#actually it makes sense that my favorite part is collecting smaller bits to a larger piece - that's basically completing a pokedex

[bunnymajo]

I’ve officially hit the 10 hour mark of Sonic Frontiers and my verdict is that it is fun but moreover that exploring the island and solving the little riddle/puzzle things to complete the map is my favorite part. There’s a nice sense of completion so if I 100% any aspect of this game it’ll probably be that and Big’s fishing index

I hate the cyber stages. I know they’re just regular sonic stages so I don’t know why I hate doing them, but the fact that they’re so long, mandatory and interrupt my exploration time makes them enemy #1 (Stage 2-7 in particular is not invited to my house)

Also the monster on island 2 that’s just a bunch of rail grinds? Awesome design, but also not welcome in my home.

Anyway that’s my gamer hot take for the morning.

[eternalstrigoii]

For Posterity

Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Desert Warrior Dark Fey Reader

                 “Isn’t it morbid?” you wondered aloud as you sauntered into Ulstead palace’s great hall. “Even for you?”

Borra followed you, the quiet pad of your bare feet on marble floors accentuated by the soft brush of your dark pinfeathers. “Do you not want to?”

You pretended to consider it. He was intense. Always had been. It was an attractive quality even when it meant watching him clutch iron until he broke out in a sweat, pitting the expectation that he would be severely wounded in battle against his desire not to falter even if he was.

There were two chairs at the end of otherwise lightly furnished room. The larger was made of solid wood, slightly gilded, and well-cushioned, but it was the one beside it that held  your interest. There was almost no chance that its glimmering plating wasn’t iron, though it had been done in ornamental dragon-scale. It was smaller, less well padded, though you imagined someone your size might be able to climb on it comfortably if you didn’t try to turn around after.

You lifted your hands to the leather buckle at the back of your neck. Even parted your hair over your shoulders to let him watch you undo it.

“I always want you, Borra.” You dropped your hands to the other leather fasten at your side, both part of the same beast that forged your chest-plate. And, before the approach of his feathers upon the stone reminded you too much of a sashaying ball gown, you dropped the top half of your armor to the floor.

Now you were on even ground, in your trousers and gauntlets and nothing else.

Well, nothing else but the bandage mortal healers wove around his arm and the one wrapped around your mid-back where someone’s bolt had broken skin. You were lucky it hadn’t clipped a wing.

Your back collided with his chest, his warm, rough palms settling at your hips. He pushed your hair back from the leaf of your ear with his lips and whispered, “Tell me if it’s too much.”

His touch trailed up your sides. Talons brushed your ribs. You were molten before he even reached your chest, and the place he found on your shoulder was one of his favorites – always exposed in the overlap of your armor, so every mark he left there was for all the world to see.

You purred your approval.

“Is this how you want me?” you whispered, letting your voice drop another octave. “Bared for you, on my knees?” You almost asked if he wanted you to pretend to be one of them so he could rut his aggression out, but you had the sense not to (and it wasn’t just because he’d gathered your hair in one of his hands to expose your newly-bared throat).

He growled, the low rumble in his chest making your hips shift against his. “You’re not on your knees yet.”

You knew what he wanted. If you agreed, it was to be of your own volition, not because he’d asked you to.

You turned your head. Brushed your lips over his. The summer heat of his breath caught between you, and you nearly purred again at the sight of his lowered eyelids – how readily both of you responded to the other.

You undid your trousers. Shucked them off even as the brush of his talons teased your sides. And, without missing a beat, you fanned out your large, dark wings and climbed onto the now-goat queen’s gilded throne.

Iron bit your flesh, even through the wrapping of your gauntlets. It stung the worst at your knees, which you settled on the edge. You made a pretty offering of yourself, your back deliberately arched so he could see the power of your muscles while you braced your weight on the arms of the ornamental chair.

He had no business letting his eyes linger on you. You thought they must’ve, even as you heard the rush of fabric collapsing to the floor.

He wrapped your hair around his hand, the other coming to rest on the iron throne in front of yours.

“I do like you like this,” he whispered, and the sudden snap of his hips joined you with him. You gasped with pleasure despite the burning of your skin.

There was no teasing preface. Not this time. You were not his conquest, but conquest was the objective all the same – no kingdom had fallen, though both sides knew loss. Your victory had come at a stalemate, and you hadn’t even been able to vanquish your enemy properly – dispatch her like the rabid animal she was. So he fucked you on her throne, laid claim to a symbol of your enemy’s power after she’d fallen since you could get satisfaction in no way else.

Not yet, anyhow. But that was a concern for another time.

The way he moved inside you made your claws screech against the iron scaling. You were both panting, the heat and the pain cropping up like afterthoughts, making your legs buck when one of the curved edges pressed into your calf and making him grip you tighter as you shifted to clutch the curved back, your nails digging trenches that made several iron scales chip away. They dropped to the floor with a musical sound, one after the other.

You made no effort to quiet yourself. Quiet growls became sharp, half-human cries when he hit that spot inside you, peeling your burning thighs off the rounded junction of the arms. “Ah, stars, come closer.”

He obliged, settling his weight between them. He boosted you better onto the cushions, as though that did much but help peel layers of your flesh off. You could’ve laughed, though you were more intent upon working your hips against his as the chair protested your collective weight. He settled his knee between yours, giving you the option to climb over him and make the bulk of the iron his problem.

You took it, paused just long enough to push him down onto the biting iron beneath so you could climb onto his lap.

He hissed in pleasure-pain.

“Is this what you wanted of your victory?” You gripped his chin. His eyes were ablaze as you moved, sinking onto him, grinding, withdrawing only to be pulled back down.

“Harder,” he growled.

You obliged. He moved with you like you were truly joined by your shared epicenter, his hips as fluid as yours even without the grip of your knees. His hands palmed the new burns on your legs, and you gripped him there, shielding only those parts of you while you rode him.

He arched off the back of it, pulling you down to work your hips in tighter circles. His wings flared, and yours beat once, unnecessarily hard.

“That’s it,” he coaxed. “So beautiful. I feel you nearing. Go on. Scream for me.”

Your talons bit trenches into the leather around his wrist. You did, and you let him rise to meet you when he reached his peak so the flutter of tension in his stomach made your body melt.

You stung. Actually, you hurt, and the wounds on your calves were only getting worse. You’d never be able to explain them, but there would be a few on the backs of his thighs that couldn’t be accounted for either.

Neither of you lingered. Not there. You gripped his shoulder and he, your back, and you let him lift you to rest on the cool, stone floor.

“Not bad,” you admitted. “Glad to have tried it, probably won’t do it again.”

He laughed. His body folded over yours, fingers laced in your hair. You got a generous amount of kissing for your trouble, not that it would magically erase the new round of bandages you’d both need, but you smiled into it anyway.

At least, until you heard footsteps. Then you grinned, and he caught the wickedness in your eyes and moved to gather the pile of your forgotten clothes.

“Why should we run off?” you whispered, grinning as he tossed you your clothes.

“Shrike is coming.” He flashed you a grin that you knew came with trouble, and you stifled your laughter long enough to pull on your trousers and make a swift departure with him at your back.

You heard the clamor of armor getting tossed into the royal throne, and then a long and painful silence.

“Suren!” she was angry. “Borra!”

Early birds and worms and all that, you thought, cackling as you took off into the night with the decoration of your well-earned scorch marks on display.

[miss-tc-nova]

