

Okay, but we know what happens when Marissa kills Chell — thanks to having consumed the “zombie taters,” Chell will just turn into a zombie. You don’t want the most tenacious woman in the world after your brains, but especially not when she’s fused with the most massive collection of wisdom to ever exist, who also hates you.

I o-mouthed becos Chells brane damage was cured so now I coldnt put her out of MISERY lol. 

That’s actually not the concern I expected Marissa to have. She has no problem killing disabled people, but being fused with a homicidal AI who is using your body as her puppet is A-OK, even when the victim is begging for death?

Man, this girl could use some new priorities.

"But I cannt kill you Chell yur my sister there must be a nother way! Chell got sad "Hurry GLaDOS is takin control!" An she started lollin with evil. There was no way I cold kill Chell an then I rembered that GLaDOS used to be Carlion an that made me not want to kill herr neither.

Yeah, and remember how she used to be a well-written and complex character who cannot be reduced to a mere villain and who actually likes Chell so much she keeps writing songs about it?

Sorry, there I go talking about canon again.

"Bloody hell Marrissa shes powerin up!" Wheatly screemed from inside my jump soot an I looked up an saw CHELLGADOS was floatin in air an electric stuff was comin out off her. "THANKS MARRISSA YUO REMINDED ME THAT I USED TO BE CARALIN SO I REMBERED THAT I HAVE POWERS TOO!" 

Hey, uh, what the fuck? 

I o-mouthed, that dumb ingineer forgot to make it so only I gotted the powers! I didant no what to do now an it seemed hope less when a herd a sound. "Hey b**** were heer for backup!" It was... ATLAS AN P-BODY!

Who are they here to back up?

"OMG why are you jersk helpin me?" I asked while o-mouthin from the shock. "Becos CHELLGADOS is half yur sister an we dont lick you so we dont lick Chell neither!" Atlas eksplained. "An I rembered that you gave us the drugs an beer in the first place so if it wasnt for you we woldnt have drugs an beer!" P-Body added an Atlas nodded like yeah! 

I guess that’s reasonable. I, too, feel indebted to those who give me drugs and beer.

We started ti fire are portal guns at CHELLGADOS an the portals combined to make a big portal black hole.

Co-op mode would benefit from the inclusion of this feature, I think.

"OH SH**!" CHELLGADOS screamed as the GLaDOS parts were all sucked out off Chell. 

Should have attached them better, I guess.

Ones all of GLadOS was gone we closed the portal an Chell falled down on the ground. "Chell I safed you!" I rant to my sister an gave her hug. "Marrissa Im sorry, but the damaje from GLaDOS was to much..."

“…not to mention, having my butt sliced off after someone used their powers a little too recklessly…”

An she dyed in my arms. "Nooooo Chell my sister you are died!" I cried soooo much an Whealty cried to becos they was frends even Atlas an P-Body looked kinna sad.

Isn’t Chell gonna turn into a zombie now or are we not doing the zombie stuff anymore? Was that only because she was brain-damaged? This fic is confusing.

I put down Chells body an stand up when there was a clikclak nose be hind me.

Oh no! Not a clikclak nose!

"LOL we tricked you to get yur guard down Marrissa! Now die b****!" An Atlas an P-Body lolled an shot me in head.

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I love that the author of this mess has no problem writing over-the-top violence but feels the need to censor the word “bitch.”

"Marrissa!" Wheatly screamed an ever thing got really black an I died.

Love the prose.

TO BE CONTINUED?

Yes, indeed, we’re not done with this fic yet!

OH NO MARRISSA IS DIED!

Oh, yes.

CAN WHEATLY SAFE HER?

Well, seeing as she’s dead, I think it may be a bit late for that.

FIND OUT IN THE NEXT ONE PS IM THINKIN OF MAYBE WRITIN A SPINNOFF A BOUT TEEN FORTRESS 2 AN GABE JONSON AN CARALION LIVIN IN PORTAL HIGH SCHOOL WHAT DO YOU GUYS THIN?

She actually did write that spinoff, by the way. I’ll put my MST of it up on this blog at some point.

Next chapter

[sealedbeastnue]

early-mid season (brunch?) anime review time, featuring acclaimed hits such as Oreimo 2: Incest Divide By 0 Error, Re:Zero Sidequest: Furry Fuckers who Shit in the Woods, and my personal favorite, The Cube Show

oh god this is so long im officially otaku trash here we go

so lets start with the best show ever:

clockwork planet: wow this was weak. I really liked No Game No Life but this does not hold that standard (not that it’s a high standard to aspire to but this is just not as fun). This was absurdly slow cheap looking trash that uses a Potentially Interesting concept to do absolutely nothing. dropped. dropped right on its dumb head full of gears.

alice to zouroku: also looks pretty cheap but it has a lot of interesting stuff going on. I don’t know how to Feel. the show hasn’t really ramped up yet but it could go in a ton of directions and I’m ready to be totally blindsided by where this goes.

