#and I just managed to make it to the third biome | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starwrighter · 2 years ago

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I am not a baby!! (yes you are)

(Ao3) (Masterpost) (Previous) (Next)

(Chapter 17 long ass chappy!!)

As expected, his plan worked! Dami managed to scare off the other Leviathan! The shallows were finally safe again! For the time being at least. Danny paced around his base, celebrating this victory with a thawed peeper. He pondered throwing one to Dami, but they still had yet to make any attempt of eating any fish. Plus, the leviathan might see his offering as an opportunity to chow down on him. They were temporary allies through a shared enemy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a potential snack.

Maybe he should be more concerned about the existence of a third species of leviathan. After all, the existence of three suggests there might be more. Scratch that there were more and that he was certain of. Dami was a graft of two species and Taser fish wasn’t the parent neither was the giant beta fish-looking guy from lurking near Lifepod three. . According to the scanners on his Lifepod, this was a planet mostly composed of water it’d make sense there’d be more nightmare death creatures swimming around in the depths of the ocean. He could easily avoid them if he tried hard enough. A quantum detonation, however, was a threat he couldn’t run from or throw hands with. At least not effectively that is.

Danny looked down at his message log with a wince. He’d take more nightmare-death fish over the Aurora exploding any day of the week. At least he could fight the leviathans. How was he supposed to fight the genetic meltdown of a peeper blasted with the radioactive energy of a small power plant? It would be like Chernobyl all over again and he wouldn’t have the industrial equipment to clean up the fallout.

The nuclear power generator was one of the blueprints stripped from his PDA by the crash, as were the disposal protocols that came with it. He had no way to fabricate anything but a primitive water filter. It wasn’t even one of the grayed-out blueprints like the battery charger; it just didn’t exist in his PDA. He wouldn’t be surprised if baby mode blocked the recipe out. It let him build a knife but it wouldn’t let him play with a nuclear reactor the PDA Truly was the most responsible piece of technology on this planet.

God speed Alterra…

Danny snickered, swiping through the screens of his PDA looking desperately for something he could do to help. Was there anything he could do? There wasn’t a blueprint for a radiation suit in his PDA but he was a Fenton! They got irradiated for breakfast. He could at least try, to fix things for both him and the survivors.

Taking out his sea glide Danny shot out his sea base like a speeding bullet. Time is limited and it was slipping through his fingers with every moment he wasted anxiously waiting for the perfect opportunity to help. There had to be at least one life pod that landed in near the Aurora someone who was either stuck in their pods or getting blasted by the bad vibes of the Aurora’s drive core.

Dami watched him intently from the edge of the shallows. Clicking teeth and a worried croon from the leviathan as Danny crept closer to where the crash site should be. He only swam a few feet before Dami bolted from his spot in the sand hands attempting to nudge him back to the shallows.

With puffed-up cheeks, Danny nipped at the other darting around the leviathan's tail to further his journey. He couldn’t go back to the shallows. He wouldn’t sit there uselessly until things literally blew up in his face. Dami didn’t know how dangerous things could get. He didn’t know the catastrophic consequences this could have on his home.

The waters were murky sand yet to settle and debris scattered across the sand. Any plant life the biome had previously cultivated was crushed, uprooted, and torn apart by the impact. The wrecks in the crash site made the shallows look clean. Metal torn apart like playdough were scattered throughout clouded waters. Not a single place was clear of debris, a burning sensation in his palms the longer he swam.

A stabbing pain like a jackhammer to the skull hit him like a truck. Nausea broiled in his stomach, bile rising up his throat. Danny didn’t stop swimming not when the edges of his vision began to blur not when Dami desperately tried to push him back. Snapping teeth and swiping through the water in an attempt to intimidate him into turning back. Danny didn’t care, he… he had to do something, he had to try.

His PDA screamed, a glitching image that looked concerningly similar to what you’d find on one of the barrels in his parents' lab flashed on screen. It sounded painful, the tablet flashing like a strobe light and a shrieking noise filling his ears. Any words jumbled, thousands of audio cues playing over each other and meshing into of mess of trailed-off screams cut off when the screen went blank.

Fuck.

Shit… That wasn’t a good sign, was it? His pounding head made it hard to truly wrap his head around what just happened. If death would be permanent this time would anyone even know what happened to him? Every distress call he’d responded to every destroyed life pod he found… All of them were gone, reduced to nothing, only a splotch of red if they were lucky. If his PDA was broken how would his family know what happened to him?

Dami screeched, a noise so high-pitched it made his ears ring. The leviathan wrapped his entire body around Danny, his claw barring him from escaping. Panic swirled through his mind before a lower, spine-tingling roar broke through the sea. Peaking through the gaps in Dami’s claws, Danny’s heart jumped into his throat.

A leviathan with a sickly gray body circled them. Pitch black eyes that held something primal. There wasn’t the gleam of intelligence in its behavior, just gnashing teeth and snapping mandibles. Decorated with red, muscle so defined you’d think that was all that made up the creature’s body.

Maybe it was the headache amplifying the noise but the guttural sounds the creature constantly let out were like a nuclear bomb. His eyes stung all he could do was watch as Dami snapped his tail like a whip, slashing at their attacker. Yellow blood spilled into the water and Danny couldn’t tell if it was Dami’s.

Saying their attacker was aggressive would be an understatement. Nothing seemed to deter the creature. Dami’s strikes only seemed to piss it off further. Every impact from Dami’s tail pulled a furious shriek from the predator. It circled them like a shark, it didn’t care that Dami was much larger it just wanted to eat.

Pointing his scanner through the gaps in Dami’s claws seconds felt like hours as the tool worked its magic. On swing from this worm on steroids and he was triple dead! The thing could swallow him whole with no room left for seconds!

At least it would be a cool death. “Danny Fenton, cause of death; Radiation poisoning and fish bites,” He’d be proud to have that written in his obituary. If anyone survived to collect and fix his PDA it’d be one hell of a conversation starter.

His skin burned like he’d pressed himself against the surface of the sun. His dive suit felt like molten lava and his air tank felt like it was filled with smoke. Dami thrashed slapping the steroid fish into the sand.

They couldn’t keep going. If both he and his PDA were being affected by the radiation then so was Dami. Their attacker wouldn’t hesitate to finish them off if the radiation didn’t melt their internal organs into a shapeless goop. They needed a route to the Aurora that wasn’t surrounded by a toxic death field. But when the death field originated from the Aurora there wasn’t much he could do. There was no safe path to the Aurora so long as he was without a radiation suit.

Danny slapped his palms against Dami’s almost transparent skin. His oxygen running thin, he tugged the leviathan’s fins until the other turned to him. Hopefully, as another sentient creature, he could understand the plea of “Let’s get the fuck out of here before we both die a slow excruciating death,”

Thankfully, he understood. As Dami snapped his tail at the creature one last time grabbing Danny by his oxygen tank and boosting away from the crash zone. The two of them cut through the water easily gliding faster than his seaglide could at its base.

Dami wasn’t as muscular as their attacker but he made up for it in size, speed, and intelligence. If they’d stayed to finish the fight Dami was the obvious choice to bet on. He would’ve won if he hadn’t been focused on guarding Danny from being eaten.

When they finally reached the shallows Danny could’ve kissed the sand. He’d never been so relieved to be in the kiddy pool of this planet's ocean. He felt like crying, he’d never abandon his beloved biome of coral tubes again!

Thwack!

A Peeper charged into him, hitting him in the cheek full force. Was this revenge for the fridge? Dami let out what he could only assume was the fish equivalent of a laugh, gently batting the little blue fish away. Danny didn’t have the energy to smack the leviathan for this offense nor did he have the strength to chase the Peeper who attacked him. Sleep never seemed so sweet before but he knew if he slept now he might not wake up to see the light of day again.

Danny watched the faint yellow sparkles trailing behind the fish as it rubbed itself against plants and rocks. More social than the normal peepers swimming around. If you could count tackling everything in sight as a social behavior. Danny scrunched his nose at the offensive fish rubbing the glitter-like substance off his face. If this was how Peepers tried to make friends he’d have to say it’s ineffective.

Danny turned back to the leviathan, yellow blood oozing from long thin scratches running along his tail. He frowned, that was his fault, wasn’t it? Dami had tried to stop him, likely knowing what lurked near the crash and Danny blatantly ignored him. He’d been naive, thinking he knew better than the literal native who’d likely lived on this planet his entire life. A stupid thing to do even with the risk of an explosion. Especially with the risk of an explosion, a deeper part of his psyche nagged, pulling the bile halfway up his throat.

What if someone had been with him? Someone had been with him! Dami wasn’t indestructible. What if that thing managed to kill them both? What if he’d gotten Dami killed just by leading them in there? Radiation poisoning was an all but painless death. Vomiting your internal organs in their liquidized form wasn’t a fate he wished on anyone let alone an ally.