Dense as a Brick Wall - Terra x Fem!Reader

First off YEEEESSSSSSS! I NEED MORE DARK ROAD ASAP! Second, Terra is actually one of my favorite characters of the series so I was excited for this request! I admit I struggled a bit but I hope you like it and I’m sorry it took me so long. 

~~~~~

               I can officially say today has started off wild, but I mean my version of wild—these keyblade wielders apparently find travelling to different worlds pretty normal. First thing in the morning, the trio of Aqua, Ven, and Terra all show up on my doorstep and insist I hang out with them for the day. When I finally relent, that’s when they break the news that we’re going off-world.

               So one insane trip later, we end up in this bright, sunshine world of Destiny Islands. It’s gorgeous with its tropical atmosphere and sparkling beach and it’s a shame I didn’t bring my bathing suit. The trio then takes me to the larger island where I meet way more people than I was prepared for. They all seem friendly enough and accept me pretty quickly; also we’re apparently not the only group to travel from another world.

               That’s when the inhabitants—Riku, Sora, Kairi, and Namine—announce an activity they’d come up with for the visitors: a photo scavenger hunt. The groups pair up quickly, leaving the four of us from the Land of Departure.

               “So how do you guys wanna split up?” Terra asks.

               “Oh, I know,” Aqua hums, wandering towards Namine. Once she returns, she presents four pieces of paper in her grasp. “Whoever draws the two with colored ends are partners. You first,” she says, offering the handful to me.

               Tugging on a strip, I find it colored red on the bottom. “Oh. Cool.”

               She turns to the man beside me. “Alright. Terra.”

               He picks a strip and my insides run with ice; they expect me to go on a scavenger hunt, alone, with the only person I’ve ever fallen so hard for.

               I don’t even know where to begin with Terra. He’s the biggest sweetheart and I’d have to be wearing fire-retardant pants if I said I never admired those muscles. I know he gets a lot of flak, but the guy can actually be pretty smart when it comes to strategy and situational awareness, though his social skills could use a little work. So, while I can say this about his physical build, it also unfortunately applies to his empathic understanding: he’s as dense as a brick wall.

               I’ve done everything just short of saying, “hey, you know what? I have an enormous crush on you.” Well, that and kiss him. I once even held his hand when we were wandering through town, but I think he mistook it for me trying not to get lost in the crowds. For the love of all that is good in existence, I cannot get him to take a hint! That and my dumb ass is too nervous to straight up confess.

               “Hey, are you okay with that?”

               Snapping back to the present, I look up at those beautiful blue eyes. Blood rushes into my ears, but I smile anyway. “Yeah. This’ll be a piece of cake.”

               He smiles back and I feel my self-awareness melt just a little, until I realize I might get lost staring if I don’t look away.

               We’re given a list of things to photograph and a deadline to meet back up on the small island and the teams start to go their separate ways. Only a few steps into our adventure, I look back at Aqua and Ven and my heart stops. A smirk sits upon her lips and pinched between her fingers are the remaining two strips of paper: they were all colored on the end. My brain begins screaming bloody murder.

               “Woah, hey!” A large hand beneath my arm pulls me to the side just in time to miss walking into one of those mail collection boxes. Face burning, I glance up at my concerned sort-of-hero. “Are you sure you’re okay? If you’re not feeling well, we can go home.”

               For the love of the gods, I cannot tell him what Aqua did, but she’s absolutely going to get it later—regardless of whether or not she can destroy me in a heartbeat. “No no! I’m fine. I just got distracted.”

               Dark brows furrow, still concerned. “Would rather be partners with someone else?”

               “NO!” Okay, I probably didn’t need to respond quite that quickly…or yell. A laugh escapes me in an attempt to regain my composure. “No, it’s okay. I promise. This is going to be fun.”

               A big grin crosses his lips and we set off, ignoring the fact this is a set up—or maybe not; who knows.

               There are two lists on the paper Kairi had given me: one of object and one of activities. Things such as the beach, something red, and a statue are on the list of objects, but on the other are things such as walking barefoot in the sand, going down the slide in the park, and shaking a stranger’s hand. The thing about the second list is that there has to be photo evidence of each person to get the points. Trailing through the sand and asking a random guy to shake hands with each of us is easy enough and we’ve been having a lot of fun, but poor Terra kind of got stuck in the slide and we lost a couple hours—but I got the evidence at least.

               “You sure you’re okay?” I ask for like the tenth time, stupidly fluttering eyelashes at him.

               My partner laughs sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He’s such a good sport but oblivious as always. “I’m just relieved we didn’t break it.”

               “Yeah…I was kinda worried we were gonna have to call the fire department or something—or worse, our friends.”

               “I really don’t need another story Aqua’s not gonna let me live down,” he sighs. “What else is on the list?”

               Pulling the paper from my pocket, I scan over what’s not marked. “Well, there’s not much more we can do before time’s up…so I guess we head back and hope we see a dog, a sign that starts with the letter V, and a rubber duck—where the hell did they think we were gonna see a rubber duck?”

               “Does that count?” Out points his finger to the ocean where a giant, inflatable duck peacefully floats along.

               “I don’t think it’s made of rubber, but I’m gonna say yes,” I say, using Terra’s GummiPhone to snap a picture of the ridiculous sight.

               So off we go towards the smaller island on one of the rental row boats. For a while, we chat and amble about the beach—and I drop more ridiculous hints—until Terra asks, “Hey, wasn’t there something on the list about food?”

               “Um. Try a food neither of us has eaten.”

               “I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what that is.” From a crooked tree hangs a bright, yellow fruit.

               I laugh, following him towards the stairs leading up to the islet. “You wanna just start eating random fruit?”

               “Why not?”

               The young man scales along the curved tree until he successfully gets his hand on the star-shaped fruit and returns to sit next to me on the tree. The fruit is broken into two and I get a piece. It’s sweet, almost like a candy and super watery.

               “I may be regretting my choice,” Terra murmurs around a mouthful.

               “What? This is amazing.” I almost drool in my protest.

               “Too sweet.”

               “Ah, I forget you don’t like sweets.”

               Eyeing up his questionable prize, he ventures another bite.

               “You two are here ear—” Looking back reveals the Islanders. Both girls gasp and the guys just gape.

               “Hey guys,” I greet. “What’s up?” I take another bite.

               Riku is the first to break. “You two have no idea what that is, do you?” A glance is shared with no answer. “That’s a paopu.”

               When the only response is staring, Kairi hastily explains, “If two people share one, their destinies become intertwined!”

               “So says the legend,” adds Namine.

               Terra’s mouthful comes flying back out while I opt to choke on mine. While I’m busy hacking away, the rest of our friends arrive.

               “What’s going on here?” Aqua asks as Sora is patting my back.

               “According to these two, trying new foods means sharing destinies,” Riku explains, gesturing to the dropped leftovers.

               Ven is very poorly containing his laugh. “You guys ate a paopu fruit?”

               “We didn’t know what it was,” Terra retorts. It makes me feel somewhat better that his face is probably just as red as mine.

               “I told you about those,” Aqua retorts. “Remember? I based our wayfinders off them.”

               I eventually breathe fine again and everyone hangs out to share their pictures and just hang out. Xion and Roxas got the most points and win the game while Terra and I get the most teasing for the paopu and the slide. Still, the symbolic meaning of the fruit plagues my thoughts—it’s a nice thought to have Terra as part of my destiny. I’d probably squeal if it weren’t for my new friends sitting around. In my revelations, I can’t help beaming down at the pictures of my partner.

               It’s just as we’re all getting ready to head home that Aqua sighs, “It’s a shame that, even after I went through all the trouble to make sure they were partners and neither of them confessed they liked each other.”

               A second passes, and then another, but finally, Terra’s eyes widen as he realizes what I’ve known from the beginning. “You rigged the teams?!”

               Ven snarks, “She wasn’t exactly subtle.”

               My brain carefully scrutinizes the frantic behavior of the young man. “Wh—Bu—How—Why would you do that?!”

               “Didn’t you hear me? So you could tell her how you feel,” she states bluntly.

               Arms flail and, had anyone been within close proximity, who knows what kind of damage he’d deal. “How could you do that?! I’ve been dying all day trying to figure out how to tell her!”

               The analyzing brain blips. Wait…

               “It wasn’t really that much of a secret,” his blonde friend mutters, the flustered not hearing him.

               “All so you could get a few laughs picking on me?! And I still don’t even know how to tell her how much I like her!”

               A jolt ripples through me and my jaw falls open.

               “First of all,” Aqua starts. “I didn’t do it to pick on you. Second, it was Ven’s idea.”

               The accused adds, “He’s been driving me nuts over it.”

               “And third, I’m pretty sure you just confessed.” A finger points to me.

               His olive skin goes visibly pale, outrage dropping to instant horror. Those shocked eyes lock onto me; clearly he’d forgotten in his outburst that I was even here to begin with.

               With a strange sense of outward confidence, I close the gap between us. My heart is beating deafeningly in my ears as I approach but he doesn’t move even a little, watching me in stunned silence. Fists take hold of his shirt, pulling him down to my level as I stand on tiptoe.

               Raging in my gut are the butterflies that have been teasing me all day. I may be on fire right now, but there’s an ocean just over there—it’s fine. And sure, my partner is in a stupor but that doesn’t make my elation any less real. There are no words for how much I needed this.

               Leaning back, there’s a lingering taste of that paopu we’d split earlier. I can’t help the resulting smile though Terra looks absolutely bewildered.

               “I’ve been dying to do that for months,” I tell him.

               “Perhaps my efforts weren’t in vain after all,” giggles Aqua. She gets a raspberry from me.  

               Terra, with an incredibly ludicrous question, grabs my attention again. “Did you just kiss me?”

               My eyes widen before I start laughing. “You really are as dense as a brick wall.”

               The shock leaves his face, replaced with a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

               “She’s been flirting with you hardcore for as long as I can remember,” Ven tells him. “Everyone but you picked up on that.”

               “R-Really?” This time, he goes a little red.

               Slipping a hand into his, I reply, “Really.”

               The free hand meets his face. “Ugh, geeze I’m so dumb.”

               “That’s okay. You’re still cute.”

               “You’re not supposed to agree with me, you know.”

               “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

               Then Aqua gets in another jab. “I think that’s a little unfair, Ven. It’s not like she picked up on his flirting either.”

               “Wait, what?!” Eye shoot up to Terra who gives me a smile that I’d die for.

               “Guess it’s not just me, huh.”

[angelanimedesaray]

Through The Looking Glass Chapter 3: Confirmation

AN:  Sorry for the delay, I got side tracked...wait for it...writing down all my ideas for future parts of this story.  There’s a lot guys, like....a lot.  Sooo this chapter is a bit more focused on Reader’s backstory (As will the next chapter or two be) cause we gotta get that in there before things pick up.  You’ve got a while of childhood fluff before things start to happen, though there will be some serious stuff going on, as this chapter will let you know.  The Masterlist (A link to which can be found below) also has a link to this story on AO3, and a link to my playlist for this story, if you’re interested.  Also, since the post wasn’t seen much, I want to mention now: this story may be all fluffy and happy NOW, but I want you to be aware that there will be MATURE and sometimes DARK themes in future parts of this story...this is AOT we’re talking about, it’s not gonna be happy all the time.  If you have concerns about what some of these themes/topics may be, my messages are open to answer questions or concerns.  We’ve still got...a little while before we reach those parts of the story, but I wanted to get the warning out now, while the story is still young.

Characters:  Levi, Reader, Unnamed OCs, Reader’s Mother (Mentioned/offscreen), Kenny

Pairing:  (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings:  Mentions of/Suggested Bullying, Minor Injury, Bullying, Language

Word Count:  6459

<---Previous Chapter    Masterlist    Next Chapter--->

(A couple years later)

*Reader’s POV*

Your pinky still hurt from where Sam had twisted it, but you chewed on your bottom lip and tried to ignore the ache, reminding yourself never to let them sit next to you on the bus again.  ‘I’m your friend’ they said, ‘I’ll be nice to you’ they said, ‘I’ll also hurt you to make you agree with me.’

Some friend.

Your feet planted firmly on the sidewalk, the last one on this bus stop to get off--something you always made sure of--before kicking at a stray rock.  Your house was across the street and right down the road, which was why your parents weren’t too worried about letting you walk from the bus stop back home by yourself.  The bus stop was close enough to the house they could see when it arrived--maybe they could even spot your brightly colored backpack if they squinted.

The bus started to pull away with a hiss, so you turned around, waiting for the bus to pull away and looking both ways for any more cars as you hurried across the street where the small local playground was.  Your head didn’t stop looking left to right until your foot planted firmly on the sidewalk, looking straight ahead and across the playground.

Where initially there hadn’t been anyone still lingering around the park, you could now see that on the other side there was a boy about your age and wearing a brown jacket, black shirt, tan pants.  He was on the skinny side, pale, black hair dangling just past his ears, a little dirty, like he’d been running around outside for quite some time.  And he was familiar.  He looked a little like...like…

A slender hand was raised to shield his eyes from the sun as he staggered back a step or two, looking around in confusion before his faded--but brighter than last time--blue eyes turned towards you.

*Levi’s POV*

For the second time in his life, Levi found himself abruptly blinded by a light brighter than anything in the Underground, cringing away as he reeled from the suddenness of it all, trying to get his bearings.  The stench of the Underground was also abruptly missing, replaced by the scent of...of fresh air.  Like in that dream so long ago…

A slight breeze ruffled his hair as his eyes gradually adjusted to the light, though he was still squinting against it as he started to look around and take in his surroundings.  It could have been the sparse fenced in park that drew his attention first, or the person on the other side of the park that was staring at him, but instead it was the moving yellow long horseless carriage thing that drew his attention.  His eyes went wide as he watched it turn a corner and continue on with a loud hum, nothing visibly pulling it and yet it still moved, shapes of people inside moving rapidly behind a line of windows that weren’t warped in the slightest.  It was like a larger, moving version of the strange horseless carriages he’s seen in that hallucination when he was starving.

The dream...the surface...the girl…

The sky above him was open, stretching in an endless blue with wisps of clouds floating lazily by.  Some kind of bird was so high up in the air he couldn’t even see it moving its wings, like it was gliding forward on winds so strong and high above the earth it didn’t need to beat its wings to fly through the air.  Most of the grass was the luscious green he remembered with a few patches a pale brown, and the large brown stone bordering the paved black street was cracked and covered in rock and dirt, in some places upended and poking up into the air.  Wooden houses of a variety of colors and conditions lined the streets, more of the horseless carriages much smaller than the yellow one that had just passed were stopped in varying spots near the houses, and a few kids were walking in different directions, probably headed to their homes.  One in particular, however, was standing just across the small fenced in park from Levi, wide-eyed gaze locked on him, and when he finally looked at her, the recognition was nearly instant.

She was taller than last time, her hair a little longer, features more defined, but she didn’t look that much different from the last time he’d seen her.  Not as different as Levi looked, no longer the skin and bones he’d been when he first saw her now that he wasn’t about to die from starvation, and having grown a little himself.  If he’d already gotten that haircut he was thinking about, it might be even harder for her to recognize him.  Still, she was staring at him rather openly, but it wasn’t until their eyes met that the recognition sparked in her eyes.

As she started to walk towards him, Levi’s hand clenched into a fist, the pain from his fingernails digging into his palms telling him that no, this wasn’t a dream, this was very much real.  So...so it had all been real, then?  This wasn’t just another hallucination, he was really on the surface?  Last time he’d been about to die, so it made sense for him to have suddenly drifted off or hallucinated being somewhere better, but now, he didn’t have an excuse to be drifting off.  He’d been completely alert, watching Kenny as he showed Levi where to aim and how to slice through a man larger than him.  But how had he ended up here so fast?

Y/N came to a stop in front of him, head down and not quite looking at him, kicking at the ground.  "Hi," she mumbled, surprisingly lackluster compared to her entire presence the last time he'd seen her.

"Hey," he responded almost reflexively, not entirely sure what had caused the switch in attitude.  Had she found out where he was from?  Was he about to get kicked back below ground and told he wasn't supposed to taint someone's daughter with his presence?  The longer the awkward silence stretched between them, the more he tensed, waiting for some kind of rejection.  Finally, he saw her lower lip tremble, her eyes squeezing shut as she turned her head back up, and he braced for the inevitable.

"Why'd you leave without saying goodbye?" she suddenly blurted out, hands tight around the straps of the colorful pack slung over her back.

Wait...

This wasn't about where he was from, but about...not saying goodbye before disappearing?

She suddenly looked so small in front of him, retreating into herself in a cringe like she was embarrassed by her outburst but still wanted an answer, looking away again with that slight tremble to her lip like she was liable to start crying.

"I-I--"  He didn't know what to say.  She was obviously hurt, but he didn't mean to leave so suddenly.  He'd wanted to stay, and he didn't know what had happened either.  But he didn't want her thinking he'd ditched her after she'd been so kind to him.

"I didn't mean to," he started hesitantly.  "I don't know what happened.  I just woke up back...home."

That seemed to pacify her, though she still seemed gloomy.  "Well...I need to get home…" she said slowly, looking down the street behind him.  "D'you want to come?"

Levi gave a small nod in answer.  Where else was he going to go?  He didn't know anyone on the surface besides her, and he didn't know how to get back to the Underground and Kenny. Not that he was in a rush to go back.  To Kenny, yes, probably, but the Underground?  Not really.

Y/N brightened when he agreed to come with her, already starting to regain a skip in her step again as she took charge, leading him away from the park and down the cracked stone path.  As she led the way, she started to talk much like when he first met her, chatting aimlessly about whatever seemed to come to mind.  He was informed about things as trivial as a budding rock collection and her favorite rocks in it, her favorite school subjects being history and math, her family considering getting a pet…

Every now and then she’d turned to look at him, though he couldn’t decide if it was to make sure he was actually paying attention or she was trying to give him a chance to speak up.  He didn’t say anything, though.  Talking about learning how to gut a man three times or more his size and how to properly use a knife seemed out of place with the kind of stuff she was talking about, so he opted for silence and simply listened to her talk.

“I also started taking piano lessons,” she was currently saying cheerfully, having slowed her walk slightly so that Levi could come even with her instead of trailing behind her.  “There’s...a lot, and its hard to stretch my fingers to get all the keys since my hands are so small right now...but I can play both parts of Chopsticks, and Mary Had A Little Lamb, and Hot Cross Buns--easy things like that.  I’ve already found some other piano songs I want to learn to play when I’m good enough, but those are going to take forever to figure out--there’s so many notes and symbols I don’t even recognize yet...But I’m gonna learn to do it!  I’ll even learn to play Fur Elise first--I already hear it all the time cause it’s the lullaby on my music--”

Two other boys suddenly blew past both of them, similar but less colorful packs on their backs, and even though they rushed right past Levi and Y/N, he managed to get a glimpse of smug smiles on their faces.  As they pushed by, the both shoved Y/N to the ground, hard enough that she skidded forward, blood suddenly starting to trickle along her arms, palms, and two small stains starting to blossom on her knees.  She’d gone down with a sharp cry as she connected with the ground, but both of them still heard the insults as they brushed by.

“Move it, buttface!”

“Stupid retard.”

Levi wasn’t impressed.  They didn’t even have the balls to use ass instead of butt.  It was more the fact they’d pushed her hard enough to the ground she was bleeding up and down her arms and on her knees in the dirt, tears pricking in her eyes, that got a rise out of him.  Eyes flashing, Levi went from taking in Y/N’s state to whipping around to fix the two boys with a glare.

“Hey!  Assholes!  Say sorry, now!” Levi snapped, knowing the use of the scary bad word by the tiny, dirty kid who’d been next to her would get their attention.  One of the things Kenny had taught him was that he had to show his strength was greater than others to be on top, and even though these two boys looked a little taller and a little older than Levi, they were surface dwellers whose eyes went wide at a simple word.  Then they looked down at him with those same smug smiles as when they’d pushed Y/N to the ground, overconfident and arrogant.  They were idiots who needed to be pushed back so they realized they weren’t the big bad tough guys they seemed to think they were.  It wasn’t going to take much to scare them off--Levi’d already been thrown into scuffles over food with scarier, far more threatening people by now.  These two were just bullies who’d pushed the wrong person.

“Make me, short stack.”

“Must be a pathetic loser to be hanging around her.”

One of them moved to push Levi backwards and into the ground, but Levi was faster, turning aside, grabbing their arm, and pulling them in his direction, throwing the other boy off balance and sending him sprawling face-first into the ground.

“Hey!” the other protested, lunging blindly at Levi like he was going to try tackling him or pinning him down.  Levi tucked low and barreled into him, knocking the second boy backwards and onto the ground.

And that’s all it took.  With Levi easily knocking them both to the ground and standing over them with a look in his eyes that said he was ready to lay them out again if they tried him, they both skidded back from him and scrambled to their feet, the one who’d face planted after trying to push Levi sporting scrapes on his chin and palms.

“Apologize,” Levi repeated firmly before they could scurry away.

“S-sorry,” the scraped one said.

“Not me, her,” Levi snapped out, making the other kid wince as he looked at Y/N behind Levi and stuttered out the same weak apology.

“Yeah, what he said,” the other said, already pulling on his friend’s arm.  “C’mon, let’s go.”

And just like that, they were gone.

“Tch.”  After they’d disappeared down a side street, Levi turned back to Y/N, who had already stood up on her own, a little shake in her hands, knees noticeably kept bent with darker stains on her pants, but no sign of the tears in her eyes anymore, since she was using her shoulder to wipe away any that remained.  “Are you--”

“I’m okay,” she said a little too quickly, rubbing almost angrily at her eyes and holding her hands out in front of her.  “I just need to get home.”

Levi watched her closely as she hobbled forwards, steps ginger and her posture telling him she was trying to keep from bending her knees, the scrapes probably raw and painful when the skin stretched.  When she came within arm’s reach of Levi, he gently grasped her arm to see how bad the cuts and scrapes were.  Her elbows had beads of blood breaking past the cracked-looking skin, a fairly shallow cut down her arm seemed to have only bled a little before settling for looking angry, and her palms were a mess of cuts and blood and little rocks digging into her palms.  Dirt and rock dust coated all of them.

