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solalunar-eclipse · 3 years

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Team Dark: A Holiday Special

Chapter Two: Shadow

One | Three

Word count: about 6500 words

No warnings, just more angst than last time because Shadow.

Author’s Note: Thank you all so much for the great comments you left on chapter one- it’s really what keeps me writing and posting.

In other news, I believe that Hanukkah started yesterday evening, so to anyone who celebrates that holiday, Happy Hanukkah!

...

It was the dawn of a bright new day, and Shadow stirred as the sun rose, feeling oddly content. His bed was warm, and he was comfortable, and he really didn’t want to get up just yet. Fumbling around on the bedside table for his book, he began to feel even better at the thought of hiding under the covers for another hour or two, curled up reading…

Except his book wasn’t there. He made several quiet irritated noises, before forcing himself to sit upright.

Chaos, he was not a morning person.

This was incredibly frustrating, of course, since he only needed about five hours of sleep a night and tended to wake up early. Coffee beans usually helped with that, though, and some hot water.

His thoughts now focused on coffee, Shadow dragged himself slowly out of bed, shuddering as the cold air hit his fur. He searched through the clothes he’d brought and pulled out a warm, soft sweater, sighing with relief as he put it on. It was his favorite, too, since it matched his stripes nicely.

Sliding on a pair of slippers (plaid, fluffy, chosen by Rouge) he padded downstairs silently, eyes scanning the area for his book- and caffeine. He wandered through the main hall, enjoying the view that the large windows provided of the snowy landscape. Still, he wished they’d turn the heating up a little, shuddering as he wrapped his arms around himself tightly.

As he walked into the kitchen, still half-lost in a morning haze, Shadow was fully awakened by the shock of seeing other people up. More specifically, Rouge’s mother and stepmother were cooking. Already. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from shouting, and his quills bristled in surprise.

His friend’s mother startled and dropped the flour she was carrying, while her stepmother yelped and fumbled with the frying pan on the stove. Shadow rushed over and caught the dropped bag before it could explode, his nerves feeling slightly shot from having to deal with so much this early on.

“My bad,” he whispered, placing the flour on the island in the middle of the kitchen. “I didn’t know anyone else was awake yet- sorry.” he finished lamely. The hedgehog began to feel slightly uncomfortable, as both of the other occupants of the kitchen were looking directly at him. Until now, he’d managed to avoid everyone’s notice pretty well at this party, fading quietly into the background after that first introduction.

He was not prepared to socialize, especially not this early.

Camellia just smiled at him, though, and said kindly, “It’s perfectly alright, honey, we didn’t realize anyone else could stand to get up so early either!”

Rouge’s mother rolled her eyes good-naturedly at Shadow as she walked past him. “You say that like I like mornings, Cam.” she quipped.

He felt awkward just standing in the middle of the room- especially having interrupted their formerly-private moment- so he took a couple of steps to the side quietly. “I’ll just be out of your way now…”

“Oh no, don’t worry about it at all!” the bat exclaimed. “Were you looking for something, sugar?”

Having two terms of endearment directed his way in as many minutes stressed (and slightly flustered) Shadow, and he found himself beginning to retreat into his usual cold persona. The hybrid muttered, “I was just looking for my book. If you happened to know where the coffee is, that would help. That’s all.”

The cardinal handed him a bag of coffee beans, still smiling warmly. “And I think your book’s over there, honey.”

Shadow took his book and turned to walk out of the room, nodding a quiet ‘thank you’ as he did so.

However...the second he set a foot outside the kitchen doorway, he froze. Looking back over his shoulder, he asked, “...how much more do you have to do?”

It would be downright rude to leave his hosts doing all the work, wouldn’t it?

...and why did that sentence sound like someone else had said it?

“Oh! Well, we have the eggs, and the waffles, and the…” the bat began to rattle off a long list of the different things they had to make. “But don’t worry about us, dear, you have your book to read!”

He wavered a moment longer in the doorway, before reluctantly putting the book down. Walking back to stand in front of them, he sighed. “Where are the aprons, then?” he asked flatly.

“Are you sure, honey?” Camellia asked. “You really needn’t trouble yourself…”

Shadow raised a brow ever so slightly. “I’m sure.”

“Oh, aren’t you sweet!” Rouge’s mother gasped. “We usually get help a little later on, but if you really want to…”

“I have a little experience with cooking, but not much.” he warned, taking the apron she offered him and putting it on. (This was true. He only knew how to make waffles and French toast, and that was just because Rouge decided she would go without breakfast if she had to cook.)

The cheerful cardinal pulled him over to the counter, making Shadow startle slightly. “Have you ever made hash browns before, honey? Those shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“No…?” he said, a little confused. “I...I’ve never had those before. What are they?”

“What?” Lila cried out, on the other side of the room. “What has Rouge been feeding you? Well, it’s about time you learned then.” She moved over to stand next to Shadow, handing him a bag of potatoes.

The hedgehog just stared at the vegetables, his mind going blank.

He needed to have his coffee before he dealt with this. Now.

…

Two hours and several handfuls of coffee beans later, Shadow could say that he absolutely knew what hash browns were, having produced enough of them to feed an army. He had also made veritable mountains of scrambled eggs and stacks of pancakes, all while asking ‘Are you sure we need this many?’. He’d thought that the dinner spread was incredible last night, but seeing everything as it was being made only served to emphasize just how much food everyone here needed.

A few other family members had shown up near the end to help out Rouge’s parents, but the real flow of people was only just beginning. Young children were now rushing down the stairs, lured by the smell of breakfast. A few adults began to come down as well, along with Rouge and Omega.

The younger bat looked a little surprised to see Shadow in the kitchen, and he internally cringed as he realized just how bad he must look right now. His quills were tied back in a sloppy ponytail and the apron he’d been given was more than a little long on him. It wasn’t long enough to conceal his slippers, though, and his sweater was rolled up past his elbows, while his arms were covered in flour, sugar, and even a little bit of oil.

“Aww, hon! You’ve been helping!” she said, batting her eyelashes in a blatantly over-the-top manner. She was clearly fighting the urge to laugh at his appearance.

Shadow rolled his eyes. “Don’t rub it in.”

Rouge’s mother bustled up at that, smiling warmly at him. Shadow became significantly more uncomfortable- he was used to having glowers and wide-eyed stares directed at him, not...that.

“He just walked over and demanded an apron, then he got right to work!” she said cheerfully. “He’s really quite helpful, honestly!”

Omega looked at the older bat. “Shadow does not like to admit that he’s helping, even when he is very clearly doing so. His pride is too great to ever admit that he’d do such a thing.”

The hybrid scowled. “That is not true.”

Rouge giggled. “Oh, it’s not, hm? Then what about the time you finished-”

“-don’t you dare-”

“-cleaning my room when I-”

“-now you know how it feels, Shadow-”

“-shut up-”

“-took a quick break, or the time when-”

“Alright, that’s enough!” Shadow roared, leaping at her. Rouge’s mother seemed quite startled at this, but Rouge started cackling just like last night, and Omega looked incredibly smug (somehow), watching as she dodged his attack.

“Just look a little sad, Mom, and maybe tell him you’d be ‘ever so grateful’ and he’ll drop everything to do iiiaaaAAAAH!!”

Shadow had managed to catch Rouge and pin her down on the couch. “Take it back.”

“Never.” she said, smiling sweetly at him.

The hybrid prepared himself to inflict some sort of punishment (messing up her makeup, perhaps, or tickling) when he was hoisted bodily and flung over a very square and very metallic shoulder.

“Umph.” he wheezed in a very undignified manner as Omega hauled him out of the room.

The robot looked very pleased with himself. “Ah yes. Revenge is truly sweet.”

...

“Alright, guys!” Rouge announced after breakfast. “It’s perfect weather out, so you know what we’re gonna do? We are going sledding.”

Shadow- who had been cleaning up and lost in thought- nearly hit the ceiling. “Wait, what?”

“Don’t worry, hon, we’ll get you all wrapped up first.” Rouge said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.

The hybrid’s body immediately sagged in poorly disguised relief.

Five minutes later, Shadow wore three layers of shirts, a coat, sweatpants, snow boots, thick gloves, a hat, and a scarf. “I look like an idiot.” he growled.

“Would you prefer to be cold?” Omega asked him dryly.

Shadow shuddered at the very thought. Pulling his clothes a little tighter, he was suddenly launched back into the past, a very particular memory running through his mind.

“You ready for lessons today, Shadow?” a young, blond-haired girl asked.

Maria.

Shadow, at the perky young age of two and two-thirds (eight mentally), leaned on the edge of her bed, smiling. “Always!”

Professor Gerald entered shortly with their lesson for the day- exponentials for Maria and multiplying fractions for Shadow- and began to teach.

As Shadow worked on his problems later, the professor’s voice going on in the background as he spoke to his granddaughter, he began to notice his fingers trembling. Weird.

The longer he worked, the more it spread, until his fur was bristling and his whole body shook occasionally. But he was the Ultimate Lifeform! He was made to be tough!

So he kept on going.

Eventually, his breath began to come short and his teeth clicked together. He accidentally dropped his pencil, his fingers trembling too much to hold it.

Maria noticed.

“Shadow, are you alright?” she asked. “Come here for a second…”

He walked over, trying to keep his legs from shaking and failing miserably. She reached out to touch his arm, but gasped as soon as she felt his fur.

“Maria!” he cried out, worried. “Maria, what’s wrong?”

“You’re freezing, Shadow! Come here…”

She pulled him onto the bed next to her, the warm quilt on it keeping her from struggling as Shadow had.

He let out an involuntary sigh as warmth began to flood his body, melting away the shudders and allowing his breathing to return to normal.

“Strange…” the professor had said, after getting Shadow a warm jacket to wear. “This was unexpected- I didn’t think it was so cold! I know the temperature on the space station is meant to simulate wintertime inside on Earth, but it’s only an indoor climate.” He’d later discovered that Shadow’s DNA predisposed him to get cold easily.

Or as Rouge put it: “You’re half lizard, hon. I’m honestly surprised you don’t spend all day lying on hot rocks when it’s cold.”

That event had led to a lifelong hatred of Space Colony ARK’s air conditioning (and several heated glares at the ventilation system for Maria’s benefit).

And then…

Shadow remembered what it felt like to have ice cover his body. When he’d woken up from his frozen sleep, he’d been filled with a chill he just couldn’t shake.

He’d been able to ignore it in his quest for revenge, but from then until he finally went Super, he had struggled to become warm, even in the tropical heat of the jungle. A cold sensation had settled in his very bones.

But now, he no longer felt frozen inside, and the cold was just an irritation, albeit a slightly more emotionally charged one.

Wasn’t everything.

Rouge and Omega had both been incredibly understanding, though. The bat had never made him go outside when it was cold, and she often dumped armfuls of blankets on him at random moments. (He appreciated it more than he let on.) The E-series robot was more subtle in his support, doing things like handing Shadow an extra scarf before he left their house or silently placing a mug of hot chocolate next to him when he shivered.

And now, they were standing in front of him, having packed all of these clothes for his benefit.

Somehow, Shadow couldn’t find it in himself to complain.

“No,” he sighed, “I suppose I don’t.”

“Alright, guys, let’s go!” Rouge practically dragged them out the door, pushing Shadow up onto Omega’s shoulders and then flying up to grab his hands once they were outside.

“I will never comprehend how such a small being has the power to lift both myself and Shadow.” Omega commented as they took off.

“Lots of practice- hff- and weight training- hh- does the trick.” Rouge gasped, evidently straining to keep them in the air. “I’m- ngh- out of practice.”

“It’s fine, Rouge.” Shadow said, his voice muffled by the scarf. “Take your time.”

Eventually, they made it to a giant hill with an incredibly steep slope. As they trudged up to the top, the (relatively) small hedgehog began to notice just how very angled and high the incline was...

Shadow regretted everything.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Rouge?” he asked, watching as Omega lay down on what would have been his chest to be the actual sled.

“Of course, hon! It’s going to be great!”

“Uh…” the hedgehog muttered nervously, even as he allowed Rouge to pull him onto the robot’s back. “I…”

“Alright let’s go.” Omega said quickly, firing his rocket boosters.

Rouge whooped and Shadow (to his eternal shame) screamed as they blasted down the hill at top speed, flying across a patch of ice at the bottom and skidding to a stop several yards away. Panting heavily from his adrenaline rush, Shadow fought to get his thoughts in order. “That...that was….”

“Awesome!” Rouge shouted. “We’re doing that again!”

“...alright?” Shadow agreed. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice, but it was a little fun.

The next time, Rouge tried lying down and yelled the whole way- not being able to see where you were going made things a lot more scary. Omega tried carrying them up to the top of the hill as well, completely eliminating the usual grind of dragging a sled up the slope that came with this activity. Shadow got into it eventually, clearly enjoying himself despite the fact that he never quite yelled like Rouge as they careened wildly downhill.

Eventually, Rouge convinced Shadow to try lying down as well. “Don’t worry, hon, I’ll hang onto you and make sure nothing bad happens.” she reassured him.

“Okay...okay. Just make sure you hold on tight.” Shadow groaned, clinging to Omega with enough force to strain his fingers.

They blasted off down the hill and Shadow shouted in surprise- this was so much more intense! He felt every bump and jolt all the way down, but it was all fun.

Until Rouge yelled, “Omega! Tree!!”

Shadow gasped, startled. There was a tree and it was coming up-!

Omega fired his left booster, spinning them far away from the tree. Unfortunately, that meant spinning literally, as he’d majorly overcompensated for the potential collision. Whirling around in a circle, both Shadow and Rouge were thrown off. The bat managed to catch herself mid-air with her wings, but the shaken hedgehog wasn’t quite as lucky.

Shadow’s vision went completely white. For a moment, he feared he’d hit his head- but it was only snow. He sighed in relief.

That feeling didn’t last long, though, as he felt the cold begin to seep in from all sides. Panic wormed its way into his chest- and then when he tried to move, he could only push helplessly against the lightly packed material.

Calm down. It’s only snow. Rouge and Omega will be here any minute now.

He took a deep breath.

And another.

And then Omega was there, clasping his hand to pull him out of the snow, and Rouge was sitting on his shoulder, looking worried but pleased to see him alright.

“I’m so sorry, hon, I didn’t mean for that to happen…” she said sympathetically.

“Neither did I.” Omega added, and Shadow noticed that the robot wasn’t quite looking him in the eye.

The cold was quickly banished with yet another reminder of just how much his friends cared. “It’s fine. I just…” He looked away, a little embarrassed. “I did what the therapist told me to do and just breathed, and waited for you.”

“Awww, that’s good, hon! Tolja therapy’d help somehow.” Rouge smirked at him, but it was all warmth and kindness underneath.

Shadow shuffled awkwardly in the snow. “It seems that way...I’ve decided to keep going with it, after all.”

“Excellent.” Omega said, and Shadow felt even better. “Now we should get back. Shadow appears to require the immediate application of blankets and hot cocoa.”

The snowy, slushy hedgehog was not in the mood to protest, and simply said, “Yes. Now.”

...

Two pairs of red eyes narrowed in a face-off. It had taken their owners over an hour to get to this point- the final competition. The winner of this match would be crowned champion.

About half of Rouge’s family watched, holding their breath as Shadow opened his mouth to speak.

“E-4.”

“Miss.”

“Dammit!”

Shadow didn’t care one bit who might hear him swear right now, his teeth gritted and mind racing a mile a minute. He was supposed to be good at tactics and strategy, yet here he was losing at Warboat. Badly.

Three of his ships, covered in red markers, lay slain off to one side. Meanwhile, Omega had only lost one and a half of his. Accursed computer processors.

The hedgehog was certain that Omega would have a gigantic grin on his face, if it were possible for him to produce one. As it was, he stared constantly at Shadow, even as he moved his markers around.