The visible injuries on the leviathan seemed to be minor. If the nonchalant way the leviathan lifted Danny to the surface with a clawed hand told him anything. It was good to know they had a mutual understanding that air was a necessity for him. Accidentally being drowned by an ally wasn’t on his list of ideal deaths. Maybe if this were a horror movie he’d be more welcoming to the idea so he could haunt people more than he usually did.

Danny tapped Dami’s forehead alerting the leviathan to his next movements into the kelp forests. Dami stayed where he was in the shallows, keeping a keen eye on Danny from afar. He swallowed the bile rising up his throat keeping up his routine of bribing the stalkers. They were like gator-shaped trolls. Demanding a toll of fish snacks before they’d ensure a safe passage through the shallows. Some of the bolder ones approached him with open mouths. He didn’t even have to chuck it at them!

“Warning, leviathan class creature in the area,” He yanked out his PDA brushing his fingers against the screen. The tablet's light was dim but it was working. He could swipe through the tabs and see what the fuck the AI was talking about. It’s a little late for a warning about the leviathan at the crash site.

Danny swiped through the tabs of his PDA landing on the new data entry he’d risked his ass for. Apparently, the empty-eyed fuck they’d been assaulted by was a reaper leviathan. All muscle, tiny brain, and no sense of morality. Danny didn’t know what kind of morals his PDA expected from a fish like that. Lancer always told him not to judge a book by its cover but holy fuck, if Vlad stood next to one of those guys he might actually look decent.

The warning popped up again and Danny’s anxiety spiked. Did a reaper follow them? Was it the Leviathan he’d seen back at life pod three? If it was the stalkers might get to him before he could get close enough to strike him. He pulled out his blade glancing around the kelp forest. His eyes landed on a glimpse of blue poking out from behind an arch of stone.

…

It was talking about Dami, wasn’t it?

Dami was following him, hiding it quite poorly. It was honestly, embarrassing he hadn’t noticed it sooner. The leviathan was out of his depth, any camouflage the other could have possibly had was squandered by his size. It was probably his size that intimidated everything into not acknowledging him.

Danny ignored the leviathan, mostly to spare the other’s ego. Danny was like a needle in a haystack while Dami was like an elephant in the chicken coop and if this were a game of hide and seek Danny would’ve demolished him by now.

Using his blade to cut off pieces of creep vine Danny pressed the kelp together, stashing as much as possible into his bag. The fiber mesh he’d make from this would make decent bandages if he couldn’t make the blankets he wanted.

Would bandages even work on Dami? Tying gauze around the leviathan's tail just seemed restrictive. The language barrier would ensure Dami wouldn’t understand he was trying to help. Dami would just see it as Danny mistakeingly assuming he could finish the Leviathan off after a risky encounter with a reaper. He winced, getting slapped to death by an ally would be such a lame way to die.

There had to be some other way to ensure Dami didn’t die of sepsis or whatever other infections a giant fish teenager could contract. Who was equipped to deal with this kind of thing? A vet or a marine biologist because Danny lacked the qualifications for both professions. He was two for two when it came to dying, any medical advice he could give was just a health hazard.

Danny swam back to the shallows, Dami clumsily following him. He wasn’t bleeding anymore and Danny could vaguely make out yellow scabs clotting over his injuries. Only time would tell if that was a good sign or not. If there was anything wrong with Dami he’d find a way to fix it. It was his moral obligation to do so.

Dami protected them from a reaper and the oversized eel! While he’s pretty sure Dami knew electric fish, he still slapped him into pissing off! Making sure the leviathan didn’t die was the least he could do even if he was friends with the electric fish secretly.

The “fight” was far too similar to the ones he’d have Dani or Jazz. Less a fight to the death and more like one of the lectures he’d get from Jazz for doing something stupid. Not antagonistic like the fights he’d have with Vlad. It was more like when Dani would hide his model rockets in the walls when he pissed her off. Dami and the electric fish acted painfully similar to how he acted with his siblings.

Would he ever see them again?

Shaking his head, a croon rippled through shallow water. Dami stared at him with glowing eyes, an expression as concerned as a gigantic fish could get. He crooned again, louder this time. A call probably evolved to be heard in deeper open waters. It wasn’t as effective in the shallows, he could hear Dami anywhere in the shallows no matter how quiet the other tried to be. All this call served to do now was to add fuel to the fire of his splitting headache.

Danny held his head in his hands, Dami taking this as a cue to be a bit quieter. The next croon he let out was softer barely audible but he got his point across. This guy was weird. He fussed over Danny more than he fussed over himself to the point he cramped himself in the shallows to stay here with him. He belonged deeper down, ancients he’d be happier deeper down but he just…stayed here? Sure he tended to follow Danny whenever he had the opportunity but Danny had mostly stuck to the shallows so far. Was this the fish equivalent to tourism? Had the crash screwed over his home so badly he couldn’t live there anymore.

Danny glanced back to Dami, the leviathan looked perfectly fine but he didn’t exactly have another member of his species to compare to. It was like he was perfectly comfortable acting as Danny’s personal guard dog.

…

….

He was like a dog to this guy, wasn’t he?

Looking down at his tiny hand Danny squeezed them into fists. Pathetic, hardly a threat at all. Dami’s a teenager and Danny is a itty bitty squishy thing smaller than any of the other survivors. He was like a stray puppy to this guy! Like a little Yorkie happy and cute.

He scoffed choking on the mouthful of seawater that flooded into his mouth at the action. He wasn’t anyone’s pet! He was the farthest thing from a pet! Sure, he might’ve watched Dami fight like it was a Pokémon battle but he still thought of the guy as a sentient being. It all made sense now, this dude thought he was an animal! There was no way to correct him either! They didn’t speak the same language nor was there a way for them to learn at the moment.

How would he even go about speaking to him anyway? What was he supposed to say? “Hey, dude sorry for catfishing you but I’m not your pet,” He’d probably be dismissed and then be treated like a parrot.

Ancients, he’s too nauseous to deal with this shit. Dealing with anything else but this would be better than this. He was stuck with a teenager who was convinced he got a new puppy… No wonder he tapped on the window like a small child seeing the fish tank at the dentist for the first time.

At least he wasn’t the type of teenager to “Play” rough with his pets. Back home Sam went ape shit on a group of senior boys who kept shooting BBs at one of the oldest boy’s cats. Danny had yet to be manhandled, thrown, or shot at, nor was there any attempt to put him down after he bit him multiple times.

Maybe he was more like a cat?

He wouldn’t degrade himself into being anyone’s catboy. The thought alone made him want to cry. Tucker would never let him hear the end of it if he found out. The hacker would have all the ammo he needed to take revenge for being called a furry so often. He couldn’t let this happen! There’s no way he’d allow himself to be treated like a pet. If Dami ever tried to pet him he’d get stabbed! Puffing up his chest, Danny turned foot and swam back to his base.

His to-do list was completely and utterly fucked over. Fixing the Aurora had been his top priority but he couldn’t fix it without a radiation suit and a distraction for the buff death fish! It was just like back home, the moment he sat down to knock something off his ever-expanding to-do list the entire universe ganged up on him!

{Proposed Desagi seabase (200m)}

The signal caught his attention. It was on one of the main tabs of his PDA along with the signals for the Lifepod he’s aware of. On the front page of his to-do list, as a sub-task of finding survivors was searching for the Desagi sea base. Scrunching his face Danny pondered. If the seabase even existed there could be something down there to help him. Even if he didn’t find a survivor, the information he could gain from this could be crucial to figuring out what the hell is going on with this planet.

With the date of Paul Torgal’s environmental log, he could tell the Desagi had been on this planet within the first month of communications with the ship had been lost. Had they ever left? Did they crash or land here willingly for some unknown reason? Was what happened to the Aurora connected to the Desagi? Hopefully, he’d get his answers when he went down to explore.

Staring blankly at the signal, he studied the coordinates and the environmental log thoroughly. The cave he’d entered previously had multiple entrances. It was only logical if members of the Desagi were to build a seabase they’d build it close to an entrance. It was further into the cave system than the entrance he’d swam through had led him.

He could search around for another cave entrance closer to the signal but it was still 200m down. His lower oxygen needs gave him a leg up but it could only carry him so far. His ability kept him from drowning in shallow water but anything deeper than 100m and it was game over, no restarts or save points!

With his current oxygen tank, he wouldn’t have the time to find the seabase let alone explore it. When the entire point of finding the seabase was exploring, it made his air tank seem about as useful as a warning label on a stick of dynamite. Any idiot with common sense could tell going down there without some kind of plan for oxygen was a sheer way to drown. While his common sense was sparse he still had it.