ID-0: man this really is the Season of Baffling Concepts. tay keeps telling me this is a comedy but im not seein it. I think it’s a pretty decent space sci fi concept show that seems to be gearing up for... something philosophical? no clue. I like what we’re setting up and I want more. unfortunately this is the type of show where, like with gatchaman, I cannot physically focus my eyes on the mech designs long enough to realy appreciate them. probably just my problem though.

seikaisuru kado: the real standout of the SF offerings this season and my personal favorite this far. I don’t want to spoil too much but The Cube Show is not a show you should skip. looks and sounds fantastic, concept is great, writing is... really not fucking around at all, is it? slow, grindy high concept sci fi with very human characters (lol get it). this will be remembered even if it ends up being stupid (it wont). dont miss it

re:creators: I really dont know. every episode is an infodump but we’ve got a cool cast of characters, they’re likeable, and this has tons of potential. IIRC this is the team that did aldnoah:zero so it could go to shit instantly but for now it’s solid and has me wanting more. also gunpuku no himegimi <3 design <3

oushitsu kyoushi haine: had no expectations and was not planning to watch, turns out this is top 5 shows this season? it’s not fujobait. probably. has a fantastic OP/ED pair, looks consistently Really Good and everyone’s likeable. also if we’re going to bring back chibi this is the way to do it: sparingly, and with really strong visual gags. the one thing I REALLY WANT is more worldbuilding

uchouten kazoku S2: glorious so far. this is even more wild than season 1. if you haven’t heard of uchouten and you have even a passing interest in japanese mythology, comedy, or shapeshifting moms you really should go check it out - everyone is a FUCKER and everything Escalates Very Fast. tenmaya is best waifu of this season though... this fucking old guy... hes perfect

eromanga sensei: call me trash I dont give a shit. this show is pretty good. its definitely weird siscon bullshit but its pretty good regardless. I like to have fun. do you like to have fun?

sakura quest: more like Too Real Feels Quest. if you’re a person in your 20s-30s who has ever struggled with adult life in any way, this is for you. I have no idea how something like this got produced in the current industry climate but it’s fuckin great and painful and honest and real. I have a pet theory that Manoyama is Not On Earth as We Know It and that this town is fae folk btw lets see how that plays out

bastard akashic records magical instructor super dangerous dudessss better watch out boyz: likeable just because of how blatantly shitheaded MC is. these character designs... uh... those sure are garter belts... so far this is entertaining and not much else but that’s okay they dont all have to be miracles

soutai sekai: I have no idea why this exists or what can justify this show. Reol why did you get involved in this. you’re so far above trash like this. someone must have offered her serious fucking dosh to associate herself with this. im gonna complete it (its only 2 eps) but this is definitely garbage.

girl beats boys: ever wanted to watch cromartie highschool but with no comedy instead its kind of a weird documentary? turns out I did. this is kind of fun actually! it’s so odd I can’t help but admire it

maid dragon specials: ?????????????okay???? if we gotta

kabukibu: I’m a big fan of SHOUTING AWKWARDLY. dropped instantly. dont care if accurate, this is weird and dumb.

frame arms girl: this is where it becomes clear that I have desperately overextended this season and have become WAY too generous with my time when it comes to anime. this was a miscalculation I am regretting. also, this show isn’t good but I guess I can see the appeal. if anything should be an 8-minute-episodes show it’s this. probably dropped.

forest fairy five: I got bamboozled by the cover. I can’t make an excuse for my foolishness. It Will Not Happen Again.

high school fleet OVA: this needed to come like six months ago if you wanted to capitalize on this. I dont remember a single one of these characters. sorry lads, its not workin

mahoutsukai OVA 2/3: Yes. show coming in the fall is fucking hype

sin: nanatsu no taizai: I, too, like to get fucked by tentacles. also Miami

sekai no yami zukan:

also currently watching:

kekkai sensen: holy shit dude this is so good. I can’t believe the animation and music quality? how is this not legendary? maybe it gets fucked up down the line but on episode 3 this whole concept is such a solid package I cant see myself not loving it very strongly.

