#very interesting though .... especially with the need for some systems to go through hard resets after malware attacks

[luoce]

oohhhhh ransomware mac brainworms

what if i draw multiple different versions of malware mac . ooo im physically incapable of keeping things lighthearted

[foolofatook001]

woooo hermit horrors week! excited for this one :D

Day One - Season 8/Game Mechanics

cw mind control, temporary character death

Zedaph has never really had a hard time talking anyone into doing something for him. He’s a very persuasive kind of guy, when it comes down to it, and of course the other hermits are always so very helpful, so it doesn’t take much to convince them into whatever scheme he’s cooked up lately. 

This really comes in helpful for this season, especially now that his chamber is ready for live hermit experimentation. His first subject is Tango, and it’s an easy job getting him into the chamber— just a little word in his ear, a mere suggestion, really (and a directive to sign the waiver, before they begin), and they’re ready to go. Tango is always so willing to help him out with these science experiments, it’s really very kind of him. It’s one of the reasons why they’re such good friends. 

He has to be careful when the subject is actually in the chamber, though— he doesn’t want to taint the experiment. Each solution to the task set before them has to come from the subject’s own pure brain, without any hints or nudges from him. But Zedaph has lots of experience, and the push-to-talk intercom system certainly helps him be a little more deliberate when he speaks. 

He gets lots of interesting results from Tango, and sends him on his way with a casual Go ahead and toss yourself in the lava there, sending him up to the bed to respawn and exit. 

It’s a few weeks before the chamber is properly reset and cleaned out, and by that time Zedaph has landed on Bdoubleo as the next subject. Bdubs is not as used to helping Zedaph in the lab as Tango is, but a few choice words set him on the right track, and by the end of the session, he is performing marvelously. The results are absolutely incomprehensible, but the process was so very fun that he sends Bdubs off with a suggestion planted in his mind— Just something to think about, but— come back to the lab sometime soon. For some follow-up tests, of course. 

Bdubs says he definitely will. Zedaph is very happy that Bdoubleo has discovered such an interest in science. He checks the “willing to return” box on the subject information sheet.

The next subject is Beef, and Beef is such a character in of himself that Zedaph doesn’t even really need to tell him what to do— he’s content to observe through the soundproof glass as Beef goes through the various tasks he’s set. Mumbo, too, is highly independent— though he looks awfully tired, Zedaph notices, marking it down as a note on his clipboard. There’s a certain sluggishness to Mumbo’s movements, and it’s dragging out the series of tests. Zedaph clicks on the mic. “Er, Mumbo? Go ahead and pick up the pace a little bit.” Mumbo speeds up, limbs moving jerkily as they try to keep up with his suddenly galvanized mind. The rest of the tests go by at a much faster tempo, and Zedaph is satisfied with the results. He also marks down a strange and only-just-suppressed urge toward violence from Mumbo, despite the man’s commitment to— what was it again?— right, “Peace, Love, and Plants.”

It’s been a while since the last hermit experiment now, though. For one thing, he hasn’t decided on a new subject. He’s been thinking of giving Xisuma a call and asking him to come over, out of pure curiosity, but it’s not urgent. For another thing, the seismograph has been going absolutely mad lately— there’s been tremors all over the server, with no discernible cause whatever. If this keeps up, Zedaph’s going to have to go out and do some actual field work. 

He shudders at the thought. 

A rapidly pulsing red light blinks on at the top left of the security monitor screen, just a moment before the proximity alarm goes off. Zedaph whirls around and gets a split-second look at Mumbo looming over him like a bespoke string bean before Bdubs tackles him at the waist and he hits his head on the tile floor. The next few moments come through in dizzy flashes: lab lights, far too bright for suddenly sensitive eyes—being picked up and carried, his head throbbing with each step—an uncomfortable heat radiating near his arm, but he can’t muster the words to tell it to go away. 

His stomach suddenly drops and for a moment he flails through empty air before landing with a sickening crunch on the dull white floor. He’s not in instant respawn territory yet, but he’s close, and his kidnappers seem to know this, because he hears shattering glass quite near him, and then comes the bubbly, prickly feeling on his skin that only happens with splash regen and healing potions. 

His headache clears after a moment, and he’s able to get to his feet. “Oh, goodness me,” he says, upon realizing where he is. 

Tango, Bdubs, Beef, and Mumbo all stand on the other side of the tinted glass, wearing lab coats and looking somewhat vindictive. Mumbo’s got a clipboard and pen. 

“This is highly unusual,” Zedaph says, crossing his arms over his chest. “There’s procedures for these things, you know. Standards and that.”

Tango steps over to the desk and keys the intercom. “Hey, Zed, ol’ buddy.  I know you’re probably a little confused, here. Let’s just say we didn’t, uh— didn’t appreciate being your little lab experiments very much, my friend.”

“Informed consent is a big part of the scientific process!” Mumbo says, looking up from the clipboard, clearly unaware of the hypocrisy of his statement. The bags under his eyes have grown even deeper since Zedaph last saw him. 

“You signed the waiver when I asked,” says Zedaph, but of course they can’t hear him. They take turns putting him through his paces, making him do— well, frankly, they’re quite silly things. He has much better things to be doing with his day. If he could just talk to them—

“Make a contraption that will blow something up,” says Bdubs, and Zedaph sees his chance. He intentionally builds it just a little too close to the glass— not so close that Tango and Mumbo will be able to realize what he’s doing right away, but close enough that the blast has a chance of damaging the barrier. 

The TNT, when it goes off, leaves his ears ringing and all his nerves buzzing. But as the smoke clears, Zedaph spots a block of glass up near the corner that has shattered, and he giggles. Perfect!

“Bdoubleo,” he calls, and Bdubs turns to look at him suddenly. “Come in the chamber!” Bdubs immediately pulls out his pick and smashes through the nearest two blocks of glass beside him. He steps through the jagged hole and then pauses, looking confused.

“What was that?”

“This is all really very funny,” Zedaph says to the other three “scientists,” and replaces the glass that Bdubs broke, leaving the hole up at the top. The alarm melts off their faces, and they begin to laugh at Bdubs’ predicament. 

“Mumbo,” says Zedaph, and now Mumbo snaps to attention, meeting his gaze through the glass. “I think for the next test, you should have me do something you’ve really, really wanted to do this season but can’t.”

Beef and Tango break out into another round of chuckles.

“Now hold on a minute,” says Bdubs, looking around, panicked. 

“Well,” says Mumbo slowly, lowering his clipboard and taking a step closer to the glass. Zedaph nods encouragingly. “I would like you to… describe… how you would go about killing Bdoubleo using only things in this chamber—”

“Hey!” Bdubs screams.

“—and then do it and tell me how good it feels,” Mumbo finishes, all in one breath. Tango lets out a surprised wheeze of laughter, and Beef is wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. 

“‘Course,” says Zedaph brightly. “Have to do what I’m told in here, don’t I?”

“No, no, no,” Bdubs says, backing away. 

“Come on, Bdubs,” Zedaph coaxes. “Hop up on this dirt block here and stay put.” Bdubs’s face goes slack and he does as Zedaph asks. “Great! Well, Mumbo, the first thing I would do is get him in prime killing position, like so.” He gestures up to where Bdubs is standing, now looking around wildly. Mumbo nods enthusiastically, taking notes down on his clipboard. “And then I would place— er—” He goes digging through the scattered chests in the chamber to find what he’s looking for. 

Oh, perfect. 

“I would place some obsidian,” he says, triumphantly, sticking the block down next to Bdubs.

“No, no— no, wait,” Bdubs says, desperation clear in his voice. 

“You’re killing me, man,” Tango says breathlessly, clutching his ribs. Zedaph tips an invisible hat in his direction and sends him off in gales of laughter again. 

“Yes, yes, go on,” Mumbo says impatiently, pen tapping against his clipboard. 

“And then I would place one of these,” Zedaph says, pulling the end crystal out of his inventory and setting it hovering over the obsidian base. He swears he sees Mumbo’s eyes light up.

“Go on, then,” Mumbo says, leaning forward eagerly. 

“If you say so,” Zedaph says, and detonates the crystal. 

It kills him as well as Bdubs, of course, but that only sends him back to his actual bed, and out of the range of the other would-be scientists. That had turned into rather a fun little tangent, actually. 

It probably went without saying that none of them would want to come back to the lab, though. 

Well. He’d just have to ask.

also on ao3 :D

[themonkeycabal]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, ep 3

Good morning!

Spoilers! of course

Previously on:

The new Captain America is a massive tool, but his buddy, "Battlestar" (lol), is a little bit adorable. They work for something called the Global Repatriation Council, which sounds like a bureaucratic delight and joy.

Bucky got arrested for skipping his therapy appointment to go to Germany (nothing good ever happens to you in Germany, Bucky. Stop going to Germany.) on a mission with Sam (the mission went badly). And once he's sprung from the clink, he and Sam are suckered into the most awkward team therapy session in many an age. Things Are Said and everybody ends up mostly feeling pretty bad about everything.

Speaking of feeling pretty bad about everything — we discover there was a black super soldier in the US Army during the Korean war who was repaid for his service by being imprisoned and made a lab rat for thirty years. Just as awful as it sounds.  

Also our pseudo-terrorists from the first episode turn out to be a pack of idealistic kids who grew up in a blipped world and whose goals are probably as murky to them as they are to me. They, however, have pissed off somebody much bigger and badder (probably by stealing super soldier serum). 

To find just what in the sam hill was going on with the super soldier serum being out in the wild, Bucky suggested they go talk to that very stable and rational repository of Hydra knowledge, Zemo. I'm sure this will go swimmingly.

I've got my chips and guac and beer, it's 12:30 a.m., and I'm ready for some good ol' fashioned fisticuffs! Bring it, Marvel,

And we open with a sunny, smiley propaganda ad for the Global Repatriation Council. Helping you get back to the way things used to be. Reset. Restore. Rebuild. Cut to a shady black police van with the GRC logo and militarized police hop out along with Captain Massive Tool and the shield that really shouldn't be his. They seem nice.

"Don't give them a second to delete, shred, or breathe," says Captain Biggest Bestest Hero Ever as they prepare to breach a graffiti covered building. Ah, it's the hideout in Munich where Karli and the flag stompers gang were bunked last episode. The owner refuses to give up any info, calls them brutes, spits in Captain Tool's face, and Captain Biggest Bestest Hero Ever roughs him up and yells "Do you know who I am?" The owner replies for us all, "yes, I do, and I don't care."

Captain Tool leaves and grumbles about not having intel on that super dangerous criminal 12-year old, Karli. Battlestar (lol) points out she's giving shelter and meds to displaced people, and so they're loyal. And I'm just going to let that go at this point, because last ep she was on about how the GRC only cared about helping the returning people and not the people who were there all along, and the Flag Smashers wanted to return the world to how it was during the blip. But now suddenly they're all about helping the displaced, who I thought were the ones who were gone, thus, you know, being displaced when they come back to a world that's moved on without them. And I'm letting it go …. now.

Or not. I mean, I guess we could say that they're helping the displaced the GRC doesn't want to help, because they're not politically useful or the GRC is funneling its massive resources somewhere else. Or … something. Like I said, it's all very murky at the moment. I could keep watching and probably discover the answer. And I'm sure the GRC is corrupt as hell, so you go Karli! Though, she's like 16 (okay, maybe early 20s), and I'm not sure how she's managed this level of pull and resources in the few months since the great Un-Blippening and also she's got like a team of 8 (or 7, one died last ep) and she's not exactly oozing charisma. But, never mind. Moving on. For real this time.

That's all my way of saying that 3:48 into this episode and I'm already super done with Captain Massive Tool.

In Berlin, Bucky and Sam are visiting Zemo in prison. How'd they get permission? The guard seems very chill about them being there, he even leaves so Bucky and Sam can go to Zemo's cell alone. Which is so very weird. Are they hoping somebody will shank the weirdo who sits in his cell listening to opera and playing chess all day? "Oh no, he's dead, how sad. Heinrich! Get the mop!"

Anyway, Bucky says he'll go in alone, because Sam's an Avenger and Zemo doesn't really have warm fuzzy feelings for Avengers. Sam, who is currently in possession of the duo's one (1) brain cell, remembers how Zemo literally stalked Bucky and tried to frame him for a bombing and mass murder. "He was obsessed with Hydra. We have a history together," is Bucky's very questionable counter-argument. Well, I mean, technically yes, I guess.

Seriously, they just let him walk right in. Wow.

Zemo steps out of the improbably dark recesses of his cell and immediately starts reciting the Winter Soldier control words. "I just wanted to see how the new you reacts to the old words." By staring. It's his thing.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. It was never personal." I don't know why, but this made me laugh. His delivery is great. It's just like "hey man, good to see you again, hope you got past that whole framing you for murder and the global manhunt thing. Sorry and all. I just really hated your BFF for that time he dropped a city on my family. Bygones, amiright?"

Bucky skips the chat. "Somebody recreated the super soldier serum. I need to find out who." Ah, Zemo is super interested. But, of course. He killed all the other Soldiers, he wouldn't be keen on others around, would he?

Zemo knows where to begin looking for the answer. Cut to Sam and Bucky walking around in a dark room full of some sort of vague equipment (ah, it's a garage), Sam regretting every life decision he's ever made that led him to this point "what are you talking about you want to break Zemo out of jail? Where the hell are we? Buck, have you lost your mind?" Stupidity, who knows, and yes.

"Zemo's going to mess with our minds. Especially yours. No offense." "Offense." lol idiots.

Bucky finds the lights. They argue some more about Zemo. "Super soldiers go against everything he believes in. He is crazy, but he still has a code." Sam's like, yeah, I saw his code, it was blow shit up and kill a lot of people. Sam cannot believe he is hearing this crap right now and he's got to be like "steve rogers, if you weren't 106 I would beat your ass for leaving me with this moron".

"Let me just walk you through a hypothetical. Can I walk you through a hypothetical?" Sam, feeling those cold, tingly chills, the slowly creeping horror of realization, "What did you do?" "I didn't do anything," Bucky lies like the terrible liar he is. Wow he's a bad liar.

Cut back to Zemo's prison cell. Zemo ticks another off the "creepy euro villain" checklist, when Bucky randomly asks what he's reading and Zemo says Machiavelli. But of course. He's hiding something in his book. A key card.

Meanwhile, in the garage Bucky is explaining things to Sam. "The weakest point of any system isn't the software, or the hardware, it's the meatware." lol elegantly put, Bucky. "The human element."

Anyway, to sum up, Bucky's already broken Zemo out of prison. Poor Sam, the look on his face as Bucky hypotheticals through all the steps of the breakout, I laughed so hard.

Sam: “i hate everything, especially this asshole”

"And where are we?" Sam asks, very fed up with Things. 

The door opens and here comes Zemo in his purloined guard's uniform.

"You're going back to prison!" "We need him, Sam." Zemo, politely, "If I may—" "NO!" "NO!"

Argue argue argue. Bucky makes a weird pitch about how Steve didn't sign the Sokovia Accords and neither did Sam and, they went all illegal and on the run, they did it for him and so he's asking Sam to do that again. I mean, Sam's still slightly cheesed about that, Bucky. But, it seems to work, and Sam agrees with A Great Deal Of Reluctance.

Zemo's just standing there all quiet and well-mannered as they go through this, like he's their little pet whackjob.

The garage is full of classic cars belonging to Zemo and they're full of weapons and other goodies. He says he spent years tracking down all the Hydra people who might know how to make the serum, because if it's out there, then somebody could create an army of people like the Avengers. He's taking clothes out of one of the cars and finds a purple ski mask, which he stealthily slips into a bag. Nobody cares about your weird purple mask, Zemo, I've thought that thing was dumb for 30 years.

"To do this, we'll have to scale a ladder of low-lifes." heh

Next they go to an airfield. In Germany. You guys, come on.

Anyway, Zemo owns a plane, he's rich, his family was royalty, he's a baron. Sam's like 'wtf?' Bucky just rolls with everything. Or he does until they're on the plane later and Zemo has somehow lifted Bucky's book of amends and decides to read through it. "Who is Nakajima?" And Bucky's got him by the throat.

Sam's all hey that's Steve's book. "I told him about Trouble Man, he wrote it in that book. Did you hear it? What did you think?" "I like 40s music, so…" "You didn't like it?!?!?!?!" "I liked it." Zemo chimes in, "It is a masterpiece, James. Complete, comprehensive. It captures the African-American experience." lol wtf

"Everybody loves Marvin Gaye," Sam is so offended. "I like Marvin Gaye," Bucky says, probably trying to remember 'who is Marvin Gaye?' "Steve *adored* Marivn Gaye," Sam insists. lol. I like Marvin Gaye, Sam.

Zemo starts going off about Steve, and how the danger with those heroes and super soldiers is they're put on a pedestal and we forget about their flaws. And while he's not wrong, he also clearly wants Sam to throw him out of that airplane.

"Do we want to live in a world with people like the Red Skull? No. That is why we're going to Madripoor." Ahh Madripoor, I haven't thought about that place in a long, long time. A wretched hive of scum and villainy, iirc. Ah, yes, Zemo and Bucky confirm.

Zemo says they can't go as themselves and Bucky's going to have to "become someone you claim is gone". Bucky looks Deeply Unhappy.

On to a GRC resettlement camp in Latvia. Karli is playing soccer with some young kids. Because of the good-natured idealism. She's summoned to a hospital bed, in a ward stuffed with beds in an old, fancy building that's seen better days. Somebody is dying and she's crying at their bedside. Her mom maybe?

Back to Madripoor. It's a glittering city of colorfully-lit skyscrapers. The trio are walking across a bridge to give us a picturesque view and exposit about what they'll be doing. Sam is wearing a very questionable suit with like a black and red floral pattern and yellow-green circles. Or something. I can't tell what's going on with that thing. He says he looks like a pimp. Well no, but it is a terrible suit. Zemo calls it fashion forward, but Zemo wears a great coat with a fur collar and a purple ski mask. Don't take fashion tips from Zemo.

He says Sam will play a "sophisticated, charming, African rake, named Conrad Mack. Aka the Smiling Tiger." Sam is still not thrilled, "even has a bad nickname." Though, yes, the original dude does dress that poorly and he looks like Sam, so suck it up, Sam.

Fortunately they don't have to walk all the way across the bridge (it is a long ass bridge), they're met by a car about halfway and Zemo says they have to super duper stay in character no matter what happens.

The car is surrounded by elaborately decorated motorcycles ridden by very armed people. Hell of a welcome wagon. They're escorted to a graffitied, crumbling underpass, presumably the entrance to Low Town. It's part Macao, part Kowloon, part Jakarta, crammed full of neon and people and ramshackle buildings piled together in a maze of narrow streets, rails, and weird building-to-building bridges. Good set design.

Everybody is "fashion forward" and very heavily armed. They pass a wall with the words "Power Broker Is Watching". That's the charming fellow Karli and her do-gooders stole from.

They enter a bar decorated with golden baboon skulls and koi fish. Zemo asks "are you ready to comply, Winter Soldier?" he's attracted attention from unsavory sorts. I mean, more unsavory than the already unsavory sorts who fill the bar. The bartender is surprised to see Zemo and the Smiling Tiger. Zemo asks for Selby.

