#I hate this ai implementation with my whole chest

[jojo-schmo]

How to turn off AI Training of your content on Web and Mobile:

On a Web Browser:

I had some trouble finding this option. My first instinct was to click the settings button on the left, but that's where it is!

First, you'll click the name of your blog on the left sidebar to bring it up on your browser.

Then click "Blog settings" on the right sidebar once your blog is brought up. That's where they're hiding it.

Click "Prevent Third-Party Sharing" under the Visibility section, and bam! You're done.

On Mobile:

Thankfully it's much easier on mobile. Just click the Gear icon on your blog's page, to go to settings.

Scroll all the way down until you see Visibility, then toggle the Prevent third-party sharing option for your blog!!

If you disable this setting on mobile, it automatically synced it to my web browser settings, too. ...But if you use both Web and Mobile, I would still highly recommend double checking that it actually turned off on both!!

Check that it's turned off on your side blogs too! And check your settings every now and then anyway to ensure that it's staying turned off, because if my memory serves right, some other websites will pull some shenanigans on things like this and opt you back in without telling you!

Leave Feedback on New Features at Tumblr Support Here!! Let Staff know however we can that having our content fed to AI at their whim is unacceptable.

And if you have the option to poison your art with Nightshade or Glaze, keep it up!!

[httpssheepnwolf]

Evaluation

Media and techniques

For this project, I made a side scroller type of game which I haven’t done for a while so I had to relearn most of the things that I learnt during my first ever project. I leant how to make a game from a blank project rather than using one of the default presets that the game gives you, and I also learnt how to make a local multiplayer game. I managed to get this done by using YouTube tutorials to guide me towards making the ideas I had come true in the game. 

Purpose / theme / concept

Usually whenever I ran into a problem, I would use YouTube, however this term I used quite a few print strings whilst testing out things. This meant I would be able to see why the code wasn’t working as I wanted it to, and then find out how to fix it either by realizing I forgot to check mark something, or just by changing a couple of nodes. I chose to make my game about a sheep and a wolf since one of the themes for the project was Noah’s Ark, and the whole story aspect of the brief was left in chests in the game. The relevancy I wanted to get was the whole unclean and clean animals. A wolf is unclean whilst a sheep is clean. This also meant that I met the whole team part of the brief, since you have to work together to get through the level. Honestly, I seriously hated this whole thing, I’d prefer to just stick to single player games. It feels more fun that way for me as a creator. 

Outcome

I met my expectations of me absolutely hating this whole project. Though I do like the whole 2.5D game I made, and will probably choose to do that for my FMP too, I disliked having to make it collaborative in one way or another. Since I didn’t want to work in a team, and absolutely despised AI from the last project, it left me with no choice but to make it multiplayer. Another thing I disliked was the themes. I would’ve preferred the choice to do anything, or maybe for all of us to have a theme of our own so we can just do whatever. I feel like I didn’t have much creative freedom for this project.

Conclusion

For this project, I definitely could’ve done a lot better. Things such as a longer level and more mechanism that the players needed to use to help each other through, or even just make it so that the space between the two players needing to do something to help each other longer so that there wasn’t a load of sitting around and waiting for the other player. I suppose I could do a little more research for next time to help me with ideas, however I personally don’t think research helps or is actually necessary after you’ve got the basics of the game. To improve, I certainly have to make sure I like the project. If I don’t like the theme, or project, or any of the base stuff given, I won’t make it as good as it can be because I’ll have little to no motivation for it. Furthermore, doing more in a day would also help, because that means I can implement more ideas into my game if I just get going with it. 

[loca-girl]

~Even The Invincible Iron Man Can Get Sick~

•This is a fic about Tony being sick, Peter finding out, and him being the good son he is taking care of Tony.•

Tony felt terrible.

He had woken up that morning with a terrible headache and some nausea.

Yeah, what a great start to the day.

Tony felt completely drained and had even given into the thought of just laying in bed all day.

Which was so unlike him.

Usually Tony hated sleep and often pulled all nighters, that is, until a certain spider child decided to nearly copy everything he did. He didn't want Peter to follow into his bad habits so Tony begrudgingly went to bed and slept at night.

When Tony's feet made contact with the cold floor of the ground below, he couldn't help but shiver and let out a gasp. Quickly bringing his feet back up.