scrapped princess: I sscrappedddd (JOKES!!!) this show a few times bt now that I’m finally giving it a chance I can see that the fight scenes have a surprisingly good quality and end up in cool locations (crystal caves with actual foley work to back it up? and a complete tonal shift in the visuals? sign me the fuck up dude)

older stuff I finished recently:

did I mention girls und panzer last time? probably. this is still great though. I cant get over the fucking Finnish artillery gun scene in the movie jfc this is just soooo good

so ra no wo to: fantastic as a slice of life/military show with musical elements. if you see people comparing this to K-On tell them to fuck off because the only similarity is the time they were released. this isnt a light music club show. probably the best visual style of any show I’ve watched recently - really sets the tone of the show and adds a LOT of otherworldly and mysterious qualities... strong girls... let them be strongth... OP/ED is wonderful too

death parade: looked pretty cool. ended up making me kind of sad and the characters were a bit empty (no I’m not counting the fact that they’re Puppets as a valid reason for that). more than enough has been written about this show.

upotte: who told me to watch this? who the fuck? I’m gonna find them strangle them. dropped this is for weird gun otaku smeglords

kuzu no honkai: my dick was absolutely raw at the end of this. I was leaning to the side and hunching over slightly for the next 24 hours. people who dont like this have never been challenged by a horrible relationship and/or are repulsed by raw painful emotionally-charged human sexuality (both of these things are fine by the way)

rakugo lovers double suicide (season 1): on the other hand. with regard to human sexuality. time for probably my most controversial opinion ive ever had. this show is GARBAGE. VALUELESS GARBAGE. the characters are absurdly, laughably flat; the entire season is a bait and switch; it’s REALLY SLOW and drags for about 2/3 of the season because it only had about 4 episodes worth of actual content; every character motivation makes no sense especially the death scene near the end are you serious? did people really take that seriously? I was so irritated by the fact that this went down like this that I actually had to go away from my computer for a while. this show isn’t gay either, it’s the most painfully straight thing and it has no perspective other than that of a straight person who has never experienced anything outside of their sphere of comfort. also FUCK this hoe what is her PROBLEM? go ditch her stupid ass if she’s gonna be like that. she’s an abusive partner who abandoned her child repeatedly and it is absolutely ridiculous that they put up with her presence. they’re all pretty abusive though so whatever I guess that  makes this fine. people who enjoyed this, I’m sorry but you got fucking duped man. this was not written by a fully formed human mind. this was its season’s Yuri on Ice and is currently hideously overrated. please do not waste your time on this. or do, so you can see how awfully it’s written and understand that Most People Are Dumb Idiots With No Taste.

ao oni the animation: please explain why this franchise was ever popular. I do not fucking get it. I really tried. this show came about 6 years too late regardless I cannot justify its existence

gakuen handsome: 2deep4me zaaannkoku no tenshiii no these (evangelion playing in the background my third eye is opening)

yumekui merry: Painful. if this is actually a quality show, my bad but fuck these goddamn cats. I hate anthropomorphic cats with all of my being

[samanthapickler-blog]

The first time we met

When I first met Justin I was 14 and he was 16, so we have known each other for about 7 years now, heading into 8. We met online through a mutual friend that we had gamed together with, and yes Justin and I big gaming nerds and enjoy gaming with each other in our free time. 

So, we met online through a game and became really good friends, playing late into the night, doing stupid shit online and being as we would call ourselves “little shits”. All of this would lead to late night skype calls that would end up with both of us falling asleep in the call and continuing with our shenanigans the next day. 

After a while of this I started to really like this kid, I was myself around him and he wouldnt judge me one bit, but there was one issue; I had already had a boyfriend before I met Justin, but here is the kicker, that boyfriend and I werent together when I met Justin so I was on the market but once that boyfriend found out about Justin he asked to be with my again, this went on for the majority of Justin and I’s friendship and I was off and on with that guy for 6 years. It caused a lot of tears in Justin and I’s friendship because Justin would try to make a move and I was always stupidly with the other guy.

Finally, Justin had enough of it and it led to a big argument which led to us not speaking to each other for two years. I’ve never told him how much those two years sucked without him, the one person I knew I could talk to and be myself around was gone and those two years were really really really rough. I cried a lot in those two years, I missed him so much but I was too prideful to admit it back then, and I hated that he didnt reach out to me like I thought he was because I knew that I meant a lot to him but he didnt reach out and neither did I.

In those two years, the guy that made us tear apart came back into my life again ( at this point I had so much resentment for this dude that I really didnt want to be with him but I also didnt want to be alone ) When he had come back into my life he dropped a bomb on me that I didnt think he would, he was joining the Army, it shocked me mainly because I didnt think he would ever do it but he did. He went off to basic and AIT and then got stationed in Ft. Bliss TX. He and I started to date again and eventually he talked about us getting married, when he started to talk about getting married this is around the time when he learned that he was going to JRTC and eventually would deploy after that. He went off and whatnot, he came back and started to pack for the deployment, he again started to talk about getting married and whatnot and I stupidly thought it was a good idea, I said yes to him and started to plan my move to El Passo but thankfully that got put on hold because of the deployment. 

