#Stealth run

[perrysoup]

Guess who fucked up their stealth run

[bairenalenko]

So I’m doing a Stealth Pacifist run of Cyberpunk 2077 by mistake 🤦‍♂️

I finally started playing it about a month ago and the first tutorial mission has an optional objective of completing it stealthily.  There’s a part that teaches you how to knock out an enemy without killing them and how to hide a body so you don’t alert anyone else passing by.  Great for learning the mechanics of the game, horrible for me cuz I read “optional” in video games as “mandatory”.  I did the best that I could, restarted the mission when someone saw me, and eventually did the whole thing w/o anyone being the wiser which felt great ...but I couldn’t stop doing it!

It was partly the challenge of it that I liked (I love puzzle games way more than shoot-’em-ups) and the whole world seemed so depressing and overly violent that I couldn’t bring myself to shoot people that weren’t attacking me first so.. I just kept doing it.

My rules are:

No killing anyone (if another character kills someone that’s fine but my character cannot kill anyone outright).

Killing Drones/Robots are ok (mainly cuz you can’t choke them out and there’s one part of the early storyline where it’s mandatory or you instantly die).

No weapons unless ABSOLUTELY necessary (there are non-lethal weapons in the game but I haven’t had to use them yet.  I do keep them in my inventory just in case I can’t progress otherwise).

No one can be alerted to my presence unless it’s 100% unavoidable  (Certain boss fights mainly.  Yes if any minion or camera sees me, I reload a save).

No damage dealing “Non-Leathal” Quickhacks (sort of like spells) unless ABSOLUTELY necessary (I don’t really see how putting someone on fire, poisoning, or electrocuting someone is totally non-lethal so I just stick to the blindness and deception type of Quickhacks.  My goal is to do no damage if possible ...but I will use them if I really have to.  It has only happened twice because I had no other options to defeat a boss who already knew I was there stroyline-wise.  I did check the bodies afterwards and they were still breathing and moving around a bit on the ground so technically still alive, just singed).

Fights started out SO slow because of my lack of abilities.  I only had enough RAM (it’s like MP) to ...cast(?) one Quickhack at a time before having to wait for everything to refresh.  Then there was all the sneaking, lugging bodies around to hide them all, not to mention all the reloading of save files.  My first fight against a large group of people that would have probably taken someone coming in guns blazing only a couple of minutes to do took me like half an hour of delicate work.  Not a fast way to level up. Now though with the amount of RAM and Quickhacks at my disposal and experience under my belt I can sneak in, disable all the cameras and turrets as I send a cascade of temporary blindness through a group of people, choking them out one by one, while also restarting a sniper’s brain from a distance making him pass out, and wiping the memories of anyone standing by the sniper that might have seen seen him randomly fall over.... all at the same time before creeping up to their location before they remember what’s going on.  I don’t even bother hiding bodies anymore, no one’s left around to see the mass of alive-and-perfectly-healthy bodies I leave in my wake.  I’ve become a wave of electrical systems shutting down, brain fog, and people falling unconscious that sweeps through an area.  I’ve even done a few missions where I never knocked out or even Quickhacked anyone at all.  I snuck in, got the information I needed to download, and snuck out w/o a trace... but I can’t level up that way so I won’t be doing that again till I’m max level (Really looking forward to this actually). I’m currently lv25 w/ a Street Cred of 45 (both max at 50).  Am I crazy for doing this, yes.  Can I beat the game this way, 🤷‍♂️ so far so good.  Would I recommend playing it this way, absolutely not but I’m having fun. I like to think of in-game reasons for things and I take the reason my street cred is so high is cuz I’ve become this urban legend of a guy you can hire that only a couple of people have actually seen.  Multiple occurrences of a group of people waking up all piled up in a restroom and no one knew how they got there, their entire place ransacked and their hostage missing would definitely lead to some stories and word of mouth. There’s so much more I want to say about the game but I’ll leave it for another post.

[isa-belle1367]

It's my headcanon that while Desmond was at the farm, he was the best at free running and target practice. Like freakishly good at climbing and running on stuff. Also, he could hit a bullseye on a moving target while sprinting from 100 meters away. But he absolutely sucked at everything else.