She gently pulled her arms out of his grip once he was done looking, still mindful not to brush up against anything.  “I just need to wash up when we get to my house, I’ll be okay,” she assured him again, though her tone was more convincing this time, continuing her tentative walk forward while picking the tiny rocks out from where they were embedded in her palms

It was almost like she was used to this kind of thing...not at all something he would have expected from the girl who’d taken care of him a few years ago.  Especially as she turned back around and flashed him another big smile, as if she wasn’t walking with blood up and down her arms and staining her pants, afraid to bend at the elbows and knees and make the scrapes and cuts hurt more.

“I can splash you with the water from the hose while I’m at it--you seemed to like it last time,” she said mischievously.

“Don’t,” he said bluntly.  He only had the one set of clothes right now, and there was a breeze this time that was a little chilly--it’d probably get worse if he ended up soaking wet.  Last time it had been warm and they’d been outside for a long time, and he’d been dirty, this time, he’d rather avoid getting wet.

She pouted at him.  “Aw, but it could be fun!”

“No.”

“Pft...Buzzkill.”

Ignoring the teasing jab, Levi looked ahead, able to see the faintly familiar house but only partially confident it was the right house considering he’d only seen it briefly twice from the front when he’d been here last.  And at the time, he’d been looking up more than he’d been looking around.  He had to slow his pace so Y/N wouldn’t fall behind with her tentative waddle, keeping an eye on her the rest of the way.  The entire time, she continued to work her way up to her usual chatter, as if the entire confrontation with the other boys had never happened.  And because he wasn’t convinced that she was all right, he continued to watch her closely, even if she seemed okay, besides the obvious.

“C’mon, the hose is in the back, and I want to wash up, first.  Better not get Mom’s furniture all bloody or she’ll have a fit,” she said when Levi hesitated by the door, continuing to waddle right past him and disappear around the side of the house.  Levi followed after her, turning the corner in time to see her lift the handle on a water spout that had a long green tube coiled around it, the end of the tube in one of her bloodied hands with water spouting in a steady stream out of the tube and onto her other hand.  By the time Levi came to stand next to her, she’d already tentatively washed her left hand, arm, and elbow of dirt and blood and was starting on the other.

“Ow, ow, ow,” he heard her chanting softly under her breath as she had to scrub a little to get some of the dirt out of the minor injuries, a muscle in her jaw twitching.  She lowered the handle of the pump when she was done with her arms, the water flow ceasing as she crouched down and started to take off her shoes and socks.  She handed the limp green tube over to Levi without a word, still crouching and starting to roll up her pant legs once her hands were free.  When she finally rolled both pant legs past her knees to reveal the knees that were still scraped up enough to soak blood through her pant legs, but not as badly as her palms had been, she took the hose back and repeated the process.

Levi stayed quiet the entire time, watching her wash away the dirt and blood with the softest hiss of pain here and there, trying not to think about how much water she was using to clean up and how she’d save the majority of what she was using if she just used a little in a bowl and a rag instead.

Finally, she turned the pump off again and re-coiled the green tube, putting her socks and shoes back on but leaving her pant legs rolled up past her knees.  “There--it stings a little, but it’s fine, now,” she said brightly, shaking her hands and sending water droplets everywhere.  She did move a little faster now as she brushed past him again to head for the front door, even grabbing his wrist--lightly--to pull him along just as avidly as the first time he’d been here.  Except this time he was able to easily keep up and wasn’t being dragged around like a sack of wheat.

She got all the way to the front door, stretched her hand out to open it, and paused.  The scrapes of her palm were facing her, fingers suddenly curling inwards as her hand hovered just shy of the doorknob, pulled back a few inches…

Her hand snapped out and she opened the door without any hesitation, but instead of going inside like she’d said they would, she simply stuck her head in the door.  “Mom!  I’m gonna go play at the park with a friend!” she hollered.

“Do you have homework?” came the slightly faded reply.

“Nope!  Can I go?”

“I want you back before dinner!  Do you have your watch?”

Y/N sagged and sighed dramatically, as if her mother had just asked her to redecorate the entire neighborhood in an hour.  “I’ll get it.”

She shrugged off her colorful pack, looking back at Levi.  “Wait here, I just have to run up to my room,” she said, throwing the pack on the ground by the door and disappearing inside.

Levi stepped away from the door, taking a moment to let his gaze wander across the sights of the surface again while he waited.  The grass didn’t seem as healthy as the last time he was here, but perhaps that was because it was closer to the turn in seasons this time.  The trees still stretched high above him with sunlight filtering through, the sky still that vast expanse of blue with a few more clouds drifting lazily by than last time.  The air was still fresh and clear, free of the scent of decay, waste, sweat, rot--the general stench of the Underground he’d grown so used to he wouldn’t know there was any other kind of natural smell if it hadn’t been for these strange trips to the surface.

Levi’s gaze flickered back to the door handle, her hesitant, scratched up hand still hovering just in front of it in his mind’s eye.  Did she change her mind about going inside the house because she didn’t want her mom to see she was hurt?  It had looked like the sight of her scraped up palms reaching for the door had been what made her hesitate…

The door banged open as the object of his current train of thought burst back outside with that same wild, energetic look as when she’d bustled between the main house and the mini house making what could only be described as a nest for him last time.

“I have my watch, let’s go, let’s go!” she said impatiently, stumbling past him and waving for him to follow as she started back the way they had just walked from.  She ran like she wasn't hurt, like none of it had ever happened even if the evidence was clear as day on her arms and legs.  She just kept...running forward, no hesitation.

*Reader's POV*

Your knees hurt, your hands hurt, your arms all the way up to your elbows hurt, but none of that mattered.  Levi was back, running right behind you as you led the charge forward towards the playground.  He didn't look nearly as sickly as he had last time, either--he was moving just fine on his own, though he was still thin, pale, and still looked unkempt.  His neck wasn’t craning in every direction to see every and anything this time, though his eyes still roamed over his surroundings constantly.  But none of that was at the front of your mind at the moment--right now you were only thinking of how if he was feeling better, if he wasn’t fragile like last time, he could play, really play, this time.  You had a friend, if he was able to stay this time.

You skipped to a stop once you were back at the playground, turning around and spreading your arms wide.  “What do you want to do first?  Merry-Go-Round?  See-saw?  Jungle gym?  Slide?  Swings?” you asked excitedly, pointing to each one in turn.  Levi looked hesitant, eyes sliding past the swings, slide, and see-saw in disinterest and instead gazing at the jungle gym and merry-go-round curiously.  You weren’t that great at the jungle gym and its attached monkey bars, especially with your hands hurting like they did right now, so you jumped at the opportunity to pull Levi forward again when his eyes lingered on the merry-go-round.  “Let’s do the merry-go-round--I’ll push!”

Since he looked so tiny, even if he had tackled the older boy to the ground earlier, you figured you should probably be the one to push.  Besides, you were a decent pusher for the merry-go-round, and it would be easy with only one person sitting on it--plus, you would only have to use your hands for a little while instead of having to hold on and climb on the jungle gym dome and monkey bars.

Levi started to sit on the edge, but you gently nudged him towards the center, your other hand already grabbing one of the handles.  “No, no, get inside the bars, I don’t want you flying off,” you chided him, his eyes widening slightly at your words as he climbed inside and held onto the closest metal bars with both hands.  You smiled cheerfully at him.  “Better!  Hold on!”

You were slow at first, of course, well aware of how anti climatic it must have seemed, before the merry-go-round started to push easier as it went faster...and faster...and faster…

When you felt yourself start to stretch as the merry-go-round pulled ahead of you, you let go and stepped back, pushing the handles forward as they spun by, rather proud of your merry-go-round pushing work as you kept it going.  You’d kept your head down while you pushed, but now that you were looking up you could see Levi clutching the bars tightly with his head down, feet slowly starting to peek past the outer bar as he started to slide out.  Not wanting him to get flung off the merry-go-round with how tiny he looked, knowing it would hurt, you suddenly reached out and grabbed the merry-go-round when his knees slipped past the outer bar, digging in your heels to force the merry-go-round to a stop.  As soon as the merry-go-round slowed down enough so he wasn’t being pulled out anymore, Levi pulled himself back up, already climbing back over the bar and down from the merry-go-round when you had almost brought it to a halt.  He looked a little green…

“Not fun,” he said with a small grimace.  You gave him a sheepish smile.

“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have made it go so fast.  Guess I’m actually pretty strong!” you said, puffing your chest out and striking a strongman pose.  Levi grumbled something unintelligible, and your bravado flickered, the sheepishness returning.  “Sorry...the jungle gym doesn’t spin, though, you just climb on it,” you tried to amend.

Skipping over to the dome of metal bars with monkey bars attached that branched over to the small, wooden castle slide structure, you chose to only climb the first two rungs as a demonstration, that way you were more walking on a sloped surface than climbing with your hands.  This one he didn’t hesitate with once he was told what it was for, climbing on, through, and around the bars like it was nothing, even climbing to the top of the dome and hanging upside-down with his legs holding him up.  Something you could surely try on a better day, but not something you wanted to test today.  Instead of joining him crawling all over the jungle gym, you hopped off of your pedestal and slipped over to the swings a few paces away, opting for the normal swing instead of the tire one.  You could feel Levi’s eyes on you as you took a seat, with his arm currently hooked around one bar while one of his legs hooked around another.  It was like he was expending some pent up energy, crawling all over the bars.

As always, you were slow to start on the swing on your own, not yet big enough for your feet to touch the ground enough to kick off yourself and get you started.  You had to swing your legs back and forth and rock to build up the momentum, a brief burn in your knees causing you to regret it for a few moments before you finally started to swing.  Higher and higher you went back and forth, a huge grin on your face, Levi’s eyes on you, and pride swelling at how high you could swing.  You could go high enough the chain would start to slack while you were high up in the air, causing a jarring rattling sound as you swung back towards the ground again.  When the slacking chain increased enough to make your heart pound faster with thoughts of the swing going high enough to go full circle, you counted down in your head from three...two...one…

High enough you felt like you were flying, but not so high that you’d get caught in the swing, you let go and let yourself propel forward without the swing, a shout of alarm somewhere below you before you felt your feet connect with the ground and your crouching legs were jarred by the impact of your landing.

With a victorious whoop, you pumped your fist in the air, turning to grin at a wide eyed Levi that had gone from crawling in and around the jungle gym to outside of it and two steps closer to where you were in the short time it took for you to jump from the swing.

“And she sticks the landing!” you crowed, wiggling in what was supposed to be a dance but honestly probably looked more like flailing.  Your heart was still pounding in your ears from excitement at the brief sensation of flying, proud that you’d not only successfully jumped off the swing and landed on your feet, but also that you’d gotten such a reaction from Levi.  “Tada!  Whaddya think?”

Levi huffed and looked away, looking like he was about to sulk.  “Is there something else we can do?”

A little put out by his request and refusal to comment, you suppressed a sigh and deflated slightly, looking around at the other playground equipment.  You wanted to do something with him that he might enjoy, but you couldn’t climb right now like he could…

His attention returned to you as you brightened once more.  “Let’s play a game!”

He looked at you blankly for a second before tentatively asking, “Like hide and seek?”

“Well, like it, yeah, but not hide and seek--there’s not really anywhere to hide.  We can play tag!”  Levi simply gave you a blank look.  Your enthusiasm was momentarily tampered by hesitation when he didn’t immediately react with recognition.  “You...haven’t played tag before?”

Levi shook his head, and for a moment, you were stunned.  How did any child on Earth who had ever been around another kid not know how to play tag?  Then again...the last time you’d seen him, he hadn’t known what hide and seek was, and that was a game you’d played with your parents long before you ran into other kids.  Though usually it was more a game of peek-a-boo then tag…

You shook away the idle thoughts and the surprise, the determination from when you’d learned he hadn’t played hide and seek before returning once more.  “That’s all right, I can teach you!” you said confidently.

Levi seemed interested after you explained the rules--which didn’t take long since it was such a simple game--and was even willing to be it first.  You let him, feeling rather confident in your ability to run and avoid with all the practice running and evading you got day after day at school.

But even with how fast you were, you weren’t prepared for how fast Levi was.  He looked tiny and frail, but as he demonstrated earlier, that wasn’t the case.  You’d hardly taken three steps before you felt his hand on your back and he darted away.  You could have just attributed it to the fact that you’d started so close together, or that you hadn’t had the chance to really run yet, but as you started to chase after him, it became painfully obvious that he was much, much faster than you.  And really good and dodging things, too, if the way he weaved around the equipment counted.  When you finally rounded the corner of the castle slide and your fingers managed to breeze across his arm, you were suspicious he might have let it happen, not entirely confident that you’d actually managed to catch up to him or catch him off guard.  Not that you had much time to think about it before you were off like a shot again, this time knowing that you were going to have to do more than simply run.  You tried climbing, jumping, zig-zagging--you even slid under the monkey bars and far more clumsily tried to launch yourself through one of the holes to avoid him.  All to no avail--you still felt his hand on your arm this time, turning just in time to see him racing back towards the merry-go-round.  With a huff, you gave chase all over again.

It was a little frustrating playing tag with one other person who was much faster than you--it wasn’t like you could go after a slower target.  But at the same time, it was fun.  It made it all the more exhilarating when you managed to tag him, and you thought it was fun trying to think of crazier and crazier ways to avoid him on the playground equipment.  Your hurt knees and arms were forgotten as you tried to run across the merry-go-round (that had ended miserably) and run up the slide (He’d had better traction with his speed and it actually slowed you down and made it easier for him to tag you), your most successful attempt to avoid his tag having been the few minutes you’d climbed onto the monkey bars and pulled yourself up with your hands clutching one bar and your legs resting on the next, keeping yourself out of Levi’s reach...until he climbed on the monkey bars as well and you had to jump and run all over again.

And you saw him smiling.

His hair kept getting in his face, both of you were eventually red and sweaty, and sometimes you only caught glimpses of each other, but you saw it, even more clearly than when you two had splashed each other with water last time.  His eyes were bright, and not just because the sunlight was bringing out the blue in his eyes.  You even heard him laugh a few times when he managed to just barely evade your hand more than once and you made a sound of frustration, his breathless, quiet laugh urging you to try again.  Occasionally he’d smirk at you over his shoulder as he ran off again after tagging you.  He was having fun, you both were, which is why you didn’t stop until he was panting and you were wheezing, dropping down into the grass like a stone in a lake and starfishing on the ground when your legs refused to run anymore.  Levi simply sat down next to you, he didn’t flop, both of you taking a moment to catch your breath.

“I’m happy...you came back...Levi” you managed to say around your wheezing breaths, throat dry, chest burning, and limbs too tired to even try and sit up.

“Me too.”

You thought back to what he said, how he didn’t know what happened last time, how he’d just woken up and he’d been back home.  If he didn’t know when he’d have to leave again…

“You’ll have to...go back, though...right?”

Levi was quiet for a moment besides his breathing, which was slowly starting to even out.  “Yeah.”

“Promise...you’ll come back again?” you asked, trying to sit up and look at him.  Levi hesitated, eyes flickering away and down towards the ground, like he expected it to open up and swallow him like some kind of monster.  “C’mon, you came back this time!  You can...come back again,” you said firmly, uncaring if you sounded bossy.

Levi nodded slowly, though he still seemed unsure.  “All right.”

You held out your hand, every finger curled into a fist except your pinky, which was stretched out towards him.  “Pinky promise?”

Levi stared at your hand, giving you that increasingly familiar look that he had no idea what you were talking about.  Rolling your eyes, you reached out and took his hand with your other one, making it into a mirror image of yours and hooking your pinkies together, giving his pinky a tight squeeze.

“There, you can’t break a pinky promise, or you’ll die!” you said in a tone more suited to a summer campfire scary story.  Levi narrowed his eyes and snorted, and you released his pinky with a small smile.  “Okay, you won’t die, but it’s still serious!  Super serious!  You can’t break it!”

“I won’t,” Levi said, his voice back to its usual quiet tone, though he was still red and sweaty, which gave away how tired he actually was.

You got back to your feet, Levi following your lead as usual, falling into place behind you as you started to cross the playground.  “C’mon, I’m tired--we can get something to drink at my house.  This time you can meet my mom, so she doesn’t think you’re an imaginary fr--”

You looked over your shoulder to give him a smile at the laughable fact your mother thought he wasn’t real, your step and smile both faltering once you saw there was no one behind you.  Not a trace.

Levi was gone again.  Like he’d never been there to start with.

*Levi POV*

“Hey, Runt, you better still be paying attention.”

Levi was thrown off for a brief moment, re-orienting himself as his world went from bright with warm weather and a cool breeze in fresh air to dark, dim, and full of the stench of the Underground once more.  All in the literal blink of an eye.  One moment he was in the sunlight with Y/N in front of him, turning to look at him as she spoke, the next, he was gazing in the Underground’s dingy light at Kenny, who stood gazing at him with a sharp, disapproving eye, probably seeing some sort of confusion or distance in his eyes.  Now that he thought about it, Kenny had been about to turn around to look at him when he’d suddenly found himself on the surface with Y/N...which meant he’d at least seen what Kenny was showing him...

“I am,” Levi answered almost defensively, straightening up and stepping forward.  “I can do it.”

Kenny studied him from head to toe, flipping the knife around to offer it handle first to Levi.  “All right, hot shot, if you’re paying such great attention, you’d better be able t’do it on the first try.”

Levi took the knife from him without any hesitation, pushing most of his thoughts about the surface to the back of his mind as he focused on doing the gutting action Kenny’d been showing him before he’d seen Y/N.

The thought that did linger was his promise to go back and see her again.

Next Chapter--->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be tagged)

Levi Tags:  @humanitys-hottestsoldier​ @clary-quinn​

Tags: @fanartdom​ @kaz2y5-pie @tartheyes​ @super-peace-fangirl @huntersbunker​ @nefelimalfoy​​ @soft-levi-girl-blog​ @kissing-violet-wings​ @regalillegal​ @sugas-daddy7 ​

[minas-writing]

Week 3 - Friends

For @yourocsbackstory ! I missed last week but I’m back! Late! Oh well!

I’m counting the assassin team as Slyn’s friends. They’re probably the best he’s got right now, and though they’re all just a little too okay with murder for him, they are his age and relatively fun to be around.

There’s GinHa, from a country called Marandala, which I picture as sort of like ancient Mongolia, though I still need to do tons of research. She’s the one who, if it needs to get personal, will get up close with the murder. It doesn’t bother her. She’s the fighter, if there’s a fight.

Farin is short, native to Rinthia where the story and capitol are, and he really likes mechanics. If there’s a lock to be picked, a gate to be lowered, a vehicle to be hijacked, he’s the guy. He also likes bludgeoning weapons, if he has to use them at all.

Rinter is of an unknown ethnicity, though he likely came from some kind of noble group, as he shows familiarity with and strong interest in the inner workings of the court. He likes the politics, and is the party’s face, as it were. He’s the one with the highest Charisma score and can bluff his way through almost anything.

Matta’s interesting. Chackalo (terrible country name I know :P) is kind of Eastern-Europe coded, and is like Rinthia’s younger cousin. It’s more where nobles go to vacation, if they like more forests and odd architecture. She’s actually a runaway daughter of a major noble family, but it’s not like anybody in Rinthia really pays enough attention to realize. She’s the only one in the group with magic, a kind of telekinesis. And she doesn’t talk. She could if she wanted to, but she just chooses not to, for various reasons, not all of them bad. GinHa is her very good friend, and Matta often just goes along with the stronger personality.

What follows is one of my favorite sequences that I wrote for Vacea’s first draft. There’s quite a bit of worldbuilding I was trying to figure out for it, so lots of proper nouns, but I think it’s readable if you have no idea what’s going on. It features most of the main characters, actually.

“Lord Tirra is your next target,” said Slyn, addressing the four in the large conference room that now belonged to him. It had previously been two empty houses, but they’d knocked down a few walls and made it the largest room in the cave of New Rithia.

“Makes sense,” said Farin, the smaller man. Well, he wasn’t much older than Slyn, but he was half a head shorter and had much darker hair. “I think.”

“He’s the one with all those soldiers that harass people, isn’t he?” asked GinHa. She retied the pale yellow ribbon in her black hair.

Slyn nodded once. Even though he’d never asked, it was obvious that GinHa was Marandese. It was the seventh Vacean state to join the united coalition, but it was only last because it was a collection of tribes rather than a proper country as many of the others had been. In that way, Marandala was a template that the New Vaceans wanted to copy - each town or clan ruling themselves with no input from the planet’s government, because no planet-wide government would exist at all. Slyn knew it would never work. He’d studied enough political theory and history to know that. The clans of Marandala were fading out and many were leaving their homes for the Galhaltran States and Perint. New Vaceans had good intentions, but they would ultimately fail. If not during the revolution, then after it. Why Raem persisted in it, even if they both knew it was destined for failure, confused Slyn. But he wanted his family back, so he built up the cause anyway.

((OOC - I wrote that a while ago and have no idea if it’s actually valid but this was just a first draft))

“His soldiers are Vacea’s army, though,” said Rinter, a scowl of confusion on his face.

“His soldiers,” argued Slyn, listening to Raem, “are the main force that would stop us. Besides, Vacea doesn’t even need an army. Nobody has attacked us for generations. Why would they start now?”

“But what if somebody does?” Rinter continued.

“Then our citizens can take care of it. We’re not entirely helpless.” Slyn was vaguely disturbed by the smirk that appeared on Matta’s face. She was from the nearby state of Chackalo, and had one of the strongest parent gifts in the world. Matta was a sundaughter, and her most prevalent talent was moving small things without touching them. As far as Slyn knew, only twenty sunchildren were alive, all from Chackalo or Attorya.

“Lord Tirra, then.” Rinter drew all eyes back to him, and reclaimed the conversation. “Any other instructions?”