The blueprints for a seamoth were still missing so he’d have to go on a scavenger hunt for not only the blueprint but the resources to build it. Danny could only wonder how the Seamoth would be altered for him. The seaglide was made slightly smaller but what was it supposed to do about what was essentially just an underwater car? Pedal extensions, A controller, maybe just an autopilot? That was all he was willing to work with, a booster seat was too humiliating for his bruised ego to take.

Along with a seamoth he’d need to upgrade his tank and replace the batteries for his seaglid. The seaglide drained power like spectra drained the happiness from children.

Digging through his storage lockers he scavenged the glass he needed for his new air tank. He fed the fabricator the ingredients waiting eagerly as the light show began. A loud jarring noise sounded from his PDA the moment the new air tank touched his hands.

“New blueprint acquired.” The robotic voice drawled.

Danny glanced down at the tablet, staring slack-jawed at the appearance of the rebreather on his list of blueprints. Convenient, he didn’t dare question the PDA’s choice of only giving him the blueprint now instead of after all the other times he almost died. It was painfully easy to gather the materials he needed. With the creepvine he’d collected earlier he was set to make the rebreather.

Now all he had to do was get past Dami…

Why did he have a feeling that was going to be easier said than done?

@ashoutinthedarkness @avelnfear @meira-3919 @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @hugsandchaos @blep-23 @zeldomnyo @bytheoldwillowtree @justwannabecat @shepherdsheart @starlightcat04 @stargazing-bookwyrm @pupstim @dragongoblet @noxcheshire

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dcxdp #dc x dp #subnautica au #I'm back!!#Chapters are taking more time because they are becoming longer #I'm starting to take things seriously #oh god #what about my shitty jokes?#I literally called Dick leviathan two electric boogaloo in my outline #will all my memes die in the drafts like soldiers in an brutal war?#I'm just kidding these chapters would be any more serious #it's just stupidity but drawn out into a longer page of word vomit

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swordswoman97 · 1 month ago

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Thought I'd note down some of my thoughts on the Elderwood update now that I've played around with it for a couple hours (as well as finishing the story) Fair warning I have a lot of thoughts.

The cutscene that plays when you open the game (assuming you've finished all the story quests up to that point, I'm guessing it'll play after you finish Rooted in Place)

God the logs you find in the Cosmos Temple or whatever it's called are such a punch in the gut. I will say however the logs did actually convince me that my theory that the Majiri were the creatures that wiped out humanity is wrong. Chayne has some dialogue about the realm of the Dragon which is pretty much a 1 for 1 of how the logs talk about the realm of the Phoenix which suggests to me they're probably one and the same, which seems odd if the Majiri originally came from this third realm, you'd think that would be the realm of the Dragon, but it's not. I dunno, I just don't think the information we're given in these logs fits with the Majiri being the ones to wipe out humanity.

I love the visual and sound design of the Elderwood itself. It's beautiful and yet extremely creepy. When I first exploring it I really felt on edge, like the biome was actively hostile, which is what I'm pretty sure they were going for so they did a great job at that.

Subira and Tamala play off each other so well. Sorry Subira I do kind of ship it.

Tamala manages to make herself look so suspicious. I do actually have a theory about what her goal is which I might write out later. Not here though cause it would be too long.

I really liked Einar's and Hassian's dialogue when you go to them for help with the corrupted creatures. Einar's dialogue has some very interesting lore implications. He seems to have some familiarity with echo, potentially tying it to the third realm? It would make sense. Meanwhile Hassian's dialogue is just so sweet. It makes sense he'd be so concerned about someone he cares about hunting in the Elderwood with his backstory too. I am curious if Hassian's dialogue differs if your friendship level with him is low though. I haven't actually done the quest to get the Elderwood bug bombs so I don't actually know what Auni says. Gonna try to get that one done tomorrow.

Ulfe! I love him! I don't have that much to say about him but I love him. He is my son.

The side quests I've done in the Elderwood have been a lot of fun and very interesting. You get some world building, some fun character interactions, it's got it all.

Overall this update has been amazing. I love it. S6 knocked it out of the park and I am so looking forward to see what they've got cooking up next when they release the roadmap next month.

#palia #elderwood #palia elderwood

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toushindai · 1 year ago

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What's your playstyle for Hades and Hades 2? Preferred weapons, heat/fear level? Are you working to max out the minor prophecies?

I'm really intrigued honestly by how different my playstyle is between the two games? I'm not enough of a Gamer™ to put a finger on exactly how or why, but even thoughts like "I can afford to spend a lot at this Well of Charon because it's going to be a while before I see a shop" are ones I'm having more frequently. And another interesting thing is that when I'm playing a difficult run, in Hades I, the beginning will not be so much more difficult than normal and then things start ramping up in Elysium or thereabouts; in Hades II, though, I feel like I am suffering and hating life until I'm about halfway through the third biome and then my build clicks and everything comes up daisies. Well, at least this has happened a few times.

My Hades preferences are so very firmly established: if I wanted to have as fun a run as possible for me personally, it's the Chaos-aspect shield with Doom on the special and something to inflict another status curse on the attack to get easy access to Privileged Status active as much as possible. At my best I was trying to make it so that all four levels of Extreme Measures + Middle Management + a level or two of Tight Deadline felt like a baseline, "normal" run to me. Having not played for a while I can't promise that I could still do that with consistency (EM4 was never quite a given for me) but it was feeling pretty comfortable for a while.

As for Hades II--

I can't decide what my favorite weapon is. It might be? Charon Axe? Drop a plain cast, fire off a special, deal AOE damage, it's a good deal. Especially if you can get like Super Nova and the double-omega-special hammer in there. Before the recent patch, which improved the skulls, I feel like I'd gotten into a groove with Persephone skulls, and now after that patch I am worse at them. The staff feels like a nice safe weapon and the new Momus aspect rocks. The blades... I'm not terribly compelled by their playstyle (and I'll trade their omega attack for the ability to hold to attack continuously at the first opportunity) but a dagger and a sickle is literally the hottest weapon combination I can imagine. And the torches are weird. I'm used to them! I can do them! They even feel good to me know. But they're weird. Maybe the sixth weapon will steal my heart. I have a secret hope for the sixth weapon but it's a secret.

Thus far my actual Preferred level of Fear is "none," although I did spend a little time practicing on one level of the Vow of Fury (enemies go fast) so that that speed essentially feels normal/default to me now. Thus turning that into three free Fear. Vow of Arrogance is my second go-to vow because it's just another element to keep in mind and build around. I am, however, up to about 20~24 with the bounties so what I actually prefer is not so much what's driving my choices. At this point I just have to broadly suffer. I'm also slow as hell, my Underworld runs are still averaging about 40-45 minutes which means I can't put on even one level of the timer. I've got to work on that. (I should start ignoring resources. I have so many resources. I don't really need more.) I'm somewhat confident in my ability to finish up those bounties soon and then my focuses will be a) attempting 32 Fear until I hate myself and b) trying to wrest Defiance out of Chaos, as that's the last achievable prophecy I still need to work on. I have no confidence that I'll be able to do this quickly. During the Hades early access period, I was chasing Defiance for several months' worth of repeated patch notes that SGG was making Chaos offer Defiance more often. They finally coughed it up on my first run of the Nighty Night update. I look forward to Chaos once again withholding this from me until some kind of significant plot update involving them is implemented.

#tou and the murder kitten #thanks for the ask!

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fridge-reviews · 1 year ago

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The Talos Principle 2

Developer: CroTeam Publisher: Devolver Digital Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified Rrp: £24.99 (Humble, Steam and Epic) Released: 2nd November 2023 Available on: Humble, Steam and Epic Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard Approximate game length: 30+

Normally I would write a little story based on the game the review is about. However, this time I have a story that the first Talos Principle tangentially relates to. The first Talos Principle poses a question regarding souls and if machines can attain them. It also asks another question which is; Is a soul something you imprint upon through your life like a lump of clay or do you become moulded into the shape of your soul as you grow. I found this question interesting and posed it to my best friend (who I knew would love a debate on something like that) and she and I discussed it, or rather, we argued about it. During that argument we asked her partner what he thought. His response disappointed us both as he had no opinion at all about it, not even as a thought experiment. They broke up shortly after. So anyway, that's how the Talos Principle broke my friend's relationship…

This game is set in a world where all of humanity has long since gone extinct… Well, all organic humans are anyway. You may be wondering why would I state specifically ‘organic humans’? That’s because there are sentient robots that call themselves humanity and consider us (the organic ones) to be their ancestors. In this game, as it was with the last game, you play as one of those robots. In the first game you were the first of your kind to be born into the real world and in this one you are the last, specifically the one thousandth. You being the last one is apparently a big deal and so you walk out to a large celebration. A celebration that is short lived as it gets interrupted by Prometheus himself, or at least a representation of him. He just manages to command your race to investigate a distant island before being dragged off by Pandora. It seems something big is occurring and so you and a small team jet off to this mystery island.