Hugging the comforter tightly around his body, he tried a second attempt at getting out of bed.

Luckily this time he was successful, though his reward was painful and cold.

He took in a breath of the cold air and coughed, moving the comforter so that he could cough into the warm fabric.

This day just kept getting worse and worse.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.," Tony's voice sounded dry and sickly. "What time is it?"

"It is exactly 8:34 sir," The AI responded. "I would suggest staying in bed today as you have a fever of approximately 101.2 degrees. Would you like me to alert Ms. Potts?"

"No, no! That won't be necessary F.R.I." Tony responds, not really wanting Pepper to know yet. "I'll tell her myself even though I'm sure it looks obvious. If I feel this shitty on the inside, I'm sure I look it on the outside."

And he was right.

Looking into a mirror, Tony saw dark circles under his eyes. Sweat coated his forehead even though he was freezing, and his hair was a tangley and sweaty mess as well.

All around, he looked terrible.

Tony decided to take a hot shower that he hoped would make him look and feel better.

He turned the water as hot as he could and got in.

It felt good and helped him into a more awake state.

He could do it.

He could take on the day and forget all about whatever the fuck bug decided to crawl into his system.

That state of mind however, left when he emerged from the shower.

The headache returned to what felt like ten times worse, and the nausea too.

"Ugghhhhh." Tony groaned and put a hand on his forehead.

"What the fuck Tony?" Pepper's voice came from out of nowhere.

"Holy shit Pep, where did you come from?" Tony exclaims, moving the hand down onto his arc reactor. Pepper had scared the shit out of him.

"Holy shit yourself Tony," Pepper moves into the bathroom and over to Tony. "Here, let me help."

Pepper places her hand softly on Tony's forehead.

"You have a fever." She confirms.

"Yeah I know," Tony responds. "F.R.I. told me."

"Well why wasn't I informed? You shouldn't be up Tony. You need to be in bed."

"I was going to tell you. Guess I don't need to do that now." Tony mumbles.

"C'mon, let's get you to bed." Pepper wraps her arms around Tony's waist and back so she can help him to bed.

"Pep, I love you and I appreciate you so much. But I can get to bed on my own I mean hell, I got out of it." Tony unwraps her arms and carefully holds her hands in his own clammy and sweaty ones.

"Shut up and let's go." Pepper pulls him out of the bathroom and to the bed.

She makes Tony sit down on the bed and leaves to go get him some Tylenol and a glass of water.

"Here." she hands it to him.

"Thanks."

Once he had taken the Tylenol and drank the whole glass of water, Tony lays down.

Pepper shuts the bedroom's curtains so that there's no light to bother Tony.

"Pep," Tony remembers. "Don't you have an important meeting today with those people from Dubai?"

"I do but I think I'm gonna cancel it." Pepper brings the bed covers up to Tony's chest.

"What, why?"

"I need to take care of a Mister Tony Stark."

"Pep, no offense, but I'm a grown ass adult who can take care of himself. You're needed way more at the meeting."

"Ugh Tony don't flatter yourself," Pepper rolls her eyes and gives Tony a soft kiss on the top of his head. "We both know that's not true. I'll go, but if you need anything, tell F.R.I.D.A.Y. to send for me."

"Will do Pep." Tony agrees.

"And Tony," Pepper gently grabs the sides of his face so they can look each other in the eyes. "I mean anything. Don't be an idiot and refuse help. Sometimes you can't do stuff alone and need help."

"I know and I promise I will," Tony leans his face towards hers and kisses her on the lips. "Now go show those people what SI is all about."

"Okay." Pepper smiles and proceeds to leave the room, shutting the door behind her.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"Yes Ms. Potts?" The AI responds.

"Make sure he actually listens to me and doesn't do anything stupid."

"Of course ma'am."

Pepper leaves the penthouse and goes to her meeting.

~Meanwhile in Queens~

Peter and Ned strolled down the halls of Midtown as they made their way to the next class.

Ned was busy telling Peter about how he swore his cousin had taken his Lego Luke Skywalker.

"It couldn't be anyone else!" Ned said, exasperated. He threw his hands up dramatically. "I mean, one sec it was there, then he went into my room, came out, and Luke was gone."

"Ned are you sure you didn't misplace him?"

"Yeah, I know I didn't. Unless there's a ghost messing with me, I know it was him."