Somebody at a nearby table pulls a hood over her head, and by somebody I mean Sharon Carter. NOT SUBTLE SHARON!

Bartender asks the Smiling Tiger if he wants the usual and Sam silently nods. The bartender seems suspicious, but he takes a pickled snake out of a jar, cuts something out of it, drops it in a glass and places it in front of Sam who's like 'what in the actual I am going to puke'. lol Sam bravely tosses it back and does not puke no matter how much he really wants to and he really wants to. Bucky's being the Winter Soldier and is not at all laughing in his head about this.

A power broker minion comes over and tells Zemo he's not welcome there. Zemo says if PB wants him to leave, he can talk to him himself or bring Selby. The minion looks at Bucky and asks if he got a new haircut. Bucky gives him pure murder face. So the Power Broker and his minions know the Winter Soldier, so they were Hydra? Or, I guess, they all ran in the same shady circles.

Anyway, PUNCHING AT LAST! Power Broker minions approach to remove Zemo and Zemo tells the Winter Soldier to attack. Bucky is not pleased, but I am, because now there's punching. It's just been the sort of week that needs punching to improve it. Bar brawl! It's a lopsided fight, Bucky's wiping the floor with these dudes and the suspicious bartender is moving away to make a call.

"It didn't take much for him to fall back into form," Zemo tells Sam. Shut your pie hole, Zemo.  Aw, now the guns come out and the fight's over. Zemo calls off the Winter Soldier and the bartender tells them Selby will see them.

Selby is lounging in her backroom, listening to 50s french pop, and hanging out with lizards and piles of cash. As you do. She'd like to know why Zemo is there and by the way wasn't he in prison? She makes a weird purring sound at Sam. lol. I like her. The actress looks familiar but I can't place her. Anyway.

Zemo says if she tells them what she knows about the super soldier serum, he'll give her the Winter Soldier and his control words. Then Zemo weirdly fondles Bucky's face and like rubs at the cleft in his chin. lol. fucking weirdo.

Selby is charmed. She says she's glad she didn't kill him straight away. Weirdos of a feather, I suppose. Anyway, she says the serum is in Madripoor and developed by Dr. Wilfred Nagel. He was working for the PB. She won't give up Nagel's location for free, though. ��and Sam's phone rings. Pro tip, Sam: turn off your phone when you go into meetings with deeply shady crime bosses.

Everybody stops and stares at him and he just sort of lets it ring. It's his sister. Dude, just turn it off. Too late. Selby wants him to answer it on speaker. Okay, well, she'll kill you either way, so just refuse the call and get ready for punching and running. So, he answers it.

Sarah says she needs to talk to him about the situation and he wants her to say exactly what situation. So, she says the one with the boat, dummy, and are you high? So he's going to play this off as a Doing Crime phone call. And it kind of works until Sarah calls him Sam. Selby's like wtf kill them and then she gets shot in the chest by … I don't know who? somebody from the outside. Now this trio of geniuses is going to get blamed for it. Immediately a bounty for them goes out to like everybody in Low Town. lol. That went well, guys.

And the shooting starts, they run. Except not so great for Sam who we just discovered is wearing heels. "I can't run in these heels!"

Here come the bikers. And they get picked off by somebody in a nearby warehouse. Oh, is that Sharon? Yep. And she's salty .When asked what she's doing there, "I stole Steve's shield, remember? I also took the wings for your ass so you (sam) could save his ass (bucky) from his ass (zemo)." lol. She didn't have any backup so she's off the grid in Madripoor. Did nobody think to clear her after everybody was all heroic and then pardoned after the Un-Snappening? Come on, guys.

She's better than they deserve and despite being bitter, she says she's got a place in High Town they can hide.

Sharon runs a gallery selling stolen masterpieces and other hot craft goodies. The creators of this show bless us with a long shirtless Sam scene as he changes out of this Smiling Tiger duds and apologizes to Sharon. She says she'd be arrested if she went back to the States and Madripoor doesn't allow extradition. Besides, she muses, heroing is hypocritical bullshit. Right Sam, since you gave up the shield and all. And Sam's all "bwhu?"

Then she turns her bitter on Bucky and asks how the new Cap is and Bucky's like "i hate him the most" and she's all 'come on', she knows he buys into all that heroic bullshit, "before you were his (zemo) pet psychopath you were Mr America, Cap's best friend." Well, no before that he was the Winter Soldier long before Zemo.

"Wow, she's kind of awful now," Bucky tells Sam. lol. You really get a sense of how much Bucky lucked out with his goat farm. Thanks Wakanda!

Sam gets them back to the point and wants to know where Nagel is, though Sharon says they should stay out of it to be safe. Sam presses, he says he can help clear Sharon's name and she's like 'wow, bargaining with my life?' but he gives her a Cap-worth speech about trying. "They cleared the bionic staring machine and he's killed almost everybody he's met." "I heard that," Bucky says from ten feet away. "I don't trust charity." You just tried to guilt him about bargaining with your life, Sharon!

Anyway, they strike a deal.

Zemo's being suspiciously quiet.

Then they go to a rave. Madripoor is party central. Sharon's gallery is hosting a party for clients and whatnot. She'll see what she can find. For some reason she invites the boys to join her at the party because hiding from the bounty on them and probably also from the Power Broker means walking into parties packed full of the sort of people who buy expensive stolen goods in Madripoor, like say, the Power Broker or his wealthier minions.

Zemo's just happy to be out of prison. The shot of him dancing. lol.

Sharon finds a lead on Nagel and the next day this quartet of galaxy brains heads to the docks. Nothing bad ever happens when you go look for scientists at the docks. No sir. And he is apparently hanging out in a shipping container. Sharon's like hurry up you've got a bounty on your heads and I'm sick of you three already.

The container is empty, but Sharon insists it's the right one. Zemo goes in and finds the false back which leads to a set of stairs going up. "Comin' Home Baby" is playing in the distance. I know I always listen to Mel Torme when I'm tinkering on gene-altering serums in my secret shipping container lab.

They find Dr. Nagel, who is not keen on chatting but he's willing to maybe listen to offers. He's definitely the mad scientist type.

Sharon, keeping watch outside, spots trouble. Some bad guys heading towards the container. She attacks! Moar punchies! Or beating the shit out of people with a baton. It's eleventy zillion bounty hunters. How did they find them? Did that Very Wanted Trio maybe go to a very popular party the night before, or something?

Bucky attempts to persuade Nagel with his gun. Nagel says he was brought in to Hydra to work on the Winter Soldier program. Then he was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples of a subject (Isaiah? the black super soldier from last ep), and he was able to recreate the serum off of that. "I was a god! I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do."

Zemo is pacing around like a very, very angry psycho about to shoot the mad scientist. Guys, maybe it wasn't a good idea to bring Zemo to the person who could create the super soldier serum, given that is the opposite of what he wants. Kill Nagel, no more super soldiers. This is gonna end bloody. Zemo seems to have found a gun hidden in the lab. Yep.

"How have we never heard about this?" Sam asks. Well Sam, it turns out Nagel was blipped. Thanks, Thanos! Anyway, when he came back the CIA project was abandoned but the Power Broker was happy to help fund him. He made 20 vials and Karli stole those. And then Karli being a super duper genius, called him a few days earlier and asked if he could help somebody dying of tuberculosis. Karli … don't call the bad guys and ask for help after you stole from them. That's like day one stuff, kiddo.

Meanwhile, Sharon is still fighting every bounty hunter in Madripoor. She's killed like twenty guys.

Sharon runs in "guys we're seriously out of time" and Zemo takes the distraction to shoot Nagel. Who didn't see that coming? Oh yeah, Sam and Bucky and Sharon. Nobody was using the one (1) brain cell today. Or Zemo was. That's what you get for loaning it to the lunatic.

And then somebody fires a freaking rocket at the shipping container lab. Man. But, can you collect a bounty if all that's left are unidentifiable, charred corpses? Nobody in Madripoor is using the brain cell today.

Now they're trapped in a burning lab that's full of probably very bad explosive chemicals and o2 tanks. And yep, it partially blows up. Zemo gets away. Or seems to have, anyway. It's a gun battle now and also arguing. lol. Sharon's like "FOR REAL YOU IDIOTS?"

Oh, here comes Zemo, stomping along the top of a shipping container, carrying his purple ski mask. He fires at a gas line, the explosion distracting the bounty hunters and giving the trio time to run. Zemo beats up some bounty hunters and then finds a convertible muscle car in a container and swings by to pick up the others. Sam is very grumpy "you're going back to jail". lol.

Sharon's like 'okay, buh-bye!', she's had enough. Aww, is she really only in one episode? Well, Sam does promise to try and get her that pardon, so …

Anyway, Bucky calls shotgun and refuses to move the seat up for Sam. Payback is sweet. Heh.

Oh, not done with Sharon yet. She meets a minion and says they've got a couple of big problems.

Lithuania. Karli and one of her pals are stalking a GRC depot. Karli's sad. Her buddy says she should take some time to mourn. But, no, she's got do-gooding to do. They chat for a bit about what they'd be doing if they weren't do-goodering. She'd be a teacher or some such. They were all in Madripoor, washed up there during the blip, put then put out when everybody returned. Hmm. Lots of expositioning. Blah blah, scary taking the serum. "But it was worth it, because this world is ours." And they're going to give it to the kids in the displacement camps. … alrighty then.

Anyway, she's convinced that now that Nagel is dead, the Power Broker will come to her begging for the rest of the serum. No, sweety, I really don't think a person like that begs. Yikes.

"So we've got the one fight ahead of us then? I'll take those odds," says her very dim buddy.

In the prison in Berlin, Captain Massive Tool is talking to the guards about how Sam and Bucky where there when Zemo escaped and the guard's all "you … you don't think they had something to do with him getting out…." World class security. I find it really grating that Captain Tool calls Sam and Bucky by their first names. It's just so weirdly familiar that it almost crosses into dismissive. Completely unearned familiarity.

Lemar says they can't just accuse Sam and Bucky without evidence, but Captain Tool seems to think they can just, you know, make it up or some shit. "If we get the job done, do you think they're going to sweat us on the how?" Fuck you, Captain Tool.

Back in Zemo's plane, Bucky's fastidiously cleaning his metal arm, like a big grumpy cat. And Sam is trying to get a lead on the person (Madani) Nagel told him Karli wanted to help. He's got Torres on it.

They get to talking about the shield and how many people died or got messed up because of it/the serum. Sam says he made a mistake giving it up and he should have destroyed it. Bucky says, "Look that shield represents a lot of things to a lot of people, including me. The world is upside down, we need a new Cap, and it ain't gonna be Walker [preach]. So before you destroy it, I'll take it from him myself." Kick his ass, Bucky!

Torres gets back to Sam just as Zemo brings them lunch. Such a good host. "They found Madani. Dead. She died in Riga, a city near the Baltic Sea." … was that last bit really necessary? Like Riga is such a mystery? Even if you don't know where it is, like, that's so weirdly clunky. Somehow I think if you don't know Riga, you probably don't have the Baltic in the map in your head, either.  'Have you ever been to London? A city on the River Thames.' 'I've always wanted to go to Los Angeles, a city near the Pacific Ocean.'

Bucky should have said "oh yeah, i love Riga. I killed a diplomat there back in '64. Great beer."

Zemo's got a place they can go and he's looking forward "to coming face to face with Karli." Not creepy at all, Zemo. Nope.

Meanwhile, the kids are raiding the GRC depot and chatting way too much and calling each other by name. Oh dear.

"Filthy Flag Smashers" grumps a soldier tied up on the floor. I can't take them at all seriously with a name like that. Karli says they had six months of supplies just sitting there. "Don't you understand, we're fighting for our lives." Are you? Why and in what way?

Okay, so this is my continuing issue here. They're trying to build up this un-Blipped world, which is great, but they're doing it through So Much Exposition and so much of it is vague. We're supposed to think the GRC are probably shady, but are they? I don't know. Could be. They're sitting on these supplies! Evil! Maybe they are, but why? Why stockpile all that? Is it being sold on a black market? Or diverted to other people? Who knows! I don't. You don't.

We're supposed to sympathize with the Flag Munchers, but they're so vague in their goals. They want the world back how it was during the Blip. Okay. How was it? I don't know. What was so great about it? What we saw in Endgame didn't look all that great. But, we saw it from a different point of view, to be sure. So, what was it like for the average person who survived? Hell if I know. Also the Munchers want to help the people in the displacement camps. Okay. So do those two goals go together? I don't know. Are all the displacement camps bad? We're meant to think so, but I don't know. Is it just some of them? Is it regional? Who, exactly, are the displaced? It seems to be a mix of those who were blipped and those who weren't. I guess. I don't know.

It's just all taken out of the Big Book Of Cliched Assumptions for Lazy Worldbuilding. Why actually do the hard work of details, when they can just fall back on tropes, make vague pronouncements about how 'bad' things are, and let us assume the answers. This might bother me less if we didn't have to spend so much time with Captain Tool and the Flag Munchers. I cannot tell you how much I currently don't care. I find this all very frustrating. I don't mean to spoil the fun. Let me look at Sam's face again:

That was better. But, I stopped too soon. We're still with the Munchers. 

They're leaving the building they just looted, and there’s a bit of business I don’t care about, involving Karli’s car and how she’s not taking it, she’s going to just leave it parked, completely unsuspiciously in front of the building. And, she’s going to ride with her pal Mr. Dimbulb. 

She tells him to put his seatbelt on and she's very insistent. And then her car blows up and the building catches fire and it’s very dramatic. 

Her buddy's like wtf there were people in there and Karli says, "This is the only language these people understand." ARGH. Who people? Why is bombing them the only language they understand? Like, in this show, the GRC have literally DONE NOTHING. Nothing we’ve seen and nothing we’ve heard. At least have people chat about dark and dire rumors or something. Hell, they haven’t even been accused of doing anything other than ‘caring more about the people who returned than the ones who never left’ which is literally their job. sighing all night long. Maybe they’re horrible and evil and the Worst Thing Ever. But I DON’T KNOW THAT, because nothing in the show has bothered to establish that. 

ANYWAY

Riga, a city on the Baltic Sea

The trio are walking down the street, Zemo expositing for us again. Sokovia was apparently swallowed by neighboring countries, erased from the map. "I don't suppose any of you bothered visiting the memorial? Of course not. Why would you?"

Bucky's looking not happy. Probably remembering '64. They get to Zemo's place and Bucky says he's going to go on a walk. Zemo and Sam go on ahead and Bucky watches until they're out of sight and he circles back and finds a beeping thingy on the ground. He notices something across the street. Ah another round beepy thing. Now he's collecting them. He steps into an alley and says, "You dropped something". Nobody immediately appears.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up." And he turns around and it's one of the Dora Milaje. She looks unhappy and she’d like to know where Zemo is. Yeah, the Wakandans are not just gonna let Zemo wander free. That's a sticky situation you got yourself in, White Wolf.

Credits.

Well, I really enjoyed the bits that didn't contain the Flag Munchers or Captain Tool. Do better with your world-building, people.

[re-diesirae]

PART II PROLOGUE

"As wave is driven by wave

And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,

So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,

Always, for ever and new. What was before

Is left behind; what never was is now;

And every passing moment is renewed."

― Ovid, Metamorphoses

A voice echoed through the white painted corridors soothed by the soft sound of a music box.

A place filled by solitude; the cries of desperation, fear, and the agony of loss.

Her hand caressed the cold surface of the music box, the small ballerina in it spinning at the melody, she once knew, until it came to a stop.

She heard the keys; she heard the whispers; she heard the mutters...

When the door opened ...

Her pain began.

1. Jill

November 5th, 2016. 8: 00 A.M.

The blond woman passed the security stand, smiling at the friendly guard who had received her. After the kidnapping incident, TerraSave had become warier about their security. Entering the building became a tedious procedure, but she was a regular visitor, and her BSAA badge helped a lot.

It had been eight months since the incident in Germany and Claire's death. Her loss had been a big hit, not only TerraSave but to BSAA, too. That without counting the emotional turmoil that the news had caused. She knew, from Chris, that his sister was always good at leaving marks on people. She hadn't had the chance to get to know the girl well since their schedules were busy all the time, but the people who did know her seemed deeply affected. Chris entered a state of depression that was even worse than the episode he'd suffered in Edonia, but in this case, he had not drowned himself in alcohol. She guessed that he did it in his sister's memory. The girl had hated his drinking habits, after all. The Burton family had seemed affected, as well. Barry had made silent mourning, but his daughter had cried a lot, and even half a year after, some things could still trigger her tears. Then there was Leon, he too, was a silent mourner, but Jill was good at reading people, and she could tell that, after Chris, he was the most affected one. Even the workers in TerraSave are still mourning. They had not chosen a new head to replace Claire, and so BSAA had been handling things until they decided for someone to take over.

Jill pressed the button in the elevator and waited. Her frequent visits were usually to check on things in the place, but today it was different. She had received an urgent call from their chief, summoning an emergency meeting. He gave her no details, but the message said that she had to report to TerraSave HQ immediately. When the door of the elevator opened, she found the familiar figure of Chris standing in front of a wall. He was watching it with a pained expression, and Jill felt her heart shrink.

It was the memorial wall. At least that was how everyone in TerraSave called it. The wall had been Claire's idea, from what she'd heard. She recalled the voice of Dr. Hiwamura as she had explained to her some months ago, on her first check visit.

"Claire thought it was just a good way to honor the fallen. Most of these people died without leaving a body behind, and most have no graveyards or family to mourn them properly. She said real heroes are not always remembered, and that at least we should give them the honor they deserved as a big family. "

The Memorial Wall was something simple. It was a wall filled with pictures of TerraSave agents who had died in action, and there was a table where people could leave flowers or other gifts. The most recent photo, of course, was Claire's. She saw the pretty portrait set on the table, and she noticed that, unlike the rest, her picture was not placed on the wall.

"Claire was always good at fooling us with her deaths. Some of us still find it hard to accept it was real this time, so no one has had the heart to hang it. Hanging it would somehow mean she is gone while having it there is like she'd come to the office one morning and shout at us for slacking off. You may think it's stupid, but people should reach acceptance, slowly."

Jill could understand, though; she put her hand on Chris's shoulder and looked at the pretty picture on the table. Someone had placed a small bouquet of orchids next to the photo.

"You got her flowers today?" she asked, surprised.

Chris shook his head.

"No, it wasn't me. I guess one of her subordinates left it here this morning. A close friend, probably. Orchids were her favorite, but not many knew that." Chris replied softly.

Jill squeezed the man's shoulder comfortingly.

"What are you doing here? Came to see her?" she asked.

"No, not today," Chris said, putting his hands in his pockets, "I got a call from Adams, something about an urgent meeting. I just thought of passing since I was here."

"You, too, huh? I wonder what this is about…"

The pair walked to the meeting room and knocked. A voice, that they recognized as their chief's, told them to come in, and they pushed the door open. Jill was surprised to see that not only they had not been the only ones called to the meeting. Beside their Chief, Edward Adams, there was TerraSave CEO, Ian Wentworth; the new Security secretary of the U.S, Renard Hopkins; Dr. Hiwamura, Barry, and Leon, too.