As is to be expected a new game comes with new puzzles and mechanics, such as the RGB splitter that requires two coloured beams of light to create a third, such as red and blue to make green. There are also a lot of puzzles, within each of the nine biomes there are eight ‘main’ puzzles, two ‘lost’ puzzles, two statue puzzles and a golden gate puzzle that can only be accessed in the late game. There are actually more than that but telling more would be something of a spoiler.

The puzzles are scattered across each biome and are numbered from one to eight (except the two lost puzzles, the statues and the golden gate) and each biome introduces a new mechanic for you to utilise. While you don’t have to go through them in numerical order, I do strongly suggest that you at least start with puzzle number one before trying the others if only to get an understanding of the new mechanic being shown to you.

Hidden around the biomes are two ‘Sparks of Prometheus’, you can use these sparks to skip a puzzle. Though it takes three sparks to skip a single puzzle and there are only eighteen sparks to be found in the entire game, so if you do decide to use them be sparing with them.

As I mentioned in the story at the beginning of this review, the previous game posed a philosophical question ‘Can a machine have a soul? And if so is the soul developed over time or granted in full at creation?’ It seems the first half of that question was answered, so now this game poses many more questions such as if knowledge should be sought out for its own sake, the nature of self determinism and the direction that the new human society should take.

In the last game there was a journal that was accessed with the [Tab] key, in this game the journal has been replaced with something of a status screen. While in this screen you can read information on the things your companions have found, check the clues that the sphinx statues give, relisten to the voice logs you find (which will continue to play out of the status screen) and you can interact with the games social media. That’s right the new humans in this game have created some kind of twitter analog, thankfully this version is actually moderated and the discussions generally don’t get insulting or abrasive. You can, of course, ignore it however I would encourage you not to as the short conversations you have on there have an impact on certain events that happen in the story.

While in the first game you were all alone, struggling your way through the various puzzles. In this game you actually have companions that wander around the various biomes, they won’t help you with the puzzles at all, that’s your job, but they will want to speak to you about the various things you discover as you play. I really like the inclusion of these characters as they add moments of levity and sometimes an alternative perspective on the various subjects this game likes to throw at you. Plus some of the characters I genuinely grew to like and would seek them out for a conversation whenever something important happened just to hear what they had to say.

I have to say that Croteam certainly do create a beautiful looking game, the various vistas are absolutely stunning to look at. Bear in mind that the screenshots are from my rig which is running just a little over the minimum specifications. I will admit it does make me a little sad to see that Croteam are no longer using their own engine, they really have shown that they know what they're doing with the Unreal 5 engine.

On Steam Deck this game runs flawlessly. However, some of the puzzles (especially the ones that require you to do things outside of the various puzzle enclosures) can be very difficult to see simply due to the screen size.

If you like puzzles then this is a game I can highly recommend. I had an absolute blast playing through this, to the point that I found every secret, completed every puzzle and found the alternative ending. There aren't many games that get me to do that.

If this appeals to you perhaps try;

The Talos Principle Portal 2 Quantum Conundrum

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If you’d like to support me I have a Ko-fi, the reviews will continue to be posted donation or not.

#game review #game reviews #games review #games reviews #video game #video gaming #video games #The Talos Principle 2 #CroTeam #Puzzle game #first person puzzler

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iknowthislooksbad · 1 year ago

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That's a great question! I actually don't really know? But this is my best guess, based on my (very) limited experience.

It is true that anyone from any degree education background can apply for medical school in the US. This being art or music majors, as well as biomed students (me!!). But you have to be very proficient in subjects that they care about (ex: chemistry) in order to even be considered for medical school. There is a cumulative GPA, and a cumulative science GPA (which excludes all the non-sciency classes, like English or Art) that they look at. It also probably depends on how desperate the med school is.

Even if you have, say art history, as a bachelor's degree, you still need to take some core science classes to even be considered for med school. If you don't have those classes (ex: Organic chemistry), but you have some experience to back you up, then sometimes you can take those classes while you're in med school.

And if you get As? That's perfect, good for you! That's about... probably a third of your journey. What these colleges really look at is your experience. You have to have number of clinic, volunteer, and research hours (For some, it's like 150 or 200 hours) to even be considered. So, even those who are on the pre-med route, you aren't immediately qualified either just because you have the classes. In American medical schools, they really care so much about what you do outside of class than what you do well in class. They really only care about your GPA when you get below a B (and, in my experience, below As). Then again, every school is different.

My best guess is that they want to prove that you understand the fundamentals before you even start an upper graduate degree. They want to be sure that, once you're in, you're in. You know with certainty that you want a career in the health field. This can change during your four years and this self-reflection comes best with job experience, rather than it does an educational background. Do I agree with this process completely? Not really. It makes for severely burned out pre-med students, and it especially weeds out those who are neurodivergent, suffer from chronic conditions, or are broke (me, again). It's really quite difficult to take full time classes, while researching and volunteering, as well as working to afford classes. 80-99% of all the clinic experience I have seen is unpaid, and the jobs college students can qualify for are... well, usually fast food, a very physically taxing occupation. Sometimes if you're lucky, you can get a clinical scribe job. I managed to snag a math tutor job. It just depends on where you live and the luck of the draw.

However, this is from my perspective, and I am quite certain that every case varies. I know some people who got a bachelor's degree in music that are doing quite in med school. Some schools are pickier than others.

Hope this helps!! :)))))

TL;DR: They don't really care too much about classes. They want to see experience.

i don't understand why american (and western? idk if it's the same i think it is) medical schools are set up like that. why do you need an undergraduate degree first i don't get it

we have preclerkship and clerkship phases here too but instead of having those after 4 years of undergrad you just. do them over slightly more than 4 years? what's the point ya3ni of wasting 4 years on an undergraduate degree that could be unrelated even someone explain

#on the American college system

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arminreindl · 2 years ago

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Prehistoric Planet Croc Ideas

So this was a thing I did on Twitter in anticipation of Prehistoric Planet. Obviously crocs (in this case meaning crocodylomorphs) were a pretty massive part of earth's fauna during the late Cretaceous, and seeing as the first season featured NONE I came to speculate which taxa could hypothetically make an appearance. Now part of the challenge for myself was to come up with a new, interesting contender every day in anticipation of the show's release, each based around the confirmed episides we had and restricted purely to taxa from the Campanian and Maastrichtian. While it took a lot of energy, I did manage to do so. Hell, halfway through they dropped the reveal of Simosuchus, which I had saved for later.

Obviously we didn't get much still, but I'll regardless post my list of candidates and ideas here, perhaps third time's the charme for a lot of these (tho for convenience I'm still ordering them by S2s episode titles). I'll also try to break them apart roughly by biome, starting with islands. PS: I'd love to hear which crocs people would have loved to see themselves. Any on this list or stuff I didn't even mention? Let me know I'm curious.

We got a shit ton of island crocs from the Cretaceous actually, which you can broadly divide into two categories. The crocodiles of the European archipelago as seen in the top row. Featuring the small, possibly shellfish eating Acynodon (art by Adramelech89), the incredibly widespread Allodaposuchus which did have some possibly semi-terrestrial forms (art by Alejandro Blanco, Aina and Agnès Amblás) and Aprosuchus, a tiny terrestrial critter from Hateg (art by @knuppitalism-with-ue). They already give a nice diversity between tiny durophages with blunt snouts, large, more traditional crocs and lanky land species.

The other island category concerns Madagascar, which had a lot of attention in season 2. Discounting Simosuchus, we got Araripesuchus tsangatsangana (art by Scott Hartman) and Mahajangasuchus (art by Mark Hallet). Both are really cool. The former is yet another smaller terrestrial species that may not actually be part of Araripesuchus, while the later is a massive, 4 meter relative of the famous Kaprosuchus that took to the water independently from all other crocs and has been nicknamed "Hippo croc" for its weird skull. Really I'd have loved to seen an episode entirely dedicated to this place.

Next up we had the badlands episode, which oh boy has a lot of contenders from the clade Notosuchia. Brace yourself.

Here again I could split these in two categories. The first is just general badland taxa. There's Ogresuchus for example, from Spain's Tremp Formation (art by Aina and Agnès Amblás). A relatively small sebecid found in a sauropod nesting site. And we all know what PhP does with baby sauropods. Or the long-necked Gobiosuchus (art by @yoofilos) from Mongolia, which may look like its related to the other ones in this category but actually is a far more ancient type of croc.

