#And Bobby Kotick doing Bobby Kotick things

[rathayibacter]

fungi-cringe bisexual

[zalia]

Stop telling people we're dead...

I wasn't gonna say anything but I keep seeing it in fan spaces for various pieces of media after there's layoffs and it's driving me nuts. I may regret this since social media is where nuance and reading comprehension go to die but....

It's this sentiment people express that boils down to 'Well X person is gone so it's all terrible now/nothing good can be made again'.

The game industry especially fucking sucks right now for people who work in it (unless you're an executive for a big company :) ). It sucks for everyone laid off absolutely! I'm fucking angry and gutted on their behalf. The whole industry needs a massive overhaul. And unionisation. And for executives to be held accountable. This shit has destroyed lives.

It also sucks for everyone who is left behind after layoffs.

You know what makes it suck even worse? Seeing fans and the community of the thing you work on (and it's often something that you, the person working on it, care deeply about too) say that basically nothing you do matters. None of the hard work you put in over the past months or years counts or is any good, and nothing you make again can be any good. Often it comes with the addendum of 'this is because X person is gone'.

And X person is usually just the most publically visible person (and it is not in any way their fault! I'm so fucking angry on behalf of those people too! None of this is their fault). But dear god it fucking hurts to see people acting like everything you've done is worthless.

Trust me, the people left behind are just as, probably more, angry and upset than you. They've lost good coworkers, good teams, often good friends, and are having to pick up everything while worrying for their future job security. All while executives take home fat paycheques and often bonuses because they don't give a fuck as long as line goes up. Like, be angry, be pissed off at the executives and shareholders and fucking Bobby Kotick or whoever because they're garbage. But can we stop talking as though the people staying behind have never and will never again make anything that is good or enjoyable? That they never actually contributed anything to that thing you love?

Most games are not made by a single person. Most of them are a team effort, and losing any part of the team is awful. But it also means that everything you like and that is good about a game was a team effort. And a lot of the people who made the thing you like are still working hard to make the thing the best they can while they're angry and grieving and scared.

Acting like nothing they have done or will do matters or was part of the creativity that you loved just makes that harder. It fucking hurts.

Any script will usually have had multiple people working on it - writers yes, but also editors giving multiple rounds of feedback, people who make the script usable for recording. Someone who books the actors is not any less important than the actors themselves, or the sound editors. A soundtrack needs composers and musicians and sound engineers and they all contribute to the creative product.

I don't think anyone saying this is doing it maliciously, or really even believes it – it's a reaction to shitty circumstances and absolute garbage decisions by people who will always have too much money while doing very little, if any, creative work. It's people voicing their frustration, and I get it! I have said the same thing even when it was me, one of the people left behind, I was disparaging.

But god, every time I see it said my heart sinks, and it gets a bit harder to feel like anything I do is worthwhile.

And because social media is where nuance goes to die - no I'm not saying you have to keep loving/playing the thing! If it killed it for you, if it isn't giving you that spark of joy anymore, then stop! I encourage that! (There's a lot of people I can think of who could really stand to step away from things instead of playing until they burn out and can't distinguish between 'this is not bringing me joy anymore' and 'this is irredeemably bad'). But just... stop talking as if, for a piece of media made by a team, only certain members of that team actually count, and the rest are creatively bankrupt, were not part of the thing you loved, and are incapable of making anything good ever again.

[7larson]

hello! it has been awhile since my last devlog, and no devlog today. i am just here utilizing tumblr, who my blog is hosted through, to share a little bit of good news :) for those who do not know, i am a former activision qa worker of 3 years who lost my job when the company refused to work with me on accommodations (e.g. i worked remotely for almost all of those 3 years, but then they forced rto, i had a pending disability accommodation with them for nearly a year with documentation from my doctor, had very little communication from them, and they denied it) and tried to force me to come back into the office.

when i left in january, i asked my coworkers to do one thing: make it a place that they are overjoyed to work, and that bobby kotick (who in 2009 said his goal was to take all the fun out of making games, with the goal of focusing on profit above all else) would have hated.

today, microsoft recognized their union, the biggest union in game development. i'm so fucking proud of them.

[nhaneh]

Do you remember what program you used to make your WoW comic?

Depends on which particular part, really - though funnily enough outside of the game itself and the things that directly interact with it, I still kind of use a lot of the same things? Like I still primarily rely on an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro to do most of my image editing, and I still mainly use 3ds Max for 3D work, albeit a newer version nowadays.

Beyond those two, it was mainly wowmodelviewer I think that I used to extract models from the game? There was another tool I used to extract component textures and such, but I've long forgotten what they were, and even if I remembered, I have no idea if any of them are up to date with how that game works these days - I recall Bobby Kotick's Yacht Club Blizzard liked to make significant changes to their data file structures a lot more often than XIV tends to.

I have a friend who plays around with wow renders still on occasion, and I believe he uses Blender, along with extracting models with complete skeletal rigs which wasn't something that was available to me at the time, though what he uses for said extraction process I couldn't say.

[gigakoops]

I'm seeing articles talking about Bobby Kotick talking about reviving Guitar Hero using AI, and everything about this upsets my rhythm-game-loving ass. For one I don't want to be tempted to buy another Activision game ever again. But then, if they start using AI to do stuff like note charts, it's not going to go very well and it's going to be awful to play.

So if you've seen my username anywhere else, it's likely been in the Clone Hero/Rock Band communities. I make custom note charts, and have been charting since 2011, when I worked on the Rock Band Network. So I know the in's and out's of what goes into a note chart. There's a lot of nuance that goes into these things, and when making a chart I always notice new details, even with songs I've heard hundreds of times. I don't trust an algorithm to notice such things.

I'm also left thinking about CAT, a program used at C3 (a big ol' hub for Rock Band customs that I've pretty much cut ties with at this point) to generate lower difficulties and such. And let me tell you, the results there are subpar at best. You can instantly tell how mechanical it all feels, as if there was no thought put into the note orders, or even the actual rules to how these lower difficulties work. And that's an algorithm that uses existing Expert charts as a basis!

AI-generated Expert charts would be a fucking nightmare. Instead of charts that flow well with the music, and account for all the little details in actual instrument lines, you'll get some clunky thing that technically works, but doesn't feel "right" with the music. Like, imagine playing a song, and while the notes are technically on-beat, it feels like the chords are charted in a way that feels unnatural, and there's a lack of polish when it comes to little licks and such. That's how I imagine an AI chart feeling, and it'd be downright dreadful.

There's also the thought of "What if they use existing charts to train the AI," which leaves two possible outcomes, neither of which are great. The lesser-bad one would be them using old Guitar Hero charts to train the AI. The GH series in general is pretty all over the place with chart quality, leaning oftentimes towards "overcharted" due to charting power chords as three-note chords, and sometimes just charting notes that aren't there for the sake of challenge. That's also the style of the series post-Harmonix, is to be really challenging. But also, I don't see that as being a good basis to train an AI to make charts by today's standards.

Which leads to my biggest fear: using custom charts (mostly Clone Hero charts most likely) to train this AI. And let me tell you right now, I don't consent to this. No way in Hell do I think it's an ethical thing to do to train an AI using potentially hundreds of other peoples' charts. Charting itself is an artform, and I think it'd be horrendous to just steal other peoples' styles so that you can save time on your cash-in revival.

This was originally going to be just the first paragraph, but then I decided to elaborate further until it became, well, all this. Still, I really hope that if they decide to revive Guitar Hero, that they actually hire people to make charts, because the idea of an AI seeing a Skrillex overchart, then ripping off that style for an Alter Bridge song or some shit is going to keep me up at night.

[wildissylupus]

Overwatch has so many wasted potential no thanks to the higherups in Activision-Blizzard. No thanks to Bobby Kotick.

The game itself has so many opportunities with more creative direction but the executive decision are the only ones that is holding it back, according to leaks that's the reason why the original dev team left.

Specially in the lore department its obvious that many people are tune in on what's next in the Overwatch lore but it feels like it just stopped just there. Its really sad to see that we're just tuck in headcannons now with no update to the cannon lore itself. Up until now we're just stuck on speculation and headcannons.

Sorry it sounds like I'm venting. I also love the characters in Overwatch but Its really is frustrating to see that they're not handling this game properly one bad news after another. There are many passionate fans that still love this game. Now we're in this state on what's going to happened next.

I do think that at the very least on a lore stand point they are getting better. A big reason why OW1 died is because of the drought of story and character relevant content. You can only go so long with nothing before you move onto something else, then after the story dried up and the story focused players left, the regular gamer players eventually moved onto other things.

Now they are releasing new content on the lore regularly, hell Overwatch: Declassified is a complete Overwatch timeline and there are several short stories on the way, not to mention the short stories that just come out randomly.