“C-6.”

Shadow felt relief flood his very soul. “Miss.”

It didn’t take long for Shadow’s fourth ship to get knocked out, even as he still searched for Omega’s third. He was getting trounced, and he knew it. Yet still, somehow, he had a shred of hope.

But then, two rounds later, he snarled furiously when Omega switched his LED eyes from full circles to half-moons- an evident hint at a smile.

“H-2.”

Shadow’s stomach dropped. “No!”

“Yes.” the robot said proudly, before planting a red marker on his board.

The hedgehog began to search frantically for Omega’s ship, his moves becoming increasingly random and less thought-out as imminent destruction closed in.

Finally, something happened. “A-1.”, he muttered, resigned to his painful end.

“...hit.”

“Yessss.” Shadow hissed, somehow feeling triumph despite his imminent defeat.

“Yay.” Rouge remarked dryly from the spectating area. “Consolation prize.”

“Shut uuup.” he whined petulantly, before realizing how very relaxed his demeanor had become. Straightening his back and smoothing down his quills, he allowed that familiar blank expression to settle back into place. “No distracting the players, please.” he added coolly.

Was it him, or was that a flash of...disappointment he caught from her?

Anyhow, he lost on the very next turn. Grumbling quietly, he went to sit down on a couch as Omega partied loudly with all of the children, blasting up-tempo dance music from his speakers.

It was one of the children (such sweet little kids, some of them were) who suggested that they make trophies. Pulling out cardboard and paper to draw on, they quickly made little certificates and gold, silver and bronze medals. One parent found some ribbon to thread through a punched-out hole, and then the little ones all scrambled to set up a proper ceremony “like on TV”.

As Shadow bent down to receive his handmade medal and crayon certificate, he knew without a doubt that this was being saved. For good.

…

Later, Shadow was relaxing in his bedroom when Rouge’s mother walked in, Omega following behind her.

“Oh, good, I’ve found you!” she said, her voice bright as always, but...off, this time. “Would you mind coming with me for a minute?”

As Shadow followed her out of the room, exchanging bewildered looks with Omega, he realized what the strange tone was.

Her voice was brittle. Fragile. As though it might break if one of them spoke wrong.

They entered a different room, one high up and far away from the rest of the party. Rouge’s mother stood in front of them for a moment, pulling at her sweater before deciding to sit down. She looked at her gloves for a moment, clearly thinking…

And then promptly burst into tears.

The two were incredibly startled at this, and despite both being relatively...emotionally inexperienced, they gathered around her to try and help.

“Uh...I...is something wrong?” Shadow asked, immediately kicking himself mentally. Of course something’s wrong, people don’t cry if everything’s perfectly fine!

Omega, thankfully, got straight to the point. “What is it?”

“It’s...no, no, it was...Rouge.” the bat said, her voice sounding choked.

“Rouge?!” Shadow’s quills bristled. “What happened?”

“She...when Rouge came back. From her two years, you know, away-”

Shadow and Omega did know, now.

“-she came to the party two years ago, and she was different. She was cold, and distant, didn’t talk, and only laughed a- at people, not with them.”

Rouge? Cold and distant?!

“She wouldn’t talk to anybody about her life- the only reason I even knew she worked for G.U.N. was the logo on the paychecks she sent. When she stopped sending those, after I told her the news about Camellia- she took that well enough, but after that...I heard nothing. Nothing, for almost ten months.”

Omega’s eyes were wide, and Shadow was sure his own were as well.

“A-and then one day, she called me up. Her voice was different. Warmer. Happier. She apologized for her silence, and said she’d been in a bad place. I blamed myself, and accepted her apology, of course. She had to grow up so young, do so much all by herself… and she paid the price for it...for a while.

“And then I happened to look at an old article a couple weeks later, and I realized why she was better- and I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. My baby girl, in the news! And of all the things...fighting a world-renowned supervillain alongside the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog!

“But that wasn’t why she was better. No, when I started searching the internet frantically and saw her perched on the shoulder of a massive black and red robot, laughing uproariously- when I finally worked up the courage to go to her social media pages and saw, not darkness and pain, but her with an arm slung tightly around a young striped hedgehog, flashing the biggest smile I’d seen in years, I knew.”

Shadow’s hands were jittery and he really wished his heart would stop beating so loudly.

“It was both of you. I never found out the specifics as to how she met you two- I hope she’ll tell me the story someday- but you saved her from all of it. She had coworkers, sure, some nicer than others, but you gave her friends, and ones who understood her position at that.

“And this year- getting into a snowball fight! Telling silly stories at the dinner table! She would never have done that last year, mark my words.”

Rouge’s mother was smiling broadly through her tears now, looking at both of them. She reached out and hugged Omega, tightly but quickly, and did the same for Shadow, leaving him dumbfounded. “Just- I-

“Thank you.”

Shadow sat there for a minute, unable to do anything other than keep a hand on her shoulder. Suddenly, though, he noticed some movement by the door, and spun around to see Rouge standing there, absolutely silent as mascara-filled tears streamed down her face. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, presumably to keep from making any noise.

“Rouge?” her mother asked, startled.

“Mooommmmm….” she whined, her own voice sounding tight- and then she rushed across the room and into her mother’s arms. “I love you, Mom.”

Shadow tried very hard to ignore the burning sensation just behind his eyes.

“You’re right. About, like, all of it.” Rouge said quietly, once she was finished crying with her mom. “Nothing here mattered to me when I was out there every day being, basically a soldier, y’know?”

She sighed, wiping more tears from the corners of her eyes, and stood up. “I think now’s a good time to say something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Sorry if it isn’t perfect-” she laughed thickly- “I’m not exactly in the best state right now.”

Rouge’s mother smiled at her. “I’ll give you three some privacy, then.” she said gently, closing the door on her way out.

After she left, the younger bat resumed her impromptu speech. “Okay. Omega....chaos. Omega. Ohhh man.” She pointed at him. “That day? When you busted out of heckin’ nowhere and started blasting your machine guns like mad? O-one of the best days of my life. Wanna know why? I met you.”

Omega looked very fixedly at a point on the wall behind her.

“You literally carry me places. You crush our enemies with your epic missiles and fists of steel. You helped me prank Knuckles so bad he was checking everywhere for traps for the next week. You’re so fun and I just. You. Awesome. I can’t explain it properly right now but hopefully I’ll get to do a lot more of that later. You’re the best ever.”

“I…” Omega sounded like he was at a loss for words. “I am...honestly extremely flattered by this statement. I will continue to carry you places and destroy all who oppose us.”

“Awesome.” Rouge grinned.

“Aaaand Shadow.” She wheeled to face him, and the hedgehog in question attempted to mentally prepare himself and failed horribly. “You. You are so cool there are no words to describe it. And I don’t mean because you own a motorbike or you dress in all black or any of that stuff.

“I mean because like half the people who’ve been important in your life so far have been trying to kick the ever-loving hell out of you...and yet you get up each and every single time they do it and win. Honestly...I’m proud to know you, Shadow. And I hope you know that if you need me, for anything ever, know that I will give up the Master Emerald in a hot second to help.

“So yeah. And you’re the first guy I’ve ever met who’s actually willing to talk makeup- let alone likes it. The one who tries all the new restaurants with me. And the only person I will ever know who can somehow handle going to the mall with me more than once in a week.” Rouge finished with a smirk. “I guess you really are Ultimate.”

Everyone in the room who had tear ducts was currently using them. A lot.

Shadow sniffed furiously and wiped tears from his eyes. “Th- thank you…” He cursed internally as his voice betrayed him.

“Oh yeah, get ready for more.” Rouge warned him. “There’s more.”

The hybrid’s throat tightened in response.

“You know how I said, before we came here, that you guys meant as much to me as my real family?”

“Yes?” Omega asked, his voice sounding a little quieter than usual.

“To heck with that. You guys don’t have to, like, change anything because of this, but you are my family. You’re both my real family. As real as Mom is.” Rouge said, her words shaky yet determined.

Shadow felt as though he’d just been struck by a bolt of lightning. Dazed, he swayed slightly, clinging to the edge of his seat.

Family?

Is...is Rouge...is Omega….

He began to hyperventilate just thinking about it, just considering that after all he’d been through, after everything he’d lived through- at the end of it all, waiting for him, right now, was a--

“Shadow. Shadow, hold your breath.” Omega reminded him, and he shut his mouth and clasped his hands tightly for a minute.

A family? My family?!

“I- yes. Please. Yes. Family sounds good.” Shadow managed to stammer.

“Well, then!” Rouge said, looking pleased. “Now I get to assume the official Big Sister duties of kicking anyone who dares look at you wrong and buying you food.”

Shadow blushed a little. “Rouge. I don’t need protecting like that...”

“I know, but since when’s that going to stop me?” she asked. “And don’t start complaining- being the baby brother’s the good life, from what I’ve heard.”

A fresh wave of tears poured down his face at the words ‘baby brother’.

Of course, that was when Omega decided to go completely off the rails. “Am I the middle sibling or the youngest?”

Shadow and Rouge stared at him for a second. Then they both started laughing wildly, the toll of the various emotional highs and lows hitting them all at once.

“M-middle one.” Rouge gasped out eventually. “Definitely, the attention-seeking middle sibling.”

Omega made angry eyes for a second, but reconsidered. “Fine. That...yes, that works.”

“Family group hug?” Rouge suggested, smiling warmly at them both.

Shadow nodded weakly. “F-family group hug.”

Omega picked them both up and held them tightly. “You both will always be my favorite organic beings.”

“Thanks, Omega.” Rouge said, squeezing them both a little tighter.

…

A couple of hours later, Shadow was pulled out of his room for the third time in two days, again by Rouge’s mother. “Sorry to bother you, honey, I just wondered...would you mind giving us a hand with dinner? You were such a great help with breakfast that Cami and I had hoped....”

Curse you, Rouge.

So now he was in the kitchen. Again.

Only things were very different this time. Now, there were about ten people in there, all rushing around in some complicated pattern and carrying hot, cold, cooked, uncooked, and various other kinds of dishes all over without running into each other.

Somehow.

Shadow, despite feeling very overwhelmed and (strangely) underqualified, took one step into the fray- and immediately jumped several feet straight back as he was nearly mowed down by one of Rouge’s auncles rushing past with some sort of casserole.

“Sorry, kiddo!” they yelled over their shoulder, handing off the dish to someone else before sprinting back across the kitchen. Seconds later, another relative vaulted over the island in the middle of the room to get to the sink as quickly as possible, while carrying a semi-full plate that he somehow managed to keep steady.

The hybrid suddenly remembered several battles and sparring matches that he’d participated in. This...actually looked a lot like those.

He locked eyes with Rouge’s stepmother. She didn’t have time to say anything to him, instead just tilting her head in one direction. Shadow’s eyes snapped to a frying pan left unattended and knew what he had to do.

He took a running start and launched himself clear over several people’s heads before sticking the landing right in front of the pan. Several people applauded, and one person- the vaulting relative from earlier- frowned, having been severely upstaged.

So it was a competition, then?

Shadow looked directly at him and smiled like a feral shark.

...

The wild food preparation/parkour show finished with several people throwing the food to each other across the room like in a musical (Shadow thanked his lucky stars that he’d caught his- it was made of glass), and he decided it only existed because Rouge’s family was extremely over-the-top.

Immediately following that, everyone gathered around for another large dinner, during which Shadow only ate a little. And after too many more embarrassing stories, everyone gathered into a room to watch one of those cheesy Wintersweek romance movies that always came out in droves at this time of year.

Shadow said that they were all incredibly cookie-cutter style stories, each one following the exact same plot. Rouge claimed they were uplifting, fun stories and that she didn’t care if they were all the same. Omega liked to categorize all of the things that were wrong with them, so he was willing to sit with Rouge as she watched them.

The hybrid had scoffed cynically and walked away, filling the kitchen sink with water in the next room over and making a big deal out of clattering the plates around that he planned to wash.

Romance movies were so overrated.

Shadow could still see the screen through the doorway (not that he wanted to), and despite his wishes, the movie kept distracting him. He couldn’t stop himself from looking up to see what was going on.

It appeared to be a classic enemies to lovers story, as currently the shy young woman with a rock band shirt- who also happened to be the main star (cliche alert)- was glowering furiously at the trendy, popular blonde movie star. Who was, of course, berating the main character for her poor customer service.

At a coffee shop.

Shadow sighed loudly.

And of course, just as he’d suspected (he wasn’t paying that much attention to the movie all these films were the same really) they both ended up competing. In a Wintersweek cooking competition.

The movie star was confident she would win. Her film crew was ever-present, taking all the best shots of her as she ‘worked’.

Obviously, the main character was determined to beat her through hard work and skill. She was fully prepared to show this star just who she was dealing with…

...and all that and so on. Shadow rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the soapy water.

And then (this movie was like every single other one!!) their partners both came down with an illness that wiped out several other competitors as well. So naturally they were forced to work together. And of course they worked well, too.

(Shadow had stopped working on the dishes by now. Somewhere around here, he’d forgotten to look away.)

By the time these two had begun to look past each other’s flaws and see the real person beneath them, his eyes were riveted to the screen. It was still bad, he told himself, even as he watched every move they made. It was still bad.

They were working together now, smiling slowly and talking quickly and sometimes, occasionally, laughing. The obligatory hands-touching-by- accident scene happened. The two looked into each other’s eyes.

Shadow couldn’t decide how he felt anymore. Confusing emotions swirled inside him.

The kiss scene. (He saw it coming a mile away.)

The awkwardness. (Just to build up the tension.)

Their lips meet. (And a little voice deep down inside Shadow whispers…

...that feels right.)

The hybrid didn’t move a muscle for the next several minutes of the movie, refusing to miss a moment.

The couple won the competition. Of course, he thought, some form of rational thought returning to him. That was to be expected.

As the movie ended on their celebratory kiss, Shadow began, strangely, to feel as though someone had just punched him in the chest. When the credits rolled, he left, walking away from the movie, trying to get rid of this strange sensation.

He heard the click of Rouge’s high heels follow a minute after. And then the stomp of Omega’s ironclad steps.

Folding his arms, he tried to project an I-don’t-care attitude. Unfortunately for him, Rouge and Omega could a) tell that he was projecting said attitude and b) figured out quickly what he was really thinking. Curses.

“Was it the movie?” Omega asked bluntly.

The only acknowledgment Shadow gave was a slight twitch of his shoulders up and down.

“Did you hate it?” Rouge questioned.

Again, just a twitch of the shoulders.

They both studied him for a second.

“No…” the bat whispered, her teal-shadowed eyes widening. “No, you liked it! You liked it!”

“I did not!” Shadow spat furiously, more venom than he’d intended finding its way into his voice.

“You did.” Omega said. It wasn’t a question.

“I mean…” he sighed, looking away. “Let’s not talk about it, okay?”

“Come on, Shadow…” Rouge said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“Please?” Omega asked.

The hybrid groaned. “I...it was just- it wasn’t good, are we clear? It was just sappy. But. If you insist. I suppose...romance...argh. I can’t say it!”

“It’s okay, hon, just be patient.” Rouge said soothingly.

“Ugh...I mean...I’ve never dated someone before. Is it...really that nice?” Shadow muttered. His eyes narrowed, daring them to taunt him.

Omega looked at him, curiosity sparking in his eyes. “You want to date someone?”

“Wh-no, not like that! I- I mean...not just anyone…” he sputtered.

“So you’ve got someone in mind, then?” Rouge smirked at him, raising a brow.

“No!” he snapped, his eyes wide. “I- just meant- promise me you’ll never set me up on a blind date, are we clear?”

“Promise.” she said. “And I’m not crossing my fingers, either.” The bat waved both of them in front of her to demonstrate.

“However, we will force you to converse with others at future social events.” Omega declared. “I have heard that this is the first step in a successful relationship.”