[arsuf]

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim  ▪  2/?

[grease-weasel]

Altair and Vulpes

[puppetmaster13u]

As voted on, have a Tim from @phoenixcatch7 's Possessed Doll Au

[taudad]

Me when I realized I can legally field all 21 of my XV8 Crisis suits with the previewed T’au rules

[dittolicous]

whats this, more raging stealth black?! gasp!

(1- 2 - 3 - 4)

judge, in an attempt to ensure sanji does 'fall back into bad habits', messed with Sanji's ability to taste food, has him banned from being anywhere close to the kitchens, and even has forced 124ji to refrain from making comments about the food for the foreseeable future. they dont want to risk triggering anything too soon after his 'recovery'

of course, while in the infirmary, sanji just figured he was getting standard grade mild hospital food so he was (subconsciously) looking forward to his first real meal afterwards. and it smelled so good! but then he took the bite... and it just tasted like mushy cardboard. as did every bite afterwards. glancing around at his family, they all seemed just fine with the meal... so perhaps thats just how it was then? was food/eating just like emotions, something they preformed, an end to a mean? food was fuel, not a leisure activity, he supposed...

so, choking down his food, he said nothing

food was just fuel

just another drop in the pool, another small itch in the back of his mind, the growing sense of something being off

overtime he starts skipping meals, brushing them off altogether or asking for someone to just puree it for him so he can down it while he works. his time is more well spent furthering their plans than spent chewing on cardboard. he tries not to acknowledge the way something in his reiju's eyes breaks at that nor to claw at the spot where judge proudly clapped his shoulder for his taking initiative. his brothers remain oddly quiet, glancing between each other as niji snorts

it doesnt matter

what does matter is the strange burning sensation in his chest that has him biting back snarls at soilders that waste his time with meaningless compliments or the way he has to fight his face to remain neutral when yonji laughs or how his body aches, shoulders twinging from the tense posture he holds in his fathers presence

he is a a vinsmoke. he is a cyborg. he is an unfeeling, unflappable soldier meant to spread the glory of germa across the land and sea, no mere emotion nor man could ever hold him back

so why is it then that he finds himself clenched into a tight ball, hands ripping at his own hair, desperate to forget the feeling that came when that burning desire nearly succeeded in breaking free after a maid bumped into him in the hallway, flowing out of him with a snarl and its only his carefully honed control snapping back in place that allows the maid to keep standing where she is, pressed fearfully against the hallway wall

his hand, frozen midair, right where he caught himself before the hit could land across her face

the books in his hands have been long forgotten where they lay in the hallway after he dropped them and ran blindly. he doesnt know where he is, only that its quiet, dark, and he is alone with his ragged breathing. he curls up tighter, desperately trying to push down everything, the bile in his throught, the memory of the maids fear in his mind, and the horribly, confusingly angry tears that burn at his eyes

it shouldn't matter, he shouldn't feel, he shouldn't care, and yet, and yet, and yet

something snaps inside him as he yanks out a clump of his own hair, something bloody and visceral and uncontrollable

because he can no longer sate himself with soothing lies of his family's love and blood-born honor, not when he is so clearly broken and wrong and all he ever wants to do is scream and burn it all down, starving for something more he cant even recall

covered in his own blood, snot, and tears, sanji realizes how little he truly knows

with the plans to strike the strawhats down moving ever closer, he stands and begins his charting own.

in the meantime, he works. he trains. he studies.

he researches.

and he learns.

so, suffice to say, he's not happy with what he learns. the life of one blackleg sanji, sprawled before in clippings from newspapers across the years, some freshly printed, others yellow with age. faces in photos that he swears he knows yet cannot name make him break a wall with one flaming kick.