The far bigger group concerns South America's Notosuchians. ALL OF THESE are from the Bauru Group, with some even from the same single formation. You got Stratiotosuchus (again by Joschua Knüppe), a large terrestrial baurusuchid that filled the nische of mid sized carnivore in an environment shared by sauropods and abelisaurs. There's Pissarrachampsa (by Felipe Alves Elias), another baurusuchid I decided to feature because we have evidence of a nesting site that shows they only had few eggs. A great opportunity to show their tender side. Uberabasuchus (justin_an74), part of the bizzarly proportioned peirosaurids. Adamantinasuchus (by Deverson da Silva), a small, lanky Notosuchian and of course the heavily armored omnivore Armadillosuchus (by the ever talented Júlia d'Oliveira). Hell you could do a full episode just on the foodweb of the Bauru Group (Godoy et al. 2014).

Then there's swamps, which I'll just use to dump all the crocs that don't fit into the other categories.

As you'd expect, freshwater would be ideal for crocs with a more traditional semi-aquatic lifestyle, here represented by three forms. Jiangxisuchus (image by Li et al. 2014) is a paralligatorid, which are tiny crocodilians from the Cretaceous and Paleogene of east Asia. We honestly don't know what they are, some say alligator relatives, others say they are closer to crocs. But its small and cute. Then there's Roxochampsa (artist of the model I couldn't find), which looks suspiciously crocodilian but is actually a relative of Uberabasuchus from the badlands, hell it appeared in the same formation. Still, I reasoned that I'd throw it into this category because I already proposed so much for badlands (none of which came true but hey). And then there's Denazinosuchus (art by Andrey Atuchin). Again it looks deceptively like a modern croc, but is actually the last remnant of the goniopholids, crocodyliforms that were prominent animals in the Jurassic and early Cretaceous. It could have brought both taxonomic diversity nad highlighted croc resilience till the end.

When it came to picking out crocs for Oceans, it got tricky. Obviously season 2 tried to differentiate itself by being set more in the open ocean, not the coast, and true pelagic crocodiles weren't around by the end of the Cretaceous. So I had to settle for coastal animals. There's Sabinosuchus (Schiller II et al. 2016), a cousin to Sarcosuchus and, like Denazinosuchus, one of the last of its lineage. Also its from Mexico which is rarely talked about for its fossils. Rhabdognathus (Ghedoghedo) is a distant cousin, a slender snouted dyrosaur. Unlike pholidosaurs, dyrosaurs actually did really well after the KPG impact and spread around a lot, living way into the Eocene. And finally Chenanisuchus (art by artbyjrc), which like Rhabdognathus was found both before and after the impact that killed the dinosaurs.

And the final two I shall talk about, both of which I thought/hoped would appear in the North America episode. Again, there's certainly overlap, both would have just as much fit into swamps, while many others would have also suited North America. Regardless, here's Brachychampsa (Tom Parker) and Borealosuchus (Chris Masna), both iconic animals from the Hell Creek Formation. One closely allied with alligators and caimans, the other more basal with a head-shape more similar to todays crocodiles.

Now obviously there'd have been a lot more. Part of the challenge to myself was to try and be as diverse as possible, rather than just listing 10 different baurusuchids I went with only two, tried to include as much of the world as possible, etc.... There's also the fact that some really awesome taxa, Titanochampsa, Brachiosuchus and Eurycephalosuchus, all incredibly unique or interesting, were published too late to have been considered for the show. And now, in hinsight, we obviously know that with the exception of Simosuchus none of them made it in. Which is a shame, but maybe next time.

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dreamcatcherrs · 3 years ago

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all too well; c!technoblade x reader

!PLEASE READ!

this is an incomplete story I started on last year, and I never managed to finish it and probably won’t as I find it hard to write for techno anymore. but I figured I wouldn’t let the stuff I wrote go completely to waste, so here you go :)

+ based on taylor swift’s “all too well” ten minute ver. but techno actually has a reason to be an asshole unlike jake :)

++ if you know the song, you already know it’s gonna be an angsty and fluffy mess

stepping through the door to his cabin you let out a sigh at the feeling of the sweet warmth of his home surrounding you, quickly closing the door behind you to prevent the cold air from crawling up your neck. the cold from the snowy biome he chose to live in was no joke.

a pair of arms snaked around you from behind, cold lips placing a chaste kiss to your cheek. you giggled.

"mmm, I’m thinking rabbit stew for dinner tonight, whaddya say?" you turned around to face him, swinging your arms over his shoulders with a smile on your face.

"that sounds wonderful." your lips met his, cold and a bit chapped, but soft nonetheless, pulling away shortly after. he pressed his lips into a thin line, blood flowing to his cheeks as the voices went crazy for you in his head. luckily, for him, you couldn’t hear them, or else he’d probably die. he shedded himself from his cape, your eyes lingering on him as he did so, admiring his effortless charm, wondering how you could ever be this lucky.

once shaking yourself out of your daze you reached for the red scarf around your neck, unwrapping it and letting it hang from the railing attached to the stairs along with your thick and wooly coat that protected your body from the icy air outside.

walking into the kitchen, techno was already chopping up the potatoes, white sleeves rolled up to his elbows and hair tied into a bun. the sight alone was breathtaking to you, and he didn’t even know it. you walked over to stand by his side, grabbing the carrots on the counter to start chopping them up. techno glanced at you without moving his head so you wouldn't notice, and you didn’t.

you didn’t notice.

you grunted as you failed at your second attempt of mounting the horse, your leg just not long enough to swing over the saddle. about to try for a third time, a pair of hands landed on your waist, making you halt your movements.

“here, let me help you.” the warmth of techno’s fingers melted through the material of your clothes. you felt your blood rush to your cheeks. you uttered out a small “thanks,” letting him lift you onto the horse with little power needed from you.

you grabbed a hold of the rope attached to the horse to lead and stop him, waiting for techno to get on his horse again, watching as he does so with ease.

“alright, let’s go.”

you wanted to go for a ride together in the forest a few miles away from the snowy cabin you were held up at most of the time, for a change of scenery, or just to spend some peace and quiet time together if you will.

techno turned his head to look at you, seeing if you’d found your way around on the horse, meaning for it to just be a quick glance. but when he saw how you smiled sweetly at the horse as you ran a gentle hand over his fur, he couldnt help but to admire you. your were so… kind-natured. innocent, sweet. completely different from him, yet here you were - his. his heart tugged in his chest as the voices in his head kept repeating compliments aimed towards you.

“techno!”

with a last minute jerk to the rope, techno just about managed to miss falling down the deep ravine one block away from him. he swallowed, looking over at you again as you giggled at him. he recollected himself, moving on ahead of you casually to look calm and collected.

you reached the woods, the snowy path you’d been following slowly disappearing and being replaced by the beautiful array of colours from the autumn leaves. your eyes widened at your colourful surroundings, not having been used to this type of biome since you got into a relationship with techno and stayed with him. and as much as you loved staying with techno in the snowy biome, you still missed what you were used to.

distracted by the scenery, you didn’t notice the creeper sneaking up on you from between the trees.

but your horse did.

kicking his front legs in the air, you screeched, holding on tight to the rope as your horse started running with full speed down the path and away from the creeper. away from techno. now was the time you really wished you knew more about riding a horse. you probably should've listened more when techno helped you learn.

your hair blew back from the powerful wind, eyes squinted as you tried your best to make your horse stop, but despite your effort, nothing seemed to work.

suddenly, a hard tug to the rope you were holding, and everything stood still again, no more cold wind. techno appeared on his horse beside you, pink braid messy from the wind blowing into his face and brows furrowed. he quickly got off his horse, keeping a hold on the rope as he approached you.

“come on, boy, it’s okay. that nerd is far gone.” you laughed a little at his choice of words, noticing a little gunpowder on his hand as he reached out to you. “you okay?” his eyes drooped, a sincere look crossing his face as you placed your hand in his. warm, as always.

“yeah, I’m good. y’know, just glad I didn’t die from that,” you smiled, letting him help you down. he rolled his eyes.

“maybe you're being a bit overdramatic. I don't think you could die from that.”

your brows furrowed, arms crossed over your chest. overdramatic?

he swallowed.

“I mean, y’know, you’re the lover of the blood god, I think you're too strong for such a weak death.”

you squinted your eyes at him and shot him a small glare. he shot you a lopsided smile, letting out a breath once you turned around to get on the horse again.

victory.

he watched you struggle mounting the horse again. “d’you need help with that?”

“no!”

“ah! this is you?”

you picked up the photo from the counter, just in time before he could snatch it away from you. you quickly held it to you, sending him a mischievous smirk as you looked at it. he sighed.

it was a picture from when he was little, barely taller than wilbur who stood beside him in the photo with his arm slung over his shoulders, little tommy peeking at the camera between the two brothers. you felt a pang in your chest as your eyes softened looking at the photo. techno had his long hair in a braid, hanging from his shoulder and down his chest, tusks peeking out from under his upper lip, glaring at will as he pulled him close, a bright smile on the brunettes face. techno’s glasses were the same, but the scar that usually ran down the middle of his eye was yet to be seen.

it was… so precious.