Shadow scowled, but without any real heat. “Don’t you dare.”

Rouge giggled. “No more sulking edgily in the corner for you, emo-hog!”

He groaned. “Are you both turning against me? Really?”

“Of course we are.” Omega remarked. “That is exactly what family is for.”

“I don’t know whether to feel flattered or irritated.” Shadow grumbled.

“Flattered. Definitely~.” Rouge quipped with a wink.

“Ugh. Well, I’m going to bed now. I’ve had enough of this nonsense.” he sighed, stalking out of the room.

“Aw, come on, Shadow!” the bat said teasingly. “Don’t you want to watch the sequel?”

The hybrid spun around so fast his quills nearly sliced up the doorway. “I’m sorry, the what now?”

“The sequel.” Omega repeated flatly. “You know you do.”

He hesitated.

“Fine.” Shadow growled through gritted teeth, his hands occasionally clenching into fists. “But only if I get to run commentary with Omega.”

“Sounds fair!” Rouge chirped, flying off with the other two right behind her.

As they walked away, Shadow in the back, he allowed himself a small, secret smile. They truly cared about him, and he knew they only wanted to see him happy. The teasing was all their way of showing affection. His eyes began to glimmer softly with a faint hint of happiness as fond thoughts and memories drifted through his mind. One sentence, though, stood out above all the rest.

I love my family.

#shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #team dark: a holiday special #team dark #several other things i should probably mention:#please please please don't sled down a hill while lying down #you might crash into a tree #only do so if you are on top of a sentient robot that can steer for you #also i will give omega ALL of the cool upgrades #you can't stop me #and i do hope shadow's not too ooc #i tried my best (even looked up character analyses) but he's SO DIFFICULT to write well #hope you enjoyed!#there's one more part left now- we can't leave our favorite gem thief out!#sol's fanfiction

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coldgoldlazarus · 2 years

Text

(Inspired by remembering how I listened to the Metroid Prime soundtrack nearly eight years before I actually played it for the first time, and thinking the Impact Crater would have a drastically different feeling than it actually does.)

If I could make one big change to Metroid Prime 1, it would be how the impact crater/artifact temple is handled, making it more like the GFS Valhalla in Prime 3.

The unique strength of Prime 1's artifact hunt (as compared to 2, where everything is locked behind the Dark Visor and Light Suit, the last couple upgrades you get) is that most of the the Chozo Artifacts can be obtained as you go, if you know where to look, with only one or two locked behind the Phazon Suit to keep you from accessing the Crater too early. Every few upgrades, a couple more keys become available, and since the temple itself is right there next to your starting area, it's pretty easy to give a few more keys over to the temple with occasional visits. But the problem is, you don't really get anything out of it until the end, once you have them all and the Ridley rematch is triggered. There's no reason to look for the keys until after the Omega Pirate, even though you being able to do so beforehand makes it seem like there could be.

Additionally, lore-wise, the keys are needed to unlock the seal on the crater's bottom, to keep the source of the phazon from spreading even faster/further than it already is. If you bring keys to the temple early, there's not much sign of the seal weakening, though.

So my idea is that while the hole at the bottom of the crater remains sealed until the end, it's possible to explore the bowl leading down to it if you do snag some artifacts ahead of time. There'd be another bridge on the far side of the Artifact Temple leading to the very edge of the crater, and then from there would be a big spiral path (with a few branches here and there) going around the center but leading deeper as you go. The way along the path would be blocked by series of totems or gates, each one tied to a specific Artifact, in the order that you'd be able to access them. (The one hidden in that pillar in Magmoor, for example, would be placed earlier in the sequence compared to like, one of the ones in Phazon Mines) And much like GFS Valhalla, a few spare goodies like missile tanks and whatnot could be found down here, as a reward for coming back early. In addition, rather than just having a teleporter leading to the caves below the Crater, this path would be your way in, with the final artifact's adjoining gate blocking the hole at the very bottom of the crater. So you arrive at the artifact temple, breaking the seal, and then fight with Ridley before making your way down through the crater to get to the sub-crater and face Metroid Prime.

This could also be a cool chance for environmental storytelling that supports the lore. If you return to the temple early and start exploring the spiral path, the slight weakening of the Chozo's seal allows some more Phazon to escape. If you wait until you have all the artifacts before revisiting the Temple, the path remains fairly lush and rainforesty like most of Tallon Overworld, with just a few concerning Phazon-induced features from being closer to the source; whereas if you visit it early with a few keys, on later visits the environment would change to be creepier and much more obviously Phazon-corrupted as a result of time passing since the seal was weakened, reinforcing the danger and speed of the spread had the Chozo not intervened.

#not a reblog #metroid #metroid prime #metroid prime trilogy #impact crater #chozo artifact #artifact temple #chozo artifact temple #phazon

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candycatstuffs · 2 years

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Tails and omega? I feel like they would be friends

I think theyd get along prty well after a while.

At first, they wouldnt rly like each other. Tails doesnt trust one of eggmans 10 ton sentient weapons, and omega doesnt care for tails cuz hes small, and as he sees him, weak.However, over time omega realizes tails is actually fairly formidable, and tails realizes omega is loyal to team dwrk, or at the least firmly against eggman.

A kind of friendship develops when tails starts repairing omega and giving him upgrades, during which omega realizes tails actaully has a GREAT capacity for destruction. Even eggman hadnt thought of more creative weapons to put on him! Their final form is tails riding on top of omegas head while they both shoot eggmans robots to their hearts content.

Also this is all extra funny to me bc i have a headcanon based the team sonic racing animated shorts that Omega is like sonics biggest fan skdjjeke

He likes him alot and thinks hes cool and shadow fucking HATES it

#ask game #asks #i think this has been the longest one so far lmao #candy character rants

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destiniesfic · 3 years

Photo

132 Hours, Chapter 5:

If I die out here alone, for nothing, I will feel so incredibly stupid.

Note: There is a content warning this chapter for a brief mention of past attempted sexual assault. The mention comes near the end of the chapter.

Read chapter 5 on AO3, or read below:

Despite the damp cool of the basement, I am warm when I finally blink my eyes open to the dim morning light. Cardan has curled up at my back.

Alpha blood tends to run hot, they say. It plays into the general myth that we are opposites in every way: alphas hot, omegas cold; alphas strong, omegas weak; alphas dominant, omegas submissive, and so on. Scientifically the hot-cold theory has a little backing, though we’re talking an average temperature difference of 0.2 to 0.5 degrees max. But with Cardan so close to me, practically radiating heat, I am almost inclined to believe it.

We’re not touching too much. He has sort of nestled his face into the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and if I hadn’t slept in my sweatshirt I could probably feel his eyelashes tickle my skin. His hand found the curve of my waist in the night. But that’s it. The rest of him is a few inches away, like even in sleep he finds it difficult to overcome his revulsion to me.

It’s almost comfortable, if I forget who I am and who he is. Not even what I am and what he is, because Madoc’s position means that if any handsome, eligible alpha bachelors deigned to outright marry an omega, as he had once married our mother, Taryn and I would be the best of the bunch—best-connected, best-educated, best-groomed. No, it’s that he is Cardan and I am Jude, and I have hated him ever since my body put itself at war with my brain, and he has hated me too, just because I was afforded some small amount of privilege without being born into it.

And still, I stay there for a minute, soaking up his warmth. Because I didn’t think I’d have this anytime soon. I didn’t think I’d get to wake up next to a boy cuddling me, not after what happened with Valerian and definitely not after what happened with Locke. And even though these are the worst circumstances, and this is the worst boy, there’s something perversely nice about it.

Or maybe I just like things that are bad for me.

I was thinking of seeing if girls were better when I got to college, but they don’t really explain how alpha-omega girl sex works in school and I am not about to ask Vivi. And now I don’t know if I’ll even make it to college, so maybe it’s not so bad if I steal a moment of peace.

But then the stink of mildew cuts through Cardan’s rich sweet-musky-boy scent and I am forcibly reminded of where we are and why, especially now of all times, I can’t afford to be soft. So I jam my elbow back into his side, and if I do it with maybe a little less force than I normally would, well, it’s not like he knows that.

Cardan awakens with a start. “Ow!” he says, rolling over onto his back and pressing a hand to his side. “What the hell!”

“You’re fine.” I sit up, take down my now grody ponytail, run my fingers through it and begin to put it up again, watching him out of the corner of my eye. “Today’s the day.”

Cardan scowls at me, rubbing his side.

“Do or die day,” I clarify, looping my elastic around another time. “In case you forgot.”

“I remember,” he huffs. “That mattress is terrible.”

“Well, maybe tonight you’ll get to sleep in your own bed. Or maybe we’ll be dead. Or we’ll be locked in this room again and you can sleep on the floor.”

“Such tempting options. However will I choose?”

I roll my shoulders, trying to work the kinks out of my muscles. “My guess is we’re going to be held up with the police for questioning for a long time. You might not have to. Maybe the choice will be made for you.”

“As always, Duarte, I do so admire your rosy outlook.” Cardan finger-combs his hair and sits up all the way, blinking at me. “I’m still worried about the third guy.”

I don’t tell him that I’d been thinking the same thing. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I say quietly. “We have two other bridges to cross first.”

Only a minute or so after I say it, there’s that knock on the door. I glance at Cardan, who needs to play the role of alpha today, and wait for him to speak, even though it sucks to defer to him. He takes his time about it, too, stretching his long legs, running his fingers through his hair once more, like he has all the time in the world, like the person on the other end of the door should be so lucky as to strangle him.

Just as I’m about to strangle him, he calls, “Yes?”

The door opens. The scarred man and his gun are there, along with, absurdly, a little paper Starbucks bag in his other hand. An upgrade. He looks at me and Cardan—we’re now both sitting on the mattress, even though we are a few feet apart—but if he has any comments he keeps them to himself. He shakes the bag like he’s trying to call in a wayward dog. “Breakfast.”

“Thanks,” I say, because it is my place to be deferential.

“No coffee?” Cardan asks.

I whip my head around to glare at him. The man grunts, “Didn’t know how you took it.” Disconcertingly, I can’t tell if he has a sense of humor or if he’s serious.

Airily, Cardan says, “Fine. Put it down wherever.”

The scarred man raises both his eyebrows, but he half-sets, half-drops the bag on the floor and backtracks through the door, closing it and leaving us alone. Cardan goes over to retrieve it and peers inside. “Okay, looks like sausage, egg, and cheddar and… turkey bacon?”

I hold out my hand. “Give me the turkey bacon.”

“Oh, thank god,” Cardan says, and this time he doesn’t take a bite out of it before he hands it to me.

“Not a fan of turkey bacon?”

He scowls. “It’s all healthy. Plus, it’s not like turkeys actually have a belly to cut bacon from. You have to grind it up and make it yourself.”

I snort, but am happy for his judgment if it means my breakfast escapes unscathed. It doesn’t surprise me that Cardan couldn’t care less about eating healthily. From what I know, he has a mostly liquid diet, and the liquid is mainly alcohol. Not that it matters much. He probably won’t be able to keep getting away with it after a few more years, but right now his body takes pretty much everything he consumes and uses it to build him more muscle.

I think of how hard I have to strength train for a fraction of what Cardan gains just by existing, and how some of the training shows, especially in my arms and back, but the rest is buried under a cozy layer of body fat, and I kind of want to strangle him again. Just one of the many downsides of being an omega.

Since I don’t have any fun facts about turkey bacon to contribute, we eat breakfast without speaking. We had agreed that it was important to get our strength up for whatever lies ahead, but I find it hard to chew and swallow, even though the sandwich is lukewarm. I end up offering the last half to Cardan, who takes it despite his complaints.

Then, once enough time has passed, he gives me a look, and I nod and stand, shaking my legs out. Instead of staying in my usual corner, I stand next to the door, tense, waiting. With one last glance at me, Cardan strides over and knocks.

We have a system with our captors now. They know that the knocking means we want out for one reason or another. They either call through the door to find out why or just open it right away. This time, the door simply opens. Cardan stays where he is and does not move to the back of the room.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s that time again.”

It’s the woman’s voice I hear, and I am privately thankful. “Okay, back up.”

“But I was hoping I could go first.”

“Back up.”

Cardan takes one step back. It’s now that she realizes that I’m not in my corner. Just a little further, I think. And she gives me the half-step I need.

“What’d you do with your friend?” she asks.

To answer that question, I grab her by her shirt and drag her into the cell.

Surprise is a legitimate advantage, but a fleeting one. Since she’s armed and I’m not, I need to move fast. I don’t have to think much about it. I jam my knee into her stomach; all of the air leaves her lungs in a startled gasp, and her grip loosens on the gun. I pry it from her hand with one of mine and use the other, still fisted into her shirt, to pull her further into the room—and let go.

It only takes a few seconds. I dart out. Cardan has already gone ahead, as I told him to, and I pull the door to behind me, quickly twisting the lock on the knob. That was phase one.

“Um, Jude,” says Cardan.

I turn, raising my stolen pistol in front of me before I do anything else, finger resting dangerously near the trigger. The scarred man stands on the other side of the table, his gun also raised. But instead of aiming it at Cardan, as we thought he would, he is pointing that barrel at me.

“This is a surprise,” he says.

Behind me, the doorknob rattles as the woman realizes I’ve locked her in.

“Let her out,” the man tells us, voice steady and slow.

“Or what?” I ask. Somehow, my voice doesn’t shake. “We’re both armed. Let us go and I won’t shoot you.”

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” he asks.

“What do you think?”

He cocks his head to look me over, evaluate my posture, my steady grip. “Huh,” he says, and then he moves to point his gun at Cardan instead. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cardan’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I’ll only ask nicely one more time.”

I snort. “Sure. Do me the favor.”

The scarred man raises an eyebrow. Cardan whispers, “Jude?” like he isn’t sure whether or not I am playing a game. I am not sure either. I am intoxicated by the adrenaline pulsing through me.

“We’re not friends,” I clarify. “Shoot him if you want.”

Cardan gives me a panicked look.

“Of course, if you’ve promised to give him back alive, that’s going to cause some trouble.” My palm is sweaty. I shift my grip on the gun. The knob rattles again at my back, and I hear a soft curse, a hand slamming on the door. “It’s your call.”

The man’s lip curls into a kind of terrible smile. “All right, girl,” he says. “You go free. He stays. Leave the gun on the top step.”

I blink. “Really?”

“Final offer.”

I should go right away. Instead, I glance at Cardan, who has gone pale. But he looks at me again, and then, defying all my understanding of him, he whispers, “Go, Jude.”

So I do. Slowly, my entire body quivering with tension, I walk backwards up the stairs, keeping my pistol trained on the scarred man until the last possible moment. I try the knob at the top, and find it unlocked. It seems too easy, but with one last, stomach-churning glimpse of Cardan’s white face, I flee. But I don’t do everything. I do not give up the gun.

The house I step into has obviously long been abandoned—it was probably never even finished. Some of the walls have gaping holes in the plaster, the support beams visible; some were never plastered at all. There is no furniture to speak of. I don’t linger to take it in. I start running, through a hallway, in the direction of what might be the front door. When I find it, I tumble out into bright morning sunlight, and I keep going.

Immediately I know I am well and truly in the middle of nowhere. All around me is a field of overgrown grass. If there is a road, I cannot see or hear it. Still, I have to assume there was once a driveway that led somewhere, so I take off as fast as I can toward a distant line of trees. I do not wonder about Cardan. I do not wonder about anything.

For a minute it is just me, my feet flattening the dew-damp grass, my lungs straining with every breath. I am alone in a way that I haven’t been in days. Then there is a crack from behind me, and then I feel something rush past my face, just missing me. Startled, I drop the stolen pistol, which lands harmlessly in the grass and thankfully does not fire. I don’t stop running for it. Stopping is the last thing I should do, not when I am so close.