I just hope that this story campaign is just the first one and that we get multiple different campaigns that explore different characters and plot lines.

Though there is one shining beacone of hope and that is the possible Strike that is coming up for game Devs, Activision Blizzard is included is the companies that could possibly go on strike so hopefully that mean that eventually the writing and creative teams on Overwatch and a bunch of other games get more freedom.

[potatosteinsillustrations]

Just so you get to know that there are alternatives to this:

Back in 2013-2014 Nintendo's President and CEO Satoru Iwata (rest in peace) cut his salary in half (along many of the other execs like Shigeru Miyamoto cutting 30& of his own salary) to avoid laying off employees at the company after the Wii U severily underperformed.

Here are some of Iwata's notable quotes from an investor Q and A: Source: Polygon

"If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease," he said. "I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world." "I know that some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go, but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo's business in the long run."

In 2021 everyone was rightly scandalized and enraged when it was revealed that Bobby Kotick ( Activision-Blizzard's CEO and one of the biggest scumbags in the world) received a $200 million bonus after laying off around 240 employees at ABK ( Source: Yahoo News) Now your next question should be: How much money will the CEO and executives at Epic (or any other AAA studio or company doing massive lay offs this year like the Embracer Group, Electronics Arts) will receive and why are they receiving said bonuses if their mistakes have led to 830 employees being laid off.

And of course most people won't care, much like when it was revealed that there was a super toxic and chauvinistic environment in Activision Blizzard that led to many women being rampantly sexually harrased and even on of them taking her own life.

Or the severe crunch that employees at CD Project Red had to endure with Cyperpunk 2077 (even after they were promised there wasn't going to be cruel crunch like they had to endure with The Witcher 3)

As long as consumers can play their game sadly they won't care and that massively sucks! There won't be any effective change in how employees are treated at these big corporations if consumers don't vote with their wallets and advocate for the workforce's well being.

And this tweets ring true:

- The metaverse isn't worth 830 people being laid off even if it was the" next big thing", but let's be real it isn't and it won't. -This is another reminder that corporations aren't anyone's friends. -Also fuck corporations.

[medicinemane]

The problem with most CEOs of big corporations is just... I'm sorry... what do you even do?

Like what important function that improves the running of the company does bobby kotick do exactly? It seems like perhaps he helps find money in the budget by firing valuable workers after record profits, but if that's how we want to do things I'm pretty sure I could save just heaps of money for them with a single termination

I mean I'm dead serious, what does elon musk actually do other than just kind of flail around and throw tantrums his workers need to try and appease while whining on twitter?

To be clear, this question literally isn't rhetorical, what exactly is the useful skill these major CEOs provide to their company that makes them worth paying such truly huge sums of money when... the company could probably benefit from getting to not pay all that money to one person

What value to CEOs bring to the table, especially when some people are the CEO of like 2 or 3 companies at once? You're clearly not giving it your full attention

Management is actually a hugely important skill. Being able to provide direction and keep everyone on the same page is very beneficial, it's why people will hire things like project managers

In theory I assume a CEO is meant to do that for the whole company, and no doubt in a lot of smaller business they manage to

I just... don't see it with massive corps and their petulant big boys

[pocketbelt]

Hi-Fi RUSH (PC/Steam Deck)

A Christmas gift from my friend Evan, who is now 2-for-2 for action/rhythm game hybrids as Christmas gifts. Patterns emerge in my friends

Hi-Fi RUSH existing at all is still surreal, though the nature of its surprise shadow-drop release at the start of the year seemed less like a deliberate surprise and more Microsoft farting out something with no fanfare, which is a shame because this is the sort of thing the AAA space needs. And it's from the one Japanese studio Microsoft owns, funnily enough.

Hi-Fi RUSH follows the trend started by Crypt of the Necrodancer of merging rhythm game with another genre, in this case character action, and like my time with the Metal: Hellsinger demo I don't think I can get a hang of these hybrids entirely. There's a marked difference in learning the timing of parries or when to pause to change the next attack and having to keep to a beat to make things do extra damage or even work, especially as the beat will change with the background music. In truth, if it were a straight action game I think Hi-Fi RUSH would've felt better.

It's a charming and incredibly performant game (RTX3070 and Ryzen 5800 get a flawless 4K60FPS with most settings maxed on my rig, and it's equally flawless though not as high-res on Steam Deck), the cast are great, Chai's a delightful protagonist and its world is super neat, but it also has a lot of annoying bits that speak to me of traces of Western AAA game dev brain. Tango Gameworks are a Japanese studio, sure, but one set up and run by Bethesda, and I feel like that sneaks down more than you'd think (especially when you hear of the horror stories now of former Activision employees talking of Bobby Kotick, then distant CEO of the company, fucking with every project he could).

To wit, I can't imagine why else a studio initially run by Shinji Mikami of all people would put out an action game that abandons lock-on for an auto-targeting system that can, will, and mostly does decide to get distracted by enemies you aren't attacking to swivel Chai 180-degrees or make the camera invert against a wall to follow someone who happened to walk past you mid-combo. It's got a lot of that kind of nuisance, which makes me hope for a Hi-Fi RUSH 2 that chucks it out and puts in a proper lock-on or arena-wide camera view (or both).

Quite a lot of the "rhythm" mix-in just results in glorified quick-time events, which end up not being so quick very quickly. Needing to perfectly time a string of fucking 8 attacks to break open an enemy to finally kill him, where failing once will make him repeat the sequence from the start and he is invincible until you finish it (and this is a normal recurring enemy!) is some PS2-era shit.

But then, at the same time, that is Hi-Fi RUSH's golden charm; this feels like a very Dreamcast/PS2 era game but with modern tech powering it. And for that I want more of it, if Microsoft ever deigns to let them make a game again and doesn't just consign them to purgatory or, now, the Call of Duty Mines.

[sasquapossum]

Looks like my ex-boss Bobby Kotick is presiding over another debacle. I'll leave the "ex-boss" and "another" parts for another post some day.) Just last night, I was commenting (on Mastodon) about how Diablo IV was fun, but the experience was degraded by the decision to go the cooperative-MMO route instead of staying true to the franchise's nature. I was particularly focused on two things.

Requiring a constant connection also means there's no pause, which I need to use often when my family comes in asking questions or needing help with something.

Even more annoying, the "cooperative" part seems to mean that many bosses are not reasonably solo-able. I'm sure I'll get past this by grinding for better gear etc. but the design seems based on an assumption of at least two-person parties. Unless the bosses auto-scale to party size as well as level.

How did game design, of all things, get so dominated by extroverts? I know Blizzard is just responding to the market, but the market in terms of what makes them money is not the same as the market in terms of what people actually want. That's a whole different rant, though. I'm already doubling up, so I'll let that one pass. Meanwhile, on to the problems with always-online games.

This morning, battle.net (Blizzard's Steam-wannabe) servers have been under a persistent distributed denial-of-service attack. I've heard that the bevy of miscreants that call themselves Poodlecorp are behind it. In any case, the game's unplayable.

This is such a self-inflicted injury. If the game was designed properly, so that a connection wasn't required except when doing specific things like forming parties or buying stuff from stores, most players wouldn't even notice. However, because of Bobby's bad decision (and this one must surely have gone up to his level) this means every player is locked out until the mitigate the DDoS. What a total travesty.

[shadowphoenixrider]

Brief timeline recap, with added retcons and general housekeeping

Wow. It’s been a while! I’ve finally got motivation and time, so let’s get into it.

I’ve become more laissez-faire with time and timelines in my headcanons now, which is a great relief as doing a pregnancy timeline for Draggka was a lot and very rigid, and boy I cannot summon up that much energy to do that any more, holy heck! (Where did all that energy go, please can I have it back?)

But roughly Draggka became pregnant with Zal’ria before Battle for Azeroth, and her pregnancy progressed through the expan up to I think when Zandalari formerly joined the Horde, as it was becoming too dangerous for her to be active, what with all of Sylvanas’s nonsense. Dranka took over all of her Speaker of the Horde roles (until it was later passed to Zekhan as of Shadows Rising) whilst she rested in Karazhan, although she did briefly go to Saurfang’s funeral, and stayed waaaay away from all the N’Zoth stuff.

Zal’ria was born in the gap between BFA and Shadowlands, and Draggka pretty much just stayed home with Khadgar (and Medivh) looking after the young’n and was a non-entity during the whole expan. (Ingame she was still my main, though in lore I think I would let my Alliance mains take centre stage for a while.)