"I mean, I guess it could've been a ghost," Peter shrugs his shoulders. "Or maybe we've been watching too much BuzzFeed Unsolved. But why would your cousin wanna steal him?"

"That's easy. He loves Star Wars and he doesn't have a Luke Skywalker like I do. So he stole mine and now I'm never gonna get him back. Luke is in uncharted territory now, upstate New York. In Buffalo. So close but so far away." Ned dramatically reaches his hand out.

“How old is your cousin?"

"Six."

"Oh. Okay then."

They reach their classroom and walk in.

"Sup losers." MJ says as Ned and Peter sit down. Their seats thankfully near each other. Peter sits behind Ned and MJ sits to the right of Ned.

"Hey MJ." Comes the chorus from Peter and Ned.

"What's going on?" MJ asks.

That sends Ned off again.

"MJ you are not gonna believe the kind of day I'm having. So it started with my cousin who-" Ned starts to tell MJ his story but Peter's mind wanders off.

He couldn't wait to leave school and go over to Stark Tower. Mr. Stark and him were gonna work on a prototype gadget that would eventually be implemented into both of their suits.

He didn't know what the gadget was gonna be though. Mr. Stark had told him it was a surprise.

"Alright class," Peter's snapped out of his thoughts by the teacher's voice. "Pull out your textbooks and let's get started."

|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|

School dragged on for Peter.

He kept glancing at the clock nearly every minute, thinking that at least fifteen minutes must've gone by. Only to find it had only been two.

Finally though, after what felt like an eternity, it ended and Peter was able to leave prison, ahem I mean school.

He walked to the subway station and took a train over to Manhatten. He knows that Tony prefers Happy to pick up Peter for his safety, but Peter prefers the freedom of taking the subway. I mean hey, he's been riding it by himself for years now.

My Kid: I'm on my way Mr. Stark!

Peter texts Tony.

Usually Peter gets a reply almost immediately because F.R.I.D.A.Y. informs Tony of the text, but not this time.

"Maybe Mr. Stark is in that meeting with Pepper," Peter thinks to himself. "I hope I'm not gonna be in the way."

The rest of the ride to the tower is long and, as every second ticks by, Peter gets more anxious.

He tries to take his mind off of it by continuing to talk to Ned about his missing Lego figure.

Ned was trying to come up with a plan to get it back. You'd swear Ned was talking about an actual person and not a toy with how he was handling the situation.

When Peter finally made it to his stop, he exited the train and walked the rest of the way to the tower.

Arriving, Peter walks through the tower's sleek and modern doors into the grand lobby.

He breezes right through security and gives the guards a little wave. They of course wave back, adoring the boy who earned the nickname "Little Stark."

"F.R.I.D.A.Y. where is Mr. Stark at?" Peter asks the AI as he gets into the private elevator.

"Mr. Stark is currently in the penthouse." The AI responds in a cheerful tone.

"Awesome. Could you take me there?"

"Of course Peter." The elevator proceeds to climb up the floors to the penthouse.

Once it stops and the doors open, Peter exits the elevator and walks to the penthouse's kitchen. Usually whenever Peter got there and Tony was in the penthouse he was in there grabbing a quick snack.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter walks into the grand kitchen.

Tony isn't in sight though.

Peter's super hearing picks up coughing coming from somewhere in the apartment.

He follows the noise to Tony's bedroom.

‘So that's where Mr. Stark is.’ Peter thinks to himself.

Peter lightly knocks on the door. "Mr. Stark, it's me. It's Peter."

Tony hears the voice.

Obviously Tony would know that voice anywhere. He could recognize Peter no matter what.

Tony was surprised that the kid was here. That is, until he remembered it was a lab day for the both of them.

In all his craziness with being sick and stuff, he had oddly forgotten about Peter coming over. Tony had never done that before. Ever.

"Hey kid," Tony's dry and broken voice came from inside the room. "You should probably go home. I'm not feeling the greatest and don't want you to get sick."

Peter obviously doesn't listen to him and opens the door, finding Tony looking quite miserable on his bed.

Tony looks over at the boy who is making his way to the bed.

"Peter," Tony's voice breaks out. "You should keep your distance. I'll have Happy take you home."