Raem’s orange smoke swirled around Slyn’s head like a snake. He didn’t bother taking form much anymore, preferring to sit back and direct. “Ignore the servants in his house. If they wear the New Vacean knots and hide their weapons, then the servants will let them pass. But the soldiers they will have to sneak past.”

“Wear the knot and conceal all your weapons,” Slyn said out loud. “Lord Tirra’s staff will ignore you if you ignore them, with the exception of the soldiers.” He got a bit of a rebellious thrill from restructuring Raem’s instructions, though he did just say exactly the same thing. Raem usually didn’t mind.

The four nodded. Slyn looked them over - Farin, GinHa, Rinter, and Matta. Only Farin was older than Slyn. They were talented and obviously comfortable with what they were doing, even if none of them had ever been part of an assassin team before. Much less killed anyone.

It was early the next day when Slyn heard how it had all happened.

Emmelyn shivered in the chill of the smaller conference room in the palace. Her parents, the King and Queen, sat in front of her, listening to the warrior across the table give his report. Ganna stood behind her, the man who worked on cases such as these. It was early, but she’d been up much earlier before.

“The guard shifts were about to change,” the warrior was explaining. “It was maybe two or three in the morning, and we’d been on shift for a few hours already. Nights are always difficult, and I have to admit that my eyes wanted to close. But I’m a loyal soldier through and through, Your Majesties, and I never once dozed off.”

“There were lots of guards on the wall, but they were all sleeping,” GinHa said, her feet up on the table and a bowl of grapes in her hand. “We practically just waltzed right in.” A grape flew through the air and landed in her mouth.

“It only took a few moments for five strong men to pull us down and douse us with baha powder. That’s all I remember.”

“Thank you,” said King Hela. He dismissed the warrior and called in a large woman who worked in Lord Tirra’s large house.

She took a deep breath, evidently nervous. “I’m just a laundress, Your Majesties. I’m not sure what I can offer...”

“Any information at this point is good information,” said the investigator behind Emmelyn.

“Well,” began the woman. “I saw four people I didn’t recognize walking through the hallways. They seemed a bit suspicious. It would have been very early in the morning, close to three o’clock. My mind was a bit muddled, though, Your Majesties, and I didn’t see them well. I can tell you that two were female. But they were gone quickly and none of them spoke.”

Farin sat down next to GinHa, less celebratory but still smug. He stole a grape from her bowl, and she glared. “We sort of got lost inside, but there was this fat lady - ”

“Don’t say fat, she wasn’t that bad,” Rinter interrupted from his position leaning against a nearby wall. “Just... larger. She was strong, though, with a big basket of clothes. She saw our knots. She let us pass, just like you said.” He glanced up at Slyn, who nodded.

Another grape sailed through the air, wrenched from the perfect trajectory of GinHa’s throw, unsupported before finding Matta’s pale hand. She grinned at GinHa and raised her eyebrows at Farin, urging him to continue the story.

He did. “She told us where to find the wing where Lord Tirra usually stayed.”

“And you,” said King Hela, looking at a new witness, a young girl who looked terrified to be standing in the presence of the King, the Queen, the heir, and a royal investigator. “You said you saw something.”

“Yes, sir,” the girl said in a small voice. “I was about to go to bed, after beginning the next morning’s breakfast. Two girls were walking around. One of them asked me where Lord Tirra’s room was. I assumed they were new maids so I told her. They turned around and joined two boys and went the direction I had said.”

GinHa set the empty bowl on the table. “And another girl told me and Matta exactly where to find the guy. I thought she saw the knots, too, but she looked really suspicious. I’m not sure she ignored us like the other woman.”

Behind Emmelyn, Ganna leaned forward. “I know you’re nervous, but I must insist you tell us everything. What did these people look like? Was there anything specific you saw?”

“One of the girls was Marandese,” the girl said nervously. “The second one didn’t talk, and I don’t think she could at all. All four had...” She trailed off.

Ganna urged her on. “Had what?”

“New Vacean knots,” squeaked the girl, then she hid her face. Emmelyn’s parents both inhaled sharply.

“Hm.” Ganna leaned back. “Thank you for your time.”

“Dismissed,” repeated King Hela. The soldiers guided the girl out.

“Will the maid be a problem?” asked Slyn levelly. He looked at Matta, who just shrugged. Then she grimaced and rocked her hand.

“Maybe,” GinHa translated. “She seemed pretty conservative.”

Slyn sighed and changed the subject. “So you found Lord Tirra’s room without a problem?”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Farin. “And nobody stopped us.”

“New Vaceans,” sighed Ganna when the girl and soldiers left. “That explains why everybody but that maid lied to us, and how the assassins were able to just walk in. I had hoped they wouldn’t be a problem.”

Emmelyn stopped him. “New Vaceans? Who are they? Why does that explain things?”

“We did run into a bit of trouble...” Rinter objected.

“A corpse doesn’t talk,” GinHa grinned.

“It was just one, and we hid and rigged the body so nobody can blame us.” Farin reached to fill a cup with water. “They’ll think he committed suicide.”

Matta’s eyes gleamed with pride. She made the stream of water from the pitcher miss Farin’s goblet and splash on his shirt. GinHa laughed again.

“New Vacea is what a fairly organized group of revolutionaries call themselves,” King Hela said before Ganna had a chance.

“But most people like them. To many people, they’re the good guys,” Ganna said. “If somebody uses a specific New Vacean knot on their colored ribbon or scarf or such, one we haven’t been able to identify, then they’re granted passage to practically anywhere. It’s a breach of some unspoken rule to wear the knot if you’re not actually affiliated with New Vacea.”

“Anyway, we found the old geezer sitting in his chair, practically dead already,” Rinter continued, a smile still on his face from Matta’s antics.

“Matta stopped him from making noise by pressing his cape against his face.” Farin didn’t want to be left out, though he looked distinctly disgruntled at his damp shirt. “GinHa went up and stabbed him, then Rinter saw some guards coming and we jumped out the window. He was still twitching, but - “

“We waited until he died,” GinHa protested. “We were just out on the roof instead of in the room.”

Funny, thought Slyn. She was afraid of him disapproving of their methods. He didn’t care, but he was, honestly, a bit sick. None of the four looked like they were battling their consciences at all. They were joking and laughing, confident that any blame would be pinned on Slyn. That was what a leader was for, he supposed. He did wish one of them would show a bit of remorse or guilt.

“We followed your instructions and did everything you asked,” said Farin. “Now we’re done, right?”

“They’ve never made a move as bold as this before.” King Hela shook his head. “We never did anything about them because they never stirred up any trouble.”

“So you know where to find them?” asked Emmelyn. She fiddled uncomfortably with her long sleeves.

“No,” sighed King Hela after a moment. “I wish I could say otherwise and go there right now. Assassinating a lord is reason enough to make them disband.”

“No, there are still more adventures to be had,” Raem said, and Slyn repeated his words dispassionately out loud, not bothering to think of a different way of wording it. But “adventure”... what a horrible way to put it.

Matta grinned while GinHa chuckled and Farin’s eyes lit up. Rinter shrugged as if he didn’t care, but Slyn knew that his emotions were as high as the others’. He didn’t smile with them.

“You are dismissed for the rest of the day,” Slyn told them. His unamused expression and monotone voice shooed the team out faster than his words alone ever could. He sat heavily on the chair GinHa had vacated when the curtain behind her had settled.

“You’re doing well,” whispered Raem, pleased. “You may grow into this role better than I ever thought you could.”

“Shut up,” growled Slyn, quietly enough that nobody beyond the curtained doorways and covered windows could hear. “I don’t care what you think. I don’t care about any of this. I just want to go back home.”

“Better not let anybody hear you say that. My plans could be tossed out the window.”

Slyn sneered and clenched his hands. “I told you that I don’t care about your stupid plans. If they crashed and burned, I wouldn’t cry a single tear over it.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Slyn wished he could pull them in. Raem had shown him unkindness in the past for talking back like that. But he didn’t apologize, just stood and left the room, going about the next diabolical task that would leave his soul scarred for good.

((Eh? Eh? Dramatic, innit?))

[rekkingcrew]

Rek DMs: Space Bastards Ep 0 (pt 2)

continued from https://rekkingcrew.tumblr.com/post/179064273187/rek-dms-space-bastards-episode-zero-pt-1

Let’s talk about the ship!

I always figured the custom ship was going to be a big focal point for the group and a big part of the initial buy in. It’s home. It’s home base. Both the players and the characters have made modifications to make it their own.

My plan had been to ask the group what insane star wars alien species their ship was designed for, and what modifications they had all made to be able to use it. I was thinking something like an aquatic species where the inside required joisting to hold it’s shape absent the presence of liquid, or it had belonged to something that was naturally much smaller or much larger than a human. 

Instead, the players gave me something magical.

TK’s player said his idea for how he came to join the crew was that he had been in a crate in an evidence locker. 

Or maybe an evidence ship.

“Oh my god,” said another player. “We’re driving around in a stolen cop car.”

And so they are. 

And I’m not kidding, that’s the thing that set the tone for everything that came after and clicked everything into place. The Black Star is who the group is.

What the players came up with was that they and their NPCs had been disparate petty criminals who had, individually and with other groups, been part of a fifteen gang pile up when a wealthy criminal individual died and everyone tried to be the first to loot his space station, and had ended up in a guns pointed every direction space Mexican standoff (minus TK, who was in the evidence locker, and Eshi, who had already hopped aboard from one stow away situation to another), before they made the collective decision to work together to escape the collapsing station rather than fight. The main architect of this truce was an older twi’lek called Ort Fine, who was wounded during the escape. The group grabbed the last available ship, a slow but heavily gunned and armored police vehicle that was a brand new prototype model, and jetted off together into space. They peeled off the police logo and painted a black star over it. It’s not even a particularly good cover job. Ort was initially the primary force in getting them all to stay together and work as a crew, speaking to each of them about their strengths and convincing them to work a job together he arranged. He died on the job, but the crew stayed together, and out of respect Ort is still listed as the captain on all the manifests. 

Mechanically, I’d told the players to pick one of the freighters or transports from the books. They would be allowed to up two stats or put in upgrades, and then I would require them to drop one stat. There would also be whatever narrative consequences I thought fit their choice of ship- in this case, they look like a cop ship, plus in stealing their ship, they’ve made personal enemies of the police forces. The ship also has a lot of internal locks and seals that have been slightly on the fritz since they stole it. I’ve also told them I’m keeping track of fuel and they’re going to have to keep refilling if they want to make long jumps. They have six units in the tank. A small hyperspace jump uses one, a medium two, a long three. The players picked an ILH-KK Citadel Class light freighter, which is a perfect police or pirate ship. They improved the handling and added smuggling compartments as their upgrades. For their disadvantage, rather than dropping a stat, they suggested the following: this ship is exclusively sold for police and military use and parts are proprietary and restricted. All mechanics checks have at least two disadvantage dice unless correct parts are obtained first. Some repairs will not be possible at all without them. 

The players seemed to really enjoy making the ship. Most of them also do Warhammer, and one of them found a ship design from there they shared with everyone. “Yes! That’s perfect!”

The NPCs

I’d told the gang they got two NPCs to help cover any gaps in competencies. They were also meant to get the players invested in the world right away. Since TK was capable of covering multiple roles, they had a little freedom. 

The first thing they wanted was a criminal face man. I’d been talking to Nyla’s player about some of the things I’d been kicking around about Devaronian gender politics, and so that was the species suggestion from that player. We went for some obvious Satan jokes, and everyone in the group took a turn giving the character one trait. Which is how we got:

Beelz Feck: devaronian con artist and walking catastrophe. 

Beelz is a compulsive gambler and up to his eyeballs in debt. He’s also alienated a lot of people in his past and has more bounties on him than the rest of the crew combined, largely because when things get dangerous, Beelz has a bad habit of cashing out. Even so, more than anyone else on the crew, Beelz has a very good ear for what’s going on, and while he always comes back to the ship poorer than when he left it, he also comes back with loads of useful information about rumors, gang wars, and possible leads for the PCs to follow. Beelz’s uncle (who variously goes by “Old Harry”, “Old Scratch”, and “Old Nick”) runs an off-the-grid ship hangar and trading port, and out of gratitude for looking after his sister’s kid, he’s sheltered the crew even when it was a big personal risk for him (that NPC was always planned but not populated, and the group decided it made sense to tie him to Beelz). We also worked out that he is terrified of Brick, but Brick, being Brick, has never actually noticed, and just thinks Beelz is being accommodating. They’re room mates now. 

The players couldn’t think of any role they desperately needed after that, so they went for something fun: an assassin. They decided the character should definitely be female, because it was a bit of a sausage fest otherwise. They also decided she was a Bothan. We followed the same format: one trait from each player, then a free brainstorming session. This gave us:

“Thirteen”

None of the crew know what Thirteen’s real name or actual story are. Every now and again she claims she needs to visit her husband, but each time it’s a different man. They have never seen her without knives or a holdout blaster. Sometimes she’ll just disappear for days. Sometimes, even when they think a mission was their idea, she’ll coincidentally have someone she needs to kill at just that place. Thirteen mostly stays out of the rest of the crew’s business, and she keeps them well out of hers. She’s icy, aloof, and professional. Only the killbot personality in TK has ever gotten a laugh out of her. After Ort died, she took over the captain’s quarters and changed the locks, and no one has been able to get in since. Twice since she’s been with the crew, small groups of well trained killers have tried to hit the ship, which hasn’t made the rest of the crew happy, but Thirteen has not explained anything. She appears to know and will occasionally allude to other character’s secrets, but she hasn’t betrayed any confidences and does not appear likely to. Thirteen is exceptionally capable, and when it suits her, she brings in hard to find jobs that make problems like the APB on their ship just... disappear. She seems content with her situation for now, and as far as anyone can tell, she mostly likes the crew, especially Eshi. 

I also gave each NPC four starting opinions, one for each character: very positive, positive, neutral, and negative. I let the players pick who got which and what that meant. I like players having asymmetric access to resources, and I like interesting social dynamics. 

Beelz considers Nyla his good luck charm and goes out of his way to do nice little things for her. He’s also predisposed to think of her as competent and in charge because he grew up in a matriarchy and doesn’t examine his own thought process much. For all that Brick terrifies him, he’s a really comprehensible sort, and a useful guy to have at your back. TK is a droid, and kind of a weird one, but meh, what can you do? He doesn’t like having Eshi on the ship, though. He’s just a kid, and that feels irresponsible even for Beelz. 

Eshi is Thirteen’s favorite. He’s a smart kid with so much potential. Of all of them, he’s going to be the most useful. She’s amused by TK, especially his violent program. Her relationship to Nyla is cool and professional, and that feels comfortable for both of them. Nyla is more crisp and military around her. But they don’t know each other well personally, and neither seems inclined to. And Brick? What about him? He doesn’t even merit contempt, really. He’s a dime a dozen. We could replace him with any one of a thousand thugs off the street and who could even tell the difference?

More later. Jesus this is long, but I did want to talk about the process, because I think it all went very well. 

[somebodysmother-blog]

Best Simple Wooden Sofa Sets – My Favorite Couches, Chairs, and Tables!

Decorating my living room is my favorite and least favorite thing to do. I love it because it is easy to come up with tons of ideas but it is hard to put them all together. If you want to be good at living room designing, you have to go through a lot of layouts and then try to figure out why they wouldn’t work. This gives you the best shot at finding something that you love and will work in your home.

One creative layout I have been working with is simple wooden sofa sets and classic style chairs and recliners. The combination works great if you know what you’re looking for and what to put around your new furniture. Today I am going to be going through some of my favorite tips and how I recently re-designed my entire living room using simple wooden furniture to get the look I have wanted for a long time.

Wooden Sofa Sets

There are two types of simple wooden sofa sets that you normally see in living rooms or family rooms. The first kind is the traditional set; this set uses lighter wood and is bulkier in size. We don’t see any high rising arms, extravagant lines or much outside the sense of pure simplicity. Another thing I have noticed is that you don’t see these types of sofa sets in homes that often. You might see one here and there, but people tend to stay away from them. This could be because they are harder to design around and when you do decide to choose one it can be a truly defining layout that you are now stuck with.

What I find people don’t see is how beautiful these types of sets can be in non-traditional ways. We usually think of a living room to be amazing if there are huge windows and sleek furniture with the latest TV and fireplace, but that doesn’t have to be the case. A lot of people love simpler layouts, especially in smaller homes and condos where you don’t want to super modern furniture.

Simple Traditional

Sofa Set #1

Looking at simple sofa set #1 you will see a lot of different things that pull the room together. It is even more amazing when you realize there isn’t a whole lot in the room. As we talked about above, the lighter colored wood is the key here because dark colors require more depth to their surroundings to look better than lighter and simpler tones.

The chairs, sofa, and tables all have simple wooden curves on the sides and a very straight structured composition to them. There is a teapot set on the table and small green plants on each table and to the side with a cute rug in front of the table. All these things add to the simplicity of the sofa set, and it is capped off with the cream-colored couches and seats, along with the white walls. Counting all the items outside of the sofa set, there are 4 things in total! The teapot collection, plants, and rug! But, when you look at the whole picture, it seems like a calming environment to be in. You don’t need a whole lot to make it all work, and this sofa set is a perfect example of using simple straight structure and minimizing the surrounding items to get the environment you want.

Sofa Set #2

In our second simple sofa set, you will see a completely different layout and theme. Here we see a much more traditional American style home layout. We have a few paintings on the wall with a very simple coffee table and round peg legs for the chairs. The arms are slightly curved and have wooden panels in between the arms and the lower portion of the chair, but that is advanced as it gets. What makes the traditional style look come alive is the pattern of the back and seat cushions. This truly touches on my main point that you can still have creative direction with simpler sofa sets. Imagine instead of those green striped cushions you had a light pin and instead of paintings on the walls that followed the green and white layout you had more abstract and contemporary paintings. That would change the game up!

What I love the most about this sofa set is the increased cushioning on the chairs. This is what traditional style sets were about, having comfortable seating that was simple but did the job right! We also see a larger plant creeping in from the left side of the photo, and this also adds to the classic style look. This would have been an absolute must look in the late 70s and early 80s, and it is something that you can still use today because you play around with the back padding and surrounding simplicity.

Simple Contemporary

Sofa Set #3

When I look for the best wooden design for modern living rooms, I want to see a few things. Number one, I want to see how the wood is carved and made out. I don’t want to have to deal with crazy shapes and structures if they only get in the way. Just because there are more curves or weird shapes to a sofa or chair doesn’t mean it is better! I can’t stress this enough!

For these reasons and more, I loved sofa set #3! The high rise arms don’t get in the way of anything since they are tucked into the chair. Long wooden cuts in the high rise panel give it that cool look otherwise the chairs would look bulky and ugly. The sofa itself is very simple and has a slight curve on the arms that is manageable. You don’t want unmanageable furniture, it becomes a nightmare! The side table has a completely flat surface with wooden legs that are designed to go outwards; this is a neat touch for the high rise arms. Last, the table is small and cute with two drawers to put your stuff in.

Sofa Set #4

Our last simple wooden sofa set has a lot in it, so we are going to have to unpack this part by part. It comes with 2 sofas, 2 chairs, and 4 tables. First off, this is a lot of furniture so if you don’t have the space it becomes an automatic no. Secondly, you need to actually have some purpose and design for this, and that is why I always imagine these types of wooden sets to be placed in larger homes with open layout concepts that don’t require you to have the same theme throughout the house.

What I love about this set is that it is simple but complex at the same time. The sofas look average in their appearance and nothing seems to be out of the norm which is the great simplicity behind it. But then the side has a pull out drawer that you put stuff in and that is just fabulous! You can store all your kid’s toys, your magazines and any other junk you might need to clean up before people come over. Moving onto the chairs, they are simple standard chairs with medium sized arms and thick cushion padding that looks incredibly comfortable.

Tables

When we look at the tables, we see a number of things that are both simple and complex. The giant table with the massive curve almost seems like it is unnecessary, why do you need a second main table to go with your sofa set? Especially considering its wooden and the general idea is to keep things simple. But again, it works with open layout houses that are bigger. What I don’t like is the drawers on the ends of the curved table, I feel that the table would be better if it curved out without the drawers, how many drawers do you really need?

The main coffee table in the middle is stunning! It is wide and long which I absolutely love and it doesn’t have anything sticking out (you guys can probably tell by now, that I am big on that).

All in all, it is a great simple wooden sofa set but I would remove the drawers on the curved table or get rid of it all together. I know that is there to add a little flare which is what the room is all about. I mean how could it not be about that? The elegant light, 3 piece panel painting, giant plant, and maroon rug all scream a modern setting.

Recliners

I’ve always found recliners to be the new replacement for normal chairs. If you really think about it, a recliner is just a much better version of a chair. For God sakes, it lets you lay down as if you are in a bed! How does it get any better than that? When pairing recliners with wooden sofa sets, I’ve found that contrast works best. Also, if you think about it, how comfortable could a wooden recliner be? When you look at the Recliner #1 picture, it doesn’t look like it would be the most comfortable chair to kick back in. Recliner #2, on the other hand, is much better but it is way too low to the ground for me, there aren’t any legs and that can ruin the experience.

That is why when I have wooden sofa sets or furniture I like to pair them with comfier color matched recliners. I’ve always felt that recliners should be plush and soft, that is how they were meant to be used. I found some great recliners that Laywayback reviewed, that go well when you are contrasting simple wooden sofa sets. I like to find a recliner that has that soft fabric feeling and then color match it with my sofa set. It is different but that is what this article is all about.

Simple Wooden Chairs