Zal would be...3 or 4 years old as of the time skip and Dragonflight’s start, so she’s either starting or close to starting whatever amounts to a school in WoW’s thing. So probably the convenient time for Draggka to return to the action, along with Khadgar. (It’s fine, Medivh’s in Karazhan, he can babysit...sort of.)

As much as I resent Activision-Blizzard’s upper management and the awful things that still disgorge from their fetid maws (fire Bobby Kotick, preferrably into the sun), I can’t deny longing to go back to Azeroth. I had a brief visit back to relieve the need some weeks ago, and I think I will eventually play Dragonflight in the future. Just...in time. The devs are making the right noises right now, I just need some more winning over.

As for retcons...as some of you may or may not be aware, I was writing Draggka and Khadgar’s story as very much intertwined with another friend of mine’s story of her character Camdyn Morris and their courtship of Varian Wrynn. As you can imagine, we broke the canon pretty hard to do so.

It’s with a heavy heart I have to admit I can no longer maintain the internal canon whilst hooking it to ingame canon as easily now. I could do it with enough time and plotting, but the effort to do so is now counterproductive.

So instead of retconning it altogether, I will leave it as a split branch of Draggka/Khadgar’s timeline. Their core story will adhere more to the main game story, although that’s not to say I’ve not meddled here and there - I will break the Shadowlands story over my knee rather than admit the Jailer was playing 60D chess with us all and have Sylvanas apparently unable to realize she was being played.

Speaking of splitting branches, the existance of Draggka and Khadgar’s 2nd child, Khara. She’s not appeared in their canon as of yet so the removal of her is painless, especially since I’ve really not had time to gift her with much of a personality (a curse of a lot of my characters, many in my account will head towards deletion due to it).

That’s not to say I won’t bring Khara back in another form - I like her name a lot, afterall. I just need to think on how. Perhaps an AU of Zal’ria? Rule nothing out, I have been one-manning lore for an entire Star Wars race of recent.

Wanted to get this out, and it’s nice to write a proper Tumblr post about fandom again. Felt the gears starting to move in a way I haven’t felt in years, and I hope with some tweaks and changes and time being made to write things, perhaps I can start creating again.

Here’s hoping, and thank you for reading down to here! ^^

[omamervt]

I think the most frustrating thing trying to keep up with news from the games industry isn't the depressing realization that my degree is probably gonna be useless if I don't successfully start a small business, it's the absolute refusal of publications to do anything other than take industry giants at their word. Bobby Kotick's Investigation into Bobby Kotick turning up no evidence of wrongdoing isn't headline-worthy. CEOs of game companies bragging about being out of touch with the interests of the average gamer isn't headline-worthy.

And yet I feel like I have to respond to this headline I just saw. I'm not going to link to the article and I encourage you not to try and find it because they frankly don't deserve the engagement. But it was the CEO of some company or other saying that live-service games were better for developers and players. While the first part is probably true, as long as the game is making enough money to cover the cost of keeping it online, the second part is only ARGUABLY true about the people who play those games long after the hype dies down.

But the fact that live service games have very similar dropoff rates to 80-hour titles should tell you that it's not true to the average player. The average player wants to beat a game and move on with their life.

[monriatitans]

Ta-Da! List: Sunday, June 23rd

The image was made in Canva; check it out at the [referral] link here!

I share my “Ta-Da! List” every day so everyone gets a daily update and I have a reminder of what I’ve accomplished.

To learn more about “Ta-Da! Lists”, and other ADHD life hacks, check out @adhdjesse’s book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD.

Abbreviations

- O&T: Opinions & Truth Blog - TBR: To Be Read - WGS: The Weekend Game Show - LPS$: Let’s Play Some $#!7 - ASO: Artist Shout-Out - IG: Instagram - BMAC: Buy Me a Coffee - TDL: Ta-Da! List

Ta-Da! List

✧ throughout the day: - kept emails manageable - loaded the dishwasher - filled out today’s TDL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the mobile phone: - Hive: shared today’s ASO - IG/Hive: shared today’s Finished Book, “Current TBR Tower”, and VOD Announcement

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the bedroom setup: - Movies: watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas” - O&T: shared yesterday’s and today’s TDL to the WGS Ko-fi

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the office setup: - TBR: finished “The Affinity Between Us” by Melissa Sweeney; moved it to the “Finished Books” section of the “Current TBR Tower”, formerly “Current TBR Stack”, posts on O&T, Tumblr, Medium, and BMAC, added “The Bonds We Share”, “Smut Peddler X”, and “My Monster Girlfriend” to the tower, and then changed the published date of the post to Jun. 23rd for the O&T and Tumblr posts; added a link to the “Current TBR Tower” posts to the O&T, Tumblr, Medium, and BMAC “SITE MAPS” - WGS: gave a human artist, Varsha Vasudevan, a shout-out by sharing it on O&T, Tumblr, and other social media; did an LPS$ Stream, exported it to YouTube, shared it on O&T, Tumblr, Medium, and other social media, and then updated the O&T’s YouTube widgets; shared a VOD Announcement to The Titans’ Discord and other social media; prepared the ASO for tomorrow, June 24th - O&T: shared yesterday’s and today’s TDL to various social media - Branding: in Canva, created an “LPS$ Watermarking” template - Gaming: played “Super Lesbian Animal RPG”

- YouTube: watched and/or listened to: 1. Jim Sterling’s videos “Delayed Reaction”, “A Cautionary Post-Mortem Of Evolve”, “Falling Out With The PS4”, “Pay To Spray: Overwatch And Microtransactions”, “Game Industry Executives Are Fucking Idiots”, “Nintendo Switch Online’s Cloud Save Debacle”, “Nintendo’s Virtual Console Is Trash Garbage”, “Loot n’ Plunder”, “Can Evolve Cut Down The Bullshit Tree?”, “That Whole CSGO Gambling Thing”, “Fur Fucked”, “Weapon Durability, Fanbase Fragility”, “Why Horizon: Zero Dawn’s Success Is Good No Matter Who You Are”, “I Want To Review The Switch But A Dickhead Dev Accused Me Of Violating Trademarks”, “Resident Evil 7 Bravely Defaulted”, “Pokemon Go, The Best Worst Pokemon Game Ever”, “It’s My E3 And I’ll Whine If I Want To”, “What Would Link Do?”, “It’s Just A Game”, “The Slimy Sleaze Of That Apolitical Bobby Kotick”, and “Activision Is Innocent Because Activision Said So” 2. I’m Autistic, Now What?’s video “5 Traits You Think are Autistic (But They’re NOT)” 3. Kupo’s short “TIL: I laugh like a chicken from time to time” 4. BlackBeltBarrister’s video “Get this wrong and you’ll be at fault!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ chores and miscellaneous: - Food: had coffee and water for breakfast; had leftover family dinner for lunch and dinner; had a bowl of cereal - Chores: emptied and took out the trash; swept the kitchen

—

Well, these are all the updates I had for today! Thank you for reading!

May every decision you make be *in the spirit of fairness* and may the rest of your day *NOT go to $#!7*!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[arjaandsimoni]

Temporal Chaos

New Orleans, the Evening After Umbra’s Defeat

“Bloody vampires and their bloody rituals…” grumbled Nelen as he sat at the table in the hotel. Natasha had insisted that Nicu learn how to feed before they made their return to Jaipur and, while the magus could understand the logic there, he still wasn’t happy about it. The manticore was still running wild in India and they needed to deal with it, but he wanted to make sure everyone who could be there to fight it would be there, and that very much included Natasha.

He was watching the news on the hotel’s TV currently, but there were no news stories about the incident at the storage facility. He had learned more than a few tricks about cleaning up bloodstains in his time as a warlock and of course Umbra would hardly be going to the police. There was a minor news blurb about a local Rabbi going missing, but nothing involving his death and he had a feeling if the Prince had caught him he’d have made damn sure that everyone knew it, so Umbra had most likely succeeded in escaping New Orleans.

Umbra, the much-rumored Thief of Time… he glanced over at the door to the attached room where Arja, Simoni, Sammi, and Stephy were all examining the destroyed bracelet, the enchanted artifact he had used to manipulate time and give himself the ultimate edge for any thief.  The ability to go again and again and again until he got it right.

“Sheesh… hard to believe something so normal looking caused that much trouble.” said Simoni, cocking her head at it as it lay on a desk in the hotel room.

“Not in my case.” frowned Sammi, the fae prince making a face, “I can feel that thing. Its like a weight on time and fate, the world distorted around it. Its making me uncomfortable just looking at it…”

Stephy nodded, the princess sharing his brother’s feelings. “Yeah. I mean, I’m not as sensitive to that stuff as Sammi is yet, but…” he looked at it again, wincing, “… ewie…” he murmured.