“aww, look at you tech! even back then you hair was in a — braid…”

you turned, looking at techno with a faltering smile, watching as his cheeks and ears glowed a bright red. he itched his neck, keeping his eyes glued to the ground.

“tech? you okay?” you reached out, gentle fingers pushing a strand of hair out of his face, same hand cupping his face to make him look at you. he did, eyes gloomy and brows upturned.

“they hate me.”

your face fell, breath hitching at his words. how could he say that?

“what? honey, they don’t hate you. you’re their brother-“

“brother? what kind of a brother am I, y/n? a good one? a brother who leaves his family behind? I would understand if they aren’t very fond of me.”

your lips parted, eyes open wide as you listened intently, observing his icy orbs.

techno didn’t mean to suddenly unload his emotional baggage on you, but you seeing that photo - it reminded him of why the ones he loved were not in his life anymore, and it reminded him that you might become an addition to that list. as a man known for control and power, he has little of that in his head. he has no idea if the voices are gonna betray him again like they’d once done before and leave you, abandon you. lose you. his fears were coming out, crawling out of his mouth in no words and-

he sobbed.

head landing on your shoulder, he hunched over and clung to your body, releasing the tears he hadn’t cried for so long, years, into your shoulder. you found it hard to take in his sudden outburst, not having ever seen this side of the piglin before.

you quickly shook off your own feelings, knowing that now was a time where you had to think of him and only him. you placed your hands on the back of his head, over his hair as you held him close to you, kissing his temple. looking down at the photo still in your hand, you wondered what kind of past he must’ve had to feel this way, to feel so… alone. even when he still had so many people who loved him.

“techno.” you managed to pull him slightly away from you, teary eyes staring into yours as you wiped his tears on his cheeks away. “tell me what happened.”

he sniffed, unbuttoning the top button to his shirt for air. “which part?”

“all of it.”

they deserve nothing. they’re merely just another peasant who’s gonna end up stabbing us in the back.

techno stared at you as you slept peacefully beside him, hand still resting on his bare chest. he swallowed, eyes clouded with darkness. he squeezed them shut to get the voices to stop.

do it now. while they’re weak, disadvantaged. one stab through the neck and we’re safe, free. alone.

techno shot up from the bed, panting and clutching a hand over his heart. he groaned, wiping the sweat off of his forehead, but to no avail - his whole body was completely covered.

he hadn’t even heard you stir awake, the only thing he’d been able to hear being the voices, murderous, merciless voices roaming his mind.

“techno, what’s wrong?” you asked, but received no response other than the loud breathing he was letting out as he heaved. “hey.” you placed a hand on his shoulder, to which he immediately flinched away from your touch, as if you’d burned him with your fingertips. he stared back at you with wide eyes, backing away from you on the bed. your slight feeling of worry turned into a feeling much worse.

“get away from me,” he panted, moving further away from you once he noticed you trying to get closer.

“techno what’s wrong? talk to me, please! I’m only trying to he-“

“please just get away from me, y/n…”

you gaped at him as he stood up from the bed, claws scraping his scalp as he held his head, facing the ground. he heaved, shoulders moving up and down to his breathing as it grew louder along with the voices. he grunted, placing a hand on the wall as if he couldn’t stand up straight.

ignoring his words, you stood from the bed too, finding his health and happiness much more important than whatever reason he had for asking you to stay away from him. your heart started beating faster, anxious about him. what was happening? why was he acting like this? you’d never seen this happen to him before, and you were too desperate to know what was going on in his head to listen to his desperate words.

you grabbed his forearm, trying to get him to turn to you, but as soon as you did, the air from your lungs left your body as he pushed you harshly against the wall. a cold feeling on your neck, and without being able to move you could feel the blade pressing into your skin, a drop of warm blood running down your neck from where the blade had broken skin. you stopped breathing, looking into his eyes as tears fell from yours. he was still heaving, eyes black and hot breath fanning your face as he showed off his tusks from his open mouth.

“I said get the fuck away from me,” he growled, eyes unrecognizable as they stared into yours. you whimpered, clenching your hand around the wrist holding the blade to your neck. your nails dug into his skin, not wanting to hurt him, but fearing that not doing so would end up getting you even more hurt. though nothing felt as painful as what you were feeling right now. this man- beast, before you was not techno. it couldn’t be…

you cried out his name, closing your eyes in fear of what would happen. and then, the pressure was removed from your neck, a shaky pair of arms embracing you as the clang of the blade hitting the floor surrounded the room.

“y/n I- the voices I can’t-“

you gasped for air, pushing him off of you with all of your power and sobbing as you looked at your lover, disbelief coursing through you. your bottom lip shook as you cried, shaky hands clinging to your own body in a way to try and cope with what just happened. blood was smeared on your neck from the cut he made with the blade, his soaked eyes widening at the sight. he huffed, heart sinking to the bottom of his stomach. what had he done? the one thing he’d ever wanted to do was protect you, and now he was the one hurting you. “y/n please, I’m so sorry. something took over me I- you know that I’d never try to hurt you, right?”

he inched slightly closer to you, tears that were forming in his eyes finally falling when you backed away from him in fear. you just cried harder at his words, smearing blood on your face when you placed your hands over your eyes, sobbing into your hands. words couldn’t explain how you felt - betrayal? shock? anger? sadness? none of them felt like the right word. all you knew was that you didn’t feel good.

and neither did techno.

he backed away from you, realizing that the only way for him to make you feel at least a little bit better, safer, was if you were far away from him. far, far away.

he was out of the bedroom before you had the chance to stop him, looking up from your wet hands to see him gone along with his red cape and sword. wide-eyed, you looked around the room, contemplating wether you should go after him or not. the man you loved, your soulmate. the man who just attacked you.

techno left hooveprints in the snow as he ran, away away away. as far as his legs would let him. he didn’t know what his mind could do now without his control. he didn’t know if he was capable of keeping you safe from himself. all he knew was that he could never hurt you again. not like this.

he reached the woods, huffing out a breath as he stopped by a tree to catch his breath. the need for oxygen in his lungs blocked out the sound of loud gallops coming his way.

you spotted his blood red cape, royal colour standing out from the dull trees. “come on, Carl. we’ve gotta get him,” you mumbled to yourself and the horse you were sat on, speeding up as you entered the forest. “tech!”

turning around with wide eyes, techno’s heart sped up as he saw you there, getting off the horse with ease. he took a step back. “y/n, please, I don’t wanna hurt you again,” he pleaded, holding his hand out to prevent you from coming closer to him.

you signed sadly, heart glowing with love so powerful that you swear he could see it through your skin. unfortunately, he couldn’t. so you needed to tell him, or else you were scared you’d never see him again.

“honey, please. let’s talk about this,” you stepped closer to him, attempting to get close to him without scaring him off. he didn’t step back this time. instead, he faced the ground, ears downturned in shame. he watched a tear fall from his eye and melt into the snow below him. “I know you’d never try to hurt me, tech.”

your hand was on his cold cheek now, lifting his head up to look at you. he did, tearful and pouty. it almost made you cry. you know he didn’t mean to hurt you, you could see it. but that just left you confused with what had happened. and something told you he was just as confused.

“please,” you begged, running your fingers through his hair. “I love you.” techno closed his eyes shut at your words, giving into your touch as he melted in your arms, crying softly into your shoulder. you let your tears fall silently as well, watching as the sun started rising in the horizon as you stood embracing your broken lover in the middle of the snowy woods.

he hadn’t answered you back then. he wished he’d been different.

your eyes lit up in excitement as you spotted a green and red figure from the window despite the blaring sun shining onto the snow, blinding you. you bursted out of the door, running towards the two men wearing barely any clothes. but you didn’t care. because he was back. techno was back, after a whole month since that night.

you threw your arms around him, crashing into his body. his usual warmth surrounded you. oh, how you’d missed that warmth. you shut your eyes, trying your hardest not to cry as the piglin embraced you back, bearing the same expression on his face as you did.

phil continued walking to the cabin, muttering a small “hey y/n” and then leaving you to it.

“you’re back earlier than expected,” you said, running a finger over his spine as you took him in.