Still, my stomach drops. Without slowing too much, I glance over my shoulder back at the house. The second floor is half-intact, and I can kind of see through the wall—there might be a dark shape perched there. A man. The third man.

He’s a sniper.

I swear under my breath, and my panicked heart skips a beat. They chose this place on purpose. There’s no cover out here, giving them a clear view of whoever might be coming or going. Giving them time to move us in case the cavalry arrived. My only choices are to keep running until I am out of range, or stop, and go back. And I am not doing that.

If I die out here alone, for nothing, I will feel so incredibly stupid.

There’s another crack, now unmistakably the sound of a rifle being fired, and this time I feel when it hits—really more of a graze, but it still skims through my flesh about midway up my calf, leaving a tear in its wake. The strange thing is that, at first, being shot doesn’t hurt at all. It doesn’t feel like much of anything. It shouldn’t be enough to make me miss my step. I falter anyway, and when I bring my foot down I land on it wrong and roll my ankle. I drop with a cry into the grass, tears stinging the corner of my eyes.

But even then I keep going, crawling on my hands and knees through the long summer grass, blinking back my tears because I refuse to let myself cry. I don’t look at my ankle or my wound. It is only when I hear the grass crunching underfoot behind me, and a shadow falls over me, that I finally, finally stop moving forward.

I don’t stop fighting, though. The man—Cardan had described him as tall, and he was right—picks me up with some effort and, without a word, throws me over his shoulder like a sack of garbage. After adjusting me a little so my weight is more evenly distributed, he turns to carry me back to the house. All the time I am squirming, trying to kick, pounding at his back with my fists, screaming with the faint hope that someone might hear me. It isn’t enough to get the sniper to loosen his grip on my waist, but I do feel him wince in pain a couple of times, giving me some small, bitter satisfaction.

All I think is, I shouldn’t have dropped the gun.

Despair begins to set in as we reenter the unfinished house, as the sniper shoulders his way through the door to the basement and carries me down the stairs. Cardan is seated in a chair, rumpled but seemingly unharmed, his hands behind his back. Apparently, someone has bothered to tie him up or handcuff him this time. He sits forward when he sees me carried in. “Jude?”

“Are you sure he’s the alpha?” the sniper asks his companions. “He seems to have gone easy on you.” He deposits me into another chair, and the woman is there immediately to cuff my hands, threading the handcuff chain through the chair back so I am well and truly stuck. I see that some of my blood has soaked into the sniper’s black shirt and think, Good. My leg is starting to hurt now, in throbs, like a bad burn.

“You shot her?” Cardan asks, straining against his bonds.

“I’m fine,” I say, avoiding his gaze. I cannot believe he would do something as stupid as give himself up so I could go free. I look at my wounded calf, streaked red. There is an angry-looking tear there, but it could have been much worse. He didn’t hit bone. “It’s a graze.”

“Because he’s good at his job,” says the scarred man.

The sniper shakes his head and disappears into the room beyond the bathroom. He returns with a first aid kit and begins to stoop down next to me so he can clean my calf, but I raise my foot, threatening to kick him again.

“That’s enough,” the scarred man says. “Believe it or not, we don’t want to hurt you kids.”

“Not,” I mutter under my breath.

“Hurting you wasn’t part of the remit unless you misbehaved,” says the sniper. “Is that more believable?”

I scowl and hold out my leg so that he can clean the wound. Cardan’s eyes narrow. “We can’t just trust you,” he says, as a stinging antiseptic pad is applied to the torn skin and I flinch. “We don’t even know who you are. Give us something. Names. Something to call you.”

The scarred man and the woman look at each other. The woman says, “You can call me the Bomb. This is the Roach. That—” She points to the sniper. “Is the Ghost. You can figure out why for yourself.”

“You call yourself the Roach?” Cardan asks. “Wow. I mean, love yourself a little.”

To my surprise, the man grins. “Not my choice, but we don’t get to choose. How’s her leg?”

“The twisted ankle is going to give her the most trouble,” the Ghost replies. He presses a clean cotton pad to the wound and binds it in gauze. Then he starts on wrapping my ankle. He’s efficient; he’s done this before. “Although I’m guessing we don’t want her mobile anyway.”

“I wouldn’t mind if she taught me a couple of moves,” the Bomb says, rubbing her stomach. I wonder if I bruised her. “What was that, karate?”

“Krav maga,” I admit, glaring at the Ghost as he props my foot up on the nearest empty chair. Ignoring me, he stands and leaves to wash his hands. “I’ve been training since I was nine.”

The Roach lets out a low whistle. “Someone didn’t want you getting jumped.”

I turn my glare on him. “For all the good it did me.”

For reasons I don’t understand, the Roach grins and holds up his hands. “This? This is just a paperwork dispute. Once everything’s signed and sealed, we’ll turn you loose.”

“Lot of hassle for some paperwork,” Cardan remarks. “You could have just let Jude go if it isn’t that big of a deal.”

“I’m starting to see it,” the Bomb says to the Ghost. “Although, yeah, I could have sworn the girl was the alpha too for a second there.”

And if that isn’t absurd enough, Cardan leans toward me across the table and asks, “Did they teach you how to slip handcuffs in krav maga school?”

“Do you want to dislocate your thumbs?” the Ghost asks abruptly, reemerging from the bathroom.

I give Cardan a shrug and a nod—that is how to do it—and he shudders.

“Look, we know just about everything there is to know about this guy,” says the Roach, pulling out the last empty chair and sitting across from me. “But now I’m curious about you.”

I blink. “There’s not much to say.”

“He has quite a file on him,” says the Bomb, jerking her head to indicate Cardan, who pulls an innocent face. “But you were nowhere in it. We thought you were a bystander, a fling, or maybe his new girlfriend—”

“His what?” I squawk.

“But you’re way more interesting than that,” the Roach concludes. “Cardan told us this whole little escape plan was yours.”

The Ghost, for his part, leans against the wall, folds his arms over his chest, and says nothing. I decide I would like him best except for the part where he shot me.

“Why don’t you just let Cardan tell my life story, then?” I snap, angry at everything and everyone.

“Gladly,” Cardan says, looking a little too gleeful. “Jude Duarte was born with a chip on her shoulder. She’s glaring about ninety percent of the time and never lets her guard down, ever. As far as I know, she’s only gotten drunk once. She and her sister were the first omegas to graduate from our school, and Jude staged a coup by being named valedictorian, too, as if being first at just one thing wasn’t good enough. Our last semester, she gave a kid a black eye and got him expelled.”

“Why?” The Bomb asks. “What did he do?”

Cardan lapses into an embarrassed silence that I don’t really understand. Valerian had been his friend, once. Maybe still is. I say casually, “He tried to do what alphas always do,” like I don’t still feel the awful weight on top of me, the cheekbone cracking under my knuckles. “So I did what I had to.”

“They expel kids for that now?” asks the Roach. “Huh. Good on them.”

“Jude’s dad made a persuasive case,” Cardan says.

They exchange bemused glances. The Ghost asks, “Who’s her dad?”

Cardan and I look at each other across the table. They really don’t know.

“My adoptive father,” I clarify, because it matters. “He’s a lawyer. Uh, his last name’s Madoc?”

“Oh,” says the Roach. “Shit.”

#jurdan #judecardan #jude x cardan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #the folk of the air #jurdan fanfic #mine: fic #fic: 132 hours

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tokiro07 · 3 years

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I think I may have talked about this before, but I really hope that DBS: Broly sets a precedent for canonizing older, non-canon characters and plotpoints

That being said, I realized today that I don’t really want every single Dragon Ball movie to be rehashed into excuses for Goku to get stronger ad infinitum

Instead I think it would be cool if they were rehashed to be excuses for EVERYONE ELSE to get stronger!

It’s basically gotten to the point where Goku is incomparable to basically everyone else anyway, so when the “final” Dragon Ball villain finally shows up in the next X number of years, I think it would be good for the rest of the cast to be a bit more balanced with him. Sure, we know he’d still be the last one standing and would probably get another power-up to shoot ahead as always, but it would be a lot more engaging if the rest of the cast was at least able to put up a real fight. I don’t imagine they’d each be getting a movie, but I don’t want them to have super short OVAs either, so I think somewhere between 5 and 10 episodes each would do really well

So let’s say we bring back Dr. Wheelo from World’s Strongest; while it might be cool to get more scenes with Roshi, I don’t think we quite need the whole “stealing Roshi’s body” plotline anymore. Instead, we could use it as an excuse to bring back Android 13 using Dr. Wheelo as the impetus. From there, this plotline follows Krillin, 18 and 17 on a family trip, wherein we get to meet 17′s wife and children. Wheelo shows up with 13, maybe 14 and 15 too, trying to get 17 and 18 so he can use them to upgrade either his own robot body or further upgrade 13. After the group dispatches with 14 and 15, Wheelo has 13 upgrade himself into Super Android 13 with their cores like in the film; this necessitates that 17 and 18 get stronger by also finding a way to become Super Androids, which also ties in and canonizes certain aspects of the Super 17 Arc from GT. At the same time, Krillin is also finding a way to upgrade himself, leaving him to beat Wheelo while Super 17 and 18 beat Super 13

Lord Slug gets repurposed as specifically a Piccolo villain and showcases a new Namekian transformation, perhaps the armored form seen in Dragon Ball Heroes; in order for Piccolo to defeat Slug, he needs to also access this armored form. It’s been stated that in order for Piccolo to fully regain the power of the Nameless Namekian he would need to reabsorb King Piccolo and allow evil back into his heart. The need to attain the armored form may be what prompts him to bring back King Piccolo’s soul and absorb it, with the major character arc of the film being Piccolo confronting the villain he used to be and finally overcoming it once and for all. Garlic Jr. could also serve this same purpose, and I actually think it would be interesting for Garlic Jr. and Slug to somehow team up, but I also think it would be better if it were a bit more focused and only chose one.

Turles could be repurposed as a Universe 6 Saiyan, giving him an opportunity to be redesigned to look less like Goku so as not to overlap with Goku Black. Vegeta finally makes good on his promise to visit Planet Sadala and decides to bring his family with him so that Trunks can be closer to his heritage. Goten either sneaks aboard or Vegeta allows him to come with because he thinks it’s an opportunity he’d never get from Goku. After taking in the Saiyan culture and giving Vegeta some time to reflect on how things could or should have been for him and his race and family, the plot shifts to Turles betraying Sadala, possibly under Frost’s orders, and attempting to drain it with the Tree of Might. Because he’s draining the Saiyans and not Earthlings, he gets a massive powerup that far outstrips what he got in the original film, allowing him to easily dispatch with Cabba, Caulifla and Kale. This in turn requires either Vegeta fight him with the powers he’s currently learning from Beerus in the manga or Trunks and Goten gain a power up as Gotenks. I do think that Turles would be better served as a Vegeta villain specifically in this case, as while I think Goten and Trunks need more development, Vegeta definitely deserves to have a story where he’s the hero

Tapion and Hirudegarn could easily provide Trunks with the development that he’d otherwise be getting from Turles, repurposing the sibling relationship he developed with Tapion in Wrath of the Dragon to have a bit more of a lasting impact (actually forcing Trunks to be confronted with the choice of killing Tapion rather than just having Hirudegarn escape from Tapion’s body before Trunks does anything as just one example). This would not only build up Trunks’ character, but would give him a really easy powerup in the form of Tapion’s Brave Sword

Garlic Jr., if not a Piccolo villain, could then in turn be a Goten villain, as Garlic Jr. was previously always defeated by child Gohan. Goten could be confronted with Garlic Jr. while Trunks is busy with Hirudegarn, forcing Goten to fight without relying on fusion and ultimately finding his own way of fighting that’s distinct from Goku’s ever-evolving Super Saiyan forms and Gohan’s Potential Unleashed. This would also make it even more impactful when Goten and Trunks reunite into Gotenks later in a bigger final battle

Bojack would then return as Gohan’s villain, but this time Gohan would have Videl with him (who would also be given an opportunity to improve her skills), as well as a slightly older Pan who may exhibit the same kind of untapped strength as Gohan did at her age. Gohan would either find some way to surpass Potential Unleashed to defeat Bojack or would specifically be able to beat him because his family is there fighting with him. Perhaps something like “Bonds Unleashed,” wherein Gohan exceeds his potential through the power of his love for his family or something silly like that? It’d also be a good chance to revisit Bojack’s team and develop them a bit more, especially fan-favorite Zangya

Cooler could give us a chance to develop Frieza on his own a bit, allowing him to finally reach the Fifth Form and subsequently combine it with the Golden Form while also exploring the culture of Frieza’s species, or at least the dynamics within his family as galactic conquerors

Janemba doesn’t really have anyone in particular aside from Goku and Vegeta that he would make a ton of sense to be a villain for, but given how frequently Janemba is compared to Buu, I could see him being a way for Buu and Uub to team up, fully reintroducing Uub and giving us a way for Buu to level up, maybe somehow channeling his Super or Kid forms in a more constructive way

Baby of course would be a way to reintroduce Super Saiyan 4, but seeing as he’s a Tuffle Machine Mutant, I could definitely see him coming into conflict with Broly as a way to get Broly up to Legendary Super Saiyan 2 or beyond. That said, Broly’s probably going to be brought back long before they rehash Baby, I just think that would be really interesting, especially since Legendary Super Saiyan is such a similar concept to Super Saiyan 4 (going Super Saiyan while in a pseudo-Great Ape state as opposed to going Super Saiyan while actually in Great Ape). My main problem is that I’m not sure how SS4 can be introduced at this point since it might conflict with SSG and SSB, but that’s an issue for the writers. I also don’t think it’d necessarily be good to have Baby remove Vegeta from the plot by possessing him like in GT, so maybe Baby’s Saiyan body should be a Universe 6 Saiyan. Perhaps Cabba would be a good candidate, since he’s pretty clearly far weaker than Caulifla and Kale, so it might lead to some good development for him

Finally, the Shadow Dragons would be a good way to tie everyone back together, with each of them (barring Frieza, probably) taking on a different Shadow Dragon using what they’ve learned; since I couldn’t find a place for Tien or Yamcha, perhaps they can team up to beat any of the Shadow Dragons that the others don’t get to. I don’t think it would be good to end things on a repurposed villain, so of course Omega Shenron wouldn’t be the final Dragon Ball villain this time around, but perhaps this would be where Goku finalizes and masters whatever abilities he’ll be using against the true final villain

I don’t know if other people would like this as much as I would, I just think it’d be really cool to revisit all of these characters and concepts, tweak their designs a bit and also give the extended cast a way to powerup and get closer to Goku’s level. Probably won’t happen, but I’d personally love to see it

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #long post

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smilingperformer · 4 years

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Pokémon Sword & Shield - Personal experiences, Part 1

About a week ago, I declared that I wanted to write down a critical post looking at my experiences with Sword & Shield, noting what I liked and what not. Considering the fact that I still haven’t completed the game (at around 37.5h mark and done with 6 out of 8 gyms), I’m gonna divide this post into two, where this first part focuses on gameplay, music and graphics, while the latter part, which I plan on writing next weekend, will focus on the story and character portrayal, including the trainer customisation, League Cards and Pokémon designs of this generation. Do note, these posts will contain spoilers for new, unrevealed Pokémon, so if you want to discover them yourself, I suggest you read this post at a later date! If not, then let’s get started! With a Charizard Pose!

As a disclaimer, the version I’ve been playing is Pokémon Sword, and as said above, the amount of time spent currently is around 37.5h.