"Ah good, Valentine and Redfield. We were expecting you. Please take a seat, would you?" Adams said, signaling the two empty seats at his left.

Jill and Chris sat down, exchanging quizzical looks with the rest of the present. None of them seemed to have any idea about the reasons for the meeting.

"I believe most of you are thrilled to know the reason we have summoned you here." Adams said, reading their thoughts, " I am sorry that this meeting came up unexpectedly, and I apologize if it interrupted any important task."

She saw the man look apologetically at Leon. The man nodded in reply, and she guessed that he was probably in some important assignment when he'd gotten called out.

"However, we considered that you need the first to be notified due to the circumstances…" the man continued.

"What circumstances are you talking about? I am not very patient, and you should know that already, Ed," Barry groaned.

"Yes, of course, I do, Barry. Let me fill you in about this. Yesterday we received an urgent report from a TerraSave/ BSAA team stationed in Cardigan Bay, Wales.

Adam pushed a set of folders at them. Jill flipped some of its pages, reading some random lines. It was a regular report of a sea patrol, but the words "Sea Wreck" and "Survivor" caught her attention.

"Four days ago, the sea-patrolling team found a body floating at the coast: a female in her 30's, barely alive, severely wounded, and highly dehydrated. She was taken to a TerraSave Health Center in the area immediately. She had no identification on herself, but a rescuer from the station seemed to know her."

"Oh…?" Barry frowned.

"There is a picture of her at the end of the file," Adams clarified.

Jill flipped to the end of the folder, and her eyes went wide in shock. The woman in the picture had her face covered in bruises and cuts that made her features barely recognizable, her hair was shorter, but it was still the same burgundy color she remembered.

"She said her name was Claire Redfield."

A heavy silence filled the room, and Jill could believe what she'd just heard. Claire Redfield? Was that even possible? When the Manor exploded. There's no way that someone survived that explosion, especially with the wound she had sustained and the cleanup team hadn't found any corpse, but still, even if she had managed to escape from that place alive, how had she ended up in Wales?

"Sir…?" Chris mumbled.

"I know, Chris. We have already arranged for a DNA test to confirm it."

"What if she is a clone...made up by Neo-umbrella?" Leon's voice muttered, "They have done it, and DNA would match."

Jill's heart broke. Among all the present, Chris and Leon were probably the ones who would be the happiest with the news, but their past experiences made them untrustful. It was painful to see that among them, both seemed to be the most skeptical.

"There's a way to...corroborate if it isn't a clone." Dr. Hiwamura said, and everyone in the room turned to her.

"Please, elaborate," Hopkins said with interest.

"Cloning searches to reproduce healthy cells, so naturally, pathologies wouldn't be copied unless it was genetic. If the pathology originated from external factors, it can't be copied."

"My sister was healthy...what are you trying to say?" Chris said with a frown.

"She was a carrier of remnants of the T-Phobos," Hiwamura said, crossing her arms, "She was infected with an inactive strain of the virus."

"Wait, what?" Barry snapped, "she got the antiviral, just like Moira and Natalia. Does that mean…?"

"Moira and Natalia are clean. The vaccine was developed based on the virus we found in Claire's body. She volunteered to be the test subject at the time, so the final version of the drugs did not affect her infection. We have to keep track of it. That was one of the main reasons why I got transferred here. The virus exists in Claire's body. However, it's lost its infectious capacity. It keeps invading cells and replicating, but her immunological system neutralizes the excess of sick cells. That prevents it from growing into infective doses..."

"What are you suggesting, Dr. Hiwamura?"

"If she got cloned, her immunological system would have been reset, and even if they had infected the "new" version with a sample of T-Phobos, the virus would be active, unlike the one infecting Claire. What happened to Claire was an ecological adaptation. To put it simply, unless they had a clone go through a physiological restrain that she went through and under a replica of conditions, the probability of them generating the same reaction is impossible."

"Wait, are you telling me that she was infected by a variation of the t-virus all this time? Damn, that's probably the reason she got targeted eight months ago. How can you tell us this now?" Chris snapped, hitting the table.

"We kept it secret for the same reason." Wentworth said, shaking his head, " When I talked to Claire two years ago, she told me she wanted it that way. Besides Dr. Hiwamura, the men sitting here, and Claire herself. No one knew of this fact. The information was classified, even to her friends to prevent something like that from happening."

"If she knew...then why didn't she get someone to protect her? Fuck! This could have been prevented…" Chris cursed.

"Chris, calm down…" Jill said, pulling his arm and trying to convince him to sit down again.

"She rejected the idea. Bodyguards would have attracted unnecessary attention. I don't think that Claire suspected this to be the reason behind her abduction either."

Chris did not reply. He clenched his fist in anger.

"Dr. Hiwamura, is it a trustworthy way to confirm Ms. Redfield's identity?" Hopkins asked.

"I am 99% sure, sir. I'd need to do the test."

"And...could you do that if we send you there?"

"Well, if you can drag the whole lab there, yes."

"Guess that's a no. We need to bring the woman here." Adams muttered.

"I am sure I can contact the local consulate for help." Hopkins said, "However, will she be in condition for the trip?"

"Was….she injured badly?"Jill asked.

"Yes, according to the medical report attached. It's a miracle that she is still alive." Wentworth sighed, " Multiple lacerations in her body, including organ damage. She lost a lot of blood, and some of her injuries got infected due to seawater. There are more details inside those files."

"There was evidence of a struggle. It's a fair guess that she escaped from someone or from somewhere."

Jill was starting to see what all this conversation was going to be.

"Sir, you don't think..." Jill began.

"Claire is a tough cookie…" Barry commented, "always was, always will be. Wherever she was, you can bet that she did not sit down like a docile pup."

Jill knew that Barry was probably right. If Claire had been in a difficult spot, the woman would definitely fight her way out.

"Sir, any idea of where she came from?" Jill asked.

"Unfortunately no, the first assumption was that she'd come from a wrecked ship, but the theory was later refuted when the rescuer recognized her. Listen, I understand this news must be shocking, but if this woman is indeed Claire Redfield. There's no doubt that there is some sort of bioterrorist hazard associated. I want you to go there and investigate the area. See if you find any clues."

Adams looked at the three BSAA agents, and they nodded.

"Agent Kennedy." Hopkins spoke to the blond, who had stayed quiet until then, "Your orders have changed. This woman has been labeled as an especial witness. You will go as a representation of both the DSO and USA, and we don't know what sort of things she might have gone through. We all agreed that it'd be better if the escort was to be someone she knew."

"I understand." the blond nodded.

"As for Dr. Hiwamura…"

"I'll check her state, yes."

"Very well, you leave today at noon. Please make the proper preparations.

NOTE: if you guys want to come and chat about the fic, or just about CLEON in general. Feel free to drop by the discord and say hi! JOIN SERVER

[glowyjellyfish]

Megakingdom grousing:

At this point it has taken me roughly a month to troubleshoot my game. Let this be a lesson to everyone, especially me: do not act incautiously when adding CC. And when you do get crashes, always 50/50 test; do not try to guess which file looks suspicious. You will probably be wrong.

I think I’m almost done, although I just realized as I headed to work that I got this last crash in community buy mode misc and i have been testing residential buy mode misc. so I might have to do another entire round of testing. I might be able to at least do some residential remodeling and family makeovers, though, and delay the BDC community lots. It’s hard to say. It would feel like a waste of time to stop mid-testing to play the game for a couple hours, but it also feels like a waste to take an hour loading the game just to test it, quit, and start again. I really need to get that load time down; I cut out and compressorized down to 17 GB in the main folder plus 4 GB outside, and although that feels more manageable to me it has not affected my load times at all. Definitely need to run a bulk renamer or something, that might help.

I am so ready to start though, and it is so frustrating how long it has taken. I have a spreadsheet full of Neighborhood Status, Citizen Census, Tax Information, Marriage Prospects, Historical Records, and Family Trees. I have my interesting plan of specializing each subhood. I really want to use the new mead stuff. I have all the major mods I need. I have a dating system/calendar in mind (...it’s very straightforward, days get dated like Summer 5, Year 1, but I have been tempted to name the years or something.) I have Ideas for an ROS (...like, having a chance of global disaster affecting the whole hood, like war or famine, which I’m sure the usual MCC ROS covers. But also, if too many happen in too short a period of time, do what I am calling an Upheaval event? which would include things like peasant uprisings, usurpation, and some more fantastical like a Dark Lord Rises, Wild Magic Surge, or British Schoolchildren (which I talked about in one of my Grimwood Abbey posts I think, it’s basically a little Narnia scenario. You make some preferably related kids and teens, dress them in modern or vintage wear, plop them in the hood, and declare them royalty outranking the current ruler. They were summoned in by magic from another world to bring an end to the troubles and rule in peace as destined. Of course, this not being Narnia, the displaced royalty and nobility might have more to say about that…) ...and then after an Upheaval you go a certain number of rounds without any global events and then it resets. Obviously, I need to think it through more but that’s the ballpark of what I would like to eventually do.

Anyway. If I truly am almost done with the troubleshooting, soon I will be remodeling the Cordial home, building a house for the Clevelands, and building the community lots of Village Green and Hedge Tavern at least, and continuing makeovers in Pleasantview. Remaining PV families are Lothario and Dreamer at the Peasant level, Burb, Pleasant, and Caliente at the Yeoman level, and Ramaswami and Oldie at the Merchant level. Pleasantview is getting its missing Gentry from Frances J Worthington III, but he will have to wait until I get up to College Student Makeovers.

I’m most proud of the family trees right now. Here’s an example—I first started making them in the spreadsheet for my standard megahood, but they are just perfect for a medieval hood. I’m going to be strict about tracking each family’s descent based on the title-holder and male heirs (whereas in the standard megahood, the family trees started merging like amoeba. No, no, we will simply note that this sim appears on another family tree and then move on.). Single female sims do not get a family tree until marriage, unless they hold a title or have a male heir. And by working on the family trees, I realized that at present, Justin Cleveland is Geoff Rutherford’s heir presumptive, which is all kinds of fascinating right now and exactly the kind of thing I wanted from making a kingdom out of premade hoods. Of course, Geoff is going to try to marry and have sons of his own, but Justin could inherit his Gentry position just as easily as he’ll inherit ownership of the food market. Wild.

[turtletotem]

Morph

For the “transformation” prompt, an Animorphs AU! I gave up on getting it all finished today, so part two will follow soon.

Charles and his friends had been through a lot of awful stuff, since the night they found a crashed spaceship and a dying alien. The night they learned their world was under attack, and received from the dying alien's hands their only weapon against the invaders—the power to morph. Morphing gave them the ability to take animal forms that were a thousand times more dangerous than their fragile human bodies, forms that hid their true identities from the Yeerks and let them absorb unbearable damage that would simply vanish when they de-morphed. Since that night, they had all endured amounts of pain, terror, guilt, and strain that probably should have killed them.

It hadn't killed them yet, but it had warped all of them—sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Charles's sister Raven had once cared too much about having the best hair and the most fashionable clothes, about being pretty and popular; now she was a fierce, unstoppable fighter whose bloodthirst scared them all, even if they wouldn't say it. Erik, who had always been sharp and steely, was ruthless and pragmatic to a fault, now—except how could it be a fault if it kept them alive, kept the human race alive and free?

And Hank… poor Hank suffered more than any of them, trapped in morph as a gorilla. Barring a miracle, he would never be human again. If only he'd been in a smaller, less exotic morph, the day that he couldn't get to safety until long after the two-hour deadline, perhaps he could have still been among people in some way—someone's dog, a wild bird, something. Instead he had to remain entirely hidden, entirely dependent on the rest of them for everything. And any wounds he sustained in battle had to heal the hard way.

As for Charles himself, he had nightmares all the time now, flashbacks—not so much to the terrible things they'd endured, but the terrible things they'd done. All the bloodshed and suffering, the lies and secrets. Was it worth it, if they succeeded? What about if they failed?

All of which made it very easy to forget that morphing could also be fun.

Charles's claws clicked over the floor of the candy shop, a tiny noise to go with his tiny mouse body. Mice were nervous, hypervigilant little creatures, but Charles was an old hand at controlling the little rodent's instincts. Mouse morph had turned out to be almost as useful as his tiger battle-morph, if for very different situations.

It was also sort of neat. Charles couldn't say exactly why he enjoyed being so small, making his way through a world grown suddenly massive around him. Chairlegs like redwood trees, jellybean containers like granaries, expanses of black-and-white tile like the surface of an alien world. It made him think of a dollhouse, except that was exactly backwards. It was as if he was the doll.

Outside the shop, he knew Erik would be getting impatient. More accurately, he would be getting worried, and masking it with impatience. It had taken Charles longer than he expected to get into the building; he supposed he should have expected that a candy store would be fortified against mice. Mice with human intelligence, however, were not so easily stopped, and Charles had finally made it inside, tick-tick-ticking across the whimsical tiles toward the security system keypad on the wall.

Up, up the enormous furniture, claws scrabbling and nose twitching at the tantalizing scents of candied fruit, peanut butter and sugar, sugar, sugar—No, no time for a snack. Charles pulled his attention back to the keypad, which he could just barely reach by climbing the display of licorice behind the cash register. It had taken three weeks of surveillance to get the code, and Charles had repeated the numbers until he heard them in his dreams. Now he typed them in, throwing the weight of his entire body against the buttons.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. And—boop, the security system disengaged.

<You're clear,> he called to Erik.

Within a minute, the lock on the front door turned and the door opened. Erik was terrific at anything machinery-related, including lockpicking, and that had come in handy just as often as mouse morph.

"Took you long enough," Erik muttered as he crossed the shop. "Are you all right?"

<Of course I am.> Charles crawled into Erik's extended hand, snuffling instinctively at his fingers, which smelled like Cheet-os.

"Of course you are." Erik rolled his eyes. "Are you going to demorph?"

<No. I've still got an hour and a half, and I'll have to reset the alarm when we're done, and go out the same way I got in.>

Erik grunted and slipped Charles into the front pocket of his jacket, over his heart. Charles could feel it thudding gently behind him. It was silly for him to enjoy that so much, but he did.

They slipped into the shop's back office. Charles had wondered if they would need to look for false drawer-bottoms, hidden safes—but no, the candy shop owner kept the paperwork for his activities with The Sharing right in his normal file cabinet, in a folder marked The Sharing.

"My mother's gonna kill this guy if she ever realizes how careless he is," Erik said lightly, pulling out the folder and turning on the nearby lamp so they could see what it contained.

<Not your mother,> Charles corrected.

Erik didn't reply, and Charles didn't push it. The woman everyone thought of as Edie Lehnsherr was a high-ranking member of The Sharing, the "community engagement" organization the Yeerks used as a front to gather hosts. Erik's mother was a Controller, a prisoner somewhere inside her own brain while a Yeerk lived her life. Cooked in her kitchen. Volunteered at her synogogue. Kissed her son on the forehead. If joking about "Edie's" ruthlessness against her subordinates kept Erik from losing his mind, Charles wasn't going to stop him.

"Here," Erik said after a minute. "That's what we need, right there." He took out his phone and took pictures of the pages. The pictures would be deleted later, once the information on them was memorized; they'd all adjusted their phone settings to prevent anything entering 'the cloud.' They couldn't be too careful.

<Anything else interesting?>

Erik flipped through the rest of the folder, taking one or two more pictures, but there really wasn't much they didn't already know. The candy shop owner was pretty new to The Sharing, and his Yeerk wasn't especially high-ranking.

<He might have more later,> Charles said.

"I was just thinking that," Erik said, a hint of excitement in his voice. "The guy shouldn't be able to tell we were ever here. As long as he doesn't change the alarm code, we can come back…"

But on their way out of the office, that all went wrong. In the dark shop, glancing over his shoulder, Erik ran right into a display.

A dozen different kinds of candy cascaded to the floor with a sound like an avalanche. Jars shattered, shelves flipped, boxes tumbled, and Erik's foot slipped on a bag of gummy bears. He fell hard, managing to turn so as not to crush Charles in his pocket.

<Are you all right?>

"Are you all right?" Erik asked at the same time. He sat up, surveyed the damage, and started swearing. "Do you remember what all this looked like? Can we put it back together?"

Charles crawled from Erik's pocket onto his shoulder, and surveyed the damage with a mouse's superior night vision. <Too many things are broken. We could work all night and he'd still know someone was here.>

More swearing. "Fine. Fine. Okay, then. This is what we're doing."

Erik crouched down and began scooping candy into his jacket.

<Erik… are you stealing candy?>

"Yep. Gosh, this poor guy. Some idiot kids broke in and robbed his candy store. Stuff like that happens. No reason to think they went anywhere near his file cabinet, though, right? Idiot kids stealing candy don't care about The Sharing's secrets."

Charles couldn't help laughing. <I'll help. You need to take enough of a haul that no one will question the story.>

He hopped off Erik's shoulder onto the floor and demorphed. Only when he was standing barefoot on black-and-white tile did he remember that neither of them had brought any clothes for him. He had planned to stay a mouse.

"Well, you're not gonna be able to carry much," Erik said dryly, looking him up and down.

Charles knew he had to be blushing. This wasn't exactly the circumstances under which he'd imagined Erik would first see him naked. Not that it was appropriate to think about that anyway. Erik could never feel that way toward him.

"Chilly in here, isn't it," Erik said with a smirk, and Charles gasped in outrage and turned away, covering his chest.

Erik snickered, and returned to filling his pockets with taffy and gumballs. "Get that bucket over there, start filling it up."

Charles dashed over to the bucket of lollipops, pulled out the styrofoam filler that kept them upright, and started sweeping chocolates, gummies and packages of Pop Rocks into it. The display cases under the cash register were full of chocolate truffles—was it locked?

Another horrible avalanche crash, and Charles jumped out of his skin, whirling around.

Erik grinned at him from the wreckage of a second display. "Verisimilitude."

Charles rolled his eyes. "Come help me get the truffle case open. They're my favorite; if we're going to steal candy I want truffles."

Erik, cramming packs of jellybeans from the second display down his shirt, joined him at the truffle case. He poked thoughtfully at the lock, then reached for a huge novelty lollipop. "Stand back—"

"Don't you dare!" Charles swatted the lollipop out of his hand. "You'll get glass in the truffles!"

"Oh my gosh, say that again. Come on, say it again, you sound so adorable when you say 'truffles' with that accent—"

"Shut up! Just open the lock!"

Erik squeezed past him to the cash register and pulled a key off a nail. "There. All the truffles your heart could desire."

Charles opened the case, grabbed one of the cardboard boxes used by the cashiers, and filled it to the brim with every flavor of truffle, stopping to sample his favorites. "Mmm!"

"Hedonist. You have chocolate on your nose," Erik said, grinning, and stepped forward to wipe it with his thumb.

For a silent, inexplicable moment, they stood there together, Charles's pulse pounding and his mouth full of chocolate, Erik's sleeve brushing his bare shoulder.