Peter took in Mr. Stark's appearance. He looked more than miserable. Beads of sweat sat on his forehead from an obviously high fever, his hair sweaty as well. His nose was red and the bags under his eyes made it look like the man hadn't slept in years. Peter couldn't imagine what the poor man must feel like. Peter hadn't been sick in such a long time.

"I'm gonna stay," the kid made up his mind. "You don't have to worry about infecting me. Thanks to the spider bite, I can't catch whatever bug you have.

"I know kid. But I don't want to risk it. Plus, we can't really do anything fun today. I'd probably pass out in the lab and that wouldn't be good. Why don't I have Happy take you to Ned's house?" Tony suggests.

"Please let me stay Mr. Stark. I can get you things you need, like a glass of water and Tylenol. I can even make you grilled cheese if you get hungry. Please." The kid begs to his father.

Tony takes a good look at the kid, his kid. The sincerity and concern in the kid's expression made Tony's heart burst with joy. He'd never understand how a sweet and precious kid like Peter could ever find a father in a terrible and selfish man like himself. Nevertheless though, he was more than thrilled to be a father to Peter.

Out of everything Tony had ever done or made, including becoming Iron Man and all his inventions, being Peter's father and getting to watch the kid take off into the world was his greatest pride and joy.

How could he resist the care from his kid?

"Alright," Tony agrees. "But only because I know you can't get my sickness and I'll be able to keep an eye on you."

"Thank you!!" The kid whisper shouts, knowing from experience that Tony's ears are more sensitive at the moment. "And you don't need to keep an eye on me. I'm good at taking care of myself."

"Sure kid. Sure."

"Hey! I am." Peter points at himself, causing Tony to laugh at the kid's defensiveness.

"Whatever you say Underoos."

"Ugh fine, I can sorta take care of myself," Peter gives in. "Now do you need me to grab you anything? Like I said, I can make one amazing grilled cheese sandwich."

"I'm pretty good right now. Could you help me move to the couch in the family room though? I figure it'd be easier to grab things from there and we could watch a movie."

"I'm pretty good right now. Could you help me move to the couch in the family room though? I figure it'd be easier to grab things from there and we could watch a movie."

"Of course." Peter moves to the man's side and helps him off of the gigantic bed.

They carefully walk to the family room, Peter helping to guide Tony and make sure he doesn't fall.

Walking into the family room, they sit down onto the comfy couch directly facing the huge TV.

Peter gets up and grabs a blanket for the both of them to share. If Peter was being honest, he liked cuddling into his father's side. Tony was one of the only few people who he could do that with. Unfortunately though, May was usually busy working unbelievably long hours at the hospital. He did have Pepper, Rhodey, and even Happy. Happy of course, would never admit to sharing a hug with the kid a few times.

Peter sits back down and cuddles into Tony's side. Letting the blanket sprawl over the both of them.

Tony rests his arm around the kid's shoulders and brings him closer into his side. Even though Tony felt like shit, this was the best he had felt all day. It might be selfish but he was happy the kid had stayed and could be with him.

"What should we watch?" The kid asks.

"Whatever you'd like Peter. I'm down for anything."

"How aboooooout....." Peter drags the word out and taps his chin in mock deep thinking. "We could watch a TV show. A cartoon one at that. How about The Simpsons?"

"That sounds awesome," Tony agrees. "Rhodey and I used to watch it all the time in college."

"Simpsons it is. F.R.I. could you turn on The Simpsons?" Peter kindly asks the AI.

"Of course Peter," the AI kindly responds. "Which season and episode would you like?"

"Surprise us."

"Of course." The TV turns on and a random episode of The Simpsons plays.

Peter and Tony stay like that for hours. Curled into one another with Peter getting up a few times to grab Tony a glass of water or anything else he needs.

"Tony falls asleep a few times throughout the hours. Peter dozes off a bit too.

At about seven, Tony wakes up and finds the kid sleeping soundly at his side. Peter's head lying softly on Tony's chest as a little bit of drool drips from the kid's mouth.

Tony chuckles at the adorableness.

"Y'know Pete," Tony quietly whispers. Not wanting to stir the Spider-Baby with super hearing. "I feel much better and it's thanks to you. You're the best medicine I could've asked for during this. Love you."

With that, Tony dozes off again.

|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|

Pepper gets back to the penthouse at about ten-ish. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had told her that Peter was taking care of Tony so she was able to get through the meeting without worrying.