Gameplay

Let’s start with the aspect that’s most important to the games, alright? So, how’s the gameplay in Sword & Shield? The battling system remains the same as previous games, meaning it’s turn-based, commanding attacks to your Pokémon. There’s not much to say to this aspect of the game, but I do love the improvements to the UI during the battling. Now that the series is back to one screen again (which happened first with Let’s Go), all the needed info has to be displayed in the same screen. If you ask me, it’s displayed nicely, and the UI style is very slick. The button mappings have changed for quick-selecting pokeballs and checking move-related info, so if you’re used to doing the R1 + a combo on checking move info, you’ll accidentally do the move instead. Happened to me a ton of times. But, since we have to consider that 3DS had less buttons for usage, new button mappings are fine.

The effects of Pokémon loving you during battle is still there, as in if you’ve been playing with your Pokémon a ton, battled with them and spent tons of time, they’ll start dodging attacks to your shout, curing poisonings and paralyses on their own without healing items, and get more experience. It does make the game easier, but I have found myself still struggling against some of the stronger type of Pokémon, even when my Pokémon has more levels. But that may be because I’ve tried switching out team every now and then to avoid being overly overleveled. And it’s been for the best!

Encountering wild Pokémon

First introduced in Let’s Go, Sword & Shield now lets you actually see the Pokémon catchable in the wild, making the world feel so much more alive. The grass encounters are still there, but instead of triggering random at your place, they’ll trigger nearby to you, and you can choose to either ignore or run into it. And from what I can tell, some Pokémon are only catchable in the grass patches. But I could be terribly wrong! The ways Pokémon react to you are different to the type of Pokémon you encounter, some examples being kind cheers from smaller Pokémon, some running into you at slower speed, some chasing after you and being faster than you, and some plain up teleporting away or running away from you as fast as possible. It’s such an awesome feat to see, and I have to note how much I love that Diglett and Dugtrio can actually be seen moving under the ground in fast speed, then coming up in another spot. It feels like such a huge improvement from how they moved in Let’s Go. Same with Rhyhorn, I love how they decide to charge at you, with no way to turn mid-ram! Meaning if you dodge, they miss. It’s such a nice way to show the wild Pokémon’s personality. This is why I ended up catching a certain Pikachu and making it my main Pikapal, despite wanting to get certain type. Because it kept coming at me, stopping to say “Pika~“, turning away in sadness, then turning back at me as I would approach it. It was so cute to see.

There are also fishing spots where you can encounter water type Pokémon, and they seem to appear in similar fashion as in Gen 7 games, but with less-obvious-looking spots. If you run into the spots, they’ll disappear, just like before. So go at them at walking speed! Speaking of which!

Controlling the character

Never have I enjoyed controlling my character’s movements in a Pokémon game before, as I have in Sword & Shield. Not only does the spinning have an awesome finishing pose involved now, you can also control the speed your character is moving at by the amount of tilt you do with your left stick. If you tilt it a tiny bit, you’ll be moving at a slow pace, and when doing this in a grass patch, you’ll be entering a sneaking mode, where your character will try to not make any sounds at any close-by Pokémon. It’s a feature that was last seen in Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, and boy am I glad to see that feature return!

Now, if you tilt the controller more bit by bit, you’ll notice how the speed of your character increases gradually, and the animations transition smoothly when doing so. I don’t have a gif to show of you of this, but if you entered this post before playing the game, make sure to try it out! It may be minor, but to me it’s such an awesome feat, as I can now walk or run at any pace I want, and gives me more control on the character!

At some point during the story, you’ll gain access to a bike powered by your Rotom Phone, and it helps you move at a faster rate in the game, if that’s what you want to do. I myself opted to mostly walking, mainly using the bike in the Wild Area. Controlling the bike feels good, turns feeling natural and the bike never feels like it’s going out of control. The speed boost by pressing B makes you go extra fast, and you’ll be able to upgrade it up to tier 3 in the Wild Area. I haven’t found the upgrade yet for being able to go over the water, so I’m gonna assume that’s mostly post-game. Or I’ve just missed it somehow, and I have no idea how!

Side note: Shiny hunting

Now, from what I’ve read, despite Let’s Go letting you see the Shiny versions in the wild, Sword & Shield does not let you see them. You instead have to encounter the Pokémon and hope that it is indeed a shiny. I myself believe this was done by design choice, as to make the Shiny hunting still feel rewarding, instead of making you just stand on one spot after getting max chaining, hoping for one to appear. Like it was in Let’s Go. Thou, in Sword & Shield, it’s a whole new method. You only have to focus on encounting that one specific Pokémon for countless times, and at certain points of counters, the chances of encountering a shiny increases. This is all official info from The Pokémon website! And I believe the article also states that, the glowing Pokémon, which have chances of having better stats, egg moves and other cool stuff, also have higher chance of being a shiny.

You can also apparently do Chain fishing for increased shiny chances on the fishing spots, which is quite cool! The breeding method is still the same as far as I can tell, but there’s now also a chance for a different type of Shiny sparkle animation. If you get a square type sparkle, then congratulations, your Shiny is extra rare!

Berry farming

I find the berry farming in this game to be my absolute favourite form, as I myself didn’t find any appeal on farming the berries itself, often neglecting that aspect in previous games, and this doesn’t feel even close to the tedious pick-up animation chain Gen 7 games had whenever you were picking up the berries from the ground. But, knowing how my sister has been liking the discoveries of mutated berry farming, that seems to be gone, and I do find that kind of discovery not being there kinda sad. Maybe there’s something to this later in the game, I don’t know.

Gym Battles

The gym matches provide some extra challenge in throwing at us Dynamaxed and Gigantamaxed Pokémon, which I myself haven’t been able to one-shot. While being overleveled does make it easy to steamroll the first few Pokémon on Gym Leader’s team, the final Pokémon always Dynamaxes or Gigantamaxes, and it does make you wonder whether your Pokémon’s gonna survive the hit or not. I always look forward to seeing what kind of Pokémon is gonna get Gigantamaxed next, as after the first two gyms, the Gyms always have a Gigantamaxing Pokémon on their team. At least, from what I can tell.

Speaking of Gyms, the Gym Missions have so far been a ton of fun. While one of the wants you to herd a bunch of Wooloo to knock-down barriers, other one has you avoiding traps, being auditioned or spinning around like crazy. So far none of the Gym Missions have been the same, and it’s very refreshing! One of them was very easy to cheat on thou, provided you had the right type of Pokeballs with you, which does make me wish Game Freak had implemented some type of restriction on what type of Pokeball you can use during the mission. But, I guess they didn’t want to force you to use certain type. Since you could actually keep any Pokémon you catch during this Gym Mission.

PokeJobs

The new feature that pretty much replaces the PokePelago from Gen 7 games. And it’s very simple: the new Rotom-powered PC Box has the option to check out jobs for your Pokémon to do, and they usually have a description that states in a fancy manner of what type of Pokémon you send out for that specific job. The amount appears to vary from 3 to 10 at a time, and you can send them out for from couple hours to a whole day. Once your Pokémon return, they’ll gain tons of experience based on how long they were at the job, and how well it was done. Sometimes, one of the sent Pokémon will come back with items! It’s a nice way to get your boxed Pokémon up to proper levels, thou sending them out on these jobs also makes them unavailable to use during that time. Logical, but I myself sometimes accidentally sent out a Pokémon on a job for a whole day, then realising I needed them for the future battles. I can only blame myself for that. I do find it a teeny bit annoying how the Pokémon disappear from the Pokebox, meaning if you’re very precise about organizing it, it’ll become a mess. Unless one found a good way to make it less messy. I myself haven’t!

Camping with your Pokémon

Throughout the game, you’ll be able to camp out with the current Pokémon on your team, and play with them using different kinds of toys on your toybox. From what I can tell, playing with them can give them experience at the end of the session, so it’s a nice reward for spending time with them and making friends along the way. Petting is not longer possible thou, which makes the Amié and Refresh lover in me cry in sadness. But alas, if we consider the fact that this game is meant to be enjoyed both docked and handheld, the petting mechanic would be extra akward to do with a stick instead of touching the screen. So, I can understand why it had to go away. This game isn’t motion-based after all, like Let’s Go was. Seeing the Pokémon play with each other and become friends with each other is such a wonderful feat to see, so I feel like Refresh was replaced with a good counterpart. I’m happy with my current experiences with the camping, and look to see if there’s more to it.

Or whether another Pokémon will come to my screen the moment I camp out and just stare at me for few seconds. Gosh you’re too cute Wanpachi!

The Curry making

During the camping, you’ll also have the option to make curry, to which up to 4 players can join up together to make a delish dish to eat. The partner eating the dishes with you is the one who’s first positioned in your party, so make sure you switch it out from time to time to see how different Pokémon eat their dishes! Smaller ones have smaller, cute dishes, while fully evolved tend to eat a huge amount! Above screencap being my Inteleon’s dish.

How you cook is based on what incredients you’ll be using. First you’ll choose the base of the curry, which can vary from bread to noodles to leeks that may or may not be liked by SirFetch’d. Then, you’ll add berries. I’ve been trying out different kinds of combos, but so far I haven’t failed a single dish. But I’ve also yet to get a perfect dish done. I’m guessing the way you perform with the mini-game of spamming button A, totating the right stick at right pace and timing your final button A also contributes to this. So I need to practice some more! I’ve been doing it a ton, and find it awesome time-spender. It also has benefits on making the Pokémon in your party more friendly to you, gain experience, and, based on how well the curry was made, restore health and pp, also reviving fainted Pokémon. It’s a great, cheap way to get your Pokémon back up to speed. Unless you’re in the middle of a Gym Mission, then you’re not allowed to do that. Which is a good way to restrict your healing options and make them more challenging!

Wild Area

Now this is what I was most hyped about in this game. The Wild Area. After couple hours of playing the game, you’ll reach this huge, unlocked and fully explorable area, where you can encounter all kinds of Pokémon, varying from levels 10 to whopping 60s at least! It’s entirely possible that you can encounter higher level Pokémon as well, but I myself haven’t seen higher than 60 yet.

Exploring this area is quite a pleasure, as in addition to previously mentioned controls on your character, you can now also move your camera with the right stick. Which is a first in a main-line Pokémon game. I have also discovered, thanks to a NPC I’ve encountered, that you can zoom in and out with a click of stick button. This will help you see either closer or wider, depending on how you like it. I myself like switching between the modes depending on the situation!

There are tons of areas to explore in the Wild Area, and tons of stuff to collect as well. Each day, each sparkling collectable respawns, meaning this place is the perfect way to farm yourself cash. Also berries, there’s tons of berry trees in the Wild Area, which can also be found on traditional Pokémon-styled routes.

Wild Area is also where, if you connect to the internet with Nintendo Online membership and through the Y-comm, which is pretty much upgraded PSS system from Gen 6 games, you’ll be able to see other players around the world right beside you. It’s such an awesome feeling, and makes the Wild Area feel even more alive. However, this does jag up the performance a bit, and you may see your frames drop down for a bit before coming back up. It’s a shame, but as an MMO player who’s had to deal with worse, it’s.... manageble. Not ideal, but not the worst. The way the trainers just pop out with no cool entering animation feels akward thou, haha.

There’s also Rotom Rallies to do, trainer battles to find, treasure digging through two NPCs and findable trainers who trade up items for amounts of Watts, the Wild Area currency you’ll obtain from glowing Pokémon and red glowing nodes.

Max Raid Battles

As previously mentioned, in the Wild Area, you’ll be seeing red-glowing nodes around, sometimes sending out a long beam to the sky. This indicates that you can enter a Max Raid Battle, in which you can join with up to 3 other players to take down a stronger, bigger wild Pokémon. This is also the only way to encounter Gigantamaxing Pokémon, thou I cannot say for sure if it’s the only way to get yourself a Pokémon that can Gigantamax. I’m not that far in the game yet. But so far, these raids have been fun, although I’ve only ever managed to join up with one other player, with rest of the spots being filled with NPCs. Which sometimes have really weird choices of Pokémon partners (looking at you, trainer with Magikarp against Pumpkaboo!) Depending on the amount of stars, the Dynamaxed or Gigantamaxed Pokémon may sometimes put up a barrier to slow down the process of taking it down. While the non-dynamaxed Pokémon on your team can then only take down the small, red-colored bars from the health bar, the Dynamaxed Pokémon can destroy the whole bar and do damage at the same time. I am not sure if it depends on type matchups or just works that way regardless of the move. But it does make the Dynamaxing feel worth the trouble!

The Gigantamaxed Pokémon seem to have way lower catch rate thou, and it really bums me to see the Pokémon run away after one catch try! God damn Gigantamaxed Sandaconda and Butterfree!

The Y-Comm

I don’t have screencaps to provide for this at this moment, but I’ve been using it quite a bit by now. As said before, it is basically a return to the style of PSS used during Generation 6, and you’ll be able to do Pokémon trades, league card trades and check out raid battles, while also request single, double and multi battles. One aspect from previous games is gone thou, and that’s the GTS feature. Yup. You can no longer put up a Pokémon to be traded for certain, specific Pokémon. Which is a huge bummer, considering how even I used this feature to help with completing the Pokedex in Ultra Moon. I don’t know what the reasoning could be for this, but I guess all I can do is speculate that Switch is not capable of this kind fo feature? I’m not able to say, I ain’t familiar with Switch backend capabilities. And I don’t remember if Let’s Go had GTS or not, but I’m guessing it didn’t. Otherwise, the Wonder Trade has been replaced with Surprise trades, which is basically the same, but this time happens in the background, without halting your progress with the game. Which is an awesome improvement to previous titles.

Quality of Life improvements

There has been a ton of QoL improvements done to this game, most notable ones being able to access the PC box at any time, which certain areas restricting the usages, like Gym Missions. You’re now also able to rename your Pokémon at any PokeCenter nearby you, also being able to make your Pokémon forget or remember a move at same place from the same guy. With no heart scale costs! No longer do you have to wait for almost-post-game to get your Steenee the move it should have learned already but somehow didn’t to be able to evolve to Tsareena, or run back at certain town to rename your Pokémon you either forgot to name or messed up naming. It all makes the game feel less inconvinient and more controllable.

TRs are also back from pre-gen 6 era (or is it pre-Gen 5?), which break after one usage. You can mostly obtain these during Max Raid Battles, so it gives you a great reason to keep doing those battles if you want more of certain type of TRs! Some are obtained while you do the story and explore the routes, so make sure to do that as well! There’s also now two different Pokémon Nurseries to put you Pokémon at, one being at Route 5, while other is located in the Wild Area. So, if you want, you can farm eggs at both of the locations.

You’re now also able to adjust audio settings for music, sound effects and what-not, thou it’s oddly behind finding a key item during the first big city, Motostoke. It’s possibly as a way to introduce this new feature, but it does feel a bit odd to make it an key item instead of making it a setting right away.

Music

Now that we’re done with the gameplay section, how’s the music? In short, it’s darn amazing! Each music so far has been a joy to listen, some of my personal favourites being Gym Leader Track (which changes dynamically based on whether your Pokémon fainted, beat the opponent or whether it’s the final round of the battle, it’s so cool!), Stow-on-side’s theme and the upper Wild Area’s tracks. Sonia’s theme is also such a pleasure to listen to, every time she appears in the story I just find myself not touching anything os I can listen to her track. I’ve yet to found a track that I’d find annoying, and so far this game’s OST has a high chance at being my favourite. Thou, Alola’s OST is still my top favourite, mainly because of Malie City, Ultra Necrozma and Gladion’s themes. Thou Marnie’s and Bede’s themes are awesome as heck as well! Especially the battles ones, thou the ones during their cutscenes are great as well! Lots of love can be heard from this soundtrack, and I can’t wait to hear more!