Arja shrugged at them. “Want me to just roast it? I mean, its just leather and silver. Gimme five seconds and its gone.”

As she said this however a metallic hand grabbed her and pulled her away. “HEY! NO!” snapped Reshephia, the succubus staying around until she was sure the bracelet wouldn’t be a threat to her anymore. “Little fancy ass prince here wrecked it before I could unweave the spell and its all volatile now! There’s no telling what could happen if someone tries to completely destroy it!” she frowned, “You think that kid getting a spear through the lung was bad? Try that spell going haywire and unmaking one of you!”

Simoni nodded, glancing at the bracelet again as she slowly backed away from it, “Yeah… that sounds… um… really bad.” she whispered, looking at Reshephia. “Hey, um, why do we have this thing in here again? Shouldn’t we like seal it in some concrete and toss it in the ocean maybe?”

The demon sighed, shaking her head, “Mortals…” she snorted, “There’s a ritual I can do to undo the spell and render it inert, but the reagents are hard to come by. I already used Nelen’s tablet to mail order them so they should be here by tomorrow. Just gotta sit tight until then.”

Arja looked at her, raising an eyebrow, “Hang on… you need a bunch of rare ritual stuff and it’ll be here tomorrow… by mail?” she asked.

Reshephia grinned like a sawblade at her. “How do you think Jeff Bezos got Amazon started? Hell, he’s teaching us a few tricks about torturing and crushing souls! Mammon already has a seat on his board of directors reserved for him.”

Simoni frowned at her, “Are there any American CEOs who aren’t on Hell’s payroll?” she asked.

Reshephia shrugged, “The ex-Activision guy, Bobby Kotick, isn’t.” she replied.

Stephy shrugged at her, “Huh, guess he really doesn’t have any excuse.” he murmured.

Reshephia laughed a bit, “Yeah, some mortals are just like that… but I’m serious though. Hands off the bracelet.” she nodded, pushing the group away and standing between them and it, her back to the wrecked leather.

“I mean it! That thing is stupidly unstable right now! You guys got lucky carrying it here, but even a tap could have all sorts of consequ- what smells like burning copper?” she paused, her eyes going wide as her nose twitched.

The five of them turned to the bracelet to see Dusk sitting on the table, one tiny paw resting on one of the silver decorations on the wrecked strip of leather. “… what?” asked the Cheshire kitten.

All five of them backpedaled until they hit the beds.

“DUSK! GET OFF THAT!” gasped Simoni as the kitten yowled and jumped back, a spark of energy sending him skidding off the edge of the table.

The bracelet began to crackle with energy, then with a sudden pop it shot into the air, then again, then again, then there was a bang like a gunshot and it went flying towards the group!

Simoni caught it out of reflex and looked around. “Ohnononono! Resehphia! Its your bracelet! Make it stop!" she shrieked, tossing it to the demon.

Reshephia caught it and shook her head, her fangs gritted and her eyes wild. “I DON’T WANT IT! SOMEONE ELSE TAKE THE DAMN BLAST!” she snarled, tossing it to Sammi, who yelped and volleyball smacked it to Arja, who punched it back to Reshephia, who threw it underhand to Simoni, who let out a scream of alarm as it began to spark again and threw it wildly, the bracelet landing on Stephy’s head!

The fae princess let out a scream and flailed his arms, “AHHHH! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!” he cried, then suddenly the bracelet began to glow, “G-guys? Whats happening?!” he whined.

From outside all the windows of their room lit up like the noonday sun, then suddenly an eruption of energy rippled outwards across New Orleans as every car alarm in five blocks went off all at once and the nearest six fire hydrants exploded.

Nelen, Dawn, and Tex burst into the room from next door as Drusilla began cursing as the blast woke up Scylla, the infant cyclops beginning to cry loudly.

“What. The everloving FUCK. Was that?!” demanded Nelen, looking around at the group who had all been knocked off their feet. “Oh for… sound off! Anyone injured?”

Arja coughed and struggled to her feet, having been blown behind the desk. “I’m fine! Just a couple bruises!"

Simoni pulled herself up from behind the bed, “Yeah… I’m good… I… Stephy!” she gasped, “He was right under it! Stephy! Are you okay?!” she called out.

“Yeah!” came reply from behind the other bed.

“I’m fine!” came his voice from inside the room’s closet.

“Where the hell am I though?” came another reply from the bathroom.

“Wait, is this New Orleans? How did I get here?” came a voice from the fire escape outside.

The others all glanced at each other, then around the room. All of those sounded like him… but…

Then the window opened and Stephy climbed in… or at least, someone looking like him did. He was wearing a black silk button down top and a long loose skirt with black heels… and his skin was so pale it was almost pure white. He shook his head to clear it and looked around with a pair of bloody red eyes. “Nelen? Whats going on, where did you come from?” he asked.

From behind the bed Stephy stood up with a groan, “Uhhhn… my head…” he whined. This one was wearing a long green sundress and had bubblegum pink hair down to his waist with flowers blooming through it. “OH NO!” he whined, feeling over the petals, “Are my blossoms okay?! Big sis got really mad when they got damaged last time!”

The door to the bathroom opened then, and another Stephy walked out… but this one had metallic silver skin and long crimson hair with a pair of horns peeking out of it. He was wearing a tube top with ‘After School Special Villaness Club’ on it and a pair of long black leather pants with heeled boots. “… fuuuuuuuck... What the hell did Igniz make that drink out of? Got the hangover to end all hangovers here…” he growled, then looked around and spotted Reshephia. “Huh? Reshy? What happened? Did we get summoned? This doesn’t feel like Hell…” he grumbled.

Reshephia stared open mouthed at him, then grinned and wagged her tail, “Wait, I get one?” she asked nobody in particular.

Finally, from the far corner of the room came a whine as Stephy stood up, the one they all knew with long blonde hair wearing a white silken top and long icy blue skirt. “Owwwww… I hit my head…” he began, then stopped as all four of them looked back and forth at each other.

Dawn opened her mouth, then closed it again. She held up a hand, “Ah…” she began, then closed her mouth again. She shrugged, “Thuh…” she began, then stopped again… then she shook her head and leaned into Nelen, clutching at his sleeve. “Nelen! HELP! I have too many jokes!” she whined, her tail thrashing behind her.

Nelen wiped his glasses off, then put them back on, then said, “Reshephia?”

The demon glanced at him, “Yeah?”

He thrust his arms out and waved them around, staring goggle eyed at her, “WHAT?!”

She looked at where the bracelet had landed, then around the room, “Timelines…” she murmured, “The spell shorted out and couldn’t figure out which one was real… so it made them all real! All of these are him, but from other timelines!” she said, then she stood up and pointed to the demonic Stephy, “YOU! HOW?!” she asked.

The demon Stephy shrugged, taking out a silver cigarette case and removing a stick from it, then lighting it with a flick of his fingers. “Really? You don’t remember? I mean, I got really fucking pissed at my dad and thought ‘fuck it, if Nelen can do it so can I’ and I tried to call up a wrath demon, but screwed up and got you instead. Since I set a binding for the wrong court you just grabbed me, dragged me down, and… Hell did its thing.” he nodded, gesturing to himself.

Simoni nodded, “Yeah… uh… and you look a lot like that one faerie we fought back at Johnny’s Toys…” she said, looking at the flowery one.

Flower Stephy looked at her, squinting, then said, “Wait… your voice… but… you’re back in Arcadia with our keeper!” he gasped, “Nelen tried to save us from Big Sis, but one of her soldiers knocked him out and they dragged us off while he was unconscious…” he said, his head going up and down as he looked her over, “What happened to you?! Why do you look like you’re from India now?!”

At this Stephy, the winter one, stood up and walked over. “Hold up, hang on. Nelen DID rescue me from her! He had to unseal Merihim to do it, but he did!”

Flower Stephy shook his head, “Noooo… he got knocked unconscious and I got taken to Arcadia.” he replied, pointing to a silvery collar around his throat stamped with rose symbols.

Winter Stephy shook his head, “No. Nelen rescued us and I spent the next couple years getting abused to hell and back by my dad before Drusilla killed him. Then when I went back home to get my stuff before the city condemned it for reals this time I found mom’s letter, freaked out, ran into the forest, got tricked by him…” he jabbed a thumb at Sammi.

“… I said I was bloody sorry…” grumbled the fae prince, leaning against the wall and folding his arms over his chest.

“… then I wound up in Lady Sera’s lands and she made me into a changeling.” he nodded.

Flower Stephy tilted his head, his petals rustling in his hair. “Huh… so… no Endless Shopping Mall? No sleepovers with Big Sis’s friends? No costume parties? None of that?” he asked.