Walking into the family room, Pepper finds them sleeping soundly on the couch with The Simpsons playing on mute on the big TV.

"F.R.I." she whispers to the AI. "Could you turn the TV off?"

"Of course." The AI answers and the TV shuts off.

Pepper goes to her grand bathroom and, stripping from her business clothes, she steps into her magnificent shower and washes all the grime off from the day's activities.

After the shower she changes into a comfy pair of pajamas and joins her two favorite people back in the family room.

She cuddles into the other side of Peter. Peter stirs a little bit and sleepily opens his eyes.

"Mom?" Peter mumbles out as his tired gaze meets hers.

"Yeah it's me bud." She answers with a smile on her face.

The boy closes his eyes and falls back asleep.

Pepper doing the same.

There they stayed.

Cuddled up to one another.

A perfect family.

Tony's sickness completely forgotten.

[vaguely-concerned]

Some more mass effect andromeda thinky thoughts as I run around heleus getting some achievements! 

- the murderous angaran ai is genuinely so fucking funny. “How are you feeling here on Aya?” “I hope you die” “Is there anything we could do to make you more comfortable?” “BURY THIS PLANET UNDER FIRE AND ASH” “o.oookay. Goodbye then.” “I HATE you.”

- I hope I never become irresistibly moved to write mass effect andromeda fic b/c there really is no other description for a good 70% of the expressions reyes makes than :> and how could one capture that in words

- as mentioned I’ve been doing a bit of achievement hunting and in the process I’ve been switching up a lot of gameplay stuff from how I handled it the first few times around and let me tell you it’s baller as fuuuuuuuuuck -- it just looks so awesome and is so satisfying between the maneuverability of the jetpack and biotic charge and the effects. special shoutout to what happens if you biotic charge a frozen victim enemy and the biotic pull/push combination. (throwing people around like ragdolls is actually so much fun I’ve kept doing it even after I unlocked the achievement lol)

- lol lol when you get meridian online there’s the montage of every planet coming back to life, right? well the one on kadara is from inside kralla’s song, with umi looking out at everything that’s happening. and all I can imagine is her jaded-ass voice going ‘what the fUCK did that asshole kid do now I only just cleaned up after the bar brawl he started with his krogan grandpa and now he’s rearranging the entire fucking planet right from under us goddess I need a drink’ 

- the implication that reyes ‘cards so close to my chest you won’t even know I’m playing’ vidal just does not shut up about how amazing ryder is to anyone who’ll listen gives me so much life. when you try to be mysterious and laidback but the human pathfinder is so fucking cute tho Y____Y (also go watch his scenes if you’re being standoffish with him the entire time -- he clearly wants ryder to like him so much right from the beginning, he’s doing so much work to no avail and I feel sort of bad for how funny I find it haha. interesting that it really does seem to be an emotional thing as well as y’know the practical/tactical benefits of having the pathfinder on his side. methinks the charlatan might be a bit lonely there behind all his masks lol) 

I think this is why I’m willing to give him some benefit of the doubt too, despite all the cloak and dagger stuff -- he’s so immediately drawn to ryder, who you can never make a bad person, really. something in him must respond to that, if potentially only in the ‘attracted to traits I do not possess myself’ way hahaha

- I love sam. so so much. some of the open world implementation is still grating (yes sam. yes I know I can mine this area for resources through my mining interface. we’ve been doing this for a hundred hours sam. you’ve been right here with me the entire time sam. please sam), but he’s SUCH a good and I’d argue underutilized concept (emotionally at least) and the best boy. the fact that he can get SARCASTIC on you fsdhfjsadh he’s growing and learning! he’s doing so from inside your brain which is kind of unsettling but also SO COOL! there’s something about that level of intimacy, of always knowing there will be someone there with you in your head that is super interesting and deserves to be examined more fully -- both how it could be comforting and how it’s  r e a l l y  not how people or ai are generally designed to work lol. 

he also gives us a unique link with our dad and I wonder if the writers would have explored that in more depth if there’d been more development time -- it practically SCREAMS out an invitation to get to play/see things from alec’s POV in short bursts, like the memories you unlock except you could go through playing it as him since sam is common to both of us. (see my ‘our dad comes back through either kett or remnant nonsense in the sequel and we need to find some way to connect with him’ idea. it would be. amazing. listen alec already looked at the ethical guidelines involved in creating ai and went ‘huh interesting ideas but not for me thanks!’, don’t tell me he wouldn’t have left some loophole in so this could happen)  