Graphics

To be able to talk about the Graphics, I’ve been playing the game on both docked and handheld modes. From what I can tell, this game looks absolutely stunning in the handheld mode, while during the docked mode, some of the shadows may look a tad bit jaggy and can flicker a bit while moving. It appears to happen in certain arears during the daytime, so it’s not that bad, but it’s still noticable. But aside from the shadows, the game looks amazing to play on a 23 inch TV, and also on 39 inch TV. The colors are such an eyecandy to watch, and I hardly find myself looking at something and being like “man, this looks so bad“. The trees in the Wild Area? Sure, the texture on most of those trees look akward, but I honestly don’t pay any attention to them? Because I’m mostly looking at the grass movements around walking Pokémon, how Pokémon feel like the belong to the same space, and how it just feels so nice. Say what you may about the graphics, this is the best looking Pokémon game up to date. Even if it’s not as gorgeus as Zelda franchise’s Breath of the Wild. It still looks good and appealing for my eyes as a Front-End Developer with graphics design studies behind as well. Could it use an improvement? Absolutely. Does it need it desperately? In my honest opinion, no. But I do hope the next game in line will look evenly or hopefully even better than this gorgeus game!

I will say thou, the drawing distance with trainers and Pokémon in this game is quite akward. It would appear to be around same distance as in most MMO lowest drawing distance setting, but it’s still noticable. I do understand this helps the game keep up better performance and not drop frames constantly (which has only happened to me in the Wild Area while connected to the internet), but maybe there’s something that could be done to improve the drawing distance in the future, to make the world feel way better? Only time will tell I guess.

Animations

The new animations added to the game look amazing, and your trainer character no longer looks like an emotionless, empty-staring character during cutscenes, but actually has a fitting face for the situation. At least, from what I can tell. The movements overall are smooth, and I haven’t seen too many jaggy model turning without any other movement on the legs or so. Maybe a bit with Pokémon, but not much with trainers. There are couple, but not overwhelmingly lot.

What is an awesome addition to the game thou, is the fact that there’s now visible lip syncing with character models, even with your trainer character, and the speed of the lip syncing is based on the text speed setting. I tried the fastest setting, and it made some of the cutscenes look SUPER akward, as the camera would do the movement as it is programmed, but the text was already done and the character at the cutscene is just turning around or being zoomed in and not moving their lips at all! It’s a bit akward, and hilarious! But this only happens in the fastest setting, as it works well with normal and slowest setting! So, make sure to not put on the fastest setting?

First impressions on story

You’ve reached the end of part one of my experiences with the game! To give of final thoughts, I’d like to say what my first impressions are on the story, now that I’m over the half-way point, at least from what I can tell. It’s been an interesting one so far, with the Gym Challenge feeling like where’s playing an actual Pokémon Anime season instead of just running from gym to gym. Each gym leader has character, current favourite being Opal from Ballonlea Stadium. And it’s totally not because of how obsessed she is with the color Pink, and how she just scouted out Bede out of nowhere. In addition to Gym Challenge, there’s also a mystery with the Dynamax being built on, and discovering the legend of the Darkest Day with Sonia, and the lore behind the heroes that saved Galar during the Darket Day long, long ago. There’s also the build-up with Bede collecting Wishing Stars for Chairman Rose, Hop having amazing character development arc with having an Ego that gets crushed during one point of the story.

While I’ve been so much distracted by the Wild Area and not having completed the story yet, it feels interesting and I always look forward to seeing what we’ll uncover of the legend next, and whether Chairman Rose is doing something shady in the background or not. At least his backstory has me worried. The start of the game’s story was such an awesome way to get the story going, and I look forward to seeing how we’ll be possibly(?) restoring Zacian to its game cover glory. As it did look kinda beat with all the scratches and ear being cut.

Thank you for reading this post guys! It took hours to write, and creating a new private twitter account to get these screenshots transfered. But I hope this was an enjoyable post to read! I’ll be writing my second post after I’ve finished the story and played the post-game for a bit, which could be next weekend, or could not be. Depends on how much further I’ll get during the next week, haha! Anywho. Until next time!

#pokemon #pokegames #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword and shield #discussions #swsh spoilers #gen 8 spoilers #long post

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fantasyresident · 5 years

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Comments About New Sword/Shield Info And Reaction To It

I wanted to post something like this a while back when the E3 trailer of Pokemon Sword and Shield came out, but I never got around to it until now, so I will be fanboy ranting about a lot of the new features and doing a bit of complaining about some of the material’s reception.

1. The Wild Area

The Wild Area looks absolutely beautiful, so serene, and just watching it gives me a sense of calm. Pokemon have never been so naturally out in the wild like this for us to see, and its just a big jump from Pokemon Sun/Moon. We did see shadows of them pop out of the grass in Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby, but these were just fragmented shadows. This, regardless of your current opinion on these upcoming games, is a major upgrade in not only gameplay, but world building as well. So gorgeous, so great, I can’t wait to dive in to this part of the game! (Just imagine shiny hunting in the Wild Area, you could actually SEE the shiny in the wild!!

2. Dynamaxing

Alright, some of you may call this stupid, but I thought it was pretty damn cool when I first saw it. Colossal Pokemon in a medieval-esque time period with imagery of knights and armor mixed with titan sized Pokemon is just a good mix to me, probably because knights and colossi have often appeared together in stories of medieval settings. While some may argue that Pokemon just getting bigger is a lame transformation compared to previous games’ transformations like Mega Evolutions and Z-moves, I think that its a very fitting idea for the game’s setting.

3. The Gym Leaders/Gym Challenges

I was really hoping that Game Freak would continue making Gym challenges interesting as well as the designs for the Gym Leaders (they need to be to make them memorable) and it really looks like they are. Each Gym Leader has their own distinct look, and with the addition of Gym Challenges, prerequisites you must meet before taking on the gym brings back memories of how gym challenges went in much of the Pokemon anime and in some of the older games, like helping out Jasmine in the lighthouse before taking on her gym. I absolutely love this and I truly believe that Game Freak is giving their all for this game and not accepting less than they have to.

4. Pokemon Camp and Curry Recipehs (LOL)

This feature is so welcome and so exciting! Again, some of you will think its redundant, due to the prior existence of Pokemon Amie and Refresh, but out of them all, Camp really looks to be the most advanced in its design, making a more realistic approach to caring for your Pokemon. Instead of traveling through rainbows to care for your Pokemon, you set up Camp and play with them and/or make curry on rice for them. You can actually play ball with your adorable Pokemon, and it looks like different Pokemon react differently to these playtoys. Vileplume was seen carrying a ball back to its trainer on its head, while little Yamper seems to just chase after it endlessly. As for the wand, it also gets different reactions from different Pokemon. The angry reckless Tyranitar tries to bite it while more playful Pokemon like the aforementioned Yamper will just paw at it. As for the curry, there are OVER 100 different kinds! And each one is stored in the Curry Dex which I think is just so cool and I will surely get addicted to this gameplay feature. Like with the playtoys, different curry will get different reactions from Pokemon (and even the trainer). And to put a cherry on this gorgeous cake, you can also visit other camps. No word on how this works yet, but its official folks. You can do anything.

5. The Pokemon Themselves + Galar Forms!

I can’t mention what went so right about Sword and Shield so far without mentioning the Galar region Pokemon themselves and the new galar forms. First off, every single Pokemon revealed thus far is a big thumbs up for me. Some aren’t my particular taste, but each are pleasing to look at. The Sun and Moon dex had its mistakes despite me still loving it, but Galar looks like a perfect record so far, and I’m not even exaggerating. Just look at them. (The new linoone evolution is just a great design hands down. And Galar Zigzagoon could not be any cuter.)

6. Responding To Angry Complaints

While I and many other fans are extremely excited about this upcoming new generation, some aren’t so excited and have been complaining about various things. Some of you hate Dynamax, Some of you think the graphics still need additional upgrades, and many are complaining about the National Pokedex not being in the game for the second generation in a row. And look, I’m not going to tell you you can’t or shouldn’t complain about what disappoints you (if you manage to find disappointment in all of this near perfection), because to some extent, I see your point about the National Dex. I, like many of you, want to be able to catch em all and have big incentive for doing so. But take a step back for a moment and look at the situation. This new generation kicked the graphics up a notch to say the least, they have a big project on their plate, to have to immediately create all 800 and some Pokemon models to add to this game just to complete the Pokedex is a big hassle for them when they’d rather focus on making this game successful in its presentation and substance. Would you rather have all these immersive features, the beautiful wilderness with Pokemon out in the open, or a National Pokedex? That’s not to say we just can’t have both, Game Freak will most likely add updates later down the road that allows you to catch all Pokemon, whether if its in this game, or in future ones in which you’ll be able to pass down your Pokemon from Sword and Shield to the next gen games. My suggestion for the National Dex complainers is to treat this game as Pokemon Red, Green and Blue. You have one Pokedex at your hands and you need to fill it. Then in the future, you can expand on it in other games. It’s not the end of Pokemon because you can’t have every Pokemon. It’s just the beginning.

________________________________________________________________

Watching Sword and Shield unfold for me has been like watching your child graduate, the moment when you don’t have to hold your child’s hand anymore because they found their own footing and are growing up so fast. That is the significance of Sword and Shield to me, a game massively evolving before my eyes. As fast as it goes and as much as part of me wants to use an Everstone, its best for a series like this to evolve and find its wings, and the wings that Pokemon has found with these upcoming games are truly beautiful. Love it or hate it, but its soaring into the sky and will soar straight into my heart come November 15th.

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

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The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ex-Aid & Ghost, part 04

Last time? My ears were grievously injured by way of four transformations running at once. This time?

FIGHT TIME.

The five riders and bugsters stand opposite from each other in the abandoned office, before Hatena – the only proper bugster here – warps the three scientists and legend riders off into game stages, leaving Ex-Aid, Ghost, Zaizen, and Hatena behind.

LETS DO THIS!

–––

At CR, Akari wakes up, and insists on going to see Takeru. To be fair, when she asked where he was, Onari said that ‘he’ll be back soon, don’t worry’, which… well. It’s Takeru. She knows that means he’s gone off to do something reckless. Again.

After a moment, Poppy gives in, and supports Akari as they head out. When the door opens, Makoto and Alain are standing there. How they knew where the CR basement was is beyond me, but whatever. I’m fairly certain that, given how poorly off they were last night, they are not supposed to have left their room.

Also, Makoto needs to wear that jacket less often, because the high collar doesn’t do him any favors. A plain black t-shirt is a much better look for him, if you ask me.

The entire group heads out.

––– –––

MAJI KA? MAJI DE! MAJIDA! SHOWTIME!

Kamen Rider Wizard faces off against a group of Dragon Knight Hunter mooks, cycling through his four base forms – Flame, Water, Hurricane, and Land.

The only form that gets to show off any of its elemental skills is Hurricane, though. Flame is basically just his gun, which he isn’t even using; Water requires the Liquid ring to show it’s power; and Land is a physical offensive/defensive boost. Hurricane, however, gives him cyclone-powered flight, which Haruto briefly uses here.

Once he’s taken out the mooks – albeit with no defeat explosions in sight – Doral steps forward, saying that it’s time they settle this. They trade punches, as the tv-size cut of “Life is SHOW TIME” ends, transitioning to

–––

DON’T SAY NO! JUST LIVE MORE!

Kamen Rider Gaim faces off against a group of Giri Giri Chambara mooks, cycling through his base-level power ups – Orange, Pineapple, Strawberry, and Banana. He gets to show off their special weapons – Orange’s sword, Pineapple’s flail, Strawberry’s kunai projections, and Banana’s spear.

Okay, so Banana is technically supposed to be KAITO’S base form, and Kouta used it literally twice before this – once in the show, and then once in the Gaim summer movie. But since Kouta actually uses the spear like a spear, and his other ‘base level’ form is the Watermelon mecha, I think we can allow this.

Once he’s taken out the mooks – with plenty of defeat explosions in sight – Giril steps forward. He sends out a banana-shaped energy attack (Gaim had very weird attacks) which she slices through while charging, as the tv-size cut of “JUST LIVE MORE” ends, transitioning to

–––

(kickass instrumentals) Ameagari Break Cloud sukima-kara

(Okay, yeah, Surprise Drive doesn’t quite fit the pattern of the openings starting off with strong lyrics, does it?)

Kamen Rider Drive faces off against a group of Gekitotsu Robot mooks, cycling through his first few forms – Type Speed with Max Flare, Type Technic with Rumble Dump, and Type Technic with Road Winter. The Steering Sword makes an appearance before Type Speed gets upgraded to have literal fire powers. Technic gets in a crushing shoulder-check to show off its physical strength before it gets upgraded with a drill. Technic gets to show off the sharpshooting abilities with the Door Gun before… hnnnnn… before he gets bascially a giant fan on his chest that freezes the enemies. Like, okay, Road Winter has a cool ability, but it looks so dumb in use.

Once he’s taken out the mooks – all of whom were frozen and shattered – Robol shows up, falling out of the sky to attack, as the tv-size cut of “SURPRISE DRIVE” ends.

––– –––

Ex-Aid versus Zaizen, and Ghost versus Hatena.

This fight is going to be… tricky to detail, to say the least. It switches between sides quite a bit, so I’m going to divide the details between them. If tumblr still let us use the horizontal divider, I’d have a lot less trouble, because I could have used that between full scenes, and the series of dashes here. But noooo. No, I’m using two sets of dashes between full sections, and single sets for this. (sigh.)

–––

Ex-Aid manages to get a few hits with his Gashacon Hammer, but they don’t really do much, before Zaizen (technically ‘Genomes’ right now, because he’s in full bugster mode, but I don’t really think it matters that much for him) delivers a painful kick that sends Ex-Aid backward.

–––

Ghost is up against Hatena. He is not doing well.

He gets pushed into a concrete wall – denting it – by Hatena using his staff as a blunt object, before getting flung through a corrugated steel wall some distance away. He leaps out of that, transitioning from base ‘Ore’ mode to Musashi, which lets him get a few slashes in. But those are deflected, and he’s sent flying through… hopefully the same concrete wall as before.

I say hopefully, because that would mean it was already weakened from the impact before, and that he didn’t whole-ass crash through an intact wall.

Being knocked out of Musashi, he switches to Edison, firing off an electrically charged attack from his gun… which gets basically deflected via the ‘slice the shot in two’ method, exploding off to either side of Hatena, but leaving the bugster unharmed.

Unharmed, and laughing.

–––

Ex-Aid grapples with Zaizen for a bit, before backflipping away to upgrade to Gekitotsu Robots. Aside from Drago Knight Hunter Z, which he can not use on his own, this is the only upgrade Emu has right now. Fortunately, it gives him a robot-powered fist, and his punches are enough to stagger Zaizen backwards. Using a Flash energy item lets him blind Zaizen long enough to launch a Critical Strike finisher. Since he’s using Gekitotsu Robots, this takes the form of a literal rocket fist.

I may not like the design for the Gekitotsu Robots armor, but damn if it doesn’t have a cool attack.

Zaizen is knocked back, but is far from down. “Now… time to complete the operation of death!” He charges some sort of power, and fires an array of blue lasers.

Ex-Aid is blasted to the ground, and Emu lies there, groaning in pain.

–––

Ghost has managed to switch into Boost, but it doesn’t seem to have helped at all. Not by how his punches and kicks are still being deflected away by the significantly bulkier Hatena, and Ghost doesn’t even get to fire a shot with his second gun.

Takeru has two sword-guns, and this one has sunglasses. Ghost is a trip, weapons-wise.

Hatena shoots first, and the resulting explosion launches Ghost forward, breaking his transformation as he falls. Takeru hits the ground, rolling and clutching his Eyecon Driver G. It’s a struggle for Takeru to push himself to his feet, but he manages, slams the driver to his waist, and transforms into Grateful.

Skipping the direct conflict, Ghost goes straight for the finisher, launching himself up for a ‘Mega Omega Formation’ rider kick. Hatena responds by firing blasts up at him. The main one – shaped like a question mark – collides directly with the kick…

And knocks him out of the air. Ghost’s transformation breaks very high in mid-air, and Takeru has a distance to fall to the ground.