"We should go," Erik said, turning away abruptly. "We'll have to set off the alarm, for ver—versim—what I said before. Idiot kids would only have time to grab so much before they ran for it."

"I've got to morph again," Charles said. "Can't run out there like this."

"Back in my pocket you go, then."

They re-armed the security system, put mouse-Charles in the hood of Erik's jacket—all his pockets were full—and Erik went out the door, carrying the bucket and truffle box. The alarm went off behind them as soon as the door opened.

Mission accomplished.

[za3k]

2020 Videogames

In 2020 I’m newly retired, so I’ve had free time. I think it’s fun to do reviews, so without further ado here’s every video game I played in 2020!

I recommend:

(4/5) Among Us – Very fun. It’s only fun with voice chat with friends, so I’ve only gotten to play once or twice. I’ve been watching it more than playing it. Also free to play for mobile gamers–I’m tired of the “everyone buys a copy” model of group gameplay.

(4/5) Brogue. Brogue is an ascii-art roguelike. It’s great, and it has a nice difficulty ramp. It’s a good “quick break” game. I play it in preference to other roguelikes partly because I haven’t done it to death yet, and partly because I don’t need a numpad?

(4/5) Cook Serve Delicious 3. One of the more fun games I played this year. You get really into it, but I had trouble relaxing and paying attention to the real world when I played too much, haha. I own but haven’t played the first two–I gather this is pretty much just a refinement.

(4/5) Green Hell. Price tag is a bit high for the number of hours I got out of it, but I haven’t finished the story. Great graphics, and the BEST map design I’ve seen in a 3D game in a long time. It feels like a real place, with reasonable geography instead of copy-pasted tiles. I love that as you walk along, you can just spot a cultivated area from the rest of the jungle–it feels more like it’s treating me like an adult than most survival games. Everything still gets highlighted if you can pick it up. I played the survival mode, which was okay but gets old quickly. I started the story mode–I think it would be fine, but it has some LONG unskippable scenes at the start, including a very hand-holdy tutorial, that I think they should have cut. I did start getting into the story and was having fun, but I stopped. I might finish the game some time.

(4/5) Hyperrogue. One of my recent favorites. The dev has made a fair number of highly experimental games, most of which are a total miss with me, but this one is fun. I do wish the early game wasn’t quite as repetitive. Failing another solution, I might actually want this not to be permadeath, or to have a save feature? I bought it on steam to support the dev and get achievements, but it’s also available a version or two behind free, which is how I tried it. Constantly getting updates and new worlds.

(4/5) Minecraft – Compact Claustrophobia modpack. Fun idea, nice variety. After one expansion felt a little samey, and it was hard to start with two people. I’d consider finishing this pack.

(4/5) Overcooked 2. Overcooked 2 is just more levels for Overcooked. The foods in the second game is more fun, and it has better controls and less bugs. If you’re considering playing Overcooked, I recommend just starting with the second game, despite very fun levels in the first. I especially appreciate that the second game didn’t just re-use foods from the first.

(4/5) Please Don’t Press Anything. A unique little game where you try to get all the endings. I had a lot of fun with this one, but it could have used some kind of built-in hints like Reventure. Also, it had a lot of red herrings. Got it for $2, which it was well worth.

(5/5) Reventure. Probably the best game new to me this year. It’s a short game where you try to get each of about 100 endings. The art and writing are cute and funny. The level design is INCREDIBLE. One thing I found interesting is the early prototype–if I had played it, I would NOT have imagined it would someday be any fun at all, let alone as amazing as it is. As a game designer I found that interesting! I did 100% complete this one–there’s a nice in-game hint system, but there were still 1-3 “huh” puzzles, especially in the post-game content, one of which I had to look up. It’s still getting updates so I’m hoping those will be swapped for something else.

(5/5) Rimworld. Dwarf fortress, but with good cute graphics, set in the Firefly universe. Only has 1-10 pawns instead of hundreds of dwarves. Basically Dwarf Fortress but with a good UI. I wish you could do a little more in Rimworld, but it’s a fantastic, relaxing game.

(5/5) Slay the Spire. Probably the game I played most this year. A deckbuilding adventure through a series of RPG fights. A bit luck-based, but relaxing and fun. I like that you can play fast or slow. Very, very well-designed UI–you can really learn how things work. My favorite part is that because it’s singleplayer, it’s really designed to let you build a game-breaking deck. That’s how it should be!

(4/5) Stationeers. I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s similar to Space Engineers but… fun. It has better UI by a mile too, even if it’s not perfect. I lost steam after playing with friends and then going back to being alone, as I often do for base-building games. Looks like you can genuinely make some complicated stuff using simple parts. Mining might not be ideal.

(5/5) Spy Party. One of my favorite games. Very fun, and an incredibly high skill ceiling. There’s finally starting to be enough people to play a game with straners sometimes. Bad support for “hot seat”–I want to play with beginners in person, and it got even harder with the introduction of an ELO equivalent and removing the manual switch to use “beginner” gameplay.

(4/5) Telling Lies. A storytelling game. The core mechanic is that you can use a search engine for any phrase, and it will show the top 5 survellance footage results for that. The game internally has transcripts of every video. I didn’t really finish the game, but I had a lot of fun with it. The game was well-made. I felt the video acting didn’t really add a huge amount, and they could have done a text version, but I understand it wouldn’t have had any popular appeal. The acting was decent. There’s some uncomfortable content, on purpose.

(4/5) Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (TABS). Delightful. Very silly, not what you’d expect from the name. What everyone should have been doing with physics engines since they were invented. Imagine that when a caveman attacks, the club moves on its own and the caveman just gets ragdolled along, glued to it. Also the caveman and club have googley eyes. Don’t try to win or it will stop being fun. Learn how to turn on slo-mo and move the camera.

(4/5) We Were Here Together. Lots of fun. I believe the second game out of three. Still some crashes and UI issues. MUCH better puzzles and the grpahics are gorgeous. They need to fix the crashes or improve the autosave, we ended up replaying a lot of both games from crashes. It’s possible I should be recommending the third game but I haven’t played it yet.

The Rest

(3/5) 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel. More fun that it sounds. If you play to mess around and win by accident, it’s pretty good. Definitely play with a second human player, though.

(1.5/5) 7 billion humans. Better than the original, still not fun. Soulless game about a soulless, beige corporation. Just play Zachtronics instead. If you’re on a phone and want to engage your brain, play Euclidea.

(3/5) A Dark Room. Idle game.

(1/5) Amazing Cultivation Simulator. A big disappointment. Bad english voice acting which can’t be turned off, and a long, unskippable tutorial. I didn’t get to actual gameplay. I like Rimworld and cultivation novels so I had high hopes.

(3/5) ADOM (Steam version) – Fun like the original, which I would give 5/5. Developed some major issues on Linux, but I appreciate that there’s a graphical version available, one of my friends will play it now.

(4/5) agar.io – Good, but used to be better. Too difficult to get into games now. Very fun and addictive gameplay.

(3/5) Amorous – Furry dating sim. All of the hot characters are background art you can’t interact with, and the characters you can actually talk to are a bunch of sulky nerds who for some reason came to a nightclub. I think it was free, though.

(0/5) Apis. Alpha game, AFAIK I was the first player. Pretty much no fun right now (to the point of not really being a game yet), but it could potentially become fun if the author puts in work.

(4/5) Autonauts. I played a ton of Autonauts this year, almost finished it, which is rare for me. My main complaint is that it’s fundamentally supposed to be a game about programming robots, but I can’t actually make them do more than about 3 things, even as a professional programmer. Add more programming! It can be optional, that’s fine. They’re adding some kind of tower defense waves instead, which is bullshit. Not recommended because it’s not for everyone.

(3/5) A-Z Inc. Points for having the guts to have a simple game. At first this looked like just the bones of Swarm Simulator, but the more you look at the UI and the ascension system, the worse it actually is. I would regularly reset because I found out an ascension “perk” actually made me worse off.

(5/5) Beat Saber. Great game, and my favorite way to stay in shape early this year. Oculus VR only, if you have VR you already have this game so no need to recommend. Not QUITE worth getting a VR set just to play it at current prices.

(1/5) Big Tall Small. Good idea, but no fun to play. Needed better controls and level design, maybe some art.

(0.5/5) Blush Blush. Boring.

(3/5) Business Shark. I had too much fun with this simple game. All you do is just eat a bunch of office workers.

(3/5) chess.com. Turns out I like chess while I’m high?

(3/5) Circle Empires Rivals. Decent, more fun than the singleplayer original. It shouldn’t really have been a separate game from Circle Empires, and I’m annoyed I couldn’t get it DRM-free like the original.

(3/5) Cross Virus. By Dan-box. Really interesting puzzle mechanics.

(4/5) Cultist Simulator. Really fun to learn how to play–I love games that drop you in with no explanation. Great art and writing, I wish I could have gotten their tarot deck. Probably the best gameplay “ambience” I’ve seen–getting a card that’s labeled “fleeting sense of radiance” that disappears in 5 seconds? Great. Also the core stats are very well thought out for “feel” and real-life accuracy–dread (depression) conquers fascination (mania), etc. It has a few gameplay gotchas, but they’re not too big–layout issues, inability to go back to skipped text, or to put your game in an unwinnable state early on). Unfortunately it’s a “roguelike”, and it’s much too slow-paced and doesn’t have enough replay value, so it becomes a horrible, un-fun grind when you want to actually win. I probably missed the 100% ending but I won’t be going back to get it. I have no idea who would want to play this repeatedly. I’m looking forward to the next game from the same studio though! I recommend playing a friend’s copy instead of buying.

(2/5) Darkest Dungeon. It was fine but I don’t really remember it.

(2/5) Dicey Dungeons. Okay deck-building roguelike gameplay (with an inventory instead of a deck). Really frustrating, unskippably slow difficulty curve at the start. I played it some more this year and liked it better because I had a savegame. I appreciate having several character classes, but they should unlock every difficulty from the start.

(2/5) Diner Bros. Basically just a worse Overcooked. I didn’t like the controls, and it felt too repetitive with only one diner.

(2/5) Don’t Eat My Mind You Stupid Monster. Okay art and idea, the gameplay wasn’t too fun for me.

(2/5) Don’t Starve – I’ve played Don’t Stave maybe 8 different times, and it’s never really gripped me, I always put it back down. It’s slow, a bit grindy, and there’s no bigger goal–all you can do is live.

(3/5) Don’t Starve Together – Confusingly, Don’t Starve Together can be played alone. It’s Don’t Starve, plus a couple of the expansions. This really could be much more clearly explained.

(1/5) Elemental Abyss – A deck-builder, but this time it’s grid-based tactics. Really not all that fun. Just play Into the Abyss instead or something.

(1/5) Else Heart.Break() – I was excited that this might be a version of “Hack N’ Slash” from doublefine that actually delivered and let you goof around with the world. I gave it up in the first ten minutes, because the writing and characters drove me crazy, without getting to hacking the world.

(2/5) Everything is Garbage. Pretty good for a game jam game. Not a bad use of 10 minutes. I do think it’s probably possible to make the game unwinnable, and the ending is just nothing.

(1/5) Evolve. Idle game, not all that fun. I take issue with the mechanic in Sharks, Kittens, and this where buying your 15th fence takes 10^15 wood for some reason.

(4/5) Exapunks. Zachtronics has really been killing it lately, with Exapunks and Opus Magnum. WONDERFUL art and characters during story portions, and much better writing. The gameplay is a little more varied than in TIS-100 or the little I played of ShenZen I/O. My main complaint about Zachtronics games continues to be, that I don’t want to be given a series of resource-limited puzzles (do X, but without using more than 10 programming instructions). Exapunks is the first game where it becomes harder to do something /at all/, rather than with a particular amount of resources, but it’s still not there for me. Like ShenZen, they really go for a variety of hardware, too. Can’t recommend this because it’s really only for programmers.

(1/5) Exception. Programming game written by some money machine mobile games company. Awful.

(4/5) Factorio. Factorio’s great, but for me it doesn’t have that much replay value, even with mods. I do like their recent updates, which included adding blueprints from the start of the game, improving belt sorting, and adding a research queue. We changed movement speed, made things visually always day, and adding a small number of personal construction robots from the start this run. I’m sure if you’d like factorio you’ve played it already.

(3/5) Fall Guys – I got this because it was decently fun to watch. Unfortunately, it’s slightly less fun to play. Overall, there’s WAY too much matchmaking waiting considering the number of players, and the skill ceiling is very low on most of the games, some of which are essentially luck (I’m looking at you, team games).

(3/5) Forager – Decent game. A little too much guesswork in picking upgrades–was probably a bit more fun on my second play because of that. Overall, nice graphics and a cute map, but the gameplay could use a bit of work.

(3/5) Getting Over It – Funny idea, executed well. Pretty sure my friends and I have only gotten through 10% of the game, and all hit about the same wall (the first tunnel)

(3/5) Guild of Dungeoneering – Pretty decent gameplay. I feel like it’s a bit too hard for me, but that’s fine. Overall I think it could use a little more cute/fun art, I never quite felt that motivated.

(1/5) Hardspace: Shipbreakers. Okay, I seriously didn’t get to play this one, but I had GAMEBREAKING issues with my controller, which is a microsoft X-box controller for PC–THE development controller.

(2/5) Helltaker. All right art, meh gameplay. But eh, it’s free!

(3/5) Hot Lava. Decent gameplay. Somehow felt like the place that made this had sucked the souls out of all the devs first–no one cared about the story or characters. It’s a game where the floor is made out of lava, with a saturday morning cartoon open, so that was a really an issue. Admirable lack of bugs, though. I’m a completionist so I played the first world a lot to get all the medals, and didn’t try the later ones.

(3/5) House Flipper – Weird, but I had fun. I wish the gameplay was a little more unified–it felt like a bunch of glued-together minigames.

(2/5) Hydroneer. Utterly uninspiring. I couldn’t care about making progress at all, looked like a terrible grind to no benefit.

(1/5) io. Tiny game, I got it on Steam, also available on phone. Basically a free web flash game, but for money. Not good enough to pay the $1 I paid. Just a bit of a time-killer.

(3/5) Islanders – All you do is place buildings and get points. Not particularly challenging, but relaxing. Overall I liked it.

(3/5) Jackbox – I played this online with a streamer. Jackbox has always felt a little bit soulless money grab to me, but it’s still all right. I like that I can play without having a copy–we need more games using this purchase model.

(3/5) Life is Feudal – Soul-crushingly depressing and grindy, which I knew going in. I thought it was… okay, but I really want an offline play mode (Yes, I know there’s an unsupported single-player game, but it’s buggier and costs money). UI was pretty buggy, and I think hunting might literally be impossible.

(2/5) Minecraft – Antimatter Chemistry. Not particularly fun.

(3/5) Minecraft – ComputerCraft. I played a pack with just ComputerCraft and really nothing else. Was a little slow, would have been more fun with more of an audience. I love the ComputerCraft mod, I just didn’t have a great experience playing my pack I made.

(3/5) Minecraft – Foolcraft 3. Fun, a bit buggy. Honestly I can’t remember it too well.

(1/5) Minecraft – Manufactio. Looked potentially fun, but huge bugs and performance issues, couldn’t play.

(4/5) Minecraft – Tekkit. Tekkit remains one of my favorite Minecraft modpacks.

(3/5) Minecraft – Valhelsia 2. I remember this being fun, but I can’t remember details as much as I’d like. I think it was mostly based around being the latest version of minecraft?

(4/5) Minecraft – Volcano Block. Interesting, designed around some weird mods I hadn’t used. I could have used more storage management or bulk dirt/blocks early in the game–felt quite cramped. Probably got a third of the way through the pack. I got novelty value out of it, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I had ever used the plant mod before–it’s a very fixed, linear progression.

(5/5) Minit. This is a weird, small game. I actually had a lot of fun with it. Then I 100% completed it, which was less fun but I still had a good time overall.

(3/5) Monster Box. By Dan-box. One of two Dan-box games I played a lot of. Just visually appealing, the gameplay isn’t amazing. Also, Dan-box does some great programming–this is a game written in 1990 or so, and it can render hundreds of arrows in the air smoothly in a background tab.

(3/5) Monster Train. A relatively fun deckbuilding card game. It can’t run well on my computer, which is UNACCEPTABLE–this is a card game with 2D graphics. My MICROWAVE should run this shit in 2020. Ignoring that, the gameplay style (summon monsters, MTG style) just isn’t my cup of tea.

(2/5) Moonlighter. Felt like it was missing some inspiration, just didn’t have a sense of “fun”. The art was nice. The credits list is surprisingly long.

(2/5) Muse Dash. All right, a basic rhythm game. Not enough variety to the game play, and everything was based around perfect or near-perfect gameplay, which makes things less fun for me.

(3/5) NES games – various. Dr Mario, Ice Climbers. Basically, I got some Chinese handheld “gameboy” that has all the NES games preloaded on it. Overall it was a great purchase.

(2/5) Noita. “The Powder Game” by Dan-Box, as a procedurally generated platformer with guns. Lets you design your own battle spells. Despite the description, you really still can’t screw around as much as I’d like. I also had major performance issues

(3/5) Observation. I haven’t played this one as much as I’d like, I feel like it may get better. Storytelling, 3D game from the point of view of the AI computer on a space station. I think I might have read a book it’s based on, unfortunately.

(2/5) One Step From Eden. This is a deck-building combat tactics game. I thought it was turn-based, but it’s actually realtime. I think if it was turn-based I would have liked it. The characters were a bit uninspired.

(1/5) Orbt XL. Very dull. I paid $0.50 for it, it was worth that.

(4/5) Opus Magnum. Another great game from Zachtronics, along with Exapunks they’re really ramping up. This is the third execution of the same basic concept. I’d like to see Zachtronics treading new ground more as far as gameplay–that said, it is much improved compared to the first two iterations. The art, writing, and story were stellar on the other hand.

(3/5) Out of Space. Fun idea, you clean a spaceship. It’s never that challenging, and it has mechanics such that it gets easier the more you clean, rather than harder. Good but not enough replay value. Fun with friends the first few times. The controls are a little wonky.

(1/5) Outpost (tower defense game). I hate all tower defense.

(3/5) Overcooked. Overcooked is a ton of fun.

(4/5) Powder Game – Dan-box. I played this in reaction to not liking Noita. It’s fairly old at this point. Just a fun little toy.

(1/5) Prime Mover – Very cool art, the gameplay put me to sleep immediately. A “circuit builder” game but somehow missing any challenge or consistency.

(2/5) Quest for Glory I. Older, from 1989. Didn’t really play this much, I couldn’t get into the writing, and the pseudo-photography art was a little jarring.

(4/5) Raft. I played this in beta for free on itch.io, and had a lot of fun. Not enough changed that it was really worth a replay, but it has improved, and I got to play with a second player. Not a hard game, which I think was a good thing. The late game they’ve expanded, but it doesn’t really add much. The original was fun and so was this.

(3/5) Satisfactory. I honestly don’t know how I like this one–I didn’t get too far into it.

(4/5) Scrap Mechanic. I got this on a recommendation from a player who played in creative. I only tried the survival mode–that mode is not well designed, and their focuses for survival are totally wrong. I like the core game, you can actually build stuff. If I play again, I’ll try the creative mode, I think.