Winter Stephy blinked, looking at him, then looking over at Nelen, then back at Flower Stephy. “Wait, what? That’s what she does to her changelings?!” he asked. Rain made it sound horrific, but that didn’t sound bad at all!

Flower Stephy blushed, “W-well, I mean… that’s the simple version… but… um… I mean… her tantrums can get really scary and she’s big on punishments if I mess stuff up but… um…” he squirmed awkwardly, “When I’m good she lets me ride Sir Flopsalot.”

Winter Stephy paused, raising his eyebrow. “… who is ‘Sir Flopsalot?’” he asked.

Flower Stephy blushed deeper, “… Big Sis’s giant horse-sized march hare.”

Winter Stephy’s eye twitched, and then he threw up his arms and exclaimed, “I COULD HAVE HAD A GIANT HORSE SIZED BUNNY?!”

Nelen noticed this reaction, then stepped in and said, “Hey, you there. Flower Power?” he asked as the spring-fae Stephy looked over at him. “Question… do you know who he is?” he asked, pointing to Tex who was still trying to process that his relationship had spontaneously become multiple choice.

Flower Stephy looked at him, cocking his head, then back at Nelen and shook his head, “Nope, never met him before. He’s cute though.” he giggled.

Tex blushed himself as Winter Stephy paused, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” frowned Nelen, glancing at Winter Stephy, “She tried to take you before you met Tex, remember? If she’d succeeded then McCall’s vampires would have probably killed Tex and his entire family that night. That worth a giant horse sized bunny?”

Winter Stephy whined, stepping closer to Tex and clinging to his arm, “… no…” he muttered sheepishly, looking rather embarrassed now, then he looked up and over at the other vampire in the room. “Wait, is that how that me become a vampire?” he gasped, pointing at the gothic dressed Stephy who was still by the window. “You! Who’s your sire?”

The vampire jumped a bit, then replied, “Oh, uh… her name is Natasha Kernovich.”

They all stared, then Nelen said, “… HOW? She was in freaking Romania when we teamed up and our Stephy didn’t meet her until after he became a changeling! How the hells did that even happen?!”

Vampire Stephy shrugged, “Well, it’s a long story… but…” he began, but then the demonic Stephy spoke up.

“Hey, hold up… if I’m hearing you right Nelen… this is all Frostytits’ timeline right?” he asked, pointing to Winter Stephy who let out an annoyed huff at the comment.

Nelen nodded slowly, “Yeaaaaaaaaah?” he replied.

The demon grinned wider, showing he had the same razor-sharp teeth as Reshephia. “So… that means in this timeline we don’t technically exist… so anything we do here is consequence free for us… right?” he asked.

Flower Stephy and Vampire Stephy heard that, then glanced at each other, then grinned widely.

“… oh shit. NO. No no no no NO!” snarled the magus, walking towards the demon. “You three are NOT about to start some shit in this town! We just got done saving it from Agaliarept and stopping Umbra from fucking with history!” he shouted, turning around and heading to the door to the next room, where his bag was. “You three are going to stay right here while we work out how to undo this and send you back to your own timeli-…” he started, but as he got to the door Dawn called out.

“HEY GANDALF!” she hissed, looking out the open window from a room that was back down to one Stephy. “They all bolted down the fire escape around ‘stopping Umbra.’” she pointed out.

Nelen gritted his teeth, then shouted, “FUCK!”

Outside the hotel

The trio of alternate Stephys giggled excitedly at each other. Demon spotted a nearby motorcycle and jumped onto it, breaking the ignition and hotwiring it with glance, then conjured a length of chain and twirled it above himself as it burst into flames, speeding off into the night. “LOOKIT ME! I’M GHOSTRIDER!” he cackled.

The vampiric one nodded to the flowery Stephy, “I’m going to go see if I can find this version of Natasha, I can tell she’s nearby!” he grinned, then leapt up onto a nearby shop’s rooftop, then a taller building, jumping from roof to roof as he sped off.

Flower Stephy watched him go, then waved his hands at a pair of decorative trees. They bent to touch their boughs, making a rough arch-like shape, and then the air shimmered as a Hedge Gate opened in the middle of the street. He stuck his pinkie fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, and a moment later a gigantic march hare burst through the portal, a saddle already fixed around it’s middle. The flower changeling giggled excitedly, then climbed up onto the massive rabbit and held on tight. “Lets go Sir Flopsalot!” he squealed as the rabbit’s nose twitched, then it hunched and bounced forward, racing off through New Orleans as each bound shook nearby cars, setting their alarms off! “WHEEEEEEE!”

Back in the hotel room

Nelen was cursing up a storm, “Time magic time magic I fucking HATE time magic!” he shouted in frustration.

“Nelen… hey, wizard boy.” said Reshephia, “It gets worse.” she frowned.

Nelen froze, then without turning around he said, “… HOW.”

“The spell is still going.” said the demon, “Those three are just gonna be the start. Its trying to tell which timeline is real, but its busted, so its grabbing all the versions of him it can! We need to get those three back, and any of the others who show up, or else it’ll just keep going until we’re up to our eyeballs in genderqueer young boys…”

Sammi laughed, “Oh is that all? Oh no, how ever shall we cope…” he chuckled, glancing at Tex, “What do you say Prince Cowboy? Fancy turning that speakeasy back in Covington into a harem?”

Tex turned bright red, coughing awkwardly, “Sammi, shaddap.” he grunted.

Reshephia coughed, “I’m not done yet. It’ll keep doing that until the spell crashes, then the resulting paradox will erase ALL versions of him… and crater most of the city.”

The group stared at her, then Nelen kicked open the door and ran for his bag. “Drus! We’re going to need everyone we can!” he shouted.

“What about Scylla?!” she demanded.

“BRING HER!” he barked from the other room.

Winter Stephy looked around, “W-well, I mean… it can’t be that bad right? Most of them will probably just be, yanno, normal kids… right?” he tried.

As Nelen returned with Drusilla behind him Reshephia stood up, handing over the bracelet. “Take it. You’ll need it to send them all back and I need to go get the parts for the spell to do it. It can only do one spell at a time so its safe for now.” she nodded firmly as the warlock slid the bracelet into the bag, then the group raced out of the building!

As they got to the ground floor there was a clatter of bones and a cackling sound as another alternate Stephy in a long black gown and cloak rode past on a skeletal horse with witch-lights glowing in it’s eyes. “Son of a…” growled Nelen, then he heard a rumbling sound, “HEADS UP!” he shouted, shoving the group back as Demon Stephy roared past on the stolen motorcycle, leaving a trail of flames in his wake!

“Arja! You’re fireproof! You and Simoni take Dusk and go after the demon one! We’ll go find Isolde’s version!” he shouted as Arja gave a thumbs up and hopped on Simoni’s back, the two taking to the air and shooting off in pursuit of the demon.

Dawn sniffed around as they disappeared around the corner, “I smell rabbit fur, this way!” she shouted, having seen Flower Stephy summon the giant bunny from the window.

New Orleans was already erupting into chaos. They saw an explosion in the direction that Arja and Simoni had flown towards, and buildings all along the path had flowering vines growing all over them. Pretty, but they were Arcadian so they were probably dangerous.

Further along the path the Flower Stephy was having the time of their life, giggling and kicking his legs as he trailed blossoms behind him, all the plants he passed exploding into bloom as his glamour surged through the city, the sight of a giant rabbit catching the eye of everyone he passed. All around him cameras clicked and smartphones snapped, he’d be trending on Twitter within the hour if he wasn’t already.

He looked up as he caught the faintest whiff of snow, then looked behind him and grinned to see his wintery self and their companions sprinting after him. “Catch me if you can!” he giggled, urging Sir Flopsalot on as the giant rabbit took a shortcut through a large alleyway.

Suddenly, a loud crash drew their attention to the far end of the alleyway and another copy of Stephy jogged past, though this one had skin like marble and they wore a sort of toga like dress.

They were also carrying a car over their head.

Nelen blinked slowly, “… what… the hell was that one?” he asked.

Sammi nodded, “Changeling, I can sense the glamour about him. Buggered if I know who their keeper is though…” he frowned.

Stephy watched his alternate-self toss the car they were holding, then laugh and pick up another before lumbering off. “Huh, wonder if Dad stopped being such an asshole in that timeline after I could do that sort of stuff…” he murmured.

They left the alleyway and looked up at a cackling sound, seeing yet another Stephy riding past on an honest to gods broomstick and wearing a pointed hat. “… and one wound up in fucking Oz somehow?!” asked Nelen, then they looked away as a feral looking Stephy leapt atop a car and howled excitedly, their face a lupine muzzle and their body covered in dusky brown fur. “… and a werewolf too?!” he shouted, “HOW THE HELLS MANY MORE ARE THERE GOING TO BE?!” he demanded.