(the oldest of them is that of a restaurant opening in a far off ocean - but he couldnt read more before the paper turned to ash in his grasp thanks to the flames creeping up his body)

the only road forward, he realizes, is one that leads to their deaths. vinsmoke judge and everything hes ever had a hand in... this world was not just nor right, just an endless stretch of monsters like him ruining everything. death, admittedly, would be a mercy in the longrun.

he'd make it slow

they never even noticed him pulling away, sneaking into labs and war rooms across the floating kingdom. never questioned the bags beneath his eyes so long as he got them the results they desired. they trusted him, it seemed.

or maybe they just didnt care. is health really all that important when you can just throw them into a test tube and-and try again? dig into their brain and pull out every piece that makes them, them, and see if it works now. lie when you cant dig a scalpel in and hope for the best.

when the day finally came, only three before they were suppose to make the final move of the strawhats, sanji sneaks into the kitchen, aided by his new improved raid suit and his family's growing compliancy. they no longer parole the kitchens like bloodhounds, ready to turn him the other way.

as thanks, he adds something special to his siblings dishes

hes no fool, hes aware he likely couldn't take them all on his own. underhanded techniques never bothered them before, so this shouldn't be any different. besides, they werent his focus

no one says anything about the food or... any odd tastes, per usual thanks to judges standing orders. he bites his lip hard enough to draw blood just to fight back a smile as he spots a tremble in ichiji's hand as dinner draws to a close and dessert is sat before them. niji keeps pinching the bridge of his nose amd yonji eyes take on a strange glaze as he stares out a window

reiju looks at sanji, her ever present fake smile dropping away

the show begins like fireworks, lighting up the evening sky, his many bombs hidden about all going off at once

he listens and revels in the sound the labs make as they turn into flaming rubble, explosions bursting across the many snails in their armada, of his fathers fantic commands, his brothers confusion, and his sisters silence

the germa kingdom crumbles, flames crawling across the snails, the smaller of which begin writhing in pain as theyre cooked alive

he probably should of kept the charades going on for longer, but sanji just couldn't help the bitter laughter that welled up at his fathers flushed face, which only causes him to seeth more and sanji can barely breath through his manic laughter

at the very least, judge seems to catch on when yonji crashes to the ground, unconscious, without ever being touched and ichiji is swaying on his feet where he stands. niji hasnt gotten up, clutching table like a lifeline as he snarls in sanjis direction.

its invigorating, watching the fear creep into each ones eyes, fear they claim to not have nor know. judge can only watch as his kingdom burns and his precious soilders crumble, all thanks to one of their own

and the night has only begun

(in all the excitement, none of them see the ship approaching on the horizon, the lion shaped head glowing in the suns dying light and crackling flames)

[himejoshiangels]

duke is so so shit at sneaking around, like he's surrounded by all these vigilantes who specialize in becoming one with the shadows and the best he can do is turn invisible and hope it works out

[vertigoartgore]

Elektra as Daredevil by John K. Snyder III. Art for the OAX 2024 Art Auction. Prismacolor and marker on 11 x 17 canson paper.

[autoacafiles]

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

sooo ik you’re not gonna get into itafushikugi’s dynamic in your fic but just out of curiosity, if megumi ever did tell them about what happened to him, how would they react? actually how would they react to yuuta & megumi’s dynamic? LMAOO wait how would they react to gojo being megumi’s parental figure? god. megumi life is just insane.

They are absolutely obsessed with whatever the fuck megumi's life is. he enchants them. he comes off as the most normal of them all and then months into the relationship they find out that gojo satoru is his fucking dad. they didn't know he had a sister until someone else told them. he's the world's most interesting man but he shares no personal information and refuses to acknowledge how inexplicably fascinating he is.

The thing is that I would like to think that he did tell them, but when i say it would take years for him to get to that point.

I like to think that sea glass gardens feeds into a lot of canon as normal, and in my mind, the events of sea glass gardens within its own universe is a lot of the reason why megumi's blatantly suicidal in his first year.

I don't want to get too much into it, because we're still unpacking everything that happened, and like. Spoilers. But I don't think I can emphasize enough how traumatizing these events were for him, and how he is 0% willing or able to start the healing process for what happened. I think that Megumi as a person is just someone who hates being at other people's mercy, and these events were one of the most invasive losses of control for what happened.

I've talked about this in some other post, but one of the most notable things about Megumi is that he seems to constantly be trying to die on his own terms with Mahoraga. He's accepted that he'll go down, but he'll go down his way, taking the person who killed him with him. I view that as sort of the ultimate way of reclaiming control for someone who had very little control over the direction of his own life, and the events of sea glass gardens potentially robbed him of even that. Gojo says that he thinks the Zenin had to have a way to keep megumi from summoning mahoraga, but that means that Megumi's spent his entire life with this one reliable source of autonomy and control over his self and still had it be taken away. Mahoraga was his security blanket, and he lost it.