Finding traditional side piece chairs is a bit difficult because they almost always have a distinct look to them that is hard to pair with established sofa sets, especially if they are wooden. Lately, we have seen a bit of a change with this idea. If you look at the three single wooden chairs I have added, you can see that they are all sleek but are still very different. You can use chair #1 for a much more contemporary and modern living room and you could easily pair chair #2 with a simple layout. And chair #3 can work in both style rooms and that is why I included it. Even though these chairs aren’t the classic traditional chair, I would consider them to be better because they are more versatile.

That does it

After this long piece, I hope you guys have a better understanding of what some the best simple wooden sofa sets have in common and what makes each of them great individually. Wooden curves and crazy complex designs are fun to look at but they aren’t practical if you don’t have the space to make it work.

Honestly, this is the most I have written in God knows how long. I don’t think I’ve ever written this much since college but it is all for you guys (and my kids). Decorating is something you all know I am passionate about and it pushes my creativity. Thanks for reading guys, see you next time!

[mistyandmatt]

We left Hawaii on a new airline, Japan Airlines (JAL), and after never flying on a non-US airline we were unsure of what to expect. Japan Airlines did not disappoint. JAL operates a 777 from Honolulu to Tokyo. The plane is massive, I believe the larger “Economy Plus” seats we had were still 2 x 5 x 2 seating arrangement, meaning, the planes is 9 big seats and 2 aisles wide. The cleanliness and service on this flight is something I don’t think I can go without mentioning. The plane was extremely clean and although it looked like it was put in service somewhat recently, it was not new at all, just very well maintained. The service was also something that was very good, even for us English speaking travelers. Most of the flight attendants spoke English well enough to take care of anything you asked them for and were able to take care of us just fine. We flew into Narita Airport, one of the major airports for the Tokyo area. We managed to locate my mom (Kinuko or Kim, as we will refer to her in the rest of the posts) wandering around the baggage claim area soon after we arrived. We directed her through the baggage claim and customs process on our way to the main lobby to meet up with my aunt and uncle. They were able to spot the three of us and graciously welcomed us to Tokyo. They had transportation already arranged to get us to the center of Tokyo where they live.

The drive back from Narita to Tokyo was similar to what you’d expect coming into most large cities, lots of tolls and traffic. Most of the transportation is similar to ours in the US, but not the same, and of course, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road here. They all have vehicles where the driver sits on the right hand side as well. We’re currently staying in an extra home my aunt owns just a couple miles from the middle of Tokyo. The homes are nice, but everything is a bit miniature compared to American standards. The rooms are a bit smaller, the doors are much shorter, and just everything is about 4/5th’s the size. It all works quite well until you hit your head on a door frame. My mom decided to come back over for my cousin’s wedding, so we decided this would be a great time for us to come as well, mainly so I could meet my extended family here in Tokyo. The wedding is a few days off, so we’ve got a couple of days to be the non-Asian tourists, as the rest of the family is busy getting ready for the wedding. On Friday we we headed out with my mom (Kinuko) and her sister to the “Skytree Tower,” which is the largest tower in Tokyo, quite a bit larger than the original Tokyo Tower. Crazy thing is my aunt lives here and had never been. I guess the notion of being a tourist in your own city is a concept understood worldwide. After a trip to the top for some 360 degree breathtaking views of Tokyo, we ate lunch in one of the restaurants in the lower levels before heading over to see the Senso-ji temple. My aunt drove us to the Skytree Tower and then dropped us off in front of the temple because she needed to head back to get a few things done in preparation for the wedding. We’d need to navigate public transportation back to her home, this ought to be a fun…with Misty being a terrible navigator and, well my mom not being here in at least 15 years, we hoped this process went well. Glad I marked a pin to the place we are staying, just in case we needed to find another way back home. We had a great visit to the shrine and the shopping area directly in front of it. It’s filled with shops selling everything from incense to put at the shrine to foods and random waving cat souvenirs. The shrine itself stands at the end of the long shopping area and stands prominently over the surrounding area. People were making offerings in the form of coins thrown into this box that looked like it had an odd corrugated thing on top where the coins would fall into the collection area. Basically, you would wait in line, throw your offering into the box, say a prayer, and exit to the side so that the next person could do the same. The more formal area behind the glass (inside the actual temple) was also available and there were several people inside as well saying prayers at the shrine. We left the temple and sampled several things, such as Mochi, rice crackers, and other great Japanese treats from the vendors on our way back.

After making it back, we met up my aunt and uncle for our first trip to one of the conveyer belt sushi restaurants. Now there are many ways to get sushi here in Tokyo, but the place we had dinner was probably the most fun. I’ve gathered this is not the fanciest way to have sushi, but probably the equivalent to a casual family restaurant, maybe like a Cheddar’s sushi restaurant if that makes sense. The reason this one is the most fun, is because the chefs stand in the middle of the restaurant and put sushi on a little conveyer belt that moves around their area. As the sushi (and other goodies) come by and you see something you like, you just pull it off the conveyer belt and eat it! It might sound a bit mundane, but it’s pretty entertaining, at least for me. Ha!

The next day, my mom informed us that she had gotten pretty worn out on day one and would rather rest and help her sister with things around the house for the day. So, Misty and I headed to Shibuya on our own. We figured most of the areas had enough things in English that we would be able to get by pretty easily. This was true for the most part except for one little hiccup in the beginning where we had to transfer from the bus down to the subway station and must have been looking quite lost. A rather quirky man (carrying a mini-poodle) approached us asking us if we needed assistance and proceeded to help us understand what we were doing wrong in the best broken English he could muster. As we were following this guy around the subway station, he escorted us all the way down to the turnstile where we had to put our tickets in and made it into the fare payer only area. He gets an A for effort and an A+ for helping two wandering souls.

We made it to Shibuya without much issue after this and proceeded to explore the Shibuya Crossing, also known as the busiest intersection in the world. We had to take a moment and go up to the Starbucks that overlooks the intersection (as it gives you a birds-eye view of the crossing all happening at once. We made our way out and about through the shops and Misty just had to go check out the pachinko parlors from there. We didn’t play any pachinko, but these places make our casinos at home look pretty docile. These are some of the loudest games I’ve ever heard. You can hardly even hear each other yell in these buildings, but the nice thing is, much like our casinos at home, they always have trash cans, fresh drinks, and bathrooms. Well, the trash can thing is kind of odd, but in the 90’s or sometime around then in Tokyo there were terrorist groups blowing up trash cans, so they just removed them all. So when you have any refuse with you, you just have to carry it until you’re back in a business that has one which is pretty few and far between. We went down the to Tokyu Food Show for lunch to sample several different things and see the fancy produce areas, home to the $150.00 cantaloupe. Admittedly, it was probably the most perfect cantaloupe I’d ever seen, but it was a bit pricey, I thought. The pastries, baked goods, produce, local cuisine looked absolutely perfect, almost like art. It’s almost too pretty to eat. At this point we have had ramen, sushi, fried rice, etc. since we had been here, but we hadn’t had any yakatori yet, so Misty dug up a favorite spot by the locals, where we ate some of the best yakatori, washed down by a Sapporo of course. We managed to find our way back to my aunts house, where after just two days in the city, we ordered in yakiniku and gyoza for delivery so that we could just rest and relax before the wedding festivities the next day. Looking forward to meeting the rest of my family tomorrow.

[davidschnuckel]

New Glass Review 41

August 21, 2020

Juror’s Essay (first draft from mid-March 2020 )

As part of the deal in serving as a guest reviewer for New Glass Review 41, there's a lot of writing that follows the actual selection process.  And I was most excited about engaging it.  The task of writing 25 short blurbs to contextualize the selections I had made within the issue and a short essay in the back was not a chore, but a pleasure.  But a challenge, for sure.  Although I love writing - and see it as an opportunity to articulate things I sense, but don't know how to say - these New Glass Review tasks were a challenge for me.  My mind is cluttered and busy...so being clear with words is a challenge.  I have to take the long way when talking ideas or observations out to finally find the things I want to communicate and how to communicate them...so keeping to word counts is a challenge. And, of course, knowing that these writings would go down in print means that these words will be permanent and forever an extension of me...so having this overwhelming sense of vulnerability in mind when putting pen to paper was a challenge. I learned a lot in writing for the Review.  And I learned that the way I would normally approach writing blurbs or essays do not translate well for all writing-based  scenarios.  For instance, the fact that I couldn't assume the reader knows glass and its terminology the way I do hadn't been a reality on my radar.  The fact that there are different tiers of reading comprehension of those who engage this publication hadn't been a reality on my radar.  The fact that there would be a lot of readers whose primary language is not English hadn't been a reality on my radar.  The fact that my thoughts are not as clear to others as they seem to be for me OFTEN hadn't been a reality on my radar.  In turn, the editing process was rigorous...and to accommodate all these things (and others like them) was an informative part of the process for me.  I'm grateful for the experience of going through revision after revision with Silbert.  It has made me a better self-editor in my writing ever since... In fact, I knew going into my first draft of the Juror's Essay that there wasn't much space available for it in the publication...it was crystal clear that the essay would need to be capped off at 500 words.  Which isn't much.  Especially for a rambling essayist such as myself.  So, as a starting point,  I allowed myself to write and write and write everything that was on my heart and mind regarding the jurying process, things I was paying attention to within the field over the past year (as both artist and educator), and where the moment might suggest where the field is going.  I permitted myself to open the valve entirely and empty everything I wanted onto the page...just to see where it all landed.  And then from there, rule number two would be to chisel it down in a smaller second draft (which was still huge) and then an even smaller third draft (which was still too big).  The fourth draft was whittled down to 1000 words and was the one submitted for Susie Silbert's review and edits...which,  of course, had to get chopped down even more. Ultimately, the essay that i drafted first back in mid-March was roughly 3300 words...which is not even close to the 500 cap I was required to abide by.  A classic Schnuckel move.  So the Juror's Essay of mine you may have read in New Glass Review 41 is the surviving content to a much larger piece that was simply too big to fit.   Below is the draft of that essay in full...for better or for worse.  In it you'll find grammatical mishaps and misspellings.  You'll run into a handful of clunky spots.  You'll find  the occasional derail or two (or three).  But you'll also get access to a broader consideration of my role and my perspective as a visiting selector to the Review than what the content in the publication would indicate. Please read in good health.  And I mean that...especially as we linger even still within a global pandemic...

* * * * * * There were two things that really came into focus for me during the jurying experience for New Glass Review 41: that the contemporary glass field is still so, so very young in its development and still so, so very small as an international cohort. So young and so small, in fact, that anyone has a chance to have impact on its trajectory.  And, in turn, anyone has a chance to be recognized within it.  And I thought about things like this as I engaged my review process. In turn, it is important for me to indicate that my selection process was not in pursuit of supporting submissions that I necessarily “liked.”  That wasn’t a metric for me.  I didn’t approach this as a process of highlighting what I prefer or what I personally relate to in glass making and/or glass thinking, but as an effort to keep an eye out for submissions that represented an interesting quirk, conversation point, or important contribution to the field in this time and place with what work had been submitted. To assist that mission, I made the effort to only support submissions from artists who had not been recognized within the past 3 issues of the Review.   Although difficult to pass by notable work by makers and thinkers I deeply admire in holding to this 3-year rule, it was important for me to use this opportunity to put my initials behind artists on the outer margins of our field who are enriching this moment that I didn’t want to get overlooked. Aside from that caveat, the work I responded to didn’t follow a uniform logic.  In fact, the work I stand behind within this publication reflects many contradictions with one another.  For instance, now looking back at my selections, I’m noticing a draw to ideas that implement polished excellence as a means to challenge those very things; but I’m also noticing a draw to ideas that rely on raw, loosely guttural methods of questioning, too.  I’m see moments where I’m drawn to ideas where artists know glass so well that their effort to break its rules speaks of something provocative in equally spectacular fashion; but I’m also seeing moments where I’m drawn to ideas where the artist comes to glass formally untrained and, in turn, enables something accidentally innovative because of it.  I found resonance and strength in quiet gestures.  But I was also captivated by efforts where spectacle intersected with smart.  It seems that I’m just as much a proponent for work that transcends glass making protocol as I am work that purposefully distances itself from it, dismantles it…even displaces it.  Whether put forward as a visually complicated installation of things or a singular art object, these are just some of the various camps and categories of work included in the publication that compose the spectrum of what captured my attention.  Even as incongruent as my selections seem to be with one another, however, I do sense one common denominator...   If there is a tie that binds all the submissions that I connected with most it would be that each work collectively grounds itself in the present, but not without a recognition of the histories it extends from…and, in turn, presenting themselves as unexpected starting points to new trajectories and  future advancements to both glass making and glass thinking. Some of my favorite moments in the field right now reside in work and research that doesn’t involve glass within its resolve, yet is manifested through ideas related to glass process and/or materiality.  In a piece pursued from the hot shop assistant’s perspective, Josie Gluck illustrates this in pyrographic prints composed by the cast-off bits delivered for avolios in the production of stemware. The repeated gather and delivery of glass for the avolio serves as a method of mark-making in an abstracted gesture of cartography.  The bit is discarded after delivery onto paper, falling however and wherever it might upon it.   The measured and mechanically repeated step of the avolio process for the gaffer lends way to a wide variety of chance-based, combustion-prompted imagery for Gluck after the bit has been cast away. In an entirely different way, Shari Mendelson illustrates an interesting relationship to glass in considering it as a conceptual propellant culminating in a body of non-glass work.  In this case, historical referencing and trompe l’oeil direct Mendelson’s upcycling of discarded plastics littering her neighborhood into exquisite deceptions of just about any vessel we’ve ever seen housed within the Greek, Islamic, and Roman chapters of an art history book.  Conceptual parallels run abundantly within this glass-adjacent work between her objects and those of historical standing; parallels between materiality and making processes between glass and plastics; parallels navigated between commercial manufacturing and the independent making practice.  In turn, this work holds a lens to ideas of the remnant and serves as a gesture to redirect the destiny of industrially-produced plastics from contemporary litter-hood towards one of the contemporary artifact. The many ways in which glass is being engaged directly right now that appeals to me mostly culminates in work that poses questions, not work that gives answers. Even when work relies on text and the literality of common phrasing.  David Fox navigates abstracted ideas about language and coherency where words reveal themselves in a peculiarly glass-centric way; ways in which the hand-torch serves as pen and borosilicate tubing serves as page.  Although invisible to the human eye, the memory of the written message is rendered visible through remembered strain and stress when subjected to a polariscope. What is said is much more conceptually layered than it lets on.  And what is unsaid is mysteriously just as expressive and articulate. Previous performance work by Kim Harty that translated the glass objects catalogued in the publication of Old Venetian Glass (1960) through slow-exposure light drawings of them is re-contextualized in her 2019 exhibition Memoria Technica.  A conceptual work of translation in 2015 begets even further translation within the past year – perhaps even coming full circle – in the effort to give selected light drawings a tangible life in thingness again under two fronts: in one, the digital hand meticulously renders a 3D print of the drawn vessel. In the other, the human hand attempts to recreate the drawing in the hot shop. In Harty’s case, historical glass is the pivot point in this continued exploration of mimicry by memory through various translation tactics in studio. In another instance where performance art intersects with glass practice, Judith Roux navigates an interesting angle to the notion of participatory work in The Space Between Us – My Warm Breath on Your Hands. A humble sheet of sandblasted glass serves as a translucent divide between the performer and the unsuspecting audience participant holding it.  Efforts by the performer to expel hot breath or to lick the porous surface are in the hopes of establishing visible access to the participant on the other side – a perfect stranger – who is powerless to help as their side is still glossy and transparent.  As a work that is one part messy, one part sexual, one part jinxed, and all parts vulnerable, Roux’s integration of glass is a very simple component to a provocatively ambitious interactive work driven by notions of desire and connection. It should be mentioned that as I write this essay for the Review, it is late March of 2020.  I am quarantined here in the US, as is most of the world. The jurying process for this publication was just a hair over a month ago and yet the current day-to-day conditions of a COVID-19 reality make it seem that those few days spent in Corning were a lifetime ago.  In this moment studios are shut down.  Schools have gone online.  Grocery shopping now gives us anxiety.  Some of our jobs are now done from home.  Some of us are now unemployed.  Exhibitions have been postponed.  Exhibitions have been cancelled.  Summer programming at various summer-based glass institutions are up in the air.  Some of us are sick.  Some of us are scared.  It’s a lot.  And the level of uncertainty regarding just about everything as we move further and further into a life contextualized by a pandemic is the space where I’ve been writing this essay within. Writing this piece for the Review has given me an unexpected sense of calm.  It has allowed me to dwell in the past tense; to write about an incredibly fulfilling and informative professional experience as a juror this past February in a time when life was what we’d describe as “normal.”  (And to dwell in the past tense at the moment is an unexpected perk of this required writing, for sure.)  But the quiet, the solitude, and the almost inactive status of a making practice while in quarantine has given me many moments of pause to consider the impact of this moment of lockdown on the future trajectory of glass.  Both short- and long-term. For those of us who identify as artists who engage a practice where glass is a major component of our creative output, we know that we are a very high-maintenance kind of practitioner.  Our making is based on a very hands-on, tactile working experience with material; one that is as high-maintenance as we are.  Glass is a substance that relies on a very specific set of resources like specialized tools, equipment, and facility spaces to make the magic happen (…or the mess that may or may not lead to said “magic”). There are some of us who are self-sufficient on the resources front; those of us who have our own gear and our private studios and spaces to fill the time in quarantine with continued artistic output. Kudos to you. Go forth and slay.  But there are perhaps a greater number of us who relied on having access to spaces and studios that have been closed down and, as part of the residual effect of the national lockdown, finding ourselves deserted as glass practitioners. In turn, I think about what kind of glass practice could be happening if a field like ours is cut off from the studio resources we typically rely on to conduct our work.  Maybe some of us have been locating areas in our glass practice that could step in and take priority with what we know we can do from home: conceptual development through reading and research, formal development through drawing or digital rendering, writing, resume updating, or website redesign to name a few.  Maybe some of us are locating alternative ways of creatively relating to glass without being able to “make” with it: maybe through capturing moments of glass-like phenomena through items found around the home with our phone or tinkering with glass-related processes that translate well in the kitchen (i.e. casting objects in ice in the freezer).  Or maybe as one door closes another door opens; maybe some of us will be redirecting our expertise as makers into unanticipated career paths as published writers, sponsored podcasters, digital curators, or digital workshop teachers.  But maybe some us just can’t right now, allowing ourselves to sit in a creative holding pattern until brighter days… It is no doubt that as glass-specific people, some of us being denied access to our usual resources can be seen as a real deal-breaker in our creative development and output.  But, as a closeted optimist, I see this lockdown as a glass-making equivalent of constrictive writing.  How many ways can those of us glass folks up for the challenge cultivate some sense of critical engagement with glass in this current moment of constriction and uncertainty? What innovative projects might accidentally be developed in response to some of us who feel shipwrecked and stranded?   How far off the beaten path of conventional “glass practice” will those things take us? …and how could these constrictive gestures possibly change everything we thought we understood glass, glass making, glass teaching, and glass learning were all about?  It’s a thought ripe with many yet-to-be-discovered solutions to the question as to how a glass artist maintains a practice – and a relationship with glass – when stripped of access to both a studio and to a material while under lockdown. Whether this is to be something short-term or long-term, it’s safe to assume that we’ll all come out of this COVID-19 experience as different makers and/or thinkers. Some of our evolutions may be enriched by this moment and its many limitations.  Some may suffer.  Some may cease altogether.  My heart does break for those in our field whose livelihood relies entirely on orders, exhibitions, fellowships, teaching, and residencies that are now cancelled or put on indefinite hold; opportunities that were needed to keep their head above already turbulent waters whose sole occupation is that of an independent artist.  But as I wrap up this essay, looking out my window into an overcast day in late March of 2020, I catch a tinge of hope for what might possibly turn out to be one of the most interesting moments within our field at the hands of artists, educators, and students who are naturally wired to make good use of a bad situation; folks with a knack for finding opportunity in limitation.  I’m curious how sudden studio abandonment might possibly cultivate some sort of unforeseen innovation within our field.  In whatever way that might mean... So, to bring back around the Review, I’m curious how this moment might rub off on the international glass field for those game to play along in this confined creative space we find ourselves in.  I’m curious how this moment will be archived in the upcoming New Glass Review 42...hoping that, regardless of whether or not we are possibly STILL under quarantine through next February or not, the publication will still continue.  If so, I’m curious about the contextual framework of how the Coronavirus impacts the work created within the dates of eligibility for the next issue.  