Stephy just looked around, “I wonder if it’s just me though…"

Just then, there was a huge burst of energy directly to their left and standing there were six people, one of which appeared to be another Nelen! He had long hair tied back into a ponytail and a goatee instead of a full beard, but it was unmistakably him! He wore long white robes in an oriental style and held a wooden stave with a top like a stylized wolf’s head. Next to him was a massive minotaur-like woman standing nearly twice his height in a black silk top and black trousers, with a staff that had an eagle-like head on it.

A young woman stood near them with small, pointed ears and pure white eyes, she had deep indigo hair with what appeared to be tentacles of some sort running through it, and was wearing leather armor with a pair of crystalline daggers in her belt. Next to her was a very small fox-like girl wearing a colorful skirt, red silken headscarf, and a matching wrap-top.

Between them all was a small, green-skinned man in a bomber jacket holding a rifle ready as he looked this way and that, as if trying to find something worth shooting. He had a hooked nose and huge batlike ears. Next to him was a very small woman with blonde hair tied into twin buns, wearing white and black robes and holding a staff in her hands.

“Chromie? Where are we now?!” asked the minotaur-woman, seeming rather high strung at the moment.

“Dunno Nitika, maybe another warzone?” commented the woman with the purple hair and tentacles as she looked around, her pointed ears twitching at the sounds around them.

“I… I don’t know! I don’t think this one is one of Azeroth’s timelines! I’m sensing SERIOUS temporal chaos! I think we just got sucked into it!” the small woman called back as she tried to focus on her staff.

Dawn grinned widely, walking towards them as her tail swished behind her, “Oh heck guys! Look! This Nelen actually is a wizard!”

 “… what?” grunted the new Nelen, raising an eyebrow at her appearance. It was clear this Nelen had never seen anything like her before.

Dawn jogged over, then vanished, and with a pop and a surprised curse she was squatting on the wizard-Nelen’s shoulders.

“Woaaaaaaaah! He even smells the same! Think wherever he’s from has Old Spice too?!” she laughed as the magus snarled and reached up, trying to grab her… but she vanished and reappeared with a loud exclamation of some strange unrecognizable language atop the minotaur’s head.

Dawn grinned, shielding her eyes and pointing, “Hey! I can see our hotel from up here!” she laughed, then she vanished again before the bovid-woman could snatch her and appeared with a burp infront of the fox-like girl.

Dawn squatted down and looked at her, cocking her head.

The fox-girl cocked her head the other way, her ear flicking.

Dawn smiled, stuck out a finger, and tapped the vulpine on the nose. “Boop.” the cat grinned.

The fox giggled, then did likewise to the feline. “Boop!” she smiled.

Then Dawn vanished again and reappeared next to Nelen (the wizard,) and immediately flipped open his pouch, sticking her head and shoulders into it. “Hey! He knows the ‘make the big bag’ spell too! Think this one keeps cat treats in his bags?” she shouted to her allies.

This time however she was distracted enough for the newcomer to grab her firmly around the middle. He lifted her boldly out of the bag, then held her by the shoulders infront of him. “Oi, moggie.” he growled.

“Yeah?” she replied.

In an eyeblink she was looking at a massive werewolf wearing a mage’s robes and glasses. The lycantherope took a deep breath and roared, “STAY OUT OF MY BAG!” baring his fangs as the force of his voice blew her hair and ears back.

Dawn blinked slowly, then screamed and vanished from his grasp, reappearing behind her version of Nelen. “THAT NELEN IS WRONG! ITS EVIL NELEN! MAKE IT GO AWAY!” she hissed, her tail floofed out.

Nelen, the wizard, resumed his human form, took off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Chromie, could you please…”

“Sorry! I think I have it now! Weird multiverse huh guys?” she asked, and suddenly they all vanished.

Sammi cocked his head at where they had been standing. “… did that one with the all-white eyes and tentacles in her hair look familiar to anyone else?” he asked, looking around, “… No? Just me? Hm…”

Meanwhile, across town…

Natasha and her newly risen vampire ‘childe,’ Nicu, were hiding out on a rooftop as New Orleans apparently went mad. “Well! I can certainly see why Henri came to the Americas now! If nothing else this country is not short on excitement…” she mused, watching the chaos unfold below.

Nicu was next to her, the young boy still having a bit of blood on his lips from his first feeding. He had managed to keep from accidentally going too far, but he hadn’t quite learned to not be a messy eater yet. “… um… this isn’t normal for New Orleans Natasha, or… any city really.” he pointed out.

Natasha nodded, “Mm…” she murmured, then the two froze as they sensed something behind them, spinning around as a figure in black and red landed behind them, another vampire!

Natasha hissed, then paused and raised her eyebrow. “Wait… I know you… Stephy?” she asked in shock.

“Sort of!” replied the vampiric version of the young boy.

“… how… why are you a vampyr?! The fae cannot become undead!” she gasped in shock, stepping forward and looking over him with wide eyes.

“Weeeeeeell… it all started with…” he began, but then a loud explosion rocked the night as Arja and Simoni flew past.

“Fly faster Simoni! He just blew up another car!” shouted Arja as she held onto her shoulders tightly.

“If I go any faster we’ll crash Arja! Just hold on!” she shouted back as she whistled up another gust of wind to propel them onwards.

The three vampires got to the edge of the roof just in time to see Demon Stephy tearing past on the motorcycle, turn a corner, and go out of view. Several cars along the road were on fire now.

Natasha saw this and frowned, “… multiple Stephy… each different…” she glanced back at the vampiric one, then at where the demon had gone out of view, and sighed, “… Umbra’s bracelet, was it not? It must have backfired rather spectacularly. That must have been what Nicu and I felt earlier…”

“You figured that out awfully fast…” muttered Nicu, looking at her.

“I am centuries old Nicu.” she grinned at him, “You will learn too, in time.” the vampire girl nodded, patting his shoulder, “For now, we should locate Nelen. He will know how to best address this… situation.”

The two of them leapt off the rooftop, landing on the next one over, then began to jump from one to the other, their undead bodies propelling them further than they could have ever gone in life.

Vampire Stephy watched them go, then frowned, “… but… I wanted to tell her how…” he whined, then shrugged and raced after them.

Another part of the City

Nelen and the group were in full sprint, but everywhere they ran they saw more and more bizarre versions of their changeling friend popping up. An elvish version of Stephy with cybernetics from a timeline where technology had advanced far further than anyone had ever expected, a merfolk version (gods only knew how THAT happened) at the waterfront, trying to avoid all the buildings that were on fire, and more besides!

Halfway down the block Nelen stumbled to a halt and gasped as he gripped his knees. “Fucking… hells… that damn rabbit is fast… how the fuck are we supposed to gather up these kids when we can’t even catch ONE?!” he shouted.

“At least you’re getting your cardio in.” grinned Dawn.

Suddenly, from an alleyway came a small cheerful voice. “Hi!” it said.

All of them turned to see a small pudgy bear-like creature with  glasses and a colorful rainbow design on it’s belly, like a plush toy come to life.

“… huh…” muttered Dawn, “Anyone have ‘Care Bear Stephy’ on their bingo card?” she asked, looking around as Winter Stephy squeed at the sight.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me Care-A-Lot was real?!” he giggled, scampering over to the plush-like version of himself and squatting down to examine them. He had always adored plush toys and other cute things, and a whole world of them definitely caught his attention.

“Oh goodie! New friends!” smiled the Care Bear version, “New wonderful friends we can share the word of the Great Cloudkeeper with and spread his love and caring further!” he nodded, “Now… we just gotta deal with all those impure thoughts you have. Who wants to get castrated first?” he asked, holding up a scalpel.

Stephy’s smile blew out like a lightbulb and he backpedaled quickly, “… oh, that’s why.”

“SAM! HEDGE GATE! ALLEY!”  shouted Nelen, taking a running charge as Sammi slammed his hand against the edge of the alleyway. Briars formed around it as the view changed from a dingy alleyway to the depths of the hedge, the mage putting all his Fullmoon strength into his leg and kicking the bear through it in one quick motion!

“I still care for you all!” it shouted as it flew backwards, then it let out a yelp as a wolf made of brambles and nightmares jumped across the path and snapped it up in one go.

Dawn glanced at Stephy, “Yeaaaaaaaah, that’s why. They’re a little bit… Jonestown, and can fuck with emotions and minds. Nelen and I had to sort out a couple back when we were with the Wulfshead.” she replied, then she shuddered, “Anyone else just feel a chill?” she asked.