By the time Megumi reaches canon, he's jumping to summon Mahoraga at every turn, and that kind of reads as someone who 1) doesn't have a very high valuation of his own life, and 2) wants to make certain that he's dying on his terms. He is nowhere near close to being okay from what happened, he's not open to help from anyone, and he's not about to let himself be vulnerable with anyone. The events of sea glass gardens represent this inescapable moment of weakness and humiliation to him, and he's not mentally okay enough to admit to anyone that it happened.

Kugisaki and Itadori sort of start pulling him back from that path. They give him a reason to live and make him start fighting to survive instead of fighting to die his way. They really do sort of set him off into finally healing, and that breeds the sort of trust between them that I think they would one day be the people megumi is most comfortable telling about what the zenin did to him. But it would be slow. It would take a very, very long time. But when it did happen, it would happen because they were the people he trusted most in the world, and there is not a single part of him that thinks they could ever hurt him. He would trust them to the point of his own destruction.

I'd like to think it happens a little like this:

the scars from the Great Serpents fangs were something that Kugisaki and Itadori had been hounding him about for ages by the time he tells them. They have 93 theories in counting, each more crazy than the last. it becomes a sort of joke between them, finding a new explanation for where they came from since Fushiguro wouldn't tell them, and the game marks the first time that Megumi could even think about them without the memories tormenting him for the rest of the day. somehow, he can never feel grief around itadori or kugisaki.

it just comes out. he thought it would be harder, he thought he would choke on it, but the truth slips out easily, and he isn't afraid of what kugisaki or itadori would do with it. He tells them the truth of the Zenin, of what they did to him, of where the scars came from and how goddamn terrified he is of those people.

And it hurts less. It almost shocks him, how it hurts less.

Yuuta and Megumi's dynamic post-sea glass gardens is the source of endless bewilderment to Kugisaki and seething jealousy for itadori. I've talked about it in some other posts, but I think Itadori is unbearably jealous of yuuta when he meets him. He's not even a jealous person. this is an anomaly. Yuuta is living his perfect life, which is a shock to yuuta, who did not think he was living anyone's perfect life.

Like, Yuuta exists in this weird exception to everything for Megumi. Megumi Is Yuuta's Boy. They're inexplicably close and there's simply no explanation as to why that anyone can tell them. Yuuta is so visibly fond and protective of him that there's no way to say that megumi's not his favorite. Kugisaki has no idea what's going on but it's fucking hilarious watching itadori lose his gourd over it.

they go insane when they realize that gojo is megumi's dad and no one fucking told them. Maki lets it slip in passing (because she thought they had to know already) and itadori has to sit on megumi while kugisaki tries to weasel answers out of him. what the fuck do you mean gojo's your dad. why did he think this was not relevant information. this guy won't tell them shit about his life.

After, Itadori and Kugisaki insist on referring to gojo exclusively as "megumi's dad," which gojo is a smug dick about, and which causes megumi endless suffering. he wishes they were not told.

[kunosoura]

on one hand I like to imagine Rennala knew about the whole Marika/Radagon thing, such that what was going on between them was best described as a secret lesbian affair. On the other hand I think it's really funny to imagine Marika's secret second life as an erdtree zealot turned carian consort getting so out of hand that her entire life is one of those sitcom episodes where a character is trying to attend two events at the same time and it isn't going well. Like she's shitting and crying and panicking because she needs to be at Dectus for a war meeting with Godfrey at the same time that she promised Rennala she'd attend the annual Raya Lucaria feast honoring newly inducted Carian/Cuckoo knights with her and the pass between Altus and Caria is a defcon-2 no man's land at the moment

[firjii]

me: *has 5 different unfinished DAI playthroughs*

also me: why yes, I do need to finally start a dwarf run

[indifferentmadness]

Joe: *runs for his life because he's literally being hunted for sport*

Rhys: haha, what an idiot

Rhys: oh no, that's MY idiot

[tarmac-rat]

CDPR shoving all of the handgun perks into Cool was. A choice.