“yeah… puffy said it seemed like I was getting better faster than we’d thought. so she sent me back,” he explained, monotone yet heart pounding incredibly hard for you.

you pulled away from him, cupping his face to get a look at him. he looked… calm. better. sending him to puffy’s therapy must’ve done something by the looks of it. but of course you couldn’t know since you hadn’t talked about it yet. but all you could think of right now was how much you’d missed him.

you placed your lips on his, kissing him gently to get used to his lips again. you’d missed his kisses, his presence, him him him. he kissed back, pulling your chest against his as he soothed his thumb over your chin. he tilted his head for a deeper angle, letting his tongue run across your bottom lip. you let him in, electricity shooting through your body, leaving you with a fuzzy feeling.

he pulled away and wrapped his red cape around you, resting his chin on your head. “I missed you so much, kid.”

and the words he spoke were true. he’d missed you so much that when he left you it felt like his lungs would collapse and his blood would run dry and like his whole body was shutting down. he loved you more than he’d ever thought he’d be capable of loving anyone or anything. like you were the sole purpose of his life, the end goal. you were everything to him.

and yet he had this feeling that he shouldn’t be with you. that he should stay far away from you, like you weren’t meant to be. it was draining and it was there with him whenever he thought of you or was in your presence - this breathtaking and anxious feeling ripping the love right out of his heart.

he squeezed you to him, kissing the top of your head. you smiled into his cape. “I missed you too. so much.”

#technoblade x reader #mcyt x reader #dream smp x reader #technoblade fanfic #c!technoblade x reader #c!technoblade #technoblade fluff #technoblade angst #technoblade imagine #dream smp imagine #dream smp fluff #dream smp technoblade #dream smp angst #dream smp fanfic #mcyt fanfic #mcyt fluff #mcyt angst #mcyt imagine

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mysticmjolnir · 3 years ago

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Tag Game to Better Know You

Send this to people you’d like to know better!

Tagged by @tennessoui, i am kissing you on the forehead not with tongue maybe with a little tongue

What book are you currently reading? Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. It's about how utopian projects pushed top-down by states never go well, because the kind of knowledge states seek to codify tends to ignore a whole bunch of other, very important but less 'valuable' (usually in terms of direct taxation) factors.

I've been reading it real slow bc it's like, dense and stuff and also i've been real sick recently, but it's really interesting. My favourite part is an example used early on; scientific forestry. So forests are like, old and organic and messy and full of stuff that isn't easy to use timber. Which, if you're looking at a forest and thinking 'how much timber can I get out of this forest on a regular basis', is kind of a nightmare. In the latter 1700s some german dude decided to try clearing areas and planting the same tree over and over in neat rows, making sure the area was clear of brush and general forest detritus.

The first crop, about 80 years on, was great! Lots of good quality timber, easy to harvest. The second crop was awful and the third was worse and so on and so on. Because this scientific forestry didn't consider any other factors but commercial exploitation of the forest. Not the nutrients in the soil, not the biodiversity of the biome, both of which were to blame for everything after the first bunch of trees growing poorly, but every other way that people rely on or interact with forests; religion, culture, food foraging, hunting, sneaking off to fuck, grazing for animals, goddamn medicines! Not to mention, y'know, all the ways that a forest exists and thrives sans any human interaction at all.

This is just a really bare example of what this book talks about - most of the projects it discusses are not about just imposing systems onto the landscape but onto people, who must interact with said systems or sometimes fight back against them. And not all state interference is bad or done for purely explotative reasons. But it usually goes badly because the people designing and implementing the systems don't know or care to know about how local systems already function - it just doesn't seem relevant to them and their big ideas. Also, obviously, there's a lot of colonialism here too, colonial administrators trying to align opressed indigenous populations into something 'manageable' and most importantly, taxable.

Like, in 1849, the Spanish going through the regions of the Philippines and assigning Hispanic surnames literally in alphabetical order, then enforcing those names by forbidding all officials from accepting any documentation that didn't use the (randomly assigned) Hispanic surnames. It didn't work 100% of course, these kind of insane, nightmarish projects never do, but it worked somewhat. There was a lot of forcing people to take surnames for the sake of being easier to track/tax. for instance people immigrating to the USA through Ellis Island

In a sweet little twist, at least one of these kinds of forests, from the late 1600s, so, before they had the bright idea to eliminate diversity from the trees they were planting, is a place of well loved and outstanding beauty, and also still harvested for timber on a 200 year cycle; The Forest of Tronçais. It was planted to provide wood for the ships of the French navy, but then they didn't need it so much. It got cut down a lot over the 1700s and 1800s for charcoal and stuff, but now it's, according to (a source in french on) wikipedia 'deemed by many as the most beautiful oakwood in Europe'. So that's nice.

tl:dr I am reading an interesting book on how states fuck up people and also trees.

What’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? I have not been to see a film in a cinema this year.

What do you usually wear? rn pyjamas, but usually i wear what i like to call hedgewitch chic

How tall are you? 5'3''. i don't want to talk about it

What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? Capricorn. Sometimes my birthday is Martin Luther King day

Do you go by your name or a nickname? I have a really cool name (if we're friends i will tell you it) and I try to go by my shortened name informally and my full name professionally.

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? when i was a child i wanted to be a classicist. i am not a classicist.

Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one? That one tumblr post: "not in a relationship, not aromantic, but a secret third thing. unwanted ;) " <-- kit put this i'm stealing it

What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at? i'm good at telling people to be kind to themselves. i am bad at remembering to wear a coat when i go outside

Dogs or cats? cats

If you draw/write or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/line/etc from something you created this year? i have written fic this year, which i have not done for some years. i like almost all of my writing. i tried to find a quote but idk, when i went to look at my writing i liked it less.

What’s something you would like to create content for? i want to write an alex rider fic but the fates are against me in nearly every way despite my very funny idea that makes me chuckle to myself every time i think about it

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? star wars? i'm currently obsessed with certain bits of star wars very much.

What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? uh. i did not enjoy the sandman as much as i hoped to. i can expand at length on this subject to anyone who is interested.

What’s a hidden talent of yours? cat wrangling

Are you religious? nuh

What’s something you wish to have at this moment? a hug

deep breath i can do this i can tag people @dreaminghour @raeality @anakincito

#tag games

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debaroohoo · 3 years ago

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One thing I don’t miss about gaming in the older generations is no auto saving, not being able to save whenever you feel like it, and the possibility of save points and checkpoints being a decent chunk of time before whatever point it was that you died. Getting through a difficult section that took multiple attempts only to die shortly after then respawning to right before that section sucked! It stressed me out! I’m pretty sure I can blame a few gray hairs on it!

Time loop games have that same vibe for me. Dying is part of the gameplay and sometimes has to happen to progress, but it’s like I’ve got a weird primal instinct that’s constantly on alert and goes into overdrive whenever I’m in a difficult fight. I know that I get a little better after each attempt, or maybe I’ll get lucky with the gear drops on the next run, but it just feels wrong.

I’ve been playing Returnal for the last few days and after a few hours of playing my body is wired. It’s meant to be challenging so there are no easier difficulty settings to try out if you can’t quite cut it. But!! My third attempt went great!! I made it to the boss of biome 1 and beat it on the first try. The PlayStation trophy stats say about 58% of players that started the game didn’t make it that far, so I feel pretty dang proud of myself.

Unfortunately, biome 2 kicked my ass a few sections in and it took multiple attempts to make it to the boss. I got halfway through the third stage before kicking the bucket and waking back up at the crash site was kinda demoralizing? I was not looking forward to fighting my way through all that again. When I got to the base of the mountain in biome 2 and there was a teleport back to the peak I almost cheered in relief.

The main reason I tried out Returnal is, no joke, the fact that the protagonist is a middle aged woman. I’m uh…not that far out from that age range (depending on how you define it) so it’s very refreshing! The challenging difficulty was definitely a turn off - and might still be, who knows if I’ll end up beating it - but there’s enough anti-frustration features to keep me from throwing in the towel just yet. If I had to fight all the bosses again in every run like in Hades, I think I would’ve immediately uninstalled if I couldn’t bypass Phrike lol.

Since I kinda suck, I have no idea when I’ll finally manage to finish, if ever, so I looked up the playtime estimates. I am…very skeptical.

How are people beating the main story in 20 hours??? And that’s an average, so some people are doing it in less than that??? What sorcery is this??? I’m not sure how long I’ve been playing, but it’s gotta be just under 10 hours and I’ve only seen 2 of 6 biomes. What the hell.

Anyway, I think I’ve finally calmed down after my last play session so it’s bedtime!

#The Forgotten City didn’t stress me out but at least that one didn’t have a lot of fighting #text post #video games #Returnal

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votederpycausemufins · 4 years ago

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I said I had another chapter ready. so It's time to post that.

tagging @helleborusangel because they like my writing and @hermitcraftheadcanons since they and their community made the au.

now... with that out of the way, let's recap evo... wait shoot i mean hermitcraft.

“Pixlriffs! Turn on the tv!” Came a voice that followed a door being slammed open.

Pixlriffs turned around in confusion to see Zloy having barged in, panting with his goggles askew. “Zloy? What’s going on?”

“Just turn on the recap channel! Hurry!”