They turned to see another Stephy, this one wearing tight black leather with pierced ears, nostrils, lips, tongue, eyelids, and… well, pretty much if it could be pierced it was. The skin on his face was held back by hooks and the lenses for their glasses were implanted right into their skin! “Time… to play…” it hissed as it walked forward.

“Huh… Cenobite. Actually less off-putting than the Care Bear somehow.” shrugged the feline.

Several hours and a lot of chaos later…

Through much difficulty the group had managed to gather as many of the alternate versions of Stephy as they could in a convenient park, but now the mob numbered over fifty and were getting pretty agitated. There were Stephys of all shapes and sizes, all colors and species, and some with bodies that didn’t really seem to work in three dimensions.

“ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! TONE IT DOWN! Half of New Orleans is a disaster right now and the other half is on fire, but we need to sort you out NOW! Reshephia says that if we don’t get you all back to your own timelines a paradox will hit that’ll erase ALL of the Stephys here, including ours!” he shouted over the din of the mob, “She’s on her way now, just wait for her to get here!”

A cacophony of bored, gender-non-conforming voices rose up and he snarled, “Swear to all the gods and demons… I KNOW! WE’RE WORKING ON IT! JUST CHILL OUT AND…  I don’t fucking know… TRADE POKEMON CARDS OR SOMETHING!" he shouted, then walked back and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes.

He looked up the path and saw Reshephia running towards the park. “Never thought I’d be relieved to see a demon running towards me…” he sighed.

The succubus skidded to a halt and looked around, “Fuck! How many of him are there now?!” she asked, looking at the madness before her.

“At least fifty that we were able to get. We’re pretty sure its all of them. So how do we fix this?” he asked.

Reshephia looked around, her eyes huge, “… I… I can’t! There’s TOO many! My bracelet was never meant to warp time like this! Even if it was whole this shouldn’t be possible!” the succubi shouted.

Nelen stared at her, then back at the mob of various alternate versions of his cousin, then back at her, “SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO THEN?!” he demanded.

“HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW?!” screamed Reshephia, throwing up her arms.

“Um, excuse me?” came a small voice nearby.

“Reshephia, what the hell do you mean you can’t fix this?! What about New Orleans getting blown to shit by the spell?!” yelled Nelen.

“I can at least stop THAT! But there’s no way I can send this many back to the right timelines!” she retorted. “How the hell is this even possible?! Is your cousin just destined to get grabbed by a bunch of weird supernatural shit?!”

“Hel-lo? Down here!” came the voice again.

“Reshephia, for fuck’s sake your bracelet caused this! Are you seriously telling me you don- that’s a dragon.” said Nelen as he looked to his right, seeing a massive reptilian face next to him.

The entire group, and most of the crowd, let out a surprised yelp as they looked over to see a huge dragon with sandy-brown scales and large horns squatting down next to Nelen and Reshephia.

“Theeeeeeeeere we go.” said the wyrm in a surprisingly high pitched voice, then in a swirl of sand the small blonde-haired girl from earlier was there, still in her black and white robes and holding her staff. “You two tend to panic easy huh?” she giggled.

Nelen stared at her, his jaw hanging open as she looked around. “So yeah, guess I can still hop the timelines to this world with all this craziness going on. My name is Chromie, of the bronze dragonflight, and I can get all these extras home where they belong!” she smiled, nodding. “Its kinda my job, keeping timelines in order… I mean a crash this big might even hit my world if its bad enough.”

Nelen found his voice, “… that’s a dragon.” he managed, falling silent again. Nobody, nobody at the Wulfshead or in Clan Fullmoon or anyone would ever believe this in a million years.

“Yep, bronze dragonflight, like I said.” she replied, raising her eyebrow at him. “Does… your world not have dragons?” she asked curiously, looking around, “Looks pretty fancy… well… what bits aren’t on fire. Guess all these extras did some damage huh?” she whistled as she looked around at the chaos wrought by several dozen supernaturally empowered teenagers.

Nelen stared, opened his mouth, closed it again, then raised his hand, then lowered it, then managed “… dragon.” in a stunned tone.

Chromie looked at him quizzically, raising her eyebrow, then shrugged and slammed the base of her staff against the ground, a huge portal of swirling sands appearing behind her. “ALRIGHT! Everyone who’s not supposed to be in this timeline, line up and enter the portal and we’ll get you back home! C’mon everyone, there might be treats involved!” she offered.

Slowly, the crowd of alternate Stephys looked between each other, then shrugged and began to file into the portal, each of them disappearing with a faint pop.

Nelen watched them go, and as the last one went in Chromie walked to it, then turned and waved, “Nice meeting you all. Bye!” she smiled, then vanished into it as the portal fell shut with a snap.

“… that… was a dragon.” stammered Nelen. “Someone, anyone, tell me you got a picture of that.” he asked.

Dawn grinned and held up her smartphone, “Yo.”

“That’s my girl.” he chuckled weakly.

Reshephia sighed, “Right, if that’s sorted…” she walked over to him, then reached into his pocket and snatched the remains of the bracelet out of it. “I’m going to go defuse this before it blows us into next week. Literally.” she frowned, heading back towards the hotel.

Simoni blinked slowly, having half-hidden behind Arja when Chromie revealed her true form to the crowd. “Um… what just happened?”

“I’m going to file this under ‘deus ex machina’ and leave it at that.” nodded her brother, clearing his throat. “But yeah, that sorts out that… we should probably get back to the hotel and…” he began, but an angry voice cut him off.

“What. THE ACTUAL FUCK. Is going on?!” shouted a familiar voice.

Coming up the street toward them was Aisha DeLane, wearing just a pair of jeans and a teeshirt that looked like she just threw them on, Claiomh Solias holstered on her hip. “Anyone wanna tell me why half of New Orleans is WRECKED right now?! What the hell did ya’ll do?!”

Nelen paused, then looked around. Now that the immediate issue of a swarm of Stephys was sorted out, it became apparent that the mob had seriously damaged the city. Fires were flickering in the distance, several buildings were encased in Arcadian flora, cars had been flipped over, blown up, or transformed into something amusing. It was a scene of supernatural madness!

“Uh… shit…” whispered Nelen. There was no way in hell that Rajesh could afford to fix this. A single hotel perhaps, but half an American City? “Okay. Kids? Get the fuck back to the hotel. Get your shit. We’re going back to India. Now.” he nodded.

“Fullmoon, what the fuck happened?!” demanded Aisha, glaring at him.

“I’ll tell you when we’re safely outside reality okay? Now c’mon!” he said as he began running back towards their lodgings, the rest of the group hurrying along as well. If they were lucky this would somehow get spun as a very unnatural disaster, but one that they could get relief money for. If not… well what the hell were they supposed to do?!

Dawn jogged along next to him, grinning, “Hey cheer up, could’ve been worse.” she nodded.

Nelen puffed along, glancing at her, “Worse how?!” he asked incredulously.

“One of those Stephys could have been a wendigo.” she smirked.

Nelen snorted, shaking his head. “Fuckin’ wendigos man…” he sighed.

Next Story

Previous Story

[cooplagoop]

Coop rants about the (im)possible Overwatch Netflix series

So in a recent interview (9th of November 2023) with the executive producer Jared Neuss Gamespot asked him about the possibility of an Overwatch animated Netflix series and he just gave the vaguest answer and tries to obviously deflect the topic.

It feels like he wanted to say no, there is no Netflix series and there never will be, but didn't want to upset fans who have been practically begging for this animated show since 2017.

Even if Overwatch got a Netflix series there's the question of what or who would it be about? The game has nearly 40 heroes. How would the Netflix series relate to pve?

The easiest route the Netflix series could go is to follow the original strike team fighting in the first Omnic crisis, however that version of Overwatch was not led by bootleg Captain America, but by a brown Latino and Ana wasn't a support or mother at that time, so they'd actually have to write her character as well as include Jack and Vincent's romance since the Declassified book stated that they met during the crisis.

Basically Blizzard has to actually write about poc and gay people. The two things they don't want to do the most judging from how little queerness they allow Soldier 76 to display, how they never confirm wether Reyes is Mexican or some other Latino ethnicity just give us hints about it and how Ana is often times shelved in favour of other characters (mostly male; Cassidy, Soldier) while the writers pretend like they wrote a 30 page essay fleshing out her character when they did no such thing.

So route A is a not happening outside of fanfiction.

Route B is to have one-off animated episodes of varying lenght focusing on one or two heroes in specific.

Blizzard already does route B with their cinematics. However they're always under 10 minutes which seems to be a general rule with their cinematics.

If they started making episodes on Netflix they'd no longer have to oblige by the 10 minute rule. More episode time = more story which is what fans have always wanted.

However, this also means more investment,more manpower, more resources, more of the writing staff not writing Pve (which is in the game while the Netflix series is not).