He’s Takeru when he hits the ground, rolling backwards head over feet, and it’s an even greater struggle to push himself upright this time, as he holds the Infinite Eyecon. “Not yet…”

He stumbles as he pushes the button to activate the eyecon. This is a one handed activation, and he’s losing balance.

Every movement sounds like it hurts, with the little grunts of exertion when he activates his driver. When he steps forward as Ghost. When he activates the finisher.

As Hatena says, he is very persistent.

The Enjoyment Strike finisher is met with an attack of Hatena’s own, resulting in a beam-o-war. A very brief one, though. Hatena’s attack pushes through, possibly pushing Ghost’s finisher with it, and Kamen Rider Ghost has his Infinite transformation shattered.

Glaring daggers at the laughing Hatena, Takeru staggers forward, step by painful step. We see quick cuts of his friends as they make their way here while he speaks. “I’ll protect Akari…” (Akari being supported by Poppy) “and the human world…” (wider shot, with Akari and Poppy being joined by Alain with Onari and one of the monk trainees, and Makoto with Kanon and the other monk.) “I’ll fight to protect them all!”

There’s the sound of a heartbeat as Takeru clutches at his chest, in pain and determination.

Hatena fires an attack meant to finish the fight.

Right before it can connect with Takeru – there’s not enough time or distance for him to dodge – the Nobunaga eyecon pulls him inside.

Nobunaga – one of the legends that generally sticks with Makoto, mind you – says that Takerus resolve to keep fighting has inspired him, and it would be an honor to fight alongside him. The Nobunaga spirit sort of… merges with two others that are apparently also in there? Look, Ghost lore is weird, nobody really understands how these powers work, so this might as well happen.

He (they?!) release Takeru back into the wild, where he hurriedly grabs the upgraded eyecon as Hatenas attack connects.

Emu, watching – this has all clearly happened very quickly – yells for Takeru. As far as he can tell, Takeru’s just gone up in flames.

The fire and smoke clears, and Kamen Rider Ghost stands there, in his Tenkatoitsu Damashii form. This one draws power from Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

As he starts fighting back against Hatena – properly fighting back, finally – B.A.T.T.L.E G.A.M.E starts playing, and I switch to the RTA subtitle track, because that one actually includes the lyrics in the corner.

The first volley of attacks is from his own sword in it’s double-ended form, all of which connect. Then he pulls out Specter and Necroms guns, and it’s just nothing but explosions as far as Hatena can see.

––– –––

Kamen Rider Wizard, in his Flame Dragon form, is doing damn well against Doral. He pulls out the Drago Timer, and goes into All Dragon mode, which lets him dive bomb Doral. Haruto gets wings in that form, in addition to the claws, tail, and fire. Area donut-lover gets to fly.

After landing, he pulls out a silver and diamond ring.

Infinity, Please!

With one Shining Strike axe-blow –

Game Clear!

Doral is defeated.

–––

Kamen Rider Gaim, in his Lemon Energy form, fires a volley of arrows at Giril, before he goes into Kachidoki Arms. After pair of attacks from his battle flags (Gaim had very weird attacks) and the DJ Gun, he pulls out a ‘key’.

Kiwami Arms!

With an attack from the combination of his sword and gun –

Game Clear!

Giril is defeated.

–––

Kamen Rider Drive, in Type Deat Heat, delivers some devastating fire punches to Robol. (I hate Dead Heat’s helmet so much… it’s just bad, guys.) He goes into Type Formula, and zooms past Robol, presumably hitting him as he goes. Not like we can see, we’re lucky to get a blue and yellow motion blur before he fires the Formula Cannon. After firing, he pulls out a minature version of his car – and also summons his actual car.

Type Tridoron!

With a powerful Rider Kick – and I feel the need to point out that Shinnosuke is basically wearing his actual car as armor right now, so there’s no need for majorly flashy effects for this attack –

Game Clear!

Robol is defeated.

–––

B.A.T.T.L.E G.A.M.E comes to an end, and I mourn the ending of such an awesome song as I switch back to the Excite sub track.

––– –––

Back at the warehouse.

Zaizen drags Emu up by the back of his shirt, before punching him in the stomach and holding him up by his hair. “To think that the high schooler from back then would become a Kamen Rider…”

Emu, of course, has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

Ghost – Takeru, now, since I don’t have to worry about form changing anymore – yells at Zaizen to stop, and rushes him. Zaizen responds by hurling Emu bodily away, so that he lands on his back after flying several meters. Takeru goes to fight Zaizen directly, and makes the mistake of grabbing his arm.

Tenkuji Takeru long since gained the ability to see into peoples souls, into their memories.

He did not, however, gain control over this ability.

–––

An operating room.

Zaizen, in medical scrubs, with decidedly non-standard equipment.

The subject of the ‘operation’, unconscious, with a helmet presumably monitoring his brain functions.

We can finally see his face.

Hojo Emu, age 18.

–––

“What – was the one you operated on six years ago – that was-?!”

If Zaizen had expressions in this form, he’d probably be smirking. “Oh, so you could read my memories, eh? That’s right. Hojo Emu was the first in the world to be infected with the bugster virus.” He turns to look at Emu, who’s lying on the ground, making pained noises, before turning back toward Takeru. “He’s Patient Zero for the game disease!”

Hatena knocks Takeru away, re-engaging him in battle, as Zaizen goes towards Emu, who is pushing himself to his feet. I’m not sure Emu even heard that last exchange between Takeru and Zaizen.

“I just don’t understand it… why go so far for one measly patient?” He keeps hitting Emu, tossing him back down to the ground.

“Because I know that when Tougo thinks about games…” Emu tackles Zaizen around the waist, but gets thrown back down again. He stands back up. “He smiles like he’s having the best time of his life!”

…I think Emu’s going to need to replace that coat. I don’t think that the dirt will come out, to say nothing of the bloodstains it keeps picking up whenever he gets thrown somewhere new.

But regardless of how trashed his outfit is, of how incredibly beaten up he is, Emu will do anything to make sure his patient can smile like that again.

Somehow, because who the hell knows how bugvisors are supposed to work, Tougo forces himself to at least semi appear from the one he’s trapped in, saying he’s sorry, he doesn’t deserve this kindness, he’ll do what he’s asked to from here on, but please, save him – he doesn’t want to be a monster!

Emu, who is far too nice, says that of course he will. Its his duty as a doctor, after all. Everything’s going to be fine.

Zaizen calls Tougo a disobedient rat, and pulls him fully back into the bugvisor.

He then proceeds to stalk over to Emu, and kick his legs out from under him, knocking him to the ground.

He stomps one foot onto Emu’s shoulder, and holds the other down with one hand, reaching into Emu’s coat pocket, taking out the Mighty Action X gashat.

“I’ll make you suffer… just as deeply as I have!” He activates the gashat, with Emu trying in vain to reach for it, before slamming it into Emu’s driver.

Then he pulls out the proto-gashat for Mighty Action X, activates it… and, laughing evilly, slams it into Emu’s driver.

A cloud of purple pixels appear from the belt, mostly off screen, but most of what we see is purple lines coursing along Emu’s face. (Wizard fans are not okay right now.) They look like circuitry, almost, flashing along him as he thrashes in pain.

“You can stay banished in the Game World for eternity!”

There’s more crying out in pain and thrashing, before Emu manages to glare at Zaizen, who’s been holding him down throughout this.

Emu’s voice takes on a dual tone – like there are two people speaking at once. One of them is decidedly not Emu… but it’s not who the ‘other option’ should be, either. I don’t think it is, anyway. “I’ll change Tougo’s fate…” The lines change from purple to orange on the right, and blue on the left. His voices take on a deep, growling tone, as his eyes glow. “…with my own hands!”

He blasts Zaizen off of him with a burst of orange and blue light, and sort of… pulls himself upright. Like a puppet, almost.

This is absolutely terrifying!

Knock knock, is there anyone home? BECAUSE EMU SURE ISN’T! Not with how he stares at the camera, his eyes glowing, lines etched into his face.

The two gashats rise up out of his driver, one glowing orange and the other glowing blue, before he snatches them out of the air as they fuse into one large gashat.

He triggers the button.

Mighty Brothers XX!

He smirks a little as the wind blows his hair back, but it’s gone when he actually transforms, just leaving his expression dull and vacant. His voice echos through the warehouse, toneless and ominous. “Transform.”

There’s no flair to the “level two” transformation, and he looks down as the single Pink Ex-Aid divides into two halves, and then reform into two Ex-Aids.

Zaizen’s reaction, “What just happened?!” pretty much matches that of everyone watching this for the first time, whether it be in theaters or even already having seen Mighty Brothers in show! THIS IS TERRIFYING!

“We’ll clear this with no continues.” Both Ex-Aids speak at once, still in an eerie monotone, moving in an exact mirror match to each other.

And I do mean mirror. This isn’t the ‘co-op play’ that Mighty Brothers will use in show. Every motion is one-to-one matched between them.

Takeru, back with Hatena, turns to see this, and basically decides that it must be fine, because at least Doctor Emu’s not screaming in pain anymore, and he’s… er, they’re kicking the bad guys ass. Not that he says that, of course, but you know. It’s the general sentiment.

Going back to his own personal battle, Takeru finally manages to get a proper, full finisher in on Hatena, using his Sunglasseslasher and Deep Specters Deep Slasher.

Game Clear!

The two Ex-Aids launch a finisher of their own, two charged Rider Kicks in their respective colors. Making and landing these kicks is the only time they don’t move simultaneously.

Zaizen is knocked down, finally, having dropped the bugvisor. Orange and blue arcs of electricity spark from him before he is engulfed in flames.

The Ex-Aid’s eyes are glowing as they pose in front of the explosion.

Game Clear!

–––

With Team Ghost (and special guest Poppy), Akari suddenly stops, and the bugster virus leaves her system.

–––

Tougo reforms out of being yellow specks of data (because this might as well happen), and Takeru goes to catch him as he falls, unconscious.

The two Ex-Aids… sort of nod, or make an affirming sound, before dissolving. LITERALLY disintegrating! Completely! Also, something interesting I never noticed before is that the orange one turns into orange dots of light, while the blue turns into squares – like, the border of a square, just the lines. There is no overlap in the shapes – both of them are exclusive. The lights spread out, before rapidly coalescing into pink boxes, that then become regular Ex-Aid.

Regular, pink, very definitely only one person in here Ex-Aid, who is very confused right now.

“Huh? What was I… just doing?”

“You don’t remember…? You just saved Tougo.”

Emu doesn’t remember the last part of this battle at all. I’m pretty sure he barely even remembers Takeru getting his new form. And Takeru’s not saying anything, because nope no nuh-uh, this is not his business, he’s not supposed to really interfere with the new guy, that was terrifying, and if he doesn’t remember, then that’s probably for the best!

–––

Ex-Aid and Ghost – both in their base forms now – set Tougo down outside the building as Drive, Gaim, and Wizard approach. They thank them, and the three Legend Riders say that it’s what they do – they’re all Kamen Riders. If they need help again, they’ll all be willing to fight together.

–––

Emu and Tougo are walking as Poppy catches up to them, and goes to support Tougo’s other side.

Uhhh… Poppy. I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure that Tougo was actually the one helping Emu walk. Any limping there was being kind of tired on Tougo’s part, and Emu being barely able to stand without the armor. Yes, Tougo’s arm was on top of Emu’s shoulders, but he was decidedly more upright than Emu, and it’s not a height thing.

Team Ghost rushes past them to Takeru. Everyone is so glad to see that the others are alright.

The sounds of a heart beating can be heard as Takeru takes a step forward–

and cuts off as he drops in slow motion.

Someone at Toei just loves seeing Takeru suffer. Probably the same one who has them keep putting Emu in situations where he’s grievously injured. This movie has both.

As Emu desperately tries to revive Takeru, the others are stunned into near silence. Akari’s approaching an emotional breakdown, and Onari tries to tell Emu to stop. They can’t do this again, they can’t go through all of this again, it’s not working, so please, that’s enough.

Emu doesn’t stop, refuses to, and Takeru begins breathing again.

Emu says that he couldn’t let Takeru die again, he’s a doctor, after all. Takeru thanks him, saying that he’ll take care of his life.

–––

We enter the ending credits, with “Hikari” playing.

Haruto sits on a rooftop, having one of his trademark plain sugar donuts. (We do not find out if he actually got to finish it for once.)

Shinnosuke gets a surprise baby shower from his coworkers. Literally everything is blue, much to his protests. He and Kiriko haven’t actually found out if they’re having a boy or a girl yet, come on, it’s too soon! One of them points out that he’s already got a name chosen, and he can’t find a response for that.

Kouta and Mai, seen from the back, are enjoying the scenery on their Helheim planet, because keeping the forest around was totally not a mistake. Not like they shouldn’t have, I don’t know, at least tried to eliminate said forest with their god powers? (Gaim was weird and Kouta’s a moron.)

Tougo actually interacts with his classmates for once, showing off his game in action, instead of ignoring them to work on it.

Alain, Makoto, and Kanon head back to the Ganma World, waving goodbye to the rest of team Ghost. Takeru and Akari smile at each other.

Hiiro has a slice of cake – one with oranges on it.

Taiga looks up at the hospital, and walks away. (It was nice while he was able to be back there – no, stop it, Hanaya, you’re done, you don’t need them…)

Kiriya lounges on a random roof, leaning against a wall. He puts on his sunglasses and smirks.

Poppy has apparently installed an emulator on her arcade console, because it’s supposed to be her apartment and she’s currently playing Pac-Man on it.

Emu tries to do his job as a pediatric intern, but the small child he’s with has other ideas, and runs off. Emu tries to pursue him, but trips over his own feet and goes flying.

The credits end…

–––

And we see Dan Kuroto’s desk, the proto-gashats and bugvisor safely back where they belong. He got some very valuable data from Zaizens actions.

Parad, holding a Pac-Man gashat, smiles. They’re getting closer to the day that their puzzle’s finally finished.

They both turn to look at a monitor, which has the start screen for Perfect Puzzle. (Parad’s smile drops once Kuroto has his back to him.)

See you next game.

––– –––

And that’s the Ex-Aid & Ghost film complete!

Most of the analysis stuff I could say, I’m pretty sure I already have said in the previous three segments.

The elephant in the room, of course, with regards to the early appearance of Mighty Brothers XX is ‘Was Parad There?’

In-universe and in real life, when this movie came out, nobody knew who Emu’s Bugster was – this was the first confirmation that he was infected. That there was some sort of foul play at hand in his ability to be Ex-Aid. Before, there had only been suspicions and hints.

But that second voice, right before Emu shoved Zaizen off of him… there was Emu, yes. But I’ve been going back and forth between that scene and the stinger, and I can not, for the life of me, tell if that was just an echo effect or if they actually laid Parad’s voice over Emu’s.

It’s definitely just Emu when he’s transformed – “We’ll clear this with no continues” is two copies of his voice at the same time, with a slight echo in amidst the complete lack of emotion.

Parad might be here to help form the extra body, but… in practice, there’s nobody home right now.

Of course, to this day, we have no idea how Mighty Brothers usually works, since there was a point when Emu was using it against Parad regularly, so it couldn’t have been him forming the second half, but… it can also be used to split Para-DX from Perfect Knockout into two copies of himself, one each in Perfect Puzzle and Knock Out Fighter…

So! This! Is a good movie! I really like it! Raises a few questions, like how does the Mighty Brothers gashat work usually, and how do Eyecons work, but it’s not like those are new!

SEE YOU NEXT GAME!

(Or next Zi-O. Hopefully we get subs for 48 soon, I’d like to be able to actually go on tumblr…)

#kamen rider ex aid #kamen rider ghost #sailorcressy says #i should come up with a liveblog tag #*terrified screeching re mighty brothers*

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eggoreviews · 4 years

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My Top 25 Games Advent Day 16 - Mass Effect 2 (#10)

“They tell me it’s a suicide mission. I intend to prove them wrong.”