- reyes literally says ‘the cavalry’s here’ when we get to meridian and I for one love him more than words can express (he also asks us if we’re okay in sort of a sweet/worried way right before we get to the control room. aw buddy) 

- like we don’t think of them like that because we’re in control of them and see all the stumbles and awkwardness and how young they are all the time, but damn the ryder twins must look like something else to everyone in andromeda haha. they literally stride around like demigods restoring entire planets. on voeld spring non-metaphorically follows in their footsteps. shit dude if we’re talking realpolitik here the angara must feel  p r e t t y nervous about this -- there’s no one saying they can’t turn off the vaults as easily as they turned them on. I hope we get them somehow teaching the angara how to do it too, on a smaller scale at least, as a show of good faith or something in a sequel, because that power imbalance is disconcerting  

- I’m glad sam and I have such similar priorities whenever we’re on kadara. ‘maybe mr vidal would know. perhaps we should ask mr vidal about this. mr vidal said something relating to this pathfinder maybe we should speak to him’ . yeah sam i know the feeling, same (it does undeniably read as sam having a bit of a crush which is. hilarious?) 

- the fact that alec ryder thought ellen responded to his bad boy act in any way when what really charmed her was that he was a great big nerd <3 it’s kind of nice to see a fictional marriage that seems to have just been. nice and stable and chill? just two intellectual equals who like and respect each other very much and not a lot of drama until alec went full alec and started developing rogue ai instead of watching his wife die lol. again I would love for the sequel to involve ellen finally waking up and being like ‘death? trying to claim MY husband? I do not think so, I can die he can’t he’s not leaving me behind’ and helping out and you realize that the reason they were soulmates was that under the relatively rational and unemotional surface they’re both, at heart, batshit crazy mad scientists who are insanely devoted to each other. imagine it tho! the people of andromeda realize alec ryder is back from the dead somehow and doing some Shit out there, they put a ton of resources into curing ellen’s disease because their best shot is something to do with the implants she made, hey presto we’ve got all ryders on the board and in play. 

- just want to make it clear that I’m still sad about avitus rix and hope he’s having a good day

- do you think ryder ever asks sam to read something to him ‘aloud’ in his head if he’s anxious and can’t sleep. or just to talk at him about something boring until he nods off. again the possibilities inherent in the concept!!! he has someone who’s closer to him than any other person could be, what’s that like? 

- *me sticking to my sidewinder pistol the whole playthrough even though it’s laughably inefficient* I just wanna feel like a cowboy bioware please work with me here

- the male ryder voice actor has such amazing comedic timing, there’s a lot of reaction stuff out in the field he absolutely nails. I enjoy the female voice too and I like how much emotion she manages to convey towards the end of the game especially, but there’s a casual comedy in male ryder’s voice that can’t be beat. (well, it’s not hawke levels, but then nothing ever is, that’s too much to ask)

- I love vorn and kesh so much. nerd krogans unite & make out

- I still want to sit peebee down and have a long serious talk with her about emotional abuse, maybe give her a hug :( fuck kalinda 

- this game does not get enough credit for how stunningly beautiful it is, it all got buried under criticism about the animations and it’s a fucking shame. the last few vaults you go through are just mindboggling in scale and visual uh striking-ness. it makes me so sad to think there won’t be any more of it D: 

- I really like this mainly casual + logical dialogue options ryder I’ve found; it makes him sound like a younger and more irreverent version of his father, but also softer and less closed off and much more willing to show affection for his family especially. 

- i wonder if different people’s individual SAMs will take on a certain tone/unique pattern when they’ve coexisted long enough. have I mentioned. how much I want a sequel to this game 

- one last reyes note because don’t look at me okay -- I wonder how much we’re meant to read into ‘being honorable never got me anywhere’. on the one hand I’m fully prepared to believe he’s never even tried doing anything the honorable way in his entire life lol but on the other there’s also some interesting potential in the interplay of that sentence and ‘to be someone’. (there seems to be a deep fear in him both of powerlessness and of being truly seen/recognized -- he equates secrecy with safety pretty explicitly -- which seems... telling? of what I don’t know but telling all the same hahaha) like he might be saying he’s tried doing things the ‘right’ way and it didn’t work and the price was too high, so he just went for this instead with the ends low-key justifying the means. hmmm. :Ia (this is what happens when I get Attached to a character with like an hour of screentime my friends, and I’m already primed to give my entire heart away at the sound of nicholas boulton’s voice)

[greetingsfromthebottomofthewell]

NES GODZILLA CREEPYPASTA - CHAPTER 3: TRANCE

[directory]

there is no monster here.