In layman's terms greedy execs don't want to give anyone anymore money than they are legally required to, not the dev team, not Netflix and certanly not some 3rd party animation studio on top of it all.

As much as I want a Netflix series and more story content, Jared Neuss has the most realistic idea of just focusing on the game.

It's just not going to happen without unionizing. The devs are already streached thin with both making content for each season of the battlepass, hero balancing, pve writing, developing new event game modes like Trials of Sanctuary and Concert Clash etc etc

I doubt it will get better when Bobby Kotick leaves after 2023 ends as AAA videogame company CEOs are scum one way or the other.

But there is always hope. Sag-aftra writers were able to reach their goals recently. So maybe someday soon, the employees of the videogame industry will do the same.

[breakingarrows]

A Response to “Live Service Ruined Gaming” by NovemberHotel on YouTube.

I will preface this by saying that I am not writing this because I outright disagree or want to argue with or think NovemberHotel is wrong or dumb or anything like that. I am writing this because I watched the video a week or so ago and thought it made some good points and brought up some things I didn’t know about, but that I think it could be improved upon and made stronger in certain ways. I also believe that too often the “discourse” is really just people posting their opinions on Twitter or YouTube or whatever platform they choose without ever engaging in actual, real Conversation with other people, so here is my attempt to make a Conversation with this video as the subject.

“Players get a constant influx of content, and developers get a constant influx of money.”

I think the word usage of developers is a little dishonest here when it comes to who receives the majority of money a game makes, especially when comparing different studios and their owners/publishers. In this beginning montage we view gameplay footage from: Sea of Thieves, Overwatch 2, No Man’s Sky, Destiny 2, and Diablo IV. Beginning with the basic fact that, the people who are actually working day to day on these games are being paid a salary or an hourly rate regardless of the game’s monumental success or a significant failure. There might be a bonus based on the game’s launch or long term success, but you better hope it relies on a reachable goal, as we know games will sell well but fail to meet a metacritic average that allows a publisher and/or executive to walk away with all that money. This happened to Obsidian Entertainment and Fallout: New Vegas (a game you will be seeing pop up quite often in this video) in 2010 when Bethesda tied the bonus payment to a Metacritic score that Obsidian missed by just one decimal. Sea of Thieves comes from Rare, a Microsoft owned developer and you know Microsoft is funneling any and all financial success that game earns to its various executives such as Phil Spencer, the friendly common man who takes in more money in one year than you or I will ever see in our entire life. Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV are the latest from the Activision owned Blizzard, a company whose independence from its owner has only deteriorated more and more over time to where the two are pretty much indistinguishable from each other nowadays. I believe it was on a Giant Bomb podcast many years ago that they were discussing how Blizzard now is not the same as Blizzard in, say, 2009. The meaning being that Activison had more control over the direction Blizzard takes whereas beforehand Blizzard was free to continue operating as it had successfully for many years. No Man’s Sky is an independently produced game that has been shopped around to various publishers from Sony to 505 Games to Bandai Namco for its physical releases. Hello Games was infamously screwed over by Sony in their marketing of the game. For some, the amount of responsibility or fault between the two I’m sure will be debated forever. Also, in regards to No Man’s Sky appearances going forward, the game has only ever had a one time buy in with all updates and additions being free. Destiny 2 began life as an Activision product, no matter what independence Bungie attempts to trot out as part of their own pride. I do find that NovemberHotel’s comment about the Mental Health Resources tab on Bungie’s website despite them specifically creating a game that takes advantage of the mental state of players and used behavioral psychologist to help them incentivize people to buy into their game with both time and money is a great example of the bullshit corporate speaking to social issues but it only ever being empty words. For these developers who are owned by larger corporations, we all know Bobby Kotick is the one stuffing his pockets with your cosmetic purchase funds, not the engineer or animator or community manager you are yelling at on Twitter, Reddit, etc.

I do agree with the comment that customers are allowing this to happen more than they are not. This reminds me of the infamous Apex Legends “boycott” for August 2022’s season which ended with Apex having the largest new season playerbase of all time. Reddit is NOT representative of the majority of players. Sadly, yes, enough people are willing to pay and buy into these various live service games and that is why we keep seeing them happen despite the mounting failures.

In regards to live service meaning games now have “second chances” at life after launch I do think it is a double edged sword. I think games media can be too much of a forgiving optimist in terms of always having that saving grace of, “Well it could always get better, we’ll see!” which exempts them somehow from doing any real criticism of the game as it exists now. I know games are fluid with the advent of online consoles and patches but I also do agree that games that launch and are “not good,” do seem to get a pass in terms of, “well it could get better.” I do not agree however with the assertion that good reviews = good sales. Okami, Psychonauts, Bayonetta, and Beyond Good & Evil are some great games that were reviewed well but sold poorly. On the flip end, Homefront, Enter the Matrix, Resident Evil 6, Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), and Aliens: Colonial Marines reviewed poorly but were still commercial successes. Reviews don’t matter when it comes to sales. Also the image that first conjured up my interest in writing up a response was when he shows Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario 64 as masterpieces developers were “forced” to put out due to the lack of post-launch updates. Except, Final Fantasy VII has a infamously bad translation that carried forward to even its release on PSN in 2009. Also, I have the obvious claim that these games are regarded as classics, yes, but don’t act like there aren’t any contemporary games that are regarded as classics upon their day one release: Disco Elysium, Breath of the Wild, and Elden Ring. Let’s not act like every game released in 1996 was a complete and perfect product. I do think it is very telling that he mentions, “But the convenience that comes with patching a game post launch, allows these studios to ship incomplete, buggy, imbalance, and outright broken games with the promise of live service support to address feedback on these issue and fix them later.” He will later go on to feature many clips of Fallout: New Vegas, implicitly as an example of a game done right. Fallout: New Vegas which was infamously criticized for being incomplete, buggy, imbalanced, and outright broken at launch! I was there! You probably were too! Don’t act like Fallout: New Vegas was held as the beacon of how to release a game in 2010 because we know it wasn’t!

I very much agree with live service games being a carrot on the stick in which you are strung along to always come back and buy into their store. I’ve never given into the instinct but I acknowledge it is there that I want to obtain everything that exists for a given game I’m playing, I want to have it “whole” and “complete” but live service games make this impossible on purpose in order to keep you playing and to keep you spending and it is not good for the players. These games being designed to specifically keep you occupied at all times and prey on the FOMO of content is insidious and gross, but again, I lay the blame at the feet of the publishers. I don’t think anyone at Arkane Austin wanted to make Redfall, I think Bethesda, their owner, saw the success of live service games and told Arkane to make one regardless of their own interests. I doubt Gotham Knights was the game WB Games Montréal wanted to make had they the freedom of choice. 

NovmeberHotel’s argument in favor of in-game currency unlocks and progression systems is pretty much the same that my response has been to things such as lootboxes and battle passes. In my argument though it is Halo: Reach in place of Call of Duty: Black Ops, but the results and principles are largely the same. Cosmetics existed within the game and could be added, but were unlocked via in-game challenges or by earning credits by playing which could then be spent on whatever cosmetic you had unlocked and desired at that time. Going from Halo: Reach to Halo 5, I no longer could reliably unlock a cosmetic I wanted, I had to gamble on lootboxes and hope it was included in whatever drop I received. This was a BAD change. I do, however, prefer the additional maps being automatically added in a large portion of online games instead of premium paid add-ons as it reliably keeps the playerbase shared instead of segmented, which can make contemporary matches in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops difficult because not everyone owns all the maps, so they rarely, if ever, appear in matchmaking today. Also I acknowledge the reduction of overall content but I think this is largely to be blamed on the increased fidelity in games that the audience demands. Battleblock can afford total destruction because it is literally blocks of right angles, whereas Battlefield 2042 has to be the most modern shiny technically impressive graphical engine which therefore loses out on destructibility at the scale previously seen. These games are only getting more expensive to make as we race to the bottom in terms of fidelity with more and more people being required to render the textures at larger and larger resolutions at a consistent framerate. I do agree that modern games appear to revolve around profiting off of FOMO and whale players.

I do bemoan that single player games are now also introducing battle passes and microtransactions, Ubisoft being the primary offender in this regard. I will also always cheer on those who point out how hostile publishers are to modders and fan-created works that improve upon the original game. Modding, piracy, emulation, and all of their ilk are worthy of praise and support and have done more for the medium than pretty much all major publishers combined.

I’m not entirely sure if I believe Live Service is here to stay. I really hate that Sony has twelve live service games in production (whether the disappointing live service adaptation of Marathon remains to be seen) but I do think the amount of failures, specifically financial failures, will be something the decision makers will be taking into account as they continue to pile up.