(3.5/5) Shapez.io. A weird, abstracted simplification of Factorio. If I hadn’t played factorio and half a dozen copies, I imagine this would have been fun, but it’s just more of the same. Too much waiting–blueprints are too far into the game, too.

(2.5/5) Simmiland. Okay, but short. Used cards for no reason. For a paid game, I wanted more gameplay out of it?

(0.5/5) Snakeybus. The most disappointing game I remember this year. Someone made “Snake” in 3D. There are a million game modes and worlds to play in. I didn’t find anything I tried much fun.

(1/5) Soda Dungeon. A “mobile” (read: not fun) style idle game. Patterned after money-grab games, although I don’t remember if paid progress was actually an option. I think so.

(4/5) Spelunky. The only procedurally generated platformer I’ve ever seen work. Genuinely very fun.

(4/5) Spelunky 2. Fun, more of an upgrade of new content than a new game. Better multiplayer. My computer can’t run later levels at full speed.

(1/5) Stick Ranger 2. Dan-box. Not much fun.

(3/5) Superliminal. Fun game. A bit short for the pricetag.

(3/5) Tabletop Simulator – Aether’s End: Legacy. Interesting, a “campaign” (series of challenge bosses and pre-written encounters) deckbuilding RPG. I like the whole “campaign RPG boardgame” idea. This would have worked better with paper, there were some rough edges in both the game instructions and the port to Tabletop Simulator.

(4/5) Tabletop Simulator – The Captain is Dead. Very fun. I’d love to play with more than 2 people. Tabletop simulator was so-so for this one.

(2/5) Tabletop Simulator – Tiny Epic Mechs. You give your mech a list of instructions, and it does them in order. Arena fight. Fun, but I think I could whip up something at least as good.

(3/5) The Council. One of the only 3D games I finished. It’s a story game, where you investigate what’s going on and make various choices. It’s set in revolutionary france, at the Secret World Council that determines the fate of the world. It had a weak ending, with less choice elements than the rest of the game so far, which was a weird decision. Also, it has an EXCRUTIATINGLY bad opening scene, which was also weird. The middle 95% of the game I enjoyed, although the ending went on a little long. The level of background knowledge expected of the player swung wildly–they seemed to expect me to know who revolutionary French generals were with no explanation, but not Daedalus and the Minotaur. The acting was generally enjoyable–there’s a lot of lying going on in the game and it’s conveyed well. The pricetag is too high to recommend.

(0/5) The Grandma’s Recipe (Unus Annus). This game is unplayably bad–it’s just a random pixel hunt. Maybe it would be fun if you had watched the video it’s based on.

(3/5) The Room. Pretty fun! I think this is really designed for a touchscreen, but I managed to play it on my PC. Played it stoned, which I think helps with popular puzzle games–it has nice visuals but it’s a little too easy.

(3/5) This Call May Be Recorded. Goofy experimental game.

(4/5) TIS-100. Zachtronics. A programming game. I finally got done with the first set of puzzles and into the second this year. I had fun, definitely not for everyone.

(3/5) Trine. I played this 2-player. I think the difficulty was much better 2-player, but it doesn’t manage 2 players getting separated well. Sadly we skipped the story, which seemed like simple nice low-fantasy. Could have used goofier puzzles, it took itself a little too seriously and the levels were a bit same-y.

(2/5) Unrailed. Co-op railroad building game. It was okay but there wasn’t base-building. Overall not my thing. I’d say I would prefer something like Overcooked if it’s going to be timed? Graphics reminded me of autonauts.

(2/5) Vampire Night Shift. Art game. Gameplay could have used a bit of polish. Short but interesting.

(4/5) Wayward. To date, the best survival crafting system I’ve seen. You can use any pointy object and stick-like object, together with glue or twine, to make an arrow. The UI is not great, and there’s a very counter-intuitive difficulty system. You need to do a little too much tutorial reading, and it could use more goals. Overall very fun. Under constant development, so how it plays a given week is a crapshoot. The steam version finally works for me (last time I played it was worse than the free online alpha, now it’s the same or better). I recomend playing the free online version unless you want to support the author.

(1/5) We Need to Go Deeper. Multiplayer exploration game in a sub, with sidescrolling battle. Somehow incredibly unfun, together with high pricetag. Aesthetics reminded me of Don’t Starve somehow.

(2/5) We Were Here. Okay 2-player puzzle game. Crashed frequently, and there were some “huh” puzzles and UI. Free.

(3/5) Yes, your grace. Gorgeous pixel art graphics. The story is supposed to be very player-dependent, but I started getting the feeling that it wasn’t. I didn’t quite finish the game but I think I was well past halfway. Hard to resume after a save, you forget things. I got the feeling I wouldn’t replay it, which is a shame because it’s fun to see how things go differently in a second play with something like this.

These are not all new to me, and very few came out in 2020. I removed any games I don’t remember and couldn’t google (a fair number, I play a lot of game jam games) as well as any with pornographic content.

2020 Videogames was originally published on Optimal Prime

[spirit-science-blog]

“Time not important… only life important.” yep, we’re going there, things are about to get a little bit philosophical now that we’re dealing with the Fifth Element...no..not the Alchemical Quintessence, but close! That crazy 1990s Sci-Fi about a killer planet, the power of love… and… You know, Bruce Willis’s Wacky Taxi Adventures... and all that…

So, major spoiler alert… The fifth element is Love. Well, kind of...it’s this woman called Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat… For short, Leeloo is the fifth element, and in essence: a perfect, supreme being of sorts. In a way, she’s kind of like Avatar Aan, destined to unite with the other classical elements in an ancient Egyptian temple to act as a defense system against this super evil Dark Force called Mr. Shadow - which takes on the form of a cruel planet, whose only goal is to destroy life in a cosmic cycle every 5000 years.

It’s a movie that’s had its fair share of criticism, especially in the gender department… Leeloo is the only real female character, with others appearing randomly throughout as passive objects, sex objects, or with most of their femininity stripped away like Major Iceborg. Aside from the fifth element herself, there’s a real lack of divine feminine in this story, but then again, her nature itself does embody many characteristics of the divine feminine: powerful, unique, and beyond the understanding of nearly everyone that she meets.

Regarding the plot, we have kind of a Raava vs. Vaatu thing happening like from Legend of Korra… and it’s hard not to draw lines to Avatar here considering the whole elemental theme huh? In the intro, we see an archaeologist deciphering ancient words regarding the conjunction of celestial bodies, something we should all do more of you know? Which, by the way, if you haven’t picked up your edition of the 2021 Almanac of the New Age, I might highly recommend it, because it helps you do just that without being randomly surprised by a giant robot-alien! Before they show up though, the archaeologist has to keep yelling to Aziz to wake up, as the kid keeps nodding off… I wonder if this is subtly depicting how humanity keeps falling asleep and thus the light that illuminates sacred knowledge is not currently stable. Yet when the advanced beings come to show the way, the light is blinding… Powerful and concrete.

There’s also a sense here that humans are the custodians of Earth, so we have to protect it from darkness and destruction ourselves, and while these higher beings help when the time is right, they cannot do it for us. While Love is shown as this mythical force that these advanced beings can use to defeat the darkness, it could also be said that Love is neutral energy between Light and Dark, one that is capable of harmonizing both sides, ultimately resetting the cycle, something that is echoed in Zorg’s speech later on.

All this knowledge is of course passed down through a secret brotherhood of priests, acting as keepers through the generations, of which there are many stories of secret societies doing the same in our history, and amazingly in the future where the main story takes place, Priest Cornelius is also an “Expert of Astrophenomenon”. He’s not just an expert on the metaphysical, but also seemingly the scientific study of space, and there’s certainly a sense that he’s got that whole balance thing down to a tee, working to better his understanding of both science and spirit by combining the two fields.  

So when the military fires a bunch of missiles at Mr. Shadow, it’s interesting to see how they treat Cornelius, who tries to explain to them what Mr. Shadow is, to which he is mostly ignored, and they continue trying to brute force the problem. Yet Evil begets more Evil - as Cornelius explains, subtly referencing that the military's weapons, or at least their intentions. Mr. Shadow - symbolic of “our” shadow selves, demonstrates that it will grow in power if you try to destroy it with the same mindset that created it. The only way to truly harmonize the darkness is through love.

Even more impressive is this disconnect between the President of Earth and Earth itself. While, of course, they are trying to protect the earth and all of its life, when we see the world, we have to ask… are those living? Police and robots so heavily control everything, it’s smoggy, you see some crazy representations of people like the guy who tries to rob Korben in his apartment, and I’m not sure I saw a single tree…

Now, Major Dallas, to that end, of course, represents the divine masculine, also fulfilling the warrior archetype. While, of course, he checks all the classic hero tropes of the ex-lone warrior destined to save the world and fall in love with a perfect supreme sacred woman, the way it plays out DOES provides us with a bit of wisdom for ourselves concerning synchronicity. He describes that what he wants is to meet that perfect woman, and she falls from the sky into his cab. Perhaps this is a nod to manifestation in some way, as it’s their love story that’s the key to resolving the movie's conflict. It’s also a reminder for us that when we stumble into synchronicity, we have to be willing to take that leap of faith and follow where it leads us. For Korben, he has an opportunity to give LeeLoo up to the coppers but ends up putting his whole life at risk for her instead, but it’s THIS path that leads to the world being saved. Korben has to ask himself what’s important, following his heart and helping someone in need or earning more points on his taxi license…

Now, Leeloo on the other hand, through her character explores the nature of spirituality, DNA, and the physical capabilities of our souls within a body. A big topic in spirituality today is the science of ascension - we made a whole workshop on that which you can watch for free if you like - and what enlightenment might look like or do to our physical bodies. Leeloo’s DNA is perfect.. But it isn’t inhuman. There’s nothing really out of the ordinary about her DNA, she has the same genetic composition as us, just more of it, more tightly packed, allowing for greater inherent genetic knowledge and potential. Perhaps there’s a message here that the human genome is already whole, we just need to utilize its latent capabilities to find inner harmony, leading to a leveling up of what we are truly capable of.  

So if Korben was like Link and LeeLoo was Princess Zelda, Zorg would be Ganondorf, completing the trinity. Zorg actually drops some pretty interesting wisdom in his discussion with Cornelius. Despite his “evil” role, his whole name is Jean Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, being named after the prophet and saint in many religions, and Emanuel meaning ”God is with us” in Hebrew. Zorg explains that life itself results from chaos and disorder at times. He believes that by creating a little destruction, he is encouraging life to renew itself, so the Priest and he are really in the same business… while it might just sound like he’s been brainwashed by the Shadow, when we look deeper, we do find some hidden spirituality!

His ideology is in alignment with the wisdom of the importance and honorable role of darkness in our reality. Much like the tower or death card in the major arcana or the shells of the Qliphoth in the Kabbalah, agents of darkness often come to give structure, boundaries, and direction for light to move through, as well as clearing stagnant energy to make way for new and evolved paradigms. Much like the cycles and sine waves that move through nature, energy flows through peaks and valleys that balance each other out.

Zorg knows he is a monster and is proud of it. He’s a businessman at heart, powerful from the money of capitalism, and a reflection of society's state of awareness and evolution. As we mentioned, this future society is portrayed as consumerist and still dwelling on issues of pollution and crime, even in spite of great new technologies. Perhaps that’s why the Darkness had to come, to help propel the evolution of consciousness forward and bring about divine love. However, while the love between Korben and Leeloo is highly symbolic, it doesn’t seem to affect basically anyone else, which might call us to ask ourselves… would it have been better for humanity and its pollution to be destroyed? This - at the very least - seems to be the underlying thinking behind Zorgs criminal activity. Ultimately, in the face of darkness, humans must come together to accomplish things and stop evil, something we wouldn’t do otherwise… This is what makes us evolve as a species.

Zorg perfectly encapsulates his philosophy in his quote about glass, saying “this glass is serene and boring, but when destroyed, a lovely ballet ensues full of form and color”. He then knocks it off the table and a bunch of little vacuum cleaner droids come and clean it up. Describing that the “People who created them, technicians, engineers, now have money to feed their children. They are part of the chain of life".

Interestingly though, Zorg is only a monster because life experiences took him there, but he started like any of us. There is a nice lesson from Cornelius about how fickle life is: all of Zorg’s power counts for absolutely nothing when his entire empire comes crashing down because of one little cherry. Cornelius saves Zorg’s life regardless, showing us the virtue of the angels, even towards the demons.

When the team finally makes it to the alien space opera, we get to meet Ruby Rhod and Plavalaguna. Ruby is one of the most unique parts of this movie… Crazy sexual antics aside, he is unapologetically authentic to his true nature, bending gender standards and seemingly embodying masculine and feminine with grace and humor. Perhaps the epitome of the wacky human spirit. And then as for Plavalaguna, she has some very ascended master vibes. The Mondoshawans entrusted her with the safekeeping of the elemental stones, who actually carries them inside her body as a safeguard. From a Spiritual perspective, this seems to describe how we all embody the classical elements within us. She even senses Leeloo's presence behind a wall down the hallway, implying she has some measure of clairvoyance. Interestingly, like the Mondoshawan from earlier, she doesn’t seem overly concerned with her own death, echoing the movie’s sentiment that time is not important, only life. Deeper though, it appears that she knew she was going to die all along, in order for the stones to get out of her…. We’re not even gonna ask how she got the stones inside her in the first place...that’d be one hard pill to swallow, let alone perform an entire opera with these giant rocks in your belly. Mad props to her.

Perhaps the reason superior beings don’t fear death as we do is that they know the bigger picture, they know these lives are transitory, so they don’t mind dying for a cause, as they understand the purpose of this life in the bigger scheme of things. Knowing that the flux and flow between life and death is transient, they’ll be back in the right place and the right time as life requires it. In the same way, in traditional tarot the horse Death is riding, is stepping over a prone king, which symbolizes that not even royalty can stop change. Plava understands her role and accepts her death, after imparting wisdom to Dallas that Leeloo is still fragile and somewhat human, despite her seeming physical evolution.

This idea of Leeloo still being human, however, forms a key part of the ending, as up until this point she has been learning all of human history via an alphabetical database… When she learns of war, she loses hope in humanity after seeing the darker sides of our past. Certainly, we can’t blame her, humans are the only species to cut down a forest to make room for a billboard that says “stop deforestation”, I’d be pretty shocked about our history too. However, Korben’s love shows her that love is an undefinable thing, it’s not a stone like the other elements, but a feeling between people that permeates everything and is worth fighting and caring for.

It’s pretty funny that when it comes down to it, none of the characters actually know how to activate the super-love bomb. Leeloo doesn’t know what will happen, but she continues to follow her divine calling to be on that platform without second-guessing herself, even if she didn’t know at the end how to activate the final “weapon”..she follows her own inner voice and calling and is guided into defeating the darkness, speaking to the importance of following our intuition and own inner guide.

Ultimately love is shown to be something with no boundaries, no clear explanations, but still exists through us, changing our lives in powerful ways. And through thousands of years, it will stay as the most important thing worthy to fight for. It’s no accident that in a time of such modernized technologies and possibilities humanity once again has to turn to nature for help in the form of the elements. It reminds people that technology cannot always provide protection, it is nature that always has been the source of power, as it exists forever. And only things that are eternal, like nature and love, are of true significance. Today, it seems people either love or hate this movie, but whatever way the coin falls, it is undoubtedly a fun experience, and packed to the brim with spiritual wisdom!

So until next time, be mindful of what you do with the gift of life, cause we never know when a sentient evil planet might try and eat us. Toodles!

This video was created by Team Spirit Connect with the team at https://spiritsciencecentral.com/about

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Drive Episodes 01-17

Riders, start your engines, and may the best guy on a spandex suit win! 

I'm so proud of that pun, y'all have no idea. Sadly that's probably the only thing of this post that' I'll be proud of since I feel like I won't have a whole lot to write because... I didn't really like Drive all that much.

I don't wanna say I hate Drive, it's only in the beginning so there's still room for my opinion to change, it's just that there weren't that many things that I liked, but also there weren't a lot of things that I hated, I'm more or less indifferent about the whole thing so far.

The thing is, the show has a lot of things that kinda pushes me away from it on the way it presents itself, there are a lot of uncomfortable close-ups, a shit ton of fast cuts, and the actors act on a certain way for comedic effect and it's very forced and it doesn't work well with me because this is not the type of comedy that makes me laugh, and some of the characterizations are so stereotypical is hard to take it seriously. I feel like if these elements were just here and there sometimes they wouldn't bother me as much, but they hit you in the head with it EVERY SINGLE EPISODE and it completely sets me off.

It also doesn't help that the story is pretty bland? Like, most of these episodes were just monster of the week based and for the most part it didn't feel like the story was moving. And yeah that's not really a problem on itself, but the cases of the week weren't very interesting either, you know, considering this show is back at doing two-parters you have enough time to work on a proper investigation and a proper solution, W is here to prove that to a certain extent, but here it just feels like all the clues are just a bunch of disconnected things and then someone will say a magical word that will ignite Shinnousuke's brain and "poof" case solved.

Another thing that it doesn't help is that I don't feel like none of the characters changed all that much in the course of 17 episodes? They were also not all that interesting.

Shinnousuke is pretty bland, he didn't leave that much of an impression on me, I really can't remember much about him. I expected to absolutely hate the idea of the belt being sentient but he's not that bad, though I hate the fact they gave him the Steinbelt name just because he's a belt, this is ridiculous lol. Kiriko is cool, I like that she tries to be useful and the show seems to be cooperating with her even giving her new gadgets so she can assist even more so she's great, though I really don't care for the show trying to sell she and Shinnousuke as a possible couple. The other members of the Special Investigation Unit are, well, members of the Special Investigation Unit. I don't like these guys, I don't understand why the task force that is supposed to deal with the slowdowns isn't teamed up with the Riders and don't know their identity, the show didn't need all of them to be there. And following the trend, I hate Gou, I don't understand this guy, I don't even think I wanna understand him, I just hate his personality, he's the cocky annoying type, not the cocky cool type and I'm really not interested on him.

Talking about the villains, I also don't understand them. What are their goals? What the hell are they doing? How does their system work? What exactly is the slowdown and how does it work? Couldn't they think of an easier name? Why does their MOTW look so awful? This is all I get from the villains, just questions and nothing else. Heart didn't give me anything to work with him yet, Brain and Medic are bland as hell especially considering all they do is orbit around Heart, I'm gonna admit is kinda fun to see Brain being jealous but I doubt they'll do much with that so I'm not engaged. To not say I'm indifferent to all of them I actually like Chase, I feel like he's the only character of the entire cast that is actually going through an arc and I appreciate that, sadly the show kinda reset him after they revealed he was Proto-Drive so I feel like all of that was lost and I'm sad again, I hope his turn over arc will be nice since he's the only character I care about at this point.