[source] [triggers]

I was still pretty shook up from the last level when I started "Trance". Trance's map music did nothing to ease the tension. As for how to describe it...have you ever heard the theme from Videodrome? That's the closest thing I can think of it to compare it to.

I checked to see who the new monster was, and it was Orga. A monster who didn't make his film debut until 2000, appearing in a game made in 1988. So much for my theories about Titanosaurus and Biollante. There's no way this game was made in 1988!

Those guys at Toho may be smart, but I'm sure they couldn't see that far into the future. If they could, they never would have gave Roland Emmerich the rights to make a Godzilla movie.

No, this had to be a hack of some kind. Which just opened up even more questions. Who made this hack? When? How ? And most importantly, why? The "why?" was the question that bothered me most.

My immediate assumption was to think Billy did this to pull a joke on me. But that couldn't be right either. Billy didn't know how to make a ROM hack.

And if he did, he'd probably just do something simple and stupid, like replacing all the monsters with crudely drawn genitalia. Unless Billy had amazing game editing skills, and a serious dark streak to his imagination that he never told me about, he couldn't have made this. Is it even possible to put a hacked ROM into a cartridge?

Aside from all that, my eye was drawn to a new icon on the map: a question mark. I was really curious as to what it did.

I'm sure you're also curious, So I'll explain the "Quiz Levels" now, since this was when they start appearing. There was one of these per map from here on, and they always appeared near the start of the map.

When you start on a "Quiz Level", you appear on a screen like this:

As you can see, there's a question at the top, a "yes" and "no" button, and a emoticon in the center. I refer to the emoticon as "Face" (real creative, I know), and for convenience, I'll refer to Face as the one asking the questions.

The music for the quiz levels was a track actually in the game, it's the one that plays when you try to use the "Gh1d0ra" cheat and get sent to an unplayable level.

Face asks you twelve "Yes or No" questions, and you move your monster to the buttons for your answer. When you answer, the question disappears and Face changes expressions for about eight seconds, then he goes back to neutral and a new question comes up. There was no time limit, nor any right or wrong answers.

Face has no respect for the player's personal boundaries, and will sometimes ask deeply disturbing and personal questions, For example: (Do you like hurting people?) (Have you ever killed/raped anyone?) (Have you been molested by a family member?)

Other times he would ask questions that were either mind-numbingly stupid (Is the Sun hot?) (Is water wet?) or just flat out ridiculous (Does your dog like the President?) and maybe once per quiz, Face would ask you a question about the game.

With one exception, Face's expression changes seemed to have no effect on the game, except for indicating what the game creator thought of your answer. His reactions rarely made any sense, and at first I thought they were randomly generated.

The questions never followed a pattern, Face never stayed on the same subject for more than two questions. Early on, there were questions that made me think Face was building up to something, only to then ask some stupid garbage.

Here are the expressions of Face that I saw while playing. I'll separate them into two categories: The expressions I understood, and the expressions I didn't.

First are the expressions I understood:

Neutral, his default expression

Angry (If you try to attack Face, his expression changes to this, but nothing else happens)

Sad

Happy

Sick

Maniacal (Face made this expression when he was being an asshole. You'll see what I mean later)

Surprised

Love

Annoyed

Confused

Guilty/Hurt

And here are the others:

Two of these only appeared once (Numbers #1 and #12), and I suspected they might have been in-jokes from the creator. Their respective questions were "Do you like Ice Cream?" and "Are you a tough guy?".

As for the questions in the first Quiz: Luckily, I had a notepad and pen handy. I have problems remembering things, so I often carry one around to jot things down, and sometimes I doodle in it when I'm bored. So when the first quiz started I thought I'd record what happened. I'm glad I did.