Here we have another example, and in my eyes the best example, of the product of Bioware being at their absolute peak. Mass Effect 2 is a nigh on masterpiece of a game that, even after almost a decade, still holds up extraordinarily well in every aspect. I love the Mass Effect series (well, the main trilogy anyway) for its cinematic storytelling, its interesting and unique plot concepts and gameplay elements, its intricate setting and, crowning all, its always unforgettable companion characters who go on your journey with you. The series’ second instalment, at least in my eyes, does all of this absolutely perfectly without 3’s wonky ending and 1’s slightly outdated settings and mechanics. If I called Dragon Age: Origins the Lord of the Rings of gaming, here’s Star Wars.

Mass Effect 2 doesn’t fuck around. It starts you up on the original ship from the first game, before immediately blowing it up and killing Commander Shepard, the vaguely cheesy space hero we all love so much. After Shepard’s revival at the hands of Cerberus, Mass Effect 2 kicks off with an epic space opera story taking you all across the universe, with espionage, emotive character arcs and an oppressive, genuinely fearful atmosphere created by the game’s big bads, the vastly superior alien race known as the Collectors. It’s amazing how they managed to blend that overriding fear of an enemy so powerful it could wipe out everything with this giddy excitement to explore. Whether that be the plethora of planets you can seek out, mine for resources and explore or some of the more densely populated space stations, such as the vast cityscape of the Citadel or the seedy, neon underworld filled with criminals and night clubs, Omega. Mass Effect’s universe truly has a life of its own and it tells such a grandiose story within it that it’s impossible not to become immersed. Each and every area you visit is packed full of memorable characters of various diverse species, like the awesome looking Turians and Krogans, down to the hilariously blunt Elcor, who communicate by prefacing everything they say with how they’re feeling. On top of this, a bountiful selection of engaging side quests and an overarching main story that largely involves you seeking out each of your party members to hunt down the Collectors make this a truly perfected combination of a well-realised sci-fi setting and story.

Drawing on those companion characters for a moment, I would say that this is one of the best, most diverse and engaging cast of characters you can find in a game, as each of them follow their own individual character arcs and have unique relationships with Shepard depending on your actions and the behaviour you exhibit towards them. The likes of Jacob (the guy you start with who is admittedly a bit boring), Miranda (the biotic who was experimented on by her family to make her ‘perfect’), Garrus (the kickass Turian who is everyone’s favourite and also has gotta be the canon love interest for male Shepard), Mordin (the quick-thinking, quick-everything Salarian doctor with a surprisingly dark past), Grunt (a wartime experimental clone taken by Shepard as a replacement for their original target, Grunt’s creator), Jack (a highly powerful, erratic biotic in a maximum security prison), Samara (Asari matriarch who can step on me and also everyone), Thane (the coolest, chillest assassin in the galaxy), Zaeed (amercenary veteran with a sick ass scar), Kasumi (cool space thief) and Tali and Legion (oneQuarian and one Geth, both interesting and unique characters in their own right, these characters draw upon the central conflict between the two races explored in the first game’s main story. In the sequel, the slow development of the two from sworn enemies to allies is something to behold, especially as both are so lovable on their own). Went on a bit of a tangent there but I felt it was important to include everyone in that list. The best part about this is you spend the entire game building your relationships with these characters, choosing a romance option, decking Shepard and the gang out in the best gear, upgrading your ship with the materials you mine from planets. And then it all comes down to the finale, the so-called ‘suicide mission’ in which anyone and everyone can die depending on your choices and upgrades beforehand, as well as any decisions you make during the mission. It is genuinely incredibly difficult to save everyone first try and is a great example of how to ensure the choices you give to your player have weight and lasting impact; in Mass Effect 2, everything is on your shoulders and no one’s survival is guaranteed.

As I said before, I don’t think it would be wrong to call this the Star Wars of gaming, and it wouldn’t take that title without a lot of pew-pewing and excellent use of the sci-fi genre. The gameplay and gunplay (which is the majority of your experience) is slick and well-executed, even feeling intuitive and fun almost a decade later. Even that final boss encounter, that I will never really understand the potent hatred people seem to have for it, is an awesome final test of what you’ve learned and how you’ve improved along the way, pitting you up against an all-out giant Terminatoresque killing machine as an excellently overblown ending to a game full of dramatic encounters to shoot at. Alongside this, the visuals are superb and do little break immersion even as time has gone by and I would argue that this game still holds some of the best graphics you can find from the previous generation. And last but not least, this game’s spicy ass mechanical sci-fi soundtrack is definitely something to flap about, especially when it comes to the combat and that Suicide Mission score is nothing short of incredible.

So now I’ve ranted aimlessly for three chunky paragraphs about each singular aspect of this game that I adore, you can probably see why this title has such an enduring memory to me. Playing this game for the first time at 12 years old off the back of the also amazing Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware took their perfected formula of knowing exactly how to craft a story, setting and excellently realised characters and shot it up into space both figuratively and literally. In my eyes, Mass Effect 2 is Bioware’s greatest title and it’s honestly more than a shame that we haven’t received anything from Mass Effect in recent years, aside from the less than great Andromeda. A Mass Effect 4 would kill me dead, but at the very least an original trilogy remaster would keep me ticking for a hot minute. Get on it, Bioware. Pls.

Standout Moment Award: Probably already mentioned this, but of course it’s the suicide mission. An unforgettable epic of a quest and one of my favourite overall game finales to date.

Standout Character Award: Thane Krios. The ice-cool, terminally ill assassin takes today’s award for being an all-around great dude.

It’s been a long ol’ month, but we’re finally getting there. Today, I kicked off my top 10 games of all time. From here on out, it’s going to be beyond difficult to stop myself from descending into rambles, but I’ll do my best to keep myself coherent. Tomorrow: No. 9; An odd creature with floating appendages takes off to save some blue things in dire distress.

#gaming #eggoreviews #best games advent #mass effect 2 #me2 #mass effect

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moonlightreal · 5 years

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Winx Club season 8/1

In which the Winx are back and younger than ever.

Welcome to season 8! I love this show, I love everything about it... including the parts I don't like, because I can snark at them. So warning: there will be some snark when I see something dumb.

About the new art style:

Why I don't like it: The girls have gotten a little more samey-samey with the loss of their individually shaped features, and Tecna's eyes shifted from turquoise to blue. I know that's a tiny thing, a slight eye color change but it's one more step towards them all looking the same. It feels like by the time we get to season 20 they'll be six identical fairies! Also the girls now look twelve. There’s been no mention so far of them de-aging so it's just the art style change, but... ok most of y'all wouldn't care but I'm writing a fanfic that parallels the show and now I have to decide whether to de-age my characters or what!

Why I like it: They're sooooo cute! They look like Moondreamers or Lady Lovelylocks or some 80s dolls! I love it!

I have a theory about why the style change. This is only a guess since I don't know animation, but is it possible they're using a program with sort of mannequins, and they're now using the same bodies for both Regal Academy and Winx? To save money maybe, since now the animators will only need to learn one style? Is that even the way computer animation programs work? Animators, help me out here!

And yes, Musa and Flora are now basically Caucasian looking. This is not cool. I have acknowledged it and written to Rainbow about it but since there’s nothing else I can do I’m going to enjoy my show in spite of it. That’s my response to the color change; your response is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.

1 Night of Shooting Stars

We open at Alfea where some minor fairies are watching shooting stars. Familiar minor fairies! It's not just the Winx who have a new look; the whole class has been ported over. I'm really happy about this! I was sure they'd just do a whole new background cast and we'd lose more continuity, but here are Evie and Lori, those two dark skinned and indigo haired girls, and other familiar faces.

The Winx are up on a sort of bridge over the courtyard-- Alfea has had slight upgrades for the new season and it looks great. And so do the girls! They're so detailed, the layered outfits and all their accessories are so fun. Their necklaces sway when they move, even, props to the animators.

Bloom is delighted by the shooting stars but Musa’s not feellin’ it, she was hoping for musical inspiration but it isn’t coming. Flora, Tec and Aisha join them and it turns out Musa wants to write the new song for the concert tomorrow! Tecna conjures her “astroscope” so they can watch the stars, and starts to explain something but Aisha shuts her down. Kiko pops up on the other end of the astroscope and scares Musa when she looks through.

Out comes Stella, for a selfie!

In the Italian, Stella says “Selfie time!” in English. Heh.

But Musas’s glum face spoils the selfie. Stella says there should be no problem since, “You have ME to inspire you!”

Kind of not a great intro for the girls, but now we leave them and cut to Twinkle being chased by star-eaters. Which are cool, as villain minions go. They look like dark purple puffs or blobs, I’m getting a very Original My Little Pony vibe from them. A whole swarm of them are chasing tiny Twinkle through the rings surrounding planet Magix. They merge into a giant blob that roars as Twinkle flees towards the planet below.

Musa’s spidey sense tingles!

The star-eaters display their power of splitting into tadpoles and joining together again.

The Winx are concerned: this star is coming down awfully close! Twinkle zooms above their heads and crashes in the woods.

The girls arrive in the scene we saw in the trailer and are immediately charmed by the sleeping Twinkle. Stella identifies her as a Lumen, “a creature of pure light that lives inside stars.” They take their find back to Alfea to take care of her.

But evil is watching them! Or at least a turban-wearing lackey of evil with a bunch of star-eaters around him is. Obscura says, “Oh no! That Lumen managed to reach the Winx!” so he knows who the Winx are.

In the Winx common room Twinkle is still asleep and the girls and Faragonda admire her cuteness. I think she’s got some kind of charm ability! Stella gives us some more information, “She’s from Lumenia, the star that lights Solaria.” and Faragonda says Lumens never leave their stars except for serious reasons.

The next morning—daylight shots of Alfea, great cg—Twinkle wakes up, gets scared of Kiko, there’s some chaos and room destruction, Twinkle flies around screaming until she bangs into Stella. Stella introduces the Winx, “We’re fairies and this is our school.” and asks why Twinkle came. But Twinkle can’t remember.

Tecna scans Twinkle and detects “a memory lapse.” The Winx offer to help her remember but Aisha thinks scaring her is the way to go! So they try to scare Twinkle, who just laughs. Short slapstick scene.

Then Bloom gets a text: the boys are coming! Their ship lands in the courtyard to a rockin’ beat. The girls stand with little hearts around them, Stella twirling her hair.

The boys look so weird in this art style. I will try and probably fail at not mentioning this every time they appear.

And oh heavens, Brandon still has a deep post-puberty voice in his 12-year-old body. I think this may be the same voice actor from last season. Voice weirdness aside, he brought Stella a big pile of presents. These two are the best couple.

Helia is showing Flora a picture he did of “a rose from the planet Iris, but its beauty is nothing compared to yours.” Wasn’t Iris where Diaspro’s from? Flora blushes and it’s cute.

Sky and Bloom kind of twirl each other around and laugh, which is sweet.

Timmy and Tecna are already up in the dorm working on a Lumen amnesia curing device, which explodes. Twinkle bounces and chirps, “Again! Again again!” Ok she is a little bit adorable.

They get the memory viewer going and its screen shows Twinkle’s memories of being chased. She freaks out and flies into the air glowing brightly. Then the memory viewer overloads.

Cut to the courtyard, the girls ponder what they saw while Twinkle looks glum. Kiko tries to cheer her up. Stella says that Lumens are peaceful creatures with no enemies, so the girls don’t know what was chasing her. Poor Twinkle is very down, and Stella prescribes music to cheer her up.

Over at Red Fountain we’re in either the ship or a locker room. The boys are tired out, they’ve been on a mission to the Omega dimension before the Winx called! Points to the writers for remembering the names of places! Also points for how the boys are powering-down their suits, it’s a neat little detail that they do this.

The boys talk about how they wish they could’ve helped the Lumen, then do some reminiscing! They had a mission on the planet Hypsos where they beat a horde of space mutants and destroyed an opal dragon?? And apparently neither of these was as scary as the landing! Timmy, who was the pilot, droops. Then he blames Helia for not being able to read a star chart. It looks like they’re about to fight when…

A Mysterious Figure arrives! Wearing a kind of ship-captainish coat and purple neck scarf. Codatorta said he could come back. The boys are pleased, more pleased than most of the fandom is!

The mysterious figure is not Venomiya, so there should be no sabotage at the Winx Band concert we go to next. More great cg Alfea. Is there an official map anywhere, of what rooms are what? There are some weird outbuildings and stuff. I’m not even sure if the bridge is new or if it’s just that the girls didn’t hang out there in previous seasons. And did the wings attach differently before? I can’t tell if the school has changed shape or not! I think it has...

And there’s a blast from the past, it’s Knut the ogre, Alfea’s handyman! He’s back after many seasons, helping set up the lights for the concert with Kiko’s help.

And here’s Grizelda, and the new art style has not been kind to her! She looks younger and has a more WoW art style look, and I don’t like it! And whaaaaaat happened to her voice? She does the ‘I’m watching you’ thing at Knut. she’s not very nice. I mean, she’s not supposed to be nice, she’s supposed to be a scary lady so that’s good.

The concert is being held at the top of the steps in front of the main door to the school. All the minor fairies hang out on the steps or in the courtyard to watch. It is so nice to see the same minor fairies as before. They’re super excited to see the Winx in their—freaking adorable—concert outfits. The girls are all in brightly colored fake fur and music note themes, with streaks in their hair. Bloom dedicates their first song to ‘Our new friend from far away.’ and Twinkle giggles with delight.

And then… concert transformation! The girls’ PURSES do magical girl henshin routines and transform, Bloom’s into a microphone, Stella and Flora get guitars, Musa has a keytar and Tec gets a three-piece piano while Aisha’s got drums. Ok, I love this. I know, it’s gotta be a gimic to sell toys, but sparkly henshin instruments, it’s wonderful!

The song’s all right, it’s Winx pop just like every song in Winx and I don’t think the voice actresses are in any way professional singers, but it’s fun. Miss F, Grizelda and Palladium are in the audience. Twinkle loves the music. Knut seems to be trying to pick up on the minor fairies, but Grizelda shuts him down.

Then the concert is rudely interrupted by a portal opening and delivering a bunch of star-eaters! Twinkle sees them and remembers what happened to her and flies for help!

Stella observes the sun-eaters don’t look too scary, but then they all pile together into one big one. Oh no! The minor fairies, unable to fight since the artists haven’t designed transformations for them, back away in fear.

Faragonda and the teachers—Wizgiz appears too—direct the minor fairies to take cover inside. The Winx transform. Butterflix time!

Twinkle is impressed.

The girls fight but the giant eater can portal in and out and break apart whenever it wants. Only Stella’s sun power seems to have any effect! Then they get an idea: Twinkle lit up with the memory viewer, maybe she can help here! Stella gives her some power and little Twinkle is just so happy! She lights up like a sun and the big eater breaks apart into little eaters that all look despondent and flee back through their portal.

Since Twinkle has remembered everything, now she can tell her story! The girls and Grizelda for some reason meet with the headmistress in her office.

Twinkle is the messenger of Lumenia, on a mission from Queen Doranna(?) to the “most powerful fairies in the magic dimension.” The stars are in danger! The eaters are eating their light! I do like that there’s a reason the Winx are going to be called to save the world again, that Doranna specifically requested them.

Then there’s… Faragonda tells them this is a delicate mission and to be cautious. Stella breaks in with, “caution is our middle name! well, more of a nickname.” Heh.

Then Bloom has an anime moment, she goes to the window and puts her hand up to her reflection, with a serious expression. Not the kind of moment we usually get in Winx, and I really like it. “Tomorrow we leave for Lumenia, Queen Doranna can help us understand what’s going on. This is a mission for the Winx!”

#winx club season 8 #winx club

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