Now, you guys know I am not married to someone who is stationed in Ft. Bliss, so obviously I didnt marry that guy.I had found out he had been cheating on me and I called it quits, that story is so long and stupid that I will give the run down. He had been cheating on me for some time and I had zero clue, of course it was with someone he worked with and that sucked even more. Anyways, I had to find out while he was deployed from one of our FRIENDS!! Yeah that was a good time, I had to end our relationship for good and I knew it. 

But back to Justin, the amazing man who I am so luck to be married to. After two years of no contact I caved, I added him back on everything and once he accepted I sent a message faster than Ive ever sent any message in my whole life. I sent something stupid because I knew he would answer that lol. 

After a few messages back and forth I had asked him how he had been doing and what he had been up to, ironically he had also join the Army and was stationed here in Kentucky. Instantly I was like “FUCK”  why did you have to join the Army lol, we talked for a while, caught up and talked about what had happened in the two years we didnt speak. He had asked me about the other guy and I had told him that he and I werent together and I had asked him about his love life, he was trying to get with this girl that he had been after for a few months, but never got with her. 

The few months that we talked I saw him spiral with that girl, he was so down on himself and eventually just said “fuck it” and didnt try to go after her again and just deleted her off of everything, kinda like he did me lol. I didnt rush into trying to be with him, but once I found that out boy I was quick to start flirting. Now there is something you need to know about this man, he was OBLIVIOUS to me flirting with him, eventually I just had to come out and say it lol.

Some time went on before we decided to do anything dating wise, one night we had the bright idea to play games together and drink... A few hours in, Im completely gone, and he is right behind me, hes able to hold his alcohol better than I can lol. Eventually it led to him asking me to be his girlfriend and lots and lots and lots of confessions of love and whatnot. 

Now, we have been together a year and it has been the best year of my freaking life. This man treated me in ways I didst think I would ever be treated. He respects me, he loves me and he cares for me. He makes me fee on top of the world ever freaking day and I cannot thank him enough for being the man that he is and the loving husband that he is.

Meeting for the first time

We had been dating for about 6ish months Im not sure, when we had decided that it was finally time to meet each other. There were so many complications with the first date that two months went by before I finally go to meet him.

It was July when we finally got everything squared away. I finally got time off from work and finally knew that I could book my flight and have no issues now!! That night he had facetimed me and we looked at flights, I found the perfect one. What sucked was that I still had to go to work that morning, so I would be going to work, getting off and packing the rest of my things and heading to Austin to make my FIRST FLIGHT EVER. 

Now, I have never flown before up until this and I was SCARED SHITLESS. Justin on the other hand has traveled and is seasoned with flying and told me over and over it wasnt that bad, and it wasnt! I actually really miss flying, and wish I had a reason to do it more often. But my first flight was that day, I left work really early because my nerves were kicking my ass, I was nervous as hell, I didnt know how I would do going through TSA, and getting to my gate, but lucky for me it was easy and when I had gotten through TSA all of my gates were right there. 

It was late as heck when I got on my flight, like 9PM or something like that. I had gotten done with my frist flight and my last flight was out of Houston and from there I would finally be in Nashville and finally with my man. I got into Nashville at 11:30PM and instantly called Justin and told him I was there. He was outside waiting for me!!!!!!! I rushed past everyone and made my way outside to see my boyfriend stading there with the biggest smile on his face. He greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the forehead and then we got in the car and drove back to Ft. Campbell. That night I was quietly let into his barracks room LOL.

We just stood there for a while, hugging and looking at each other and saying “im here!!” over and over and over again. That night we squeezed ourselves onto his bed and tried to fall asleep, but there was too much excitement. He still had to go to PT in the morning and had work as well, I tried to sleep and so did he but we just couldnt. Once we did start falling asleep his alarm went off and it was time for him to get dressed and head out for PT.

He came back later that morning with some breakfast for me and then it was time for him to get dressed and leave for the day :( Let me tell you the barracks are depressing as hell. But I LITERALLY slept all the day while he was at work. He would text me every time he could to check on me and make sure I was okay and whatnot. Later that night he got him and we crashed again, we really messed up our sleeping schedules lol. 

From there it was the weekend so we went to visit my aunt, and then we went up to Ohio to meet a friend, those few days that we had together were so good and will forever have a special place in my heart. 

And that is the first time we met <3