Going to the Riders, here's another thing that pushes me from this show, I hate the suits, like I get that they were trying to introduce as many details that would make the audience associate with a car, or a bike in Mach's case, but they just look awful. The tires on all of Drive's forms look very unpractical, is the same thing with Mach's shoulder piece whatever that's supposed to be, it's just terrible. The idea is nice, and I'll admit after a couple of episodes I was already digging Drive's basic suit, but the execution is terrible. None of those side tires look good crisscrossing his chest, they have a Vegas form and that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. Also, there are way too many of those Shift Cars and I feel like we're about to deal with another Fourze's switches situation and I'm... reluctant.

Drive has two side forms, and they look awful as well, I thought changing the place where the tires are attached would be an improvement, but now they're awful, very top-heavy, way too blocky, it doesn't look great and again it doesn't look very practical or battle friendly. He also has a shared power-up with Mach and to me that's bullshit, I don't wanna talk about it neither these suits. One thing I don't understand is why does he wear a belt when his actual transformation device is those cars and his wrist thing. I also hate his sword with passion, I hate that they have an actual steering wheel as part of the handle, it's just so ugly. Thank God at least the Door Gun is great, It looks simple and sleek and it's a very clever idea.

I also don't Like Mach's design, most part of it is that wheel thing on his shoulder, that completely ruins a perfectly fine suit. I also hate that he has a time limit to be transformed, especially because it's never specified how much time he has to use his transformation so it just feels like it's something that'll only work in accord with the plot's convenience and I'm not here for any that. I also despise that he has to do a huge magical girl roll call each time we see him transform, it doesn't work here in these situations. Also, his gun looks ridiculous.

And I believe that's pretty much all I have to say, in summary, I'm not really into Drive but I see the potential for it to grow it on me. So what are your thoughts on Kamen Rider Drive? Let me know down in the comments. Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you all in the next time. o/

[bygosscarmine]

W: Worlds Apart - Volume 3: Worlds Aligned

Kang Chul X Oh Yeon Joo - Fix-It Fic (T)

Read from beginning or find previous chapters here: Stories

(Sorry I missed last week! School’s not out yet and work is kinda wild right now even though I’m not working more hours. We’re getting into the final stretch so I’m going to want to be sure I know what I’m doing. A little longer chapter again!)

Yeon Joo supposes it’s nice that at least one person will take whatever happens from here on out as at least an amusing story. But whenever she hopes for that person to advise her against something risky, it doesn’t work out...

Chapter 102 - Sometimes Risk Is Not About The Payoff   (1205 words)

"You're not wrong about his looks," Yeon Joo said. "Though some of that is because of the memory loss. He's a very meticulous, logical thinker. We've been working together plotting the manhwa and there are these moments when he's thought through everything with such delicate finesse.... It's hard to explain."

MK was now staring with a very different look on her face.

"That sounds incredibly sexy," said MK. "Too bad he's bound to be one in a million. I would like to be sent a version of him, aged up about thirty or forty years."

I really hope not, came the thought, very clearly, from the part of Yeon Joo's mind that was able to see this fast-forward in time.

"I'll keep an eye out," was all she said. "Since I stumbled across one, I may have the knack."

"So you weren't attracted to him initially, but something changed. Because of something he did?" She jabbed her straw in her cup as if trying to get the fresh squeezed juice to blend better. "I shouldn't have got the one with green vegetation in it. Who was I kidding?"

"Is this a question I can skip?"

"You can skip any question, but you said something about it, so I think you really want to talk it out."

Yeon Joo really should get some friends who weren't razor sharp, so she could occasionally relax. She spent a second moving past her resentment that MK was right about this as well as other things, and sipped her own strawberry orange juice with at least one comfort.

"Our time together is probably limited. We don't have the luxury of building a relationship from scratch. And even if we did, we can never quite go back to scratch. Plus, everyone is going to judge me for how pretty he is."

MK mocked her with an exaggerated repetition of "Judge me for how pretty he is" then said, "So what?"

"So I had decided it wasn't worth it. So I was fine with just being heartbroken. So now I'm feeling attracted to him, I hate myself, and I'm scared again. And I still have to save my father's life by sacrificing my career, and he has to help me. So I can't get away from it."

"Why does he have to help you?"

"Well, it might be long-distance," Yeon Joo conceded.

"If you ask me, there's no point. You're either going to go with the moment or you're going to ruin it by worrying. I don't care which it is. Maybe you just need to get this big mistake out of your system. You played it safe for years, this may just be balance coming from the universe."

"How do you know I've played it safe for years?" Yeon Joo did not think MK had been particularly tracking her social life.

"Mainly based on the way this whole thing seems to have knocked you off your feet. I'm not going to say you're inexperienced, just that you haven't done things to build your confidence when taking risks. And taking risks isn't necessary in a lot of cases. But..."

She was hesitating, now. And that was unlike her.

"Just say whatever that was, that crossed your mind to say," Yeon Joo said drily.

"He has a brain, and looks like that, and he's interested in you? Disaster. Definitely go for it."

"Thank you. At least I can feel confident you'll be excited to hear all about it when I'm sitting in the shambles of my life."

MK cackled. Then she went to ask for a different drink.

While she was explaining that she didn't want to pay to replace something that clearly was not delicious, and should not have been sold to her, Yeon Joo fought a sinking feeling.

She didn't think she was in love. Not yet. And she didn't think she would have the time to become so. Chul had made it clear--he wanted to end things. And she had some inklings, especially after discussing with him how to test further theories, about what she might have to do to make it happen. She had power, too, as he'd noted.

She had become a character in his story, in a way Dad had never been. And Chul had fallen for her instead of So Hee, who had been destined for him by the story.

There was still a problem they had to solve, which was that on some level Chul would always know the gunman was really made up. Could she reset his memory--no. Then she'd be no better than her father, trying to write him off the bridge. And she'd be one of the forces the next Chul would come back to fight.

No, Chul needed to end the story, so he had to find out who had killed his family and triumph over them. But the gunman was just an abrupt insertion, with no past, no motivation. Chul could get rid of him and there'd be no closure. And she was having a really terrible idea of just how she could create closure. But she couldn't tell Chul about it. Not that he wouldn't figure it out--he was smart. That was the whole issue. But if he could react in the moment as if it were true, then it would be true.

"You look ready to run out of here," MK said, returning with her drink. "Did you remember an email you needed to send to make this whole rigamarole work?"

"Something like that. But I can't really do anything about it now, so I don't need to run out of here. Not any faster than I'm already running out of my life."

MK zoomed in on this with the look of a woman who has found an answer to her problems on a lab slide.

"That sounded ominous. Do you need me to storm into Mad Dog's office and tell him he can't let you take another leave of absence? I don't mind. Do you need to be talked out of this?"

"No," said Yeon Joo.

"Are you sure of what you're doing?"

"I think that's not going to come. I just have to do it and probably fail. Then put the pieces back together."

"Take some reassurance from me. You may fail. The pieces may end up on the floor. But you are smart, you flex to problems like no one else I know. And you take too much responsibility for things going wrong. So if things go wrong, and it gets too hard to deal with, step back and ask what is not your fault. Sometimes we gotta let that go. And also call me. I'll talk some sense into you. I like doing it, it feels like a public service to keep the one sane person in this hospital going. I'm going to miss you."

"Thanks," said Yeon Joo, feeling a shard of guilt that may have actually been grief needle itself into her chest. "I appreciate that."

She wondered if she'd still qualify as the only sane one if MK knew the guy she was not yet in love with didn't just look like the character from her father's manga.

[verolewismr-blog]

Corona Virus March 2020- My thoughts now.

Who would have thought that the world as we know it has been changed dramatically. It seems like 2020 has been a sudden unexpected wave of negativity and bad experiences. We are okay tho. In Comparison to a vast majority of people we are okay. 

I mean a year ago I was working in a hospital in Seattle- that would have been such a shit show right now. I don’t think I would be able to handle it very well. I am thankful to be able to have a job that is flexible to be able to work from home. I am also super thankful that my job is salary and I am lucky enough to be able to still hold on to my income. Not only myself but also Nathan, his company will still be able to send him his income. 

I really feel bad for everyone who is not as fortunate and is really struggling with this situation. Those especially that have kids and a family to support. I feel a bit more relax knowing that I am here in San Diego with my parents and at least we keep each other company. Nathan and I are working from home and we are busy but at least together. 

Being in Seattle at the beginning of the chaos was kind of surreal. Not going to lie, it was almost exciting until things got scary. I am not sure if social media is helping people being informed or it just adds to the fear and anxiety.

Working from home has been very interesting specially because at least most of my team is working from home and I have never experience working in this nature. I just really home that this is over soon. I am the type of person that needs a routine and interaction with the world out there so I am kind of getting bored with this situation.

The social restriction currently on place is also very inconvenient and depressing. Having to be restricted from our friends and family members is hard and on top of that, having to be restricted to being out and about. We are really gonna lose our minds if we have to be in this situation for a long time.

One observation I have made is that at least I am more aware of how much we are exposed to so many gross interactions. I am obsessing over washing my hands, not touching my face, and just being more aware of where I put my hands and what I do with them afterwards. I mean I used to be able to go around touch handles, doors, keyboards, the bus, my phone, the world… and oh man I go and can get a bag of Cheetos and eat without really washing my hands. GROOOOOSSS!  

It sucks and I really don’t want to be that type of person who is a hypochondriac because, que hueva, who has time for that. I want to think that thanks to my non hypochondriac parents I was able to crawl in the floor and pretty much lick the floor as a kid that I have built a strong immune system. However; this is interesting to know and realize how much we do things without caring and even when I have gotten mild sickness of the flue, I’m like, why did I get sick? BECAUSE YOU ARE GROSS VERONICA, that is why! Anyhow to a certain extend right? We all do it.

I would like to just blink my eyes and fast forward time to the point where this is over. Why can’t we fast forward this? Like nobody is having fun. Okay God please make it stop. IDK, I was talking to my friend Elizabeth and she brought up a good point. Maybe this is nature and is going into a cleansing cycle. We know that there were pandemics in the past, natural disasters and massive deaths of people. Maybe is one of those times for nature to shake it self and go through a cleanse. This was a very interesting thought which it kind of makes sense to me.

We are back to Seattle this Sunday and though its nice to know we are going “home” it does not make me feel super stocked to leave my family here. I know they can take care of themselves but just does not feel 100 right.  I really hope 2020 gets better. We all thought a new year and decade will bring some good but we did not expect this. Let’s put it out there in the universe and hope that 2020 was just like “ oh my bad, let me reset’

[moogsthewriter]

Thoughts on Avengers: End Game

Put below a cut for spoilers, but the spoiler-free tl;dr is that I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it because there’s things I liked, things I don’t like, and things I’m not sure if I should accept.

Let’s be blunt: Pulling off Endgame in a way that satisfies everyone, makes logical sense using reality-bending stones, and ties up 10+ years of movies was pretty much impossible. Obviously there’s a lot of debate, and I’m probably not adding anything new to the discourse, but I keep losing sleep and/or having weird dreams, so I clearly need to get it off my chest so to speak to try and ease my mind. So I’ll just touch on a few key topics:

The Timeline: This I know is getting a lot of hot debate, and it’s actually caused my husband and I to raise our voices at each other over it (which is honestly not surprising – the biggest conflict in our marriage thus far has been that he’s pro-Cap and I’m pro-Iron Man, lol). The most helpful explanation to me has been this reddit thread that essentially compares the timeline to an operating system and that essentially, by Cap returning the stones to their original times, it “rebooted” the main timeline from those points on (though the events still happened for the future characters because of the whole “the past becomes your future which can’t change your past” thing). This – in theory – helps explain why it doesn’t blow up the GOTG timeline to have past!Thanos + army come and be killed in 2023 or whatever year it was. I admit, I’m still a bit skeptical about this, primarily because of the Old Cap ending. The reset works for everyone except him in that case, and I know that Peggy Carter was a badass and could keep a lot of secrets, but I just don’t see it being possible for Steve to hide out and not impact the timeline… I also think it will be telling to see what happens in GOTG 3, because clearly Peter was searching for Gamora, and if this “system reboot” theory holds true, then she should not appear at all in that film, other than in recordings/flashbacks/etc. (unless they try and do something with the Soul Stone, which is a whole other kettle of fish). So I think the timeline can sort of work logically, but that leads into two other key points…

Steve’s Ending: Honestly, this was the worst note for me to end on and is the biggest source of contention between me and my husband on our perspectives of this film. We both agree that it’s totally in character for MCU!Steve to do something like this – husband thinks it’s good to let Steve have the happy ending he wants after everything, but I view it as yet another instance of Steve literally NEVER practicing what he preaches. To me, “getting a life” and having a happy ending that also shows ACTUAL character growth would be Steve finally accepting that he is in the future and it is time for him to move on AND THAT HE DOESN’T NEED ROMANCE TO BE HAPPY. But again… having such an ending would be antithetical to everything they’ve done with Cap since Winter Soldier, let’s be honest, so as much as I hated it (and think it throws the timeline thing into question, as mentioned above), I do think it fits the character.

Morgan Stark: As much as I loved seeing more of dad!Tony, there wasn’t much point to have Morgan as a character in the film unless it was setting it up for Tony to have to decide between the reality with his daughter and the reality with his spiderson everyone else, which is an excellent point that I know others have raised all over social media. HOWEVER, I also think that this isn’t so much a desire for a plot point for Tony as it is to be a... IDK, a consolation prize, I guess, for Pepper – yes, she loses Tony, but she gets their daughter, whereas if they reset the timeline like we all thought they would, she probably wouldn’t have gotten either (more on that in a sec). And THAT idea stems from the general problem of…

The female character story lines: It is very clear to me that the writers really had no idea what to do with the story arcs for the female characters in this film. For a character like Captain Marvel, it kind of makes sense, since apparently the script was finalized a few years ago (aka before the CM movie came out). But they’ve NEVER known what to do with Natasha’s arc, clearly, or with Pepper, either (at least not since the early Iron Man films, if even then), and so to me, the Morgan Stark thing ties more broadly into that. Basically, a bunch of dudes thinking through this problem with apparently little/no input from women (if the writing credits are accurate).

Natasha’s ending: Speaking of Natasha’s arc, this is the character death that is honestly bothering me the most out of the entire film. As much as I love Jeremy Renner and the Hawkeye of the comics, there has never been much compelling about his character (mostly because the writers have never done anything to make him to be compelling, let’s be real) – everything I (and I think a lot of the fandom) love about MCU!Clint is directly tied to his relationship to Natasha. I get that they were trying to not screw him over completely and do… something with him (very clearly not much, because he doesn’t really do much after Vormir????), but if he had been able to succeed in the sacrifice, that actually would’ve given both a point to his weird arc in this film AND would have set up even greater conflict/character development for Nat in a future film. Plus, it was hard to actually mourn Nat’s death because other than those REALLY SHORT scenes at the lake, it’s like it never happened or something. (I do wonder if there’s a bit more of that kind of content in the deleted scenes, but that would also speak to decisions of treatment of women in this film.)

Thor’s arc: There’s a LOT I could say about this, but I’ll keep it short-ish because this is already getting ridiculously long. Overall, I think it’s actually an interesting direction for Thor to go as a character (I can see where some think it’s backsliding from Ragnarok but I don’t necessarily think so… I can go more into that if people want), but it was really difficult to see his PTSD get treated so lightly. This is again where it makes sense for the characters involved – most of his screentime was with Rocket, who is probably the literal worst at dealing with past traumas in a positive way within the MCU, and other than Iron Man 3 and parts of Winter Soldier, no MCU film has really even touched the issue of PTSD well, especially in these later phases – so it makes sense on one level that it was the way it was, but… yeah, still. (Trauma is also why I really didn’t like Tony’s interaction with Howard, but I’m not even going to touch that because then we’ll be here forever.) But yeah, that’s another thing that will be interesting to see if they explore in GOTG 3.

Tony’s arc: This was obviously one of the hardest things for me to deal with, as a Tony fan, but I also was absolutely convinced he was going to die once Stephen traded the time stone to save Tony’s life in Infinity War, so to me it was a matter of figuring out how he was going to die. And honestly? I actually thought it was one of the better ways for Tony to go out. Why do I say that? Two things. One – the “I am Iron Man” line was perfect, even with – honestly, perhaps because of – its raspy croakiness. To me, that summed up Tony perfectly – he is the man in control of and behind the design the suit and thus the true hero (because the suit HE DESIGNED was able to work out getting the stones/gauntlet off Thanos’ hand), and even when he’s at the very end of his rope, he never gives up when it comes to trying to do the right thing (even if he goes about it in the wrong ways and is often his own worst enemy). So yeah, it felt like pure Tony Stark to me. Two – the fact that he went out with his real family by his side. One of my fave moments was him finally laying into Steve and the rest of the team at the start of the film, and I think his closing moments mirrored that well. Yes, he can be on cordial terms with the rest of the Avengers, but they were never his true family – his real family was the ones with him at the very end, and I was honestly so relieved that there was no bullshit last-words exchange between him and Cap that tried to cement some mythical bond that was never really present in MCU in the first place (comics, yes; cinematic universe, hell no) that that overruled everything else I feel about his death. (Though I could obviously go much more into that but again… this is hella long so I’ll stop now.)

Anyway, IDK if anyone made it to the end of this thing, but I feel like I’ve gotten a weight off my chest, so… mission accomplished, I guess? Lord knows I could write an entire novel about my feels as a result of this movie – I didn’t even touch treatment of the Wakandans, Captain Marvel’s non-appearance in the film, or other “implied but never confirmed/denied” elements of the plot. But I’m probably close to Tumblr’s bs limits anyway, so. Congrats to you if you made it this far lol.

[dynamite-derek]

My top-10 games of 2018

It’s that time of the year where you are flooded with lists of the best stuff from 2018 and I’m no different. Originally I was going to just make a list of the top 10 games I played in 2018. I even had a giant list I was updating throughout the year. But one day my phone randomly reset and I lost that list. So, business as usual this year. Maybe next year. 

Before I start with the numbered list, I’d like to note a couple of games that won’t be appearing for various reasons.

Games I liked a lot but haven’t played enough of to place on a list like this: Into the Breach, Dead Cells

A critically acclaimed game I haven’t played: God of War

I don’t want remakes on my list, but these games were really good: Shadow of the Colossus, Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Ports aren’t eligible but I like these a lot too: Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Shenmue 1&2, Hyrule Warriors and the PC port of one of the best games ever, Yakuza 0.

Okay, let’s get started.

10-) Red Dead Redemption 2: Actually had to debate between this and Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu for this spot. Ultimately I chose this game because the narrative is spectacular. Well that and the fact that Let’s Go is sort of a remake. This game absolutely nails atmospheric storytelling and creates one of the most interesting protagonists in AAA gaming. This game does a lot of things well, but the actual gameplay portion is...pretty mixed. I didn’t have fun with the open world at all and most missions involved long bouts of horseback riding with dialogue or ambient music. But RDR 2 does everything else so well. It also knows when to go all out. Every major mission in the game is memorable for one reason or another, especially with intelligent usage of music. It’s a game I will never play again, but despite some problems with the gameplay I can safely say that I enjoyed my time with it.