I’m curious how it will impact what work is submitted to the Review…and how diversified the notion of glass practice will manifest itself in those submissions through works which may have nothing to do with glass literally, but extend from glass figuratively through non-glass materials and methodologies.  I’m curious what jurors will be invited in knowing that the game might’ve drastically changed because of the pandemic directly and indirectly; that a year in glass production not only may have been significantly affected by the virus by the time the call for applications roll out, but perhaps redefined “glass production” in ways that transcend glass, glass making, and glass art as we’ve previously defined those things as.  I’m curious if the jurors will be chosen not only for their respective expertise, but the eyes to potentially see “glass” in a highly abstracted or figurative sense in the case that a lot of us within the field might be tasked to reinterpret a glass practice through non-glass means.  I’m curious if that’ll even be allowed.  I would hope so, and if true, I’m curious not only about what would be submitted, but what kinds of non-glass-but-glass-like work would be seen as fit for inclusion...   But beyond the notion of being a resourceful artist under quarantine or speculating on the next issue of New Glass Review as influenced by the pandemic, I’m curious how COVID-19 will impact our various practices once life gets back to normal.  And, for now, I still assume it will.  Whether we flatten the curve or a vaccine is approved or a cure is discovered, I wonder what happens when we can return to the studios we were separated from and the equipment, tools, and materials we used to know and work with so well.  Do we still make the things we make? ...like nothing happened?  Have our questions changed that motivate our practice in the time away?  As technicians, how rusty will we be?  What will our bodies and hands forget?  What of our processes will be remembered?  Will I ever put my mouth to a blow pipe ever again?  What will these small malfunctions hinder us from doing? …but what could they possibly enable instead? I expect that we will not be the same artist we were before the pandemic global hold, but, if we choose to stay the course, we will still be artists nonetheless.  Ones who were forced to take an interesting detour from what we would normally do and, quite possibly, gaining new recognition in a practice that deviates from what we were originally all about or normally known for.  There’s something kind of magical in anticipating just what that might be or how it might unfold.  After all, an artist isn’t defined by what one can do, but how one can adapt.  And, quite honestly, the job we as artists are truly tasked with is to make something meaningful out of any given moment, whether that be with things or circumstances.  Especially in the thick of inconvenience… Just how long will we be on lockdown?  …and how will we facilitate some sort of pro-active effort to continue evolving our practice and relationship to glass in this moment? ...a moment when our usual resources just aren’t available?  Time will tell.  And who knows…perhaps this solitary life and livelihood will be lifted a week or two after I submit this essay to Silbert in early April.  Perhaps this moment is just a tiny glitch within the calendar year and we will all look back on it relieved that it was so short lived…almost as if it were only a bad dream.  But maybe it’ll last the rest of the year.  Or longer. Yikes.  Regardless, I suppose this is a long way of saying that I hope some of us provide models of innovative response to a constricted glass practice due to this global hiccup when included in New Glass Review 42. I am so, so honored to have participated in the 41st issue of New Glass Review.  I’ve studied the publication since first submitting to it back in 2002 and have thumbed through issue after issue many times over in my 20 year relationship with glass.  I have been a student of its structure, its tradition, and its annual mission to observe and archive a year’s worth of advancements to the field.  I’ve even made the trek to the Rakow many times over just to look into the work that didn’t get in within its archives…even when submissions were only accepted in slide form.  For I know the sting of the Review’s rejection; applying 15 years in a row before knowing what acceptance feels like.  Only to have the legacy of rejection pick back up the following year (and has continued up to this present moment).  I know that the Review is a public and permanent document that some people place a lot of personal and professional currency in by being published within it.  I also know that it warrants a lot of doubt, cynicism, and/or objection directed at the jurors by those who didn’t.  All this is to say that, ultimately, I knew (and know) the weight of this responsibility that I took on as a juror to lend my voice and my perspective in making selections for it this year.  And I took the honor seriously.   In hopes of gracefully winding this essay down, I want to publicly acknowledge the leadership of Susie Silbert in guiding us jurors through the process as being so effectively and efficiently on point.  It is important for me to be a mouthpiece to the broader glass community in saying that the organization, preparedness, and support of The Corning Museum of Glass staff was truly the epitome of professionalism and excellence in this experience.  Thank you Silbert and All for this opportunity to bear witness to the most under-acknowledged aspects of this annual forum.  There is so much that goes on behind the scenes before, during, and after the selection process that is thoroughly unknown to almost the entirety of our international community.  Your dedication in facilitating it in the way that you do is both efficient and masterful…and I am humbled to have been a witness to it.  Although the world primarily sees the New Glass Review as but a competition, the time spent behind the curtain confirms that it is better described as an annual act of care than an annual contest.  The field owes you a lot of kudos and gratitude in orchestrating this huge annual undertaking.

-David Schnuckel (DS) ​

[the-nerd-writer]

A Difficult Night- An Mercy x Anxious!Reader Drabble

What?? this totally isn’t a self insert pffffft.

Characters: Mercy (Angela Ziegler), Reader.

Word Count: 1,503

Trigger Warning: Self Harm/Almost Attempted Suicide.

Thousands of ice particles rushed through the chilling air outside the windowpane; the soft glow of the moon bouncing off the nearby snowdrifts. The cabin that had been gifted to you for a holiday retreat by Overwatch was comfortably toasty, but its isolation prevented much contact with the outside world. It had its futuristic flairs, of course, but it was still… remote.

Angela and you had decided to spend the weekend before Christmas together here, then go back to base to celebrate the holiday with the rest of the gang. It was so relieving to see the weight leave Angela’s shoulders, her breath slowing and her resting smile growing just a bit more truthful. That was, when she was here. For tonight’s entertainment, the two of you had decided to power off all of the technology in the house, and have a truly heart to heart experience, complete with a crackling fire. However, the wood pile inside was disappointingly low, so Angela had decided to go and split more of the larger slabs of timber into smaller pieces, while you took care of preparing the room for prime relaxation.

The den was calm, the air filled with the smell of splintering firewood. Silence crept around the edges of the fire’s purr. Being alone was rare nowadays; whether it be with your crew, or with your lovely angel herself, you always had someone to keep you mostly grounded. Keeping the anxiety at bay.

But, now?

The thought came nonchalantly, almost like a bored office worker approached the water cooler. “Angela doesn’t actually love you. She doesn’t like how you look, and is only doing this to keep you happy. She doesn’t actually care.” The intrusive stranger began to frantically push its way towards the front of your mind, it’s claims getting more and more wild. “You’re a freak. How could anyone love you?” Your mental blockades began to rise, attempting to walk off the raging thought. “No,” they exclaimed, “that doesn’t make any sense! Angela loves me, she wouldn’t lie.” Almost as quick as it had appeared, the intruder snapped back, shattering your psyche. “She’s a doctor, right? The best doctor. She only sees you as a patient. She knows exactly what to say to make you feel better, but could give fuck all about actually loving you. You’re a pathetic, anxious, broken mess of a person, and she’s perfect; why would she ever love you?”

Your eyes began to ache towards the rear; phantom tears, unsuccessful in leaving. Your breaths were shallow, unsteady, and growing faster by the moment. Your hands picked at the zipper of your coat at your hip, the metal design being thrusted further and further into your palms. Fixated eyes stared relentlessly at the fire-stirrer, its sharpened point becoming more and more inviting…

The cold never truly broke Angela. After caring for Mei’s severe frostbite when she first arrived at base, Ziegler had been training herself in the art of frost-protection, making sure that her body could withstand more extreme circumstances. The oak lumber by her side lay successfully chopped, the fresh smell of nature being choked by the flurry of snow. With a proud beam across her face, Angela sheathed the cabin’s hatchet and collected her harvest. Soft patches of snow collapsed under the doctor’s step, her pace confident, but desperate to get inside. Stomping across the porch as to not track ice back into the cabin, Angela balanced her planks in one hand before opening the door with her other. “Libeling, you would not believe how simple this really is! It also gets out a lot of stress build up, let me tell y-”

Angela had to stop from dropping all of the wood onto the cabin floor when she saw the state of her partner. You sat on a small rug close to the empty fireplace, frantically attempting to wrap your arm in an old gauze. A crimson-dipped pocket knife was thrown against the couch, with small specks of liquid following a path to your sobbing state.

A doctor’s instincts are true to their beholder nearly every moment of the doctor’s life. This, however, was not one of them. Dumping the wood into the nearby empty box, Angela crumpled to your level and wrapped her arms around you, your back leaning against her chest. Her hands folded your forearms together towards your chest, keeping them as close to her as possible. Angela’s emotions betrayed her, and she began to sob uncontrollably, stroking your hair shakily.

“My dear, my poor, poor soldier… I… I am so sorry you have to carry this curse. This horrid, despicable feeling in your chest.” Angela buried her face into your shoulder, gently kissing your neck as she cradled you close. Your tears finally reached her fingers, delicately tracing her knuckles down towards your legs.

“I… I don’t deserve you, Angela. I’m an grotesque mess of a human being; my anxiety is my identity, I… why can’t I just fucking get rid of it?” Your breathing began to speed up again, your eyes welling up and your throat collapsing in on itself. “I’m so weak, and I’m not doing anything to… and it just feels like.. why should you even love me? I’m just pathetic…” Your digging words were supposed to continue, but your crying prevented you from doing so. Your head gave out, whipping forwards in defeat.

Angela couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her love, this bright glow of energy.. didn’t think she actually cared about them?

Lifting you off of her chest and turning you to face her, Mercy didn’t know exactly what to say first.

“My darling, my beautiful, beautiful love, I… I cannot begin to describe how important you are to me. Your smile could warm the coldest of storms. Your heart is so full, and so bursting with love. I hate, I hate so much to see you like this. I hate to see you unsure of your body, of your mind, and of your right to live. I can’t start anywhere without saying that you… you are the love of my life. I have never found someone so brave…” Angela’s hand reached out to your bandaged arm, rubbing circles into the cloth, “.. and so courageous. You, my liebling, have made it through hell and back to get here… to get to be where you are.” Angela pulled you closer as she sat directly across from you, her knees colliding with your own. “I could not ask for a better friend, a better lover, a better life partner. I am so…” The poor doctor had to clear the tears from her throat with a chuckle, attempting to ever so slightly lighten the mood. “I am so proud of you. I am so in love with every part of you, every aspect and every edge. I am right here, right now, and I promise you that I would not, and could not, disappear. You are loved. You are so, so loved.” With a small smile, Angela pulled you back into her arms, her lips wrapping themselves onto your forehead with a delicate kiss.

While in her embrace, her promise finally broke down the emotional walls. Sobbing, you thanked her unendingly, your thoughts spilling out all at once. “I want to spend the rest of my life with yo-I want to just be with you every mo-and I am sorry for- my life wouldn’t be the same without you…” your ramblings wouldn’t end, but Angela didn’t care. She smiled down upon you, her lips reaching upwards into a smile. A genuine, non-sleep deprived smile.

After your poor unending ramblings concluded, Angela had brought you to the couch and held you in her arms, her hair put down from its usual ponytail and spreading across her head. If anyone had to be named a goddess of the universe, there was no doubt that it was Angela. Your Angela. Unwinding in the warm aura of the burning fire, you could feel Angela’s heartbeat through her oversized shirt. It was your shirt, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care how big it was on her. All that she cared about was that you were safe, and here with her. The scent of freshly burned oak and vanilla soap danced upon Angela’s skin as she held you, and she hummed one of her favorite songs from growing up.

“Angela?” You asked, not moving your head.

“Yes, my love?” Angela responded, looking down upon you and shifting the hair from your face.

“What you said.. about the whole wanting to spend your life with me thing, and the love of my life thing, too… did you mean all of that?”

“Every word, my beautiful liebling.” Mercy cooed back, placing another kiss on your forehead.

“So… if I was to… I don’t know… ask you to mar-”

“Yes, my beloved. Yes. I would say yes in a heartbeat.”

Looking up, you locked eyes with her.

“Really?”

“On my life, my love, and my ability as a doctor, yes.”

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/marvel-ultimate-alliance-3-the-black-order-review/

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

With Marvel Comics’ long history of tangled legal red tape and licensing deals, it brings me a special kind of joy to put together a team composed of a yellow spandex-clad Wolverine straight out of the old cartoons, a Spider-Man essentially ripped right from the PS4 game, a modern comic book rendition of The Wasp, and an MCU-style Rocket Raccoon doing his best Bradley Cooper imitation. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order – Nintendo Switch

$59.99on Amazon

pulls from anywhere and everywhere to stock its very fun (if fairly simple) co-op brawler with crowd-pleasing moments.

The story itself is one we’ve heard a lot lately: Thanos is hunting for the Infinity Stones and you have to find all six before he does. It’s a new telling of some extremely well-tread ground, but the writing and voice acting still manage to capture the funny, self-deprecating, and occasionally overdramatic attitude I love about big comic book stories. The campaign also acts as a tour of Marvel’s greatest hits, taking you to lovely renditions of places like Avengers Tower, The Raft prison, and even the wonderfully nostalgic Xavier Institute.

In the tradition of the original decade-old games in this series, Ultimate Alliance 3 is a totally linear button mashing beat-’em-up. You run through locations in order, strung together by plenty of amusing and well-animated cutscenes, with only some lightly hidden collectibles to pull you off the main path. Thankfully, these environments are dotted with plenty of mid-level boss fights and loads of quippy hero banter that kept me smiling even when the straightforward levels were otherwise relatively predictable.

Everyone is Here!

And, of course, within those locations are a whole boatload of heroes – far more than you’ll actually play as during its 12-hour campaign. There are more than 30 playable characters to swap between to make up your team of four, and lots more will drift in and out of the story as NPCs who fight alongside you or point you toward the next encounter. While I would have liked to be able to control some of those support characters like Beast, the sheer volume of heroes (and villains) on display here made Ultimate Alliance 3 feel appropriately epic.

Besides, it’s not like there aren’t enough playable characters to choose from. All of the big names like Iron Man and Captain America are here, but it was also exciting to see both some of the smaller characters like Ms. Marvel as well as longtime X-Men favorites like Nightcrawler join the fray alongside the MCU regulars. Each of them has a set of four playstyle-defining abilities that unlock quickly as they level up, and while there’s a bit of overlap between similar characters like Peter Parker (who is even voiced by the PS4 Spider-Man’s Yuri Lowenthal), Miles Morales, and Spider-Gwen, they each still have little twists that set them apart, like Gwen’s widespread webs or Miles’ shock-based attacks.

Each hero also has a ridiculously over-the-top Extreme move that can fill the screen with damage. One of my favorites of these is Venom’s, in which melts into a puddle of black symbiote ooze before emerging from the center as a giant, fanged mouth like a scene out of Jaws. I love that you can easily chain these Extreme moves together with the press of a button if you had more than one character charged at the right moment, though using all four at once was the only time I occasionally saw Ultimate Alliance 3’s frame rate take a hit (which is understandable given the visual chaos they can cause).

The only time I saw Ultimate Alliance 3’s frame rate take a hit was occasionally when using four Extreme attacks at the same time, which is understandable given the visual chaos they can cause.

“

The only drawback with having so many character choices is that I constantly wanted to change up my team and play around with everyone I could. While there’s nothing stopping you from playing with all these action figures, it’s discouraged slightly by the character-specific experience system. When I changed Captain Marvel out for The Wasp in Avengers Tower, or Spider-Gwen for Psylock to take down some Sentinels, it meant the experience gains were spread in a thin layer across my roster, leaving them underleveled as I went forward.

There is an Alliance Enhancement skill tree that offers global stat buffs to all your heroes, but it didn’t feel like it mitigated this issue much. I eventually had to start focusing more on a select cast (or using newly unlocked characters who start at levels appropriate to the area you are in) which inevitably left some of my favorites like Miles and Venom in the dust in the late game. I found myself occasionally using characters just because they were a high level, not because I particularly liked them – looking at you, Ghost Rider.

You can get around that by grinding your squad through previous chapters or completing the optional Infinity Trials for XP Cubes to give them a boost, but I didn’t really want to since the story is simply more fun. I ended up sticking with the same team for the last few chapters – Wolverine, Dr. Strange, Storm, and the absolutely vicious Black Panther – both because I liked how they worked together and to make sure they were strong enough to avoid grinding entirely.

Bamf, Thwip, Snikt!

Ultimate Alliance 3’s combat is fairly simplistic, with the strategy coming more from timing, team composition, and Energy management than actual combat skill. Apart from their four abilities, every hero has a light attack that you can string together, as well as a heavy attack that lands as a single big hit. There’s also a mid-air attack, a block, and a dodge, but otherwise that’s pretty much it.

There are no fancy button combos to memorize or special attack patterns to use, so you’ll be spamming that light attack a lot in between abilities.

“

There are no fancy button combos to memorize or special attack patterns to use, so you’ll be spamming that light attack a lot in between abilities. That can definitely get stale all on its own, and while the enemies you face will change visually in interesting and exciting ways – you might be fighting Kree soldier in one level and Hand ninjas in another – the differences in their behavior and attacks never really altered the way I went about punching them to a pulp

Larger generic enemies and mid-level bosses like Mysterio, Nebula, or Bullseye make things more interesting with a purple Stagger bar; instead of just whacking them, I had to use heavy attacks and abilities with high Stagger damage to take that bar down. Once it’s empty, you have a brief window to land a Synergy ability – essentially two heroes using complementary abilities at the same time, which is made easier through button clear button prompts – to stun them for a longer period, during which they take considerably more damage. Your abilities all cost Energy, so figuring out the right balance of using it to Stagger and having some left over for a synergy stun was an interesting puzzle that often changed based on the level I was in or the heroes I was using. Fights are still very mashy, and I definitely wish characters had more than their extremely simple two-button basic attacks, but I still found myself consistently engaged in Ultimate Alliance 3’s combat for far longer than I expected.

That said, those puzzles are only truly challenging to solve on the Mighty difficulty setting, with the Friendly mode letting you get away with a bit more of an ability-spamming approach. Apart from big, villainous fights that turn up the heat, Mighty isn’t crazy hard or anything, but it actually forces you to play smart. Bosses like Kingpin or Ultron can easily eat up your three hero revives, even if most groups of basic enemies can still be torn through like tissue paper – which makes a certain amount of sense, because where’s the fun in being Hulk if you struggle to take down a group of ninjas?

Apart from villainous boss fights that turn up the heat, Mighty difficulty isn’t crazy hard or anything, but it does force you to play smart in a fun way.

“

Part of that difficulty is also influenced by how many people you are playing with. Ultimate Alliance 3 can be played solo but it feels like it was really meant to be played in co-op with up to four players, either locally or online (though we weren’t able to test out the online functionality ahead of this review). Combat gets both easier and harder in co-op, depending on the situation: your teammates generally make smarter decisions than the AI but synergy moves and attack timings are often trickier to coordinate than it is with the simple button inputs it takes while playing alone.

You can drop in and out of co-op at will, but be warned that Ultimate Alliance 3’s Stagger system (while a good addition overall) actually makes it a harder game for a visiting friend to blindly pick up and play. The concept is taught well in the first level, but isn’t intuitive or easy to read at a glance if someone joins you after that. I found players who jumped in to join me in the middle of a mission wouldn’t really understand why just smashing buttons wildly wasn’t working so well. It especially didn’t help halfway through the campaign when a big chunk of my roster was underleveled, often meaning the character someone wanted to play was missing abilities or just sort of weak.

It can still be chaotic, snack food-like entertainment regardless, but played with a group that knows what they are doing Ultimate Alliance 3 can become a delightful coordination challenge. There’s lots of calling out targets, working together to Stagger specific enemies while you have a synergy attack waiting in the wings. The only real enemy of this experience is a fairly predictable one: the camera, which frequently felt too restrictive and zoomed in when your co-op party moves in opposite directions, and was frustratingly stubborn in a handful of tight hallways.

While co-op seems to be the intended way to play (as seen particularly in its boss fights that often ask you to multitask), I actually really loved playing alone as well – I might have even liked it more at times. There’s an alternate camera option this way called Heroic that drops the viewing angle down for more of a third-person action feel, and I absolutely preferred it to the default zoomed-out perspective. Ultimate Alliance also has pretty decent AI partners, swapping between heroes on your team is fast and seamless, and using synergy abilities is made super simple, all of which meant controlling four heroes at once kept battles fresh far longer than just sticking with just one character for a long period of time.

We’re In the Endgame Now

Supporting your heroes’ literal journey are a plethora of stats to upgrade and a borderline excessive number of currencies to spend. You can use different pools of points you earn to rank up individual abilities, improve the stats of every member of your alliance via a sprawling skill tree, and equip special ISO-8 crystals for even more stat boosts – which can themselves be upgraded to improve their bonuses. With six different stats that govern attack, defense, health, and Energy there is a ton to dig into here, and min-maxers will have a field day doing just that with great success – but that doesn’t mean any one upgrade is very exciting because of how incremental the vast majority are.

Essentially every form of upgrade or modification in Ultimate Alliance 3 is stat-based, which means that they are almost entirely invisible to you while you are actually fighting. For instance, you could buy a skill that gives your heroes 40 more Strength (even though most heroes’ Strength values are in the thousands), get a team bonus for using two of the Defenders at once for plus 2% Durability, or upgrade a basic ISO-8 crystal to give a hero 5% more Vitality instead of… 4%. Their combined effect will be practically unnoticeable. Hooray!