Here are the first series of questions, my answers, and Face's reaction:

Quiz 1

Do you like the game? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Happy

Are you afraid Answer: Yes, Reaction: Surprised

Are you over 18? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #5

Do birds have teeth? Answer: No, Reaction: Love

Is peanut butter good? Answer: No, Reaction: Sick

Does the moon rotate? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #11

Have you had a job? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Confused

Do you like hurting people? Answer: No, Reaction: Annoyed

Is the Sun hot? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Sad

Do you like dogs? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Happy

Is the president good? Answer: Yes, Reaction: Weird Face #3

Does your dog like the President? Answer: No, Reaction: Angry

Now that I've explained all that, time for the gameplay.

After the Quiz level, I tried the new green temple icon first.

Wow. Maybe this is why the game was so weird – one of the designers was clearly drugged out of his mind!

Jokes aside, I was quite impressed by the graphics of this level, as disorienting as they were (But I hate those creepy, blank staring statue faces). The music had a hypnotic, Indian techno vibe to it.

There were two new enemies in this level: a flying ghost type thing with a trunk, and a bat with a horse skull for a face. They appear at random, but I was lucky to get a screencap of them both:

Then I proceeded to a blue mountain level, expecting another nice, calm stroll. I took my time walking through, and was completely taken by surprise when this happened:

Not-Moguera came speeding towards me and took off quite a bit of health with his tentacle screws! It only took me two minutes to kill him without having to worry about a time limit, but the boss monsters NEVER showed up in the scrolling levels in the normal game. I was worried as to what other rules the game would break.

After another blue mountain stage, it was time to fight Not-Varan, whose replacement was one of the most bizarre things in the game:

This strange creature attacks you by kicking, and also opening up his chest and firing heat-seeking missiles. ....I still don't get it.

The missiles were sometimes a pain to deal with, but I found out you could tail whip them out of the way. Not-Varan was probably the easiest of the monster replacements.

The same could not be said for Not-Hedorah.

Apparently the source of the horse-bats, Not-Hedorah was the most aggravatingly difficult monster to fight yet. Mostly because of his special ability: He could shriek and summon a small swarm of those horse-bat things.

I know there's only two in the screencap, but every time he did this, about ten would arrive. The AI took advantage of the distraction and attacked twice as fast while the horse-bats were flying around.

Once that annoyance was over with, I went through a green temple level to kill some enemies to restore my health. Interestingly, none of the horse bats showed up after Not-Hedorah was killed. And that was when I got an idea:

If killing all the monsters makes the red face show up, what would happen if I avoid fighting Orga, and go straight to the base?

So I gave that a try:

The game told me there was no monster there when I tried to start the base level. And immediately afterward, the game took control of my Godzilla piece and moved it in front of Orga. My little trick didn't work, so I tried to prepare myself for another chase. But first, I had to beat Orga.

The fight with Orga confirmed another thing: Whoever created this game hack was clearly a Godzilla fan. Not only because they picked a monster like Orga, but because they actually implemented something that happened in "Godzilla 2000" in a really neat way.

Orga's primary attacks were a punch and a heat beam from his shoulder cavity. But once you had got him down to half his health, he did something new: He would expand his jaws and try to swallow Godzilla, in the process stealing your health and energy!

But in doing so, he gave himself a new weakness: firing a heat beam into his mouth would take a devastating four bars off his life meter!

With that weakness revealed I soon beat Orga, and despite how much I had hoped otherwise, the red face appeared on the map where the base was, and the music stopped.

I readied myself as best I could. I started the level, and seeing that it was basically the same as the first, I didn't waste a millisecond before I started hauling ass.

I soon encountered obstacles in the form of the ground tile, suspended in air. Most of them you could jump over or destroy, others you had to crouch under.

About forty seconds into it I heard the horrible bellowing roar and saw the spider beast following close behind me. Stacks of obstacles barely slowed it down, it would back up and then charge its way through them, smashing them into bits. And when the smaller obstacles got in its way, it would expand his jaws and swallow them whole:

I was afraid, but with fast thinking and faster button pressing I escaped him yet again. I felt really excited, and so I laughed and said "Not this time, asshole!" I decided to take a screencap to celebrate.

But when I said that sentence, just before the level ended, the monster did something that made my blood run cold.

It looked at me.

That wave of mortal terror overtook me again, and I sure as hell wasn't laughing anymore.

I took another screencap of the next level title, right before I rushed to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. (And to take a piss that I nearly failed to contain when that fucking thing looked at me.)

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