9-) Mario Tennis Aces: This game was a lot of fun. I wrote about it earlier in the year and my opinions on it are still the same.  Even though the gameplay is fairly simplistic, every match against another human felt unique and different. You have to learn the styles of your opposition and adapt. It’s like a fighting game! The online gameplay was also pretty solid. I felt pretty damn good whenever I would win a tournament. Really, Smash Bros. Ultimate would have done well to borrow this mechanic in some way. The only real problem with the game is that there is just a major lack of content. The heavily advertised story mode is barely worth playing and the cups, well, you might as well be playing against an unmanned player 2. I haven’t touched the game in a while, so this might have been fixed via update. As I said a few months ago, this game could have been a masterpiece with a bit of extra fine tuning.

8-) Dragon Ball Fighter Z: This game feels like it was made specifically for me. I have a lot of love for the Marvel vs. Capcom games and even more love for the Dragon Ball franchise. The game is easy to approach for newcomers to this type of game by keeping the inputs simple and having very easy to pull of auto-combos. You won’t do too well online if you stick to the auto combos, but it’s a good way to start and learn how to play. I think a lot of people could start with Fighter Z and transition into more complicated fighting games, which is exactly what you want with a game like this that will attract many people who might not otherwise play a traditional fighter. Oh, and sometimes it looks like you’re playing an episode of the anime which is insane. The story mode is pretty tedious at times, which is a let down, but Fighter Z is an absolute blast to play and is easily the best playing Dragon Ball game yet. Hopefully season 2 of the DLC goes less heavy on all the Gokus. 

7-) Mega Man 11: The blue bomber returns! It’s been a long wait, but after playing through both collections last year and then the X-collection earlier this year, I was ready for Mega Man to get back into the spotlight. It’s a little hard to get into at first because the level design seems pretty tied into the main new mechanic, the gear system. Basically the player can slow things down to a crawl or boost Mega Man’s power. If you just play this game like you would any other Mega Man game, you’re probably going to throw your console out the window during Tiki Man’s stage. Once you figure this out, the system adds a unique flavor to the Mega Man experience and feels like an actual new Mega Man. I love MM9 and 10, but those did not feel like new games. The only thing that I didn’t like about this game was the music. Which, uh, is weird for a Mega Man game. Here’s hoping they get it right in the inevitable Mega Man X9. 

6-) Marvel’s Spider-Man: I don’t particularly like super hero movies and I haven’t enjoyed a Spider-Man game thoroughly since the first PS1 Spider-Man, so you wouldn’t normally think this game would appeal to me. But it absolutely does. The gameplay is outstanding and combines an improved version of the swinging scene in Spider-Man 2 with a combat system that is fairly similar to the Batman Arkham games. I recommend playing the game on hard because, while it’s hard to get used to, it makes every encounter feel unique. You constantly have to adapt to what the enemy is doing. You can’t just mash on the attack button and then press the dodge button when the dodge prompt comes up. 

The story is also interesting throughout. It has my favorite interpretation of Peter Parker I’ve seen in a while and has a pretty enjoyable cast of characters. Really Mary Jane is the only character I didn’t like and even with her, there are moments that hit home - specifically the text exchanges between MJ and Peter. The game is littered with references to past Spidey adventures and just feels like a giant love letter to fans of the hero. Can’t recommend it enough.

5-) Celeste: I didn’t know what to expect with this game. Sometimes I feel very leery of when a bunch of people prop up an indy game too much. Gone Home a couple of years ago told a pretty mediocre story that was held up as some form of high art. Just didn’t get it. So I went into Celeste wanting to not like it and came out fairly surprised. The gameplay feels like a better version of Super Meat Boy and the narrative tells a pretty compelling tale about depression and how to come to terms with yourself. I even don’t mind the pixel art. I am getting sick of indy games going for the retro aesthetic, but when combined with the great soundtrack it’s hard not to love what it’s presenting. 

The game is simple enough to complete on its own. I would argue that anybody could do it as long as they keep at it. But for those platforming veterans, the game also offers a heavy challenge. The B-side and C-side levels will test your skills and remind you of some of the most challenging bits of hard platforming games like Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be The Guy. Basically, come for the compelling narrative. Stay for the wickedly difficult and addicting gameplay.

4-) Yakuza 6: I believe I enjoyed this game far more than most folks. It told the end of Kazuma Kiryu’s story. It had some problems along the way but my god did I enjoy the ride. The cast of characters surrounding Kiryu in Hiroshima are all great and one of the main characters is Beat Takeshi. It also has a ton of things to do and see. I love the clan wars sidequest featuring New Japan wrestlers, I love the baseball manager quest, I LOVED becoming a regular at a bar and getting to know everyone in it like I was playing some sort of weird Cheers game, I even loved the adult cam chats that came with wacky dialogue. This game is full of charm.

I haven’t mentioned the gameplay yet you might have noticed. That’s because, well, it’s a new direction for the franchise. It focuses on allowing more people to fight Kiryu at once and as a result feels less refined than recent entries Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5. I am excited to see where they take it in Yakuza 7, but I would be fibbing if I suggested that I felt 6 plays as well as previous entries. Still, the entire Yakuza package is compelling and I never felt like I was scrambling for things to do or see. I don’t 100% games out of obligation. I’m not one of those people that feels the need to 100% every game I play. I 100%ed Yakuza 6 though. And I loved every minute of it, combat and all.

3-) Valkyria Chronicles 4: As none of you might know, I used to review games for a website called 411mania. One of the games I reviewed for them was the original Valkyria Chronicles. Nobody else wanted to do it because it looked like a generic jRPG and I was really the only person on the site who liked jRPGs so the game fell to me. And I absolutely loved it. The story was captivating, the graphics were stylish and and the gameplay felt like a breath of fresh air. It was the combination of a tactical RPG and a (very, very simplified) shooter. To this day it remains one of my favorite games ever. Conversely, Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the PSP is one of my least favorite games ever and 3 never came to the states - though it does have a fan translation. The franchise has felt dead in the west for ages. The musou-like Azure Revolution sure as fuck didn’t get me going.

4 came out this year and it felt like I went back in time. Everything I loved about 1 was back. It’s even expanded upon. The grenadier is a great new troop that feels overpowered at first, but really forces the player to rethink how to approach certain situations. The story isn’t as good as the story in 1, but I found it simple and enjoyable. I genuinely liked the main cast and wanted to see them do well. That’s more than I can say for a lot of games. I know I mentioned earlier in my blurb about Mega Man that what I liked about it was that it actually felt like a new game. The difference here is that I have 10 other Mega Man games that play like Mega Man games. With this franchise, I have 1 (or maybe 2, I hate how maps work on the PSP but I have not played enough of 3 to judge). Sometimes a franchise revival needs to go “like the one you like but more” route. I loved this game and I hope as it gets cheaper more people try it. 

2-) Dragon Quest XI: Hey you might notice this about my gaming preferences, but I really enjoy Japanese RPGs! And this sure as hell was one of those! DQ XI felt like a game from another dimension in a lot of ways. It’s a traditional playing Japanese RPG with a big AAA budget. It looks breathtaking. Big budget JRPGs feel like something out of the PS2 era, which is great because I sure love PS2 era RPGs. It’s lengthy, it has a crazy amount of postgame content and has a lot of side stuff in case you get tired of fighting down the main path. It’s a great throwback. 

This game also has the most balanced party in recent RPG memory. Usually games like these have one or two party members that you just don’t enjoy. For instance, Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games ever. But I just don’t like Kimahri. I don’t like using him and I don’t think his character is interesting. DQ XI has nobody like that. I found everybody likable. Sylvando and Jade in particular stand out and are among my favorite characters in gaming. Really, I enjoy everything about this game. Even the music! I know a lot of people complain about the simplified score in the western version, but I honestly found it to work out pretty well for the game. Obviously the Japanese version is superior, but I still enjoy it. If you’re a fan of RPGs and you haven’t played DQ XI, you’re missing out.

1-) Super Smash Brothers Ultimate: This was my most anticipated game of 2018 from the moment it was announced and the final product delivered everything that I had hoped it would. You have a large cast of characters, a crazy number of stages and a bunch of single player content to consume in between bouts of online or local multiplayer. The single player is what ranks this game so high for me. The classic mode - think arcade mode in standard fighters - is easily the best it has ever been. Each character has their own route with their own gimmick, which gives the player incentive to play each and every one. With a roster of over 70 fighters, that’s impressive. The adventure mode can start off slow, but once you get into the groove of it I really think it stands out as something special. It’s an expanded version of event battles from past games. You face off against a fighter (or fighters) embodying the personality of a character that isn’t in the game. They range from obscure stuff you haven’t heard of to a fight with Geno’s spirit that has you do battle with the cast of Super Mario RPG (with substitutes for Geno and Mallow). It feels very creative. It can be grindy for some, but I really enjoyed my time with it.

I think the online could be more fleshed out. I don’t experience as many laggy matches as most people, but even still the options online are fairly bare bones. You don’t even have leaderboards. I want to compare how good I am with how good my friends are! I think Nintendo plans to keep this game alive for the duration of the Switch’s lifespan, so I believe there will be plenty of time to get the online situation perfect. That doesn’t really excuse Nintendo from still not getting online even close to right in 2018, but I find Ultimate to be such a complete package that I can look past these shortcomings. Ultimately, it is my favorite entry in one of my favorite franchises. So it’s pretty easily my game of the year.

[pennyfynotes]

8.5.17 // 1:00pm // guide to getting back in to school

requested by @meg-is-studying (thanks for the request!)

sooooooo school is quickly approaching and (if you're anything like me) you're not ready or excited. unfortunately, school is a rather important part of life that is also unavoidable. here's how to brace yourself for the onslaught of assignments, lectures, and exams. and, just maybe, get a little excited? yeah right m, that's not happening... anyway, i'll stop rambling and give you some real advice (under the cut, that is)!

1. reset your sleep schedule. chances are, you've completely messed up your sleep schedule over the summer (especially if you don't have a 9-5 job). take some time (a week or so?) to force yourself to bed at a reasonable hour and force yourself to get up around the time you'd need to for school. it'll make it just that much easier to get to school on the first day if you're not waging war in your bed before you even leave the house ;)

2. new school supplies! i think it's safe to say that most of the studyblr community (if not the whole world) likes school supply shopping. we're kind of stationery geeks. but that doesn't mean you have to spend a fortune. you don't need to go and get mildliners and staedlers and muji notebooks. if you want to and have the budget, go for it. if not, here's how to make your stuff feel new + trendy without breaking the bank:

>>> diy is your friend. one of my favorite ways to have cute, but cheap supplies is to make it myself. you can do a simple collage for your binder/notebook cover or use paint if that's more your style. my personal favorite through the years is to use decorative duct tape. you could also use washi (especially if you have a notebook with a paper cover). with just one roll of duct tape, you can customize a bunch of notebooks. i like to use an exacto knife to cut different sized strips/geometric shapes and stick them on in fun geo patterns.

>>> not everything needs to be new. i touched on this in my college dorm shopping guide but this also applies here. i reuse a lot of my supplies (ex: pens, pencils, notebooks) so i usually don't have to buy all that much. if you only need a couple notebooks and a binder, then maybe you can splurge a little and get the cuter versions since you're reusing all your other supplies.

3. reorganize something or (if you're ambitious) everything. this is another way to "reset" for the new year. if you haven't already gone through your old school work, start with that. i like to reorganize my room/closet as well as my desk. going through your backpack/pencil case is also great. throw away things that are old or don't work and maybe start filling your drawers/pockets with your supplies for the new school year. this helps me to feel on top of things and gives me a clean slate.

4. set goals. goal setting can be a way to get you motivated and more organized. i think setting goals forces you to really evaluate what's ahead (do you have a really hard class? tight schedule?) and focus on how to overcome obstacles you forsee. if you're taking a notoriously hard class and decide your goal is to get a good grade, you can start planning on how to do that. planning every little detail (which is super unnecessary and will probably get disregarded) makes me feel more ready to tackle school.

>>> disclaimer: this isn't really something i do. my goals are generally very long term (and don't change much), so they're already ingrained in me and i don't really have to think about what they are. 

5. plan. as mentioned above, i tend to try to plan every little thing before school starts. it gives me a sense of security. if you're not crazy like me, just regular planning is good too. any big things going on in your schedule? when are marching band try outs? you're going to want some sort of system to keep organized once the year starts, so might as well get a jump start. 

6. compare schedules with friends. one of the highlights of school (for a good amount of people) is getting to see friends. see if you have classes together and maybe you'll get a little more excited. suffering is always a little more bearable in numbers.

>>> ok this can also backfire if you don't have classes with friends, so be aware of that. you can view these classes as ways to meet new people. or, if you're an antisocial hermit like me, you can use these classes as quiet/alone time to get work done or work on personal projects. 

7. get advice from upperclassmen. though it might seem daunting to ask upperclassmen things, especially if you don't really know them, they are truly fountains of knowledge. well, not all of them. try to find one with common interests/goals as you otherwise their advice/experiences might not be relevant to you. asking upperclassmen can help you get a feel for the class/teacher and help you find little tricks to get through things more easily. honestly, upperclass friends are pretty invaluable. 

so i realize a lot of this advice is about how to get prepared, but that's usually the best way for me to "get into" (read: steel myself for) school. i find a lot of security in preparedness, but even if you don't, i hope this was helpful. best of luck! xoxo, m

ps. as usual, feel free to send me an ask/message with any questions you have! i love to help :)

[jmsebastian]

How Not To Refine a Horror Game: Clock Tower 3

Clock Tower 3 is many things: a product of a developer acquiring the rights to a series they had no hand in creating, a mashup of several interesting and competing ideas that offer a lot of promise, a disjointed final package that suffered from a lack of singular vision. In the simplest terms, it’s a survival horror game made by Sunsoft and published by Capcom for the Playstation 2 in 2002. Following the collapse of Human Entertainment, the developers responsible for creating the Clock Tower series, Sunsoft acquired the rights and set out to push the franchise toward a larger audience. Their attempt to do that meant making sweeping changes, and seemingly making as many of them as possible.

Part of what made the Clock Tower games so interesting was their limited mechanical complexity. They acted more or less as point and click adventure games. Players move a cursor using the D-Pad on the controller to highlight objects in the environment and move the player character around the screen. They use a menu system to interact with the things they find in the environment. The straight forward nature of this control scheme was deliberate. It created a separation between what was happening on screen and what the player intended to do. That lack of instant response helps build tension, which is something you want as much as possible in a horror game. With the changing tides of the industry and the increasing understanding of how to move characters around in 3D space, control over the player was the biggest overhaul made.

In Clock Tower 3, you control your character, Alyssa, with the left analog stick. Her movement is very similar to the movement found in the Resident Evil remake for Gamecube or the Fatal Frame series. Moving the analog stick in a direction will move Alyssa in that direction. Holding a direction will continue Alyssa’s momentum in that same direction despite changes to camera angle, until the analog stick is released. Releasing the analog stick resets the direction back to zero, essentially. Alyssa’s default speed is running, though she can walk as well, accomplished by holding the Square button while moving. She can also crawl, which is performed by holding the Circle button and moving with the analog stick. While this is technically more complicated than the other games in the series, the reality is that having direct control of the protagonist is significantly more intuitive for most players, especially at the time of its release. Tank controls and point and click interfaces were rapidly being exchanged for more direct options. While remembering which button crawls and which one walks can cause a few hiccups, those movement types are not used with enough frequency to cause any serious trouble for players, and it’s a small trade off for the possibilities that direct control opens up.

Being used to Playstation 2 era horror games, I enjoy how Alyssa controls. The complexity of movement does, however, highlight some issues with development. For instance, setting the default movement to running is fine. The levels are large enough to accommodate running and Alyssa’s run speed feels appropriate. The problems begin with walking. Since it was included in the game, one would think that the player might need to utilize walking at various points in the game. The obvious use would be to move around more quietly so as not to arouse the game’s antagonists. Early in the first level there are even reinforcements of this principle. As you make your way through a tunnel, there are some tin cans that Alyssa will kick over if she runs through them, but that will stay undisturbed if she walks. It’s a brilliant use of the environment to pull the player into the world and make them aware of their effect on the things around them. In truth, these little additions have no real impact at all. You can kick over all the cans you want, or stomp on as much broken class as your heart desires. It doesn’t change anything that happens in the game. They are simply elements of game polish.

It definitely feels as though the walking was designed to work in the way I described. It’s inclusion really makes no sense otherwise. If this is true, it points to the likelihood that Sunsoft didn’t have the time to fully implement it. They either didn’t build it into the villain AI or they didn’t create enemies to tie in specifically to this mechanic. What this leaves the player with is a useless movement option. There are no benefits whatsoever to walking. In order to escape those in pursuit of Alyssa, she will need to run. In order to stay out of the clutches of the various restless ghosts, she will need to run. At no point ever does the player ever need to force her to walk. It’s a shame that this was not more fleshed out. Since you come across the cans so early on in the game, they seem specifically built toward subtly teaching you about a core component of eluding capture. There’s a definite stealth aspect being teased, and to have that tease go unrewarded feels deeply unsatisfying.

While walking turned out to be a disappointing inclusion, it  was not the only mechanic to get short shrift. Peppered throughout the levels are green spiral indicators that let the player know they can evade a pursuer there, or hide from them. Hiding from enemies is one of those no-brainer ideas for horror games that it’s a bit of a mystery why so few games actually implement it. Their implementation in Clock Tower 3 gives the player the impression that they will be an integral part of the game. For a while, they are. In the first level, there is one particularly useful hiding place behind a curtain in the house where you first come across Hammer, the Subordinate who chases after Alyssa throughout the stage. Hiding behind a curtain is a pretty unconvincing place to hide, but it works as intended and when used properly, can really give you some breathing room when exploring the house for key items.

He’ll never think to look behind a thin hanging sheet that exists for no practical reason.

The dubiousness of the hiding places only increases, and the effectiveness of them also goes down. In that same first level, there is a locker that Alyssa can run into. The main problem with it is that the first time the player discovers it, it’s likely with Hammer right on their heels. The AI of enemies is not particularly robust, but it’s good enough that an enemy will attack you in a hiding place it watched you enter. A hiding spot found in a later level is tucked behind a fish tank that can clearly be seen through. When you look directly at the axe wielding fiend who wants to kill you through some glass, yet no reaction is elicited from the assailant, the consistency of the world really breaks down and the tension is lost.

The impenetrable defense of transparent water.

The silliness of these designated hiding places is important to highlight because there are other areas of levels that can be hidden in that are not marked as such, they just logically work out to shield you from the view of those who would see you dead. In the concert hall in the first level, there are two places you can usually find respite, even though the game does not indicate explicitly that you can hide there. In the entryway, you can duck behind a counter to stay out of view of Hammer. You can also go behind the large curtain hanging on the stage and wait there until the coast is clear. This is the kind of design that the entire game should have been built around. The placement of the designated spots is conspicuous enough that they would have been hard to miss by curious players to begin with. The other side of them working as intended, of course, would have been to make sure there was appropriate quiet time and space between bouts of running for your life. The relentlessness of the Subordinates and the compactness of the level designs means there just wasn’t enough room for this idea to breathe properly, and it’s a shame, because it was probably the most promising aspect of the game.