The ability rank-ups are also unimaginative. Every single ability – whether it’s shooting webs at enemies as Spider-Man, zapping them with lighting as Thor, or dropping giant fidget spinners on their heads as The Wasp – gets a reduced Energy cost at rank 2, increased damage at rank 3, and usually increased stagger damage at rank 4, though sometimes that last one will be a bit more tailored to the ability itself. No matter how detailed or extensive all of these upgrade systems are, these purely number-based buffs are just boring since they don’t change the way any of your heroes play.

No matter how extensive all of these upgrades are, the purely number-based buffs are just boring since they don’t change the way any of your heroes play.

“

Hidden in that sea of marginal stat boosts are some actually interesting upgrades, but they are few and far between. By far the coolest one I unlocked was a skill that healed my heroes for 3% of the damage they dealt during Extreme attacks – a significant amount considering they can do hundreds of thousands of points of damage. That was an actual, tangible improvement I could see in the field, and it did actually change my thinking in fun ways as I started using Extreme attacks to save heroes on the cusp of death instead of just take down big baddies.

But by the end of the roughly 13 hours it took me to complete Ultimate Alliance 3’s story I had unlocked only about a fifth of its gargantuan skill tree. Beating the campaign unlocks an even harder mode, called Superior, to replay on, and beyond that are the high-level Infinity Trials to test your mettle against for bonus unlocks.

The Trials usually have you replay bosses or sections from the campaign with a twist to the rules – sometimes you have reduced damage on anything but abilities or synergy attacks, or maybe there’s a timer running that only refills when you defeat enemies. A fair number of these are a higher level than your heroes will likely be by the end of one run through the campaign, encouraging you to play again or level up further through easier Trials to get their rewards.

No Microtransactions, but DLC Is on the Way

As far as I’ve seen, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 doesn’t have any form of microtransactions at launch. However, it does already have an Expansion Pass on sale for $20. That pass comes with a Deadpool costume that’s available at launch, as well as three upcoming DLC packs that (allegedly) won’t be sold separately. The first will arrive in Fall 2019, the second some later time in 2019, and the third in 2020; according to the official description they will include new “playable characters, modes, and additional story” from the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Marvel Knights. Additional free DLC characters like Cyclops and Colossus are also planned.

The first DLC pack will focus on Marvel Knights and add Blade, Moon Knight, Punisher, and Morbius as playable characters. While we don’t really know any other specifics, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3’s structure is set up in the form of chapters that each revolve around a specific hero group or area, with characters tied to that setting unlocking as you progress. Adding something like a new Fantastic Four-themed chapter where you unlock that team (potentially alongside some more Trials) could be a nice way to refresh what I liked so much about the base campaign. It has promise, but we’ll of course have to see what those DLC packs actually entail before we can determine if they are worth it.

Those rewards are usually Ability Orbs used to rank up moves, XP Cubes to level up characters, or alternate outfits – though the outfits are a massive missed opportunity as they are slow to unlock and have so far been limited to a single, uninspired recolor for each hero’s default costume, like taking the red stripes of of Captain America’s suit. You can even unlock a few extra playable characters here like Elektra, which I imagine is to keep things fresh in the post-game – you won’t unlock new ones anymore just by playing through the campaign again, even on Superior difficulty.

The massive skill tree and extensive amount of number-crunching upgrades available feel like they were designed for all these post-game tasks. There is fun to be had in trying to craft that perfect team build as you take on the hardest content Ultimate Alliance 3 has to offer – I enjoyed doing a bit of that myself for some of the tougher bosses and trickier Trials – it’s just hard to see the results of that work, especially on your first playthrough. Instead, the spice is found in the variety between heroes, not how those heroes change… because they don’t, they just get bigger numbers. And while I’m certainly still interested in diving back into some of those harder challenges, I don’t exactly know how long “harder” alone will keep me hooked.

Source : IGN

[itsfurty]

Here we are in July. Hope everyone has been having a great half of the year and a good summer! Things are exciting in my end with a new job starting soon and will be having me moving halfway across the United States once again. As I prepare my move I figured I'd do another set of reviews. This one has less indie focus than previous entries but I think it'll be just fine. If you want to catch my last post just click here and hopefully my gibberish thoughts and opinions are of some interest. Also I changed these posts to be called Quick Thoughts since my posts aren't really in depth reviews. We'll see if I stick to it.Steamworld DigI’ve already played Steamworld Dig when it came out on the Wii U but I decided to pick it up for the Switch considering how much I enjoy the series and especially its sequel. Well I gotta say, the sequel is better in every single way after replaying this one but I do think the original is still worth your time. The basic premise is you dig. You dig for gems and power stones to upgrade your character so that you can dig faster and through tougher stones. There is a very simple plot with characters that have some personality but it isn’t much to be honest. The visuals are also just okay. To its credit the game was originally a 3ds game and then ported to other platforms. The style looks fine but it gets massively improved upon in future entries. Really the hook here the aspect of digging and gaining new skills as you unlock equipment in test rooms. You’ll unlock a double jump, power drill, and dynamite amongst other skills and items as you play. The test rooms are honestly some of my favorite parts of the game as it makes for some fun quick puzzles and platforming outside of the regular digging you will do. I should mention you will encounter some foes to bash with your pick axe but the combat is just all about holding “A” and dodging any attacks. You will also have to watch out for toxic water, spikes, and some other surprises the deeper in you go.The biggest thing holding the game back is the length and lack of replayability. You can easily clear this around 2 hours and that’s with doing all the test rooms you come across. There are some secret gears to collect in the rooms but it doesn’t add that much extra play time to go through and collect them. Honestly you can skip Steamworld Dig and just go into its sequel. But if you really want to play the game 10 dollars is a decent price but I’m sure during the holidays there will be a decent sale for a more reasonable price.Still it isn’t a bad game, it’s just too little of a game without its truly own identity since it plays so much like the old flash game Motherload. Now if only a sequel to Steamworld Heist would get announced!Price: $9.99 Time played: Less than 3 Hours Verdict: Wait for a sale Flint HookDamn. I really wanted to like Flint Hook but too many aspects just had me wondering why play it over the (personally) better roguelikes out there. I mean visually the game is outstanding. This is the same team behind Mercenary Kings so the pixel art and animations are top of the line. Its colorful, charming, and just fun to look at. The music is also outstanding. The main theme when the game starts up gets me pumped to do a run and has me forgetting all the reasons I didn’t enjoy this game but then I start playing it... The biggest hurdle I thin this game has is it should not have been a rogue like. The dig draw in this game is you have a grappling hook that can pop bubbles or grab onto certain locations to have you zip around really tiny levels. Already the bigger focus is on movement and platforming as you avoid cannons, lasers, spikes, spike balls, motion detection enemies, regular enemies, ghosts, fire, and so much more. This should have been a platformer with carefully crafted levels right from the beginning rather than what feels like an attempt to chase the indie roguelike genre.Just consider the actual content in the game. The way it works is you pick a boss bounty and and complete a few ships (levels) to get to the boss. During this time you will retread very similar rooms with no interesting abilities unlocked. Most are passive like more health, more gold, higher critical chance hits, or faster movement. Nothing that makes you excited to pick up and encourage multiple replays since these are minor passive change ups with no major adjustments to gameplay. The worst part is the obvious hook is the grappling hook but only 1 or 2 abilities you can find changes how it works. It’s like the devs made a really cool mechanic but didn’t know what to do with it. Also, the shooting and combat was clearly an after though as the majority of enemies stand still and do not move. Some don’t even attack and could just be replaced by targets that need shot. The ones that do shoot back have really basic attack patterns. The bigger challenge is moving around the screen with your hookshot and avoiding stage hazards. I honestly had way more fun traversing the maps in the game than fighting any enemy. That should have been the focus. Anyways, back to the content. The bosses you fight will always be the same no matter what. Attack patterns are the same and you will always fight the same boss when you reach the end of a run depending on the bounty. It makes runs feel like there are only 5 variants, one for each boss, as opposed to nearly limitless mix ups.The game contains a lot of collectibles in the form of lore and relics. Neither of which effects the abilities of the layer but rather add background to the game. I found these uninteresting as I do not find reading text on the screen about a watch exciting or a good way to provide purpose to a game’s universe. Relics at least offer XP to your character so that you can unlock new starting skills but again the skills are just not interesting that I did not care about this aspect. I know this mini review negative and disappointing but that is just how I felt when playing Flint Hook. It is a game with great visuals and charm but lacks in gameplay department. It isn't terrible but I think Gungeon, Isaac, Don't Starve, or a Robot Named Fight are way more interesting in what they offer. I really thought I was going to love Flint Hook but it just didn't mesh with me like I had hoped. Price: $14.99 Time played: 15 Hours Verdict: Wait for a sale Splatoon 2 with DLCSo Splatoon 2, it's good, really good. If you’re following Nintendo then you know this game is great. It has risen to being one f Nintendo’s big franchises. I mean this game has so much going for it. It is colorful, some great music, and such an interesting gameplay mechanic I can get my friends and family, that don’t play games, into a match and they’ll have a blast. While at the same time playing ranked can create an incredibly stressful few minutes. So obviously the multiplayer is excellent but single player wise can lease a bit to be desired. I love the hub world where you explore and select the next level to jump into. The traversal of the world by spraying ink is the best part. The enemies don’t really do much of anything in the base game that I’d rather for larger more interesting levels. Plus, the story is pretty simple and doesn’t offer that many exciting moments. Sure the boss fights are a highlight but there aren’t any character moments unlike the dlc, which i’ll get into. Overall with the base Splatoon 2 game the multiplayer is the main draw with the single player offering a decent one time though experience. Sure, you can replay levels with different weapons but nothing major changes that I wouldn't recommend it unless you are a huge fan of the single player.Splatoon 2’s DLC somewhat fixes a lot of the complaints I have with the base game. While it does not offer larger levels, instead smaller for focused challenges, this is still much better than the base game. These focused challenges (I think 80 or so?) levels are a lot of fun. Some will have you reaching a goal with no items, fighting waves of enemies, escorting a ball, shooting shapes out boxes, flying in a jet pack, and so much more. These are great bite sized missions that are vastly better than the single player missions. Sure, they aren’t large open levels to explore like I wish but they’re still great in their own way. The other big fun aspect of the dlc is how much character interaction there is. Pearl, Marina, and Cuttlefish, have a lot of dialogue between each other and they are swimming with personality. They’re a joy to read and watch as they interact with one another. Plus the ending sequence has an actual cutscene which adds a nice cinematic quality to the game. It makes me really excited with where Nintendo takes the single player.Splatoon 2 is a no brainer when it comes to the Switch. I didn't even get into Salmon Run which I have poured tons of hours into. This is easily my most played multiplayer game and maybe my most played game in general. Both the base game and DLC are well worth picking up. Price: $59.99 | DLC: $19.99 Time played: 140 Hours Verdict: Recommend Ys 8Ys 8 is the first game I played in this series and I gotta say I’m impressed. You play as Adol, the silent protagonist, who’s ship is mysteriously destroyed at the the beginning of the game. You wake up on a deserted island and have to reunite with other castaways to find a way off the island. I liked the aspect of finding survivors as they would be added to your base camp which would grow in size as you played. It has a nice sense of progress the more you play and the deeper you explore the island. Sometimes the base camp will come under attack and you will have to fight waves of monsters so be ready to have to travel back from time to time. The story and pacing however is pretty strange. It starts of with a nice hook of ending up on an island and a strange side plot about a mysterious girl who lives on the island. But by the halfway point the story kind of just disappears and you just gather survivors with the vague plot of “find a way off the island” is your only goal. There is no real antagonist throughout the game until the very end. This is where you are hit with heavy exposition and everything comes together and makes sense. It just would have been better if it was better spread out through the game rather just appearing at the very end.While Ys 8 might falter a bit around the plot department the gameplay is a high point. It is all real time and unlike most JRPGs you do not enter a battle arena upon fighting an enemy. You can attack as you please with no transitions and this makes combat fast. You attack with a single button to perform very simple combos but can perform a magic attack with on of the 4 face buttons. You’ll gain a lot in the game so there is a nice variety of moves you’ll perform. For example by the end my main moves for Adol were a vertical arching slash, magic tornado, a spinning air dash, and a long automated ground combo for heavy damage. There are tons more you unlock but that is just what I chose to use by the end. You can have up to 3 party members active at once and you’ll want to switch between them (this is done by pressing “Y”) to fight certain enemies as many are only weak to one type of attack which a party member will fall under (Air attack, smash, or slash). You’ll upgrade armor and weapons as you play but in order to change the visual appearance of characters you’ll need to trade for costumes ( as there is no currency in the game since you’re on an island) which I found disappointing. It did not feel like I had as much control over my character’s visual appearance which I really enjoy doing in these types of games. The last bit of gameplay is exploring the island which is somewhat metroidvania like. You’ll find new tools to let you get through swaps, climb vines, or double jump. Oh, and there is fishing which can be fun to get supplies.The soundtrack to Ys is solid albeit nothing amazing in my opinion. Only a few track really stood out and the rest sot of blended in with that jrpg electric guitar generic sound but nothing out right terrible. The only bad aspect of Ys is sometimes the frame rate and resolution can really dip. Grassy areas are hard on the eyes especially in handheld mode but it is still playable and there are varied environments that you can move to other parts of the game. Also, the translation is sloppy at times with some misspellings or forgetting words in sentences. It’s sloppy but I wasn’t too bothered, although for 60 dollars you’d expect a bit better. If you hate turn based jrpgs then this game might be what you’re looking for as long as you can deal with some anime tropes. There are a few in this game that had me cringe and feel mildly uncomfortable but overall not too bad. Definitely a fun game though and way better than I was expecting. I hope future entries release on the Switch.Price: $59.99 Time played: 40 hours Verdict: Recommend Wolfenstein 2Wolfenstein 2 is another technical marvel ported to the Switch thanks to the devs at Panic Button. Visually it is obviously going to be the weakest compared to the other platforms but it still is quite a game to look at. There were compromises to make it possible to run however. Frame rate is capped at 30 fps, textures can be blurry at times, motion blur is mandatory, and there is a subtle haze to limit the field of view. Still, the game has some great visuals considering the Switch’s limitations. In case you aren’t familiar with Wolfenstein 2 the premise is Nazis won WW2 and it’s time to start a revolution. You will kill a ton of Nazis and it is glorious. You’ll fight inside ruined American cities, Nazi airships, subs, secret bases and other locations. The story is really enjoyable with a great mix of absurdity but also a serious somber tone. There are only a moment or two I felt out of place but over all the game does a great job at setting up characters and moving the plot along. The game is not very long maybe about 10 hours but it’s a quality 10 hours.The weapons, while not as varied as I’d hope, control very well and provide excellent feedback and sound as you dual wield shotguns blasting Nazis to bits. Running and gunning is not the only thing you’ll do as there is some simple stealth in the game. In many situations you can sneak around with a hatchet and knives so you can eliminate Nazis without any hearing a sound. If spotted it just means reinforcements are called in on your area. Now when the game originally released I heard it was deemed to hard and maybe it was changed for the Switch but I’d say normal and hard are perfectly enjoyable experiences. Hard mode will have you hiding behind cover a bit more but it never reached a point where I was frustrated. Gyro aiming is also in the game which is great for fine tuning shots when aiming down sights. I do wish the game had more varied enemy types similar to how Doom does as encounters can sometimes feel too samey at times.In terms of extra content there are extra missions you can play that take place in levels you have already beaten. These are harder than the first time you play these and task you with eliminating a high ranking Nazi in the area. I have not beaten them all but from what I’ve played you have no checkpoints and need to beat it without dying. I wish there was a more arcadey mode in its place where you can just run around killing waves of Nazis as the game feels great and I’d rather just be able to jump in to play rather than having to select one of thee bonus levels but that’s a personal preference. Even with that small complaint Wolfenstein 2 is an excellent game and definitely should be played. If you only own a Switch I fully recommend it. If you have a PC, Xbox, or PlayStation pick it up there as it is cheaper and has better performance. But either way, play this game and enjoyable the world. Also, don’t forget to kill as many Nazis as you can.Price: $59.99 Time played: 10 hours Verdict: Recommend That finishes this set of games. Next time I do one of these I'll be in a new state so I don't know when I'll actually get around to it. I don't think it'll be too long but I'm not sure how many people will actually be missing me haha. Either way, take care and enjoy the rest of the summer months! via /r/NintendoSwitch

[ityasaarii]

- from @x-wearethefuture-x, Hyuk to Nayoung

This might have been a little too cheesy, even for Hyuk. Then again, the cheesier the better, right? At least that’s how he felt about food. Applying it to romance was basically the same thing! Well, maybe not, but if he admitted that to himself then he’d back out and choose to do something else for her, instead. He had spent the entire night before getting it all set up exactly as he wanted it, he didn’t have time to change plans now! He would only have until he had to leave for their dinner date at 4pm to figure out something else if he really did chicken out, and that wasn’t much time at all considering it was already past 11am and he’d have to leave here before 3. Ugh. Don’t overthink it too much, you idiot. It’s fine. She’s gonna think it’s cute. Hopefully. Dinner wasn’t anything special, really. Well, it was a fairly nice place with good food that he’d made reservations for and he’d brought her a small bouquet that they could leave in his car while they ate without having to worry much about it- the kind of typical stuff that you were supposed to do for birthday dates. Or what he assumed you were supposed to do for birthday dates. It was fun and Hyuk, personally, was having a nice time (he hoped Nayoung was, too)… though what was to come later was what really mattered. Start standard and build up from there. It was almost 7pm when they finally got to Hyuk’s place. A little behind schedule mostly because he’d lost track of time during their conversation over dinner. It’s not like there wasn’t really a schedule involved, anyway. Hyuk had just wanted to plan things as meticulously as possible to keep himself from getting too embarrassed about the silly thing he had done for her birthday. It’s not silly. It’s thoughtful. Stop getting worked up, dumbass. When they were finally standing outside of his door, he fumbled with his keys a bit though he was hoping she didn’t notice that he was kind of nervous, “You’re gonna have to wait here for just a second, okay? I need to check on something first.” He needed to make sure everything was still as it should be. After all, it would ruin the entire surprise if even one thing was out of place. He kissed Nayoung lightly then walked into his apartment and closed the door behind himself so that Nayoung couldn’t peek inside. (Not that she’d see much, but still). From there it only took about twenty seconds to determine that things were exactly as they should be, then he was opening the door for her again. This time, however, it was done in a semi-gentlemanly manner, complete with a half-bow and a sweep of his arm to invite her in. The floor was littered with rose petals (okay, so they were fake rose petals- but real rose petals were expensive and impractical!). They created a pathway past the living room and down the hall into the one, small, spare room beside his bedroom. Usually Hyuk had it set up as his photography studio- a proper desktop computer atop his desk (duh) and one of those cushioned, spinning, office chairs for maximum comfort while he meticulously edited photos in a dozen different ways… or played video games for 15 hours straight. There were also usually some ridiculous props from past photo shoots lying around- things that he thought he might use again in the future. But that wasn’t the case today. In one sense, this new set up was far more absurd. He’d removed all of that stuff (putting them in his bedroom where they were out of sight though totally in his way) and, instead, converted the spare room into a small photo gallery. He’d kept the photo sizes smaller than those you might find in a typical photo gallery- they were just a bit larger than what would be considered standard to find hanging in someone’s home. But he’d hung them with a couple feet of space between in beautiful, golden, picture frames and even put little “plaques” (cardboard spray painted gold and very carefully written on with white paint) beneath each one, offering “titles” for the pieces. There was a total of 12 in all, most of which were photos of them together that either Nayoung or Hyuk had taken. But there were also two photos of the night sky- one from their first photography “date” when Nayoung had helped him take photos of the stars. The other was more recent; a photo that Nayoung had taken on her own one night, with the camera Hyuk gave her, and then sent to him. He’d adjusted the colors, the brightness, the contrast, sharpness, everything, until it looked not like a photo but like a piece of the actual sky had been cut out and framed right there. It was realistic enough that it almost felt like you could reach in and touch the stars. Then there was a simple photo, one he’d taken over the spring while they were on a date- a field of pink and white and yellow flowers, gently kissed by the wind and sun, still painted with dew from a chilly morning just past. He’d shown Nayoung the field of memory laden flowers in his mindscape only a month or so after that photo was taken. She’d seen it before, of course, but only then did Hyuk actually explain that they were memories of her. Maybe now when she saw the photo hanging on the wall she would realize that he hadn’t been so insistent on taking the picture just because the flowers were pretty. There was also one picture that was purposely photoshopped- less romantic and sweet and more silly. It was a throwback to one of their earliest conversations (and a topic which he brought up from time to time even now): Hyuk was Han Solo, Nayoung was Princess Leia. He still had to stop himself from chuckling when he looked at it. 