Things get a lot better when it comes to Alyssa’s defensive capabilities. During the majority of gameplay, Alyssa can use Holy Water to stun enemies, open doors, or activate portals. She begins with just two uses of the Holy Water per fill of the vial, but this increases as each stage boss is defeated. The stun effect, which is the main method of outmaneuvering enemies, temporarily stops them from moving. The stun does not last long, but it’s enough to put a decent distance between Alyssa and the Subordinates, enough to either make it to a hiding place without being followed in or to reach the next objective that will alter the Subordinate’s behavior. Refilling the vial is also a fairly straight forward affair. Refill stations are rarely too far away due to the small level layouts. Over time, the need to refill also drops as more uses can be held per refill. The multi-purpose aspect of the Holy Water is probably its greatest asset. It certainly isn’t the sole focus of the interactive aspects of the game, as there are single use items of various types as well, but it is the most frequently used, and there is tension created when you’re not sure whether to use some Holy Water to open a door and press on, our double back and refill before going into the unknown.

Like with all of the game’s mechanics, the Holy Water is a good idea that doesn’t get enough room to breathe. The small number of levels and their incredibly compact designs means that nothing lasts very long. You have to toss a lot of water around to get past Subordinates, you have to use two sprinkles of the stuff to open portals. The result is really just a lot of backtracking. This isn’t so bad, really, as the levels are small, as mentioned before, but it does mean you are basically guaranteed to run into an enemy again, which might prevent you from getting back to the portal or doorway with a full vial.

The most enjoyable part of the game comes at the end of each stage, when the Subordinate who was hunting you becomes the stage boss. These segments are where you go from being a helpless schoolgirl running away from monsters to a magical girl capable of banishing evil to some fate worse than death. This all happens because Alyssa is the most recent in a long line of Rooders (spelled ruders on the book in the cutscene, but Rooders in the game text), and as such, it is her duty to put the Subordinates to rest. During boss fights, Alyssa dons a magical bow capable of shooting arrows which bind Subordinates to the ground. Bind them enough times in sequence and she can fire off a powerful arrow capable of taking off huge amounts of the Subordinate’s HP.

Moon Prism Power! Make Up!

There’s still a bit of helplessness tied to Alyssa’s control here. She still runs at the same speed as usual, and when her bow is drawn she cannot move around or adjust her aim. In order to bind Subordinates, arrows also have to be charged to their maximum capacity. The longer you hold down Triangle, the more charged your arrow becomes until it signals that it is binding. It’s very basic combat, but remarkably enjoyable. Baiting enemies into lengthy attacks takes some figuring out. Getting into the correct position to provide enough space for a full charge is not difficult, but it is interesting. It’s also very satisfying to bind enemies enough to activate those powerful shots, as they are ushered in through a cutscene reminiscent of a summon in Final Fantasy VII. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but it feels good to be able to put the hurt on the monsters that have been chasing you around every level, spouting off about how they’re going to get you.

From a narrative standpoint, the transformation into a magical girl makes perfect sense. It’s the cornerstone of the story. Alyssa’s entire involvement comes down to the fact that she’s a Rooder, and her grandfather has gone insane with the idea of binding his soul to hers in an effort to become a supernatural being. It’s not a particularly deep or surprising story, but it works well, and is probably the standout aspect of the game as a whole. From a mechanical standpoint, the juxtaposition of these two facets of gameplay are incompatible. There is just no justifiable reason why Alyssa can’t always be prepared to shoot arrows at bad guys once she discovers her power. Yes, it would completely destroy the survival horror aspect of the game, but at that point, you have to ask yourself, why exactly is this a survival horror game in the first place?

The final aspect of the game worth focusing on is the various spirits that harass Alyssa if she gets too close to them. These apparitions appear as various colored phantoms. They represent the dead who still have unfinished business in the living world before they can be put to rest. To allow them to pass on, an object of theirs must be returned to them (basically the entire premise of From Software’s Echo Night boiled down into its most basic implementation). Returning objects can reward the player with rare defensive items, or help to progress the story by opening up previously inaccessible areas. These are great additions to the game, but they, more than any other aspect, feel unfinished. The extra items that you get for returning items are not necessary to finish the game. They might help a little, but the game is easy enough without them. For those ghosts that help progress the story, it’s obviously much more satisfying to resolve their issues and get them out of limbo, but there just aren’t enough of these situations.

A lot of good it’s going to do your bloodied corpse.

The ghosts suffer the same shortcoming that nearly everything else does in the game, not enough space to breath in. The levels, well designed though they may be, are simply too small to flesh out all of the things the game tries to include and there just aren’t enough of them to vary out the experiences. This is why it feels like the Subordinates can never be given the slip for more than a minute or two at a time. It’s why hiding places are more of a tease than a useful escape, and why the backtracking is focused more on making sure you are fully stocked up on Holy Water than making progress through previously inaccessible areas. The game has very little quiet time, and for a survival horror game to truly manage tension well, quiet time must be existent and savored. Clock Tower 3 just does not have enough of it, and the result is that nearly everything in the game feels rushed and imbalanced.

The likely solution to all of the game’s problems would have been more development time. The ideas behind all of the mechanics are sound (if a bit incongruous at times), and they are implemented about as well as they could be given the circumstances. Sure, some of the hit boxes are a bit difficult to predict, especially with regard to Alyssa’s arrows, but they are consistent once you learn them. There is just so much going on in the game, it feels as if it was intended to be much bigger. Maybe due to the time of its development, Sunsoft seems to have just scaled everything down rather than reduce the complexity of the game to its most crucial elements. It’s hard to fault them for that decision, though the decision really didn’t pay off for Sunsoft. The game Capcom ended up publishing was nothing like the previous games in the series, and one that felt loaded with filler despite its short length. It’s a better game than one might have expected, but sadly, it just wasn’t enough to make it a classic entry in an increasingly crowded genre.

[kdreamscenario]

Lunatic: Part XIII

BTS Mythical!AU 

Rated: G

Word Count: 2912

Part XII | Part XIV

Like a magic curse breaking, Yoongi’s body goes through a complete 180 degree change the day after his rut.  As the doctor had said, the end of the rut resets his whole system.  The suppressants kick his wolf so far into submission it feels nearly non-existent.  

Everyone notices the change.  This is the most relaxed, soft, and kind they’ve ever seen Yoongi.  Not to say they didn’t like the way he was before but this Yoongi is much more approachable and less dangerous.  The coordis might be the ones most happy about it and that’s understandable.  

Most importantly Yoongi is super happy with how he feels.  They’re all set to start their tour as planned.  He doesn’t need to make up an excuse why he’d miss concerts or fan meetings because he can’t control himself.  

It’s the most comfortable tour for him thus far.  The suppressants even work through his next rut.  The full moon comes and goes without him feeling any different than a normal day.            

The part that Yoongi really likes the best is his increased focus, especially near full moon.  He’s never been able to write or record during a rut before.  His heightened senses are dulled a bit like there’s a barrier to how far they can work.  For once there’s no distractions of sounds or smells outside the studio.  

He’s actually ahead of schedule on his tracks.  That means he has more free time and can get some decent sleep.  Did he mention sleep, because that’s so much better these days.  Like actual deep dream filled nights that used to be spent hunched over his desk with espresso. 

With his wonderful new self the months fly by.  June comes as a shock to him.  Had that much time really gone by?  Nearly five months and Yoongi hasn’t let his wolf out once.  It’s still there of course.  He feels is but it’s buried so deep he has to dig to sense it.  There’s no constant force trying to take over his body.

What he does feel when he does sense his beast worries him.  The suppressants work as a sleeping drug for the wolf.  It keeps it a subdued drugged state but Yoongi can feel that it’s agitated and angry.  He can understand that having to be pushed down and drugged for months on end must not feel so great.  That might also explain why he sleeps so well these days.  

Sure Yoongi would like to let his wolf out for a bit.  It would be healthy to do so but he’s scared.  He knows his beast is hard to regain control of.  Being agitated this much he knows the wolf will take too much control now if it gets free.  

At night Yoongi lays in bed and considers doing something a lot of people might not approve of.  His family will be disappointed in the decision but in the end it’s his life and his body.  This feeling of being a normal human is good enough that he thinks it’s time to make it permanent.  

The first step is to call the doctor about the procedure.  Part of him expects the gorey description to turn him away from the idea.  If it sounded too gruesome or painful maybe he wouldn’t want to go through with it.

He listens to the doctor explain everything to him in great detail.  It would be long and painful but in typical Min Yoongi fashion he answers that it was no big deal.  He could handle it.  He doesn’t back down or lose.  

All tours and promotions are done for now so Yoongi takes a week leave and goes home.  The worst part is breaking the news of his plan to his family.  His first night home, right after dinner he tells them.  An entire hour is spent with them arguing at the table.  It reminds him of when he asked them to support his music career choice.  

The final verdict is that he must go to the head elder in the morning to get his permission.  Yoongi is annoyed but he understands the big issue here.  He knows this isn’t just about him but also about his family lineage.  As essentially a prince of sorts, he’s disowning his royalty.

Just after dawn the next morning Yoongi’s family all go to his Grandfather’s house.  It’s a long trip out to the north forest.  There beside a national park is a large traditional house.  The winding way normally makes for a peaceful drive.  Today the whole car ride is quiet and tense.

Grandfather Min’s housekeeper greets them and walks them into the visiting room.  Grandfather is in his chair sipping tea after his breakfast.  The maid introduces their arrival then steps away.  All four of the family members bow.  “Good morning Father.  Thank you for seeing us so early.”  Yoongi’s father greets him.  

The elderly man sets down his tea and gives them a small quirk of his lips.  “Good morning.  Let’s get right to business if you don’t mind.  I understand we’re gathered for something important about my young grandson.”  Yoongi steps out from behind his parents and bows fully to the floor.  If grandfather wants business right away then he won’t waste his time.

“Grandfather, I come today to ask for your permission.  I’d like to take the surgery to remove my wolf.”  Yoongi keeps his head bowed as he speaks.  There’s a lump forming in his throat once his case is stated.  The room stays silent.  Grandfather looks down at his grandson then up to his parents.  They try their best to keep neutral expressions but he can see the bit of hurt in their eyes.

“My dear boy, tell me why that is.”  The old man speaks softly, not at all what Yoongi was expecting.  He swallows down the lump before speaking.

“Grandfather, you know well of my behaviour on the lunar festival.  If mom and dad mentioned anything to you then you’d also know that at the time I was very interested in a human girl.  I hurt a lot of people dear to me that night and subsequent week.  

Since then I’ve been on suppressants and I really enjoy it.  Not having the beast in me always fighting has made my life much better in many ways.”  Once he’s finished there’s another pause.

“Why is is that you wish to rid yourself of your wolf if you are happy with how you are now?”  Grandfather asks, still well composed.

“Sir, I’m happy but also worried.  I can feel how my wolf is angry with the suppressants.  It’s uncomfortable and I worry about a slip.  If it manages to take over, I’m afraid I won’t be able to tame it again.  That could mean disastrous results for everyone again.  I’d much rather just be rid of it.”  Yoongi stays strong in his conviction.  

“Well I must say that would be dangerous indeed.  Yoongi you’ve always had a strong wolf that matches your own personal strength.  If you were to mate it would settle down.  We wolves aren’t meant to stay unmated for such a long time.  It simply yearns to fulfill its life purpose and pass on it’s genetics.”  Grandfather Min says this to give Yoongi better perspective of why he’s so out of control.  

Those are words Yoongi is expecting.  His grandfather always speaks of the way their wolves have always lived.  They are meant to mate shortly after they mature.  If he had it that way Yoongi would’ve been mated shortly after his 16th birthday.  

“With my career there is no way for me to mate any time soon.  I’m barely allowed to date.”  

“I’m sure your company would make a way to hide your mate from the public until you’re all ready to go public.  Though I won’t pester you too hard.”  Grandfather stops and sighs.  He thinks long about how he should decide.  Then he stands and ask Yoongi to also stand.

“Yoongi, if you had come to see me like this a week after your incident I would have told you to take more time to reflect on yourself.  Seeing you come many months later shows me your determination and that you’ve taken your time to consider your options.  It obviously pains your family but I will allow it my little prince.”  He spoke these words with a steady hand on Yoongi’s shoulder.  

Yoongi looks up to his gentle smile.  This is the final step he needs to go through with this.  He really wasn’t expecting to get permission.  With deep bows he thanks his grandfather graciously.  

“Let’s all have a nice lunch together and we’ll set you up.  I think it will be best if you have the surgery here.”  Grandfather Min gives the final verdict for things to be set.  

The rest of the day they spend together as a family.  Yoongi’s bags are brought to the house.  The doctor is called to come in two days.  

After dinner Yoongi calls Hoseok. He wants the members to know the truth of his trip before he makes the big change.  Hoseok is shocked of course but supportive.  Once all the boys hear about it they’re all on board with him.  They’ve seen first hand how happy Yoongi has been these days.

The next day Yoongi requests to give his wolf a last day of freedom.  The poor beast is to be destroyed the following day, it’s the least he could do.  His family agrees and his brother offers to change with him.  Yoongi knows he’ll need someone to keep him in check.  

His wolf feels Yoongi ask for the change right away.  He’s never shifted so fast in his life.  It’s as he expected, the beast takes full control and pushes his human conscience as deep as it will go.  If he didn’t know his brother was right there with him he would be really worried.

Yoongi bolts into the woods once he’s shifted.  He powers along without a care to where he’s going.  All he knows is he needs to get away.  Yoonseok shifts and is hot on his trail.  Yoongi’s going to try his best to lose him.  

The beast obviously knows what’s going to happen.  It shares the same mind and body with Yoongi.  It’s now a wild beast running from the hunter after his life.  The problem being that the beast and the hunter are the same body.  Though it’s an unconventional civil war the wolf is smart.  It knows it can keep the human out of power.  All it needs to do is get far away from anyone that could help it.

He sprints and ducks around trees, leaping up ledges, and darting across streams.  Pushing himself until his lungs are going to burst.  In the end he can’t shake Yoonseok from his trail.  He’s been too suppressed and weak for months now.  His old strength is failing.  

As any animal does once their flight instinct doesn’t work they turn to fight.  With ragged heavy breaths Yoongi stops and turns to Yoonseok.  A low rumbling growl gives a warning.  To his surprise Yoonseok backs down right away.  There’s no reason for him to fight Yoongi like this.  His wolf is already exhausted and will be easily tracked even from a distance.

Yoonseok sits and Yoongi takes off again.  He runs with his last bout of energy before collapsing under a thick old pine.  He can’t smell Yoonseok so he must be a good ways off for now.  He lets himself rest in the warm summer woods.

The wolf gets to fully enjoy the whole day in its natural state.  It spends hours in the woods running, resting, scenting, and hunting.  Always making the way farther and farther north.  He has to keep moving.  The times that the wind whips the other way he can catch the slightest scent of Yoonseok still around.  

From what he can calculate it’s about an hour and a half before sunset before he smells human in the forest.  A human scent that he’s all too familiar with.  He ducks left away from it and tails the crosswind.  The chase begins again.  

In an attempt to throw off his trail he zig-zags and loops in odd tracks.  Once he’s gotten back to another creek he follows it upstream about a quarter mile.  Across to the other side he starts into a sprint again.  

He doesn’t get much farther and he smells another familiar scent to the northwest.  The scent itself is weak but it hits him like he ran into a wall because of how close it is.  His stride falters a few beats while he thinks of where he should go.

On a good day Yoongi might be able to outrun them but he’s still too weak.  He switches back east to the creek, deciding to run along the winding waterway.  The water should hide his scent and cover his tracks.  It’s tough going over the moss slick rocks that climb steeper up the mountain.

Another two miles of struggling tire out the beast again.  To his relief there’s a straight ledge up ahead where the creek runss of in a small waterfall.  Behind it the water has carved a small enclave.  It’s the perfect place to rest and hide out.

Yoongi lets the water run over his fur and takes and long drink.  It soothes his parched throat and sore legs.  Then with a final look around he backs himself into the crevice.  He’d like very much to openly pant and catch his breath but he can’t risk making too much noise.

It’s nearly dark now.  He’ll need to wait for the extra cover of darkness to keep moving.  He plans to run just a ways to the southwest before making a break fully westward.  There’s a risk of running into one of them but it could throw off their tracking.  The person to the west is the slowest and will have the hardest time chasing him.  

It’s a good plan.  It really is but the group after him are more adept to tracking than he is at hiding.  Yoongi has hardly thought out his escape plan when he hears four paws wading in the creek ahead.  They’re moving slow and careful, going a few yards at a time.  Yoongi can see through the churning stream that it’s Yoonseok.  

Yoongi gets as still and quiet as he can.  If he’s lucky Yoonseok will pass by.  Unfortunately he’s not lucky at all.  Yoonseok walks right up to the waterfall.  He takes a short drink and Yoongi’s heart pounds.  He’s cornered with no where to run.  

Yoonseok finishes his drink and gets closer.  The tip of his sniffing nose parts the water and Yoongi panics.  He growls and swipes his claws out at the intruder.  With a yelp Yoonseok jerks back and Yoongi makes a break for it.  He scrambles up the jagged bank to the right using his claws to drag deep into the loose soil.

A week root cracks under his weight and his hind legs slip.  That gives Yoonseok the time to catch up.  Yoongi tries to lunge up the rest of the way but his brother catches a back foot between his teeth.  It takes him only one good pull to toss Yoongi back down into the creek.

His side lands hard on the rocks and knocks the wind out of his lungs.  He wheezes in a single breath to try and get up but Yoonseok pins him down.  Ever the fighter, Yoongi thrashes and bites out at anything he can reach.  With a few well placed kicks to the stomach he wiggles free.  

Yoonseok starts to give chase but the both smell human.  Yoongi hardly gets a yard away when he smells his father.  He doesn’t even see him before there’s the short puff of an air gun.  Then there’s the sharp pinch of the dart hitting his flank but he doesn’t stop.  He needs to get away.

Yoongi pays no mind to his grandfathers scent and dips off to the west.  He weaves through the woods trying to get anywhere he can hide again.  Each passing minute blurs his vision.  His bruised side is brushing closer to the trees.  His legs tremble into faltered steps.  Running turns to walking, turns to stumbling, until he slumps to the ground with a defeated huff.  

Yoongi’s knocked out cold by the time the others find him.  Yoonseok carries him to a dirt road nearby where his father parked the car.  They pile Yoongi into the back with the last few rays of sunlight.  Yoonseok shifts and they head back down the mountain to Grandfather’s house.  

It takes them about an hour to get home.  Just in time to get Yoongi chained up before the sedation wears off.  They have him secured in the make-shift operating room.

Yoongi wakes with a start and jumps to his feet.  Blood rushes too fast to his head and makes him dizzy.  He shakes it clear and looks around the room.  It’s bare besides a bowl of water, the door, and the windows.  Though he’s still not fully adjusted he takes a few wobbly steps forward into the dark room.  He’s stopped by the thick collar and chain he despises so much. 

This time he doesn’t fight it.  He’s caught.  It’s all over.  Only a single moonless night is left for the poor beast. 

-E. 최