“Ta-dah!” Hyuk exclaimed as he first threw open the door to the room, “Welcome to your own personal photo gallery!” Yeah, this was probably a bit silly of him. Over the top, maybe. Definitely weird. But it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Something so perfectly him that he was sure that now that Nayoung saw it she was thinking “Yup. I should have expected this.”¸ though also just random and unexpected enough that it hopefully hadn’t crossed her mind as a possibility before right this moment. He let her look at it, take it all in, as he stood back by the door so as not to disrupt her. His face was alight with hope and happiness to offset his nerves- she liked it, right? She almost definitely liked it. Probably. Uh, maybe he should have gone with the classic dinner and a movie or something. Then again, that would have been boring… and they’d just finished the dinner part of it all. What movies were even out right now that might be worth watching? Thor: Ragnarok is out. And Justice League. But, like, are either of those really birthday worthy? “So, what’d’ya think? I made sure they were still kinda normal sized photos so that you could take some of ‘em home with you if you wanted. Except that one of us as Han and Leia- that one’s mine.” He joked, offering a playful wink to accompany it. 

Once the initial surprise of it had worn off, though, and Nayoung had had time to look over her little gallery, he informed her that that wasn’t all there was. “I mean, that’s it for the photo gallery, but that’s not all for the gifts. I have just one more thing. It’s probably kinda dumb but… it can be as ridiculous as this, right? Wait her a second.” And then he proceeded to rush out of the room, returning only a few moments later with a rectangular package wrapped in sky blue paper, a pale lavender ribbon tied around it, “Happy Birthday, Nayoung.” This… this one gift was actually the most important part of it all in Hyuk’s opinion. Dinner, flowers, even the photo gallery, were all nice, but this was his favorite bit. It was just a scrap book. To anyone else it probably wasn’t very exciting- people made them all the time. But Hyuk had worked on it for weeks, months, putting it all together a little at a time to document each “landmark” in their time together- from the day they met (that first photo he’d ever taken of Nayoung, included!) to their most recent date just last week. He’d searched his mind and, after some time, had even been able to label each page with the month, day, and year the event happened. Then, alongside that, he’d given each a little note about what happened on that day, how he felt- nervous or excited or simply happy. Granted, not every single date they had gone on had it’s own page, just the actual, dates. There wasn’t much to say about all of those “dates” when they had simply gotten breakfast together before having to part ways for the day. Or the “dates” when they just hung out on his couch watching movies until they both fell asleep. But there was a two page spread to commemorate the importance of those ones, too- a bunch of photos with tiny stickers naming the days they had happened. After all, they may have been commonplace and semi-uneventful, but they were often his favorites. “See? There was a reason I was taking so many photos!” He chuckled, watching her flip through it, “I mean, I’d only been planning this since maybe April, so before that it was literally just because I like taking photos of you… but after that, it was only mostly just because I like taking photos of you and partly because I was trying to make sure that I had at least one or two good photos of each date so that I could put them in a scrap book for you. Well… compiling them into a photo album was actually my first choice, but my mom’s been scrapbooking a lot lately and she suggested that it would be more personalized that way. You know, with the cute stickers and notes and such. I think it looks better, too.” It gave him a chance to put extra time and effort into it. It gave him a chance to make it special. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it was something he thought was worth giving. A normal photo album was nice, but it would look more like a portfolio than a collection of important events and memories, “You said that you didn’t have enough photos of me. Most of these may be photos of us, but I thought that giving you a scrap book full of pictures of myself might seem a little narcissistic.” He jested, giving a soft chuckle. Then, gently, he touched a kiss to Nayoung’s forehead, “It’s not like it’s a lot. Sorry that I couldn’t get you something cool like the camera I gave you last year. But I hope it’s okay, anyway… I kinda thought it would be nice to have the photos, like, in real life. Not just on your phone or laptop or something, but where you could actually touch them. Maybe that’s a weird sentiment, but I’ve always kinda preferred print copies of photos than digital copies. They feel more real that way, ya know?“ His smile was bordering on shy, generally uncharacteristic of Hyuk but something that seemed to happen frequently when he was with Nayoung. Then, to cover up this particular moment of his own awkwardness, he quickly fell back into his typical self, grin and all, “If you like it, you don’t have to say so. But you do have to kiss me. If you don’t like it… you should still probably kiss me so that you don’t hurt my feelings.”

Nayoung never expected a fuss for her birthday. She never wanted for anything, except maybe a slice of cake and an extra hour in bed. For a long time, she’d resented it. A day marking her birth, a birth that shouldn’t have happened. A day her father had tried to ignore until her step-mother explained that is was cruel. After that, he couldn’t ignore it. Suddenly, that had felt much worse. It was only when she started staying with Sewon more that it became something happier. She didn’t suffer through it anymore. 

Now there was Hyuk. If there was one thing Hyuk had proven he was good at (and there were a lot more, Nayoung could attest to that) it was making a fuss. Or rather, making someone who had hidden from her real self feel like that self was worth loving. Funnily enough, Sewon had caught on quite quickly after her birthday last year. He’d spotted the camera in her hands when she came to visit him in his lecture theatre. Nayoung had a feeling the concept of “birthdays” only started to settle in as she told him what Hyuk had done for her, the stupidest of sappy grins on her face. Sewon had informed her it was a look that made him highly uncomfortable. Since then, however, he’d been taking it as a personal challenge to do one better than Hyuk. He was practical as ever, but his sentimentally was winning out. This year he’d given her a small music box that her mother had apparently adored. 

Nayoung had the tune in her head all day, humming it lightly as she walked to meet Hyuk for dinner. As soon as she saw him, she took his hand. Not even a second hesitation. Not a big deal. Talking was just a simple. Nayoung chose pasta for her main meal then joked they should share the plate and see what happened. 

She would have been content with just that. It was enough. Spending time with Hyuk was better than enough any day of the week. She just preferred storing up the hours into days, and the days into weeks, counting minutes as she went. She planned to count some more up tonight. Going home to her little apartment didn’t sound like any kind of fun on her birthday. If luck was on her side Hyuk would agree. 

He opened the door for her with a flourish. His workroom had been transformed. It was like… a gallery of them. Like what she had tried to do for him on his birthday, only so much better. These were not the snapshot experimentations of someone trying to figure out a new way to view the world. This was how he saw them - how he saw her. Nayoung’s gaze lingered on each, soaking up every detail. She halted on the capture of the stars. How vivid could he make such a static image? It didn’t look like a photograph. She felt like she could swim in it maybe. Or free it and let the stars dance about the room. 

When she turned to face Hyuk again, having to drag her gaze away, her eyes were suspiciously bright. She wasn’t going to cry, she wouldn’t allow that. She laughed instead at the photo of them as Han and Leia. “Yeah, okay you can keep that one,” She hummed in agreement, “Only if you agree to recreate it as the real thing next Halloween.” And she’d make the most of that.

The scrapbook was even better than the gallery, if possible. She could keep this. She ran her fingers across the surface, enjoying the physicality of it. He was right. Of course, he was right, he’d thought about this. He’d been taking photos for it all year. But he hadn’t needed that reason. “You don’t need any excuses. None.” Nayoung closed the book gently, planning to look through every inch of it, every comment later. Tucking it into her chest, she moved closer to Hyuk, resting her head underneath his chin. “Take photos of me whenever you like. Especially if I can see them like this.” When she looked up at him it was with narrow eyes, judgement melting into a smile. Nayoung’s chin bumped his as she moved in closer. “Not gonna hurt your feelings. I have to stay on your good side if I want to stay here tonight, right?”

When she kissed him she kept her arms between them, the scrapbook still there. A little uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to just drop it on the floor. “Thank you,” she whispered, his lips a breath away from his, “For today and all the other days, coming and gone.”

[nazih-fares]

Right after his mission in North Africa, with Sniper Elite 3 (reviewed back in 2014), American sniper Karl Fairburne is backm entrusted to handle a delicate mission in Italy plunged under the regime of Mussolini, the puppet of the Nazi Germany regime and faithful ally of Adolf Hitler with now Sniper Elite 4. A new country means for sure new settings, and one of my favorite sniper title has not skimped on content, meeting most of my expectations, even if it’s a rather safe sequel for UK-based Rebellion studios.

After a quick tutorial that allows newcomers to discover the basics and novelties of the series, like camouflage in the foliage, or use surrounding plane noises to mask your shots, players quickly find themselves immersed in the heart of the action in Italy, our new “play” zone if I may say so. In addition to being a faithful visual rendering of a Southern Italy coast whether with the architecture, the azure skies of the Mediterranean sea, Sniper Elite 4 offers an increased freedom of movement with larger maps in both width, length but also verticality with cliffs and tower nests. Once on the field, true to all Sniper Elite games, you are free to accomplish your set mission goals in the order that you want, but above all, with the method of your choice, with the similar array of weapons on top of your trusty sniper, including machine gun, handguns, explosives and more.

Much more than just a game where you have to shoot everything that moves, Sniper Elite 4 is a proper third person stealth-based tactical shooter game, which wants you to live the feeling of a true WWII marksman in the field, at a time when planning was done by the sniper in the middle of the battlefield. For you have a pair of binoculars allowing you to observe surroundings and mark enemies and objects, and Rebellion have removed the limit of 4 marked “element” due to – what I believe – a better experience in such larger maps. It is worth noting that each target observed on the binocular will give you a lot of details, including its rank, current state of vigilance, or even an important objects it carries on him which could be crucial to the mission.

In order to propose a more credible adventure – and make the game lifespan longer – Rebellion indirectly pushes the collector in us to fully search every nooks and crannies of the huge playground, thanks to a series of collectibles to either destroy or gather. While some can be simple such as scattered letters here and there, some are actually stashed on enemy soldiers, and will obviously make the task harder. This is where we come back to the important part of this game: planning. Don’t expect to play Sniper Elite 4 like any modern shooter, as you’ll easily get surrounded by enemies thanks to a “smarter” AI that triangulate your location based on where they heard your shot coming from. Back in the 1940s, silencers or suppressors (the proper term) were only available on smaller firearms such as handguns, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that proper one were implemented into bolt-action rifles, and true to the history relevance of the game’s theme, Rebellion made sure that weapons sounded like the WWII era but were also noticed by the enemies the same way. For that you’ll have to plan, plan and plan like a proper recon-sharpshooter, and find ways to break the enemy platoons from a set target, mask your shot by waiting for a plane to pass by, put a trap with a trip-mine, and so on.

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The possibilities are so vast that I’ll need hours to explain all sorts of tactics I’ve came out with, but that’s the best part about the game, especially as it allows for real replayability of the game without feeling bored. Karl can now take advantage of the verticality offered by the maps with climbing capabilities that give a new sense of freedom in our exploration of the missions. For example, it is possible to infiltrate through the roofs to take a soldier by surprise, and continue your recon of the infantry camp below where your key target is hiding (usually a high-rank officer).

As mentioned above, Rebellion clearly revised its AI system, and make enemy solder more credible. Depending on the level of alert triggered, the opposing soldiers will either hunt you down, or opt for a group approach, not hesitating to even counter us from the flanks. Similarly, if the elimination of a simple infantry soldier will have little effect on the enemy’s morale, defeating a high-ranking officer often cuts off a platoon from the front lines, and we will see a rapid disorganization of troop which will allow us to get closer to our goal.

Of course, the name Sniper Elite is inseparable with the iconic Killcam effect, which allows us to witness in “Bullet Time” mode, the trajectory of our shot as it hit your adversaries. Be reassure that despite the presence of many novelties in this fourth episode, developers didn’t abandon this element that have helped publicize the franchise, and to be honest brings so much excitement and accomplishment to a well-timed shot. For those of you that never played a game in the series, when a long-range shot targets a vital part of the body such as the head, the killcam is triggered and shows you detailed Xray effect of how the bullet penetrate the skull and burst the enemy’s brain… Gruesome but dead beautiful to watch. This killcam has been also added to other actions including melee combat and stealth kills, but also exploding vehicle weaknesses such as gas tanks (introduced back in Sniper Elite III).

To modernize a little bit the gaming experience and trends of current shooting games, Sniper Elite 4 gives us the ability to customize different classes of soldier in order to quickly switch between different equipment loadout before each start of a mission. On top of that, Karl can also equip perks (as he gain ranks) such as increasing the maximum heart-rate to better stabilize its aim, reduce fall damage and or carry more ammo. While it’s a very basic skill tree, this allows you nevertheless to customize your game experience a little depending on your course of action. We let you guess the happiness experienced once the silent ammunition at our disposal and the Ability to fire at any time without being detected.

Like the success of the series in the past, the game offers shooting physics that is credible with a bunch of different simulation aids depending on the difficulty level chosen. In the most accessible modes (easy, normal), a red marker will signal the impact area of y​​our shot, while in the highest difficulty you will have to judge the distance and impact of gravity on your shot without any sort of computer generated aim-bot. The game capitalizes on its strengths while refining some of the defects of the past such as the rather simple AI, but also expand approach possibilities, yet still seems to be technically low in comparison to other games nowadays. The game’s textures are often disappointing specially when it comes to folliage, and you can notice a lot of environment clipping and aliasing even with the Day-1 update. I’m pretty sure that a patch will correct these technical faults that are sadly inseparable from the saga since the launch and seem to be linked to the game’s engine.

In any case, all technical issues aside, if the singleplayer adventure is not enough to keep you playing for long, Sniper Elite 4 offers several other game modes, including the possibility of playing a cooperative campaign or pure multiplayer competitive modes, ranging from objective base games, to even a horde-survival mode will that will have you face waves of opponents.

Sniper Elite III was reviewed using an Xbox One review copy from 505 Games. The game is also available on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and PC. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Sniper Elite 4 is a great sequel to Rebellion's franchise, which fixes a bunch of defects from the past game. Right after his mission in North Africa, with Sniper Elite 3 (reviewed back in 2014), American sniper Karl Fairburne is backm entrusted to handle a delicate mission in Italy plunged under the regime of Mussolini, the puppet of the Nazi Germany regime and faithful ally of Adolf Hitler with now Sniper Elite 4.

[pkansa]

It was not all that long ago (see here) that I fell pretty hard for the Alpina Alpiner 4.  It was my first time going hands-on with the brand, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw there.  Well, if you know me, you know I like GMT complications.  I’ve been starting to focus in a little more closely on those watches lately, and I saw Alpina had a few in the mix.  Put two and two together, and you’ve got our review today of the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours.

Ostensibly, the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours is for the traveling businessman (given the 44mm diameter, I am guessing it will not grace the wrists of many women).  How so?  Well, it’s that Business Hours part of the name, which shows up on the chapter ring as an interpretation of the iconic “Pepsi” bezel.  With it, you get the red to indicate the normal working (banking?) hours (9 am – 5 pm), with grace time on either side in white, showing when people are actually going to be in the office.  That leaves the blue to indicate when folks are, well, not at work.

This chapter ring is not moveable, nor can you adjust where those colors bands are hitting.  While those may have been clever paths to go, this keeps things much simpler.  If you are traveling around, you will just have that GMT hand set to the home time of your home and office, and you won’t risk trying to get a hold of someone in the middle of the night.  Conversely, if you find yourself dealing more with an office on the other side of the globe, you’d set that GMT hand to the foreign time.

What about someone like myself, who really does not travel much any more, and has a remote team but in the same time zone?  Does a watch like the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours have a place?  Perhaps not the “Business Hours” iteration, but a GMT, there’s nothing wrong with that.  I personally like the complication (these days) as it’s something slightly different than a simple three-hander, without making things overly complicated.  How my love of the complication started, that’s different.

I was drawn to the GMT complication back before I had any sort of watch winder, and I found myself constantly needing to wind and reset watches.  With a three-hander and date, I was always winding things around to figure out where “midnight” was in the movement, so I’d have an accurate date set.  With the GMT hand, that became vastly simplified, as I could use it, at a basic level, as a 24-hour indicator.  Easy peasy, and less manual manipulation of the crown and handset.  Not particularly an issue for me these days, but it’s where things started for me, and that extra hand really has stuck with me.

And, frankly, as far as complications go, the GMT hand is a relatively simple one.  It’s just one additional hand, geared to turn at half the speed that the hour hand is going at.  That’s at a high level.  For each watch, there can be variations on how that is all implemented.  On the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours, the hour hand and GMT hand are set independently.  In this case, the hour hand is set with the crown in the first position.  Rotate it one way, the hour hand jumps in hour increments; rotating the other way gets you adjusting the date.  As to the GMT hand, that’s set along with the minute hand (i.e., how you would expect an hour hand to work on a standard three-hander).

Of course, if those hands are moving around on a busy or otherwise illegible dial, then it won’t make a lick of difference as to how they’re set.  That is not the case, thankfully, with the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours.  The black sunray dial provides a deep background for the polished (and luminous) indices and hands to set against; even the GMT hand (with it’s splash of red) is easy enough to pick out.  Speaking of the dial, we mentioned the Pepsi-bezel inspiration on the chapter ring.  You might also think of the four lines of text on the lower half of the dials coming from another brand, which it may (I didn’t interview the designer).  Fortunately, the text is small enough that it’s not a significant distraction.  There is one other larger influence as well, and that shows up on the case.

That particular detail would be the lugs of the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours.  This “twisted” style is something we commonly see on Omega watches (and is something I had a good watch friend point out), and I have seen it used on some others (particularly, the Benarus Sea Snake).  As with so many of these little details, you can cry “copy cat!”, or you can accept them for what they are – details that, because they have worked well and look well, show up  across a variety of places.  For the lugs in particular, I like the look, as it gives things a somewhat more streamlined look, and the alternating surface finishes are something I am always a fan of.

Ok, how about a detail that I have not seen on any other watch, that the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours has?  Take another look at that date window – does anything seem different there?  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  You see, there is a magnifier there.  On most watches, this takes the form of a cyclops that is glued onto the crystal.  I know that is a particularly divisive feature (albeit one I’ve come to like given it’s extreme practicality).  Well, then, setting the magnifier directly onto the date window (yet below the main crystal) is a particularly clever solution, and one I certainly would not mind seeing popping up all over the place (see, that’s how these good ideas can start showing up across a variety of brands).

On the whole, while the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours does have some details that are reminiscent of other brands, I would say it is indeed it’s own watch.  It’s not paying homage to any one model in particular, it is cutting it’s own path using maps from prior adventurers.  Even how to classify it is sort of it’s own thing, in my book.  More often than not, we see GMT movements implemented into sport watches, which are then polished up a bit to make them fit into a dressier setting.  Here, I would say the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours is going in the other direction.  They started with what is very much a dress watch, and then by enlarging the dimensions a bit, putting the GMT in, and then including their “Big 4” features (anti-magnetic, anti-shock, water resistance, stainless steel) we end up with a dress watch that can hold up to some sportier activities.

Sure, you come to the same result – a somewhat sporty, a somewhat dressy watch – but where you start can make quite a bit of difference.  Well, more realistically, it makes more of a difference in the mind of the buyer.  Are you looking for a rough and tumble watch that can fit with the occasional suit?  Then you want to start with the sport watch.  If you find yourself more in the office (and wearing suits with frequency), then starting with a dress watch makes sense; adding in the sporting sensibilities then turns a watch like the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours into a very capable travel companion, ready for the board room or the beach, all in the same trip.

So, yes, I did enjoy my time spent with the 126g Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours.  It is perhaps a touch larger than I might prefer for regular wear (both in diameter and thickness), but it’s not like we’re talking dive watch dimensions.  Ok, yes, the diameter is like a dive watch, but with the small bezel and those twisted lugs, it wears smaller than the 44mm might suggest.  And, yeah, it is going to look a good sight better with a suit (particularly if you are partial to French Cuffs, as I am) than your sport watch-based GMTs.  Yes, they work, but the Alpina GMT 4 Business Hour ups the game.  If you’re on the hunt for a great travel (and everyday) watch, you certainly should consider the $1,995 Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours.  While I won’t advocate (yet) just owning a single watch, if that’s what you’re going for, this is a watch that will work for just about anything you would want to throw at it.  alpina-watches.com

Review Summary

Brand & Model: Alpina GMT 4 Business Hours

Price: $1,995

Who’s it for?:  You like GMT complications, and you like sport watches, but you want something dressier (and more affordable) than what some of the “regular” recommendations might be

Would I wear it?: Indeed I would.  I don’t know that it would supplant my favorite GMT from my personal collection, but this is a solid watch for a variety of scenarios

What I’d change:  As with my Alpina Alpiner 4 review (LINK), a thinner case would be welcomed

The best thing about it: The best small detail is that “hidden” cyclops on the date window.  The best overall detail is how Alpina managed to take a dress watch design and embiggen things to create a capable sport watch, while still retaining the dress watch looks

Tech Specs from Alpina

Movement

Caliber:  AL-550

Frequency:28’800/h

Jewels:  26

Winding:  Automatic

Power Reserve:  38 h

Theme:  Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Date, Compass turning bezel

Case features

Materials:  Stainless Steel

Crystal:  Scratch-resistant sapphire crystal with antireflective treatment

Dial:  Black sunray dial with applied luminous indexes

Crown:  Screw-in

Water resistance:  10 ATM

Diameter:  44 mm

Strap or Bracelet Width:  22/18 mm

Strap:  Genuine leather

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Getting busy with the @AlpinaWatches #GMT 4 Business Hours It was not all that long ago (see here) that I fell pretty hard for the Alpina Alpiner 4.