Even more confused, Pixl slowly turned to his tv and turned it on, switching to the channel that showed their recap show. “I thought you didn’t like watching our own shows. It’s not even a regular recap, it’s just going to be a clip show from the livestream. Why are you so-” But he cut himself off. Showing on screen was a countdown to the season eight day one recap. “What? But it hasn’t started. We haven’t recorded anything.”

“I know! I was with a friend and they turned it on and said they didn’t think it had started yet. When I saw the countdown, I ran all the way over here.”

“Do you think they just had a scheduling mistake? We might need to call the broadcasters and have them fix things up.” Pixl suggested, and Zloy shrugged.

“Let’s just make sure that’s the case and see which episode they’re actually showing. For all we know they mixed things up and this is just the season seven, day one.”

“I hope that’s the case.”

The two recapers watched the timer go down. Elsewhere, people were also turned into the episode. Some were pleasantly surprised by the supposed new episode. Others were confused thinking the schedule was wrong. Those who knew the hermits were confused, not having heard the new season was starting yet.

Then finally, the timer reached zero, and a familiar jingle started. And then a voice that was definitely not Pixlriffs spoke the phrase “This week, on Hermitcraft.”

“Wait, what am I doing in the nether? I just joined the world.”

Zloy and Pixl looked at each other at something they had never heard Keralis say. This was a new episode, but one they hadn’t made.

“A new adventure starts in season eight, new places and mobs to explore and see. And also Grumbot and Jrumbot are Hermits now. Welcome to the Hermitcraft recap! The show where no one is where they should be. My name is Toon Noah.”

“I’m Mysterious Goofball, and our writer is Pin Valentine. Today, we’re looking at everyone’s first day on the new season of Hermitcraft.”

The first person, Noah, spoke up again. “In this season, the hermits managed to update all the way to the second half of the caves and cliffs update even though that isn’t possible.” He explained what was going on in this season. “Everyone is scattered across the map and even in other dimensions. Monsters are tough, regen is off, and using chat is out of the question, so surviving is going to be tough.”

“At the very least, they can still respawn, so certain people have chances to escape. Escape what that is? Well, let’s look at what the Hermits have been up to.” Goofball said, sounding so nonchalant about what they were about to talk about.

“Starting with Xisuma, who’s started out in the deep dark. The admin’s helmet has been disabled other than necessary functions. His visor also gives him a little bit of light, so he’s not completely blind. Plus the fact that sculks are bioluminescent. But the warden is too, which has been able to find him a number of times.”

“Also in the caves in Jevin,-” Goofball spoke up again. “-who’s found himself in some lush caves. He’s got glowberries for light and food and the axolotls are pretty friendly. Plus, with enough searching, he was able to find a bit of wood for simple tools.”

“Speaking of wood. Some of the hermits have found themselves in the jungle.” Noah quickly commented before some audio from one of the hermits played along with its clip.

“Helloooo? Anyone around? Impulse? Tango? Hey is that Grian? Nope, just a parrot. Ugh, and here I am without any seeds.”

Goofball spoke up again when the audio finished. “Both Zedaph and Tango are in the same jungle, but the size of the biome as well as the amount of foliage means they haven’t found each other yet. Tango at the very least has started mining, and Zedaph managed to find a jungle temple and has already started on using the redstone from there for a melon farm.”

“How do you even make a farm out of that?”

“It’s Zedaph, what do you expect?”

“Well, as for the last of team ZIT, Impulse had found himself in the middle of a sea temple.” Noah spoke, as the video showed Impulse dealing with being underwater in such a place. “Between drowning and guardians, he hasn’t gotten that far away from his spawn.”

“In other aquatic news-” Goofball said, another clip from the hermits playing.

“If I never see coral again, it’ll be too- wait, is that False? False!”

“-Stress and False are also nearby to each other, both spawning in coral reefs. False was the first to escape, needing to just swim out of her spawn.”

“On the other hand, Stress was completely encased in coral and had to slowly chip herself out of the colorful prison. But by the evening, Stress was able to get to the surface and join False and an island, chopping down trees. They even started a wheat farm. But here’s hoping they don’t have to deal with drowned.”

“While she isn’t a drowned,” Goofball continued from Noah’s comment. “Zombie Cleo started out in a village. Normally, that would be pretty good, but being a zombie…”

“Leave me alone! I’m not going ta kill any villagers! I’m a zombie but I’m not that kind of zombie!”

“She’s been having an issue with the resident iron golem. With a bit of luck, she managed to hole herself up in a house which the golem isn’t going to destroy, but the villagers aren’t the happiest about it.”

Then Noah took over speaking. “From villagers to illagers, Mumbo Jumbo found himself alone in a woodland mansion, making himself the furthest hermit in the overworld.”

“Come on. Almost. Almost!” The video showed Mumbo running before he was killed by a vindicator. “Oh come on!”

After that, Noah continued. “He’s tried and failed many times to try and get out of the mansion, but eventually just started breaking the walls for tools.”

“The illagers aren’t really happy about it, but not like he’ll be going far, so I don’t think he’ll easily lose those tools.”

“Well at least he’s got supplies.” The video transitioned to a mountain top with three figures standing at the peak. “Grian, as well as new hermits Grum and Jrum are currently stuck on the top of a mountain, surrounded by powder snow. It’s pretty lucky that the three of them stuck together.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” Goofball spoke up, sounding a bit frustrated or annoyed. “While Grian tried to fly down for supplies to little success, other than fall damage, he hasn’t managed to die, using some sort of magic.”

“But it looks like the fall damage came in handy for Doc, who’s further down the mountain. He’s having a bit of trouble surrounded by goats, plenty of them being the screaming variety.”

Goofball spoke again, no longer sounding as annoyed. “Yeah, but while hanging out with them, he heard a different kind of scream and did something pretty smart.”

“Wait, what was- is someone close by? It sounded like someone just- wait! The death messages!” He pulled out his communicator and read the messages. “Grian died to fall damage! Grian’s up there!”

“I guess he is the scientist of the group.” Noah spoke, the grin he had on his face audible in his voice. “It makes sense he would be the one to figure things out. But even then, he still can’t easily get down the mountain himself with all the goats messing him up. My guess is he’s really regretting being the goat father last season.”

“Doc isn’t the only one getting familiar with the new wildlife though. Hypno has found himself in a large flower forest that has plenty of mooblooms. He hasn’t been able to kill any of them yet, and there’s only flowers and no grass for him to get seeds from, so while the place seems like it should be easy to survive in, it’s really the opposite.”

“The best idea he’s had so far is following some bees to find their nest and hopefully a tree attached to it. If only he knew he was actually really close to spawn, being the closest to it.”

Goofball took control of the conversation again “Well, that’s not entirely true as three hermits managed to appear at spawn, those three being Joe Hills, VintageBeef, and Etho.” And the three hermits were shown in what looked much more normal than everything else that had been shown so far. “The three of them pretty quickly figured out something was wrong and started to make spawn a safe place, also gathering supplies so they can eventually find the other hermits.”

“Except Etho got a bit ahead of himself.” Noah cut in. “He had a bad run in with some mobs and ended up dying, finding out his respawn is a bit different than others. But at the very least, he managed to find Ren.”

“Ren spawned on a cliff of a ravine. There’s no water at the bottom, and all the blocks in reach are stone, so it’s not the easiest to escape from. Still, with little else to do, Ren started slowly chipping away at the stone to escape the ravine, only to fall when Etho surprised him by suddenly respawning there.”

“Okay, I got through two more pieces of stone. At this rate, I can probably get to dirt before the sun is setting so- Etho- ooooooh!”

“At the very least Ren is respawning just fine,” Noah explained “So the two of them were able to help Ren escape the ravine, so he’s the third person to escape his spawn area.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true.” Goofball started to correct. “Before Etho helped Ren and even before Stress escaped her coral prison, Cub actually escaped the mesa mineshaft he spawned in. It was a little tricky with the cave spiders spawning, but he lucked out with the loot of a chest and was able to get a crafting table and pickaxe out of it.” Cub had found some iron, torches, a few seeds, some bread, and then used the wood of the mineshaft to get him on his feet in terms of survival. “With a few respawns, he took out the spiders and their spawner. He’s able to move around freely, but not wanting to respawn again, his hearts are a bit low, so he’s staying near the mineshaft for shelter.”

“Then, sort of nearby the mesa of course, is the desert, where the last two overworld hermits are.” Noah said, and there was the slightest ruffle of papers, like he was checking a script. “Both XB and Iskall are stuck in the same large desert, trying to find some source of food, water and wood. So far, the best they’ve found are the sticks from dead bushes. Out of the two, XB is doing a bit better since he’s found a cave for some sort of shelter, but Iskall’s much worse off,the sand messing with his one eye.”

“Between the heat, the sand, and my eye, I can’t even tell what’s real anymore. That cactus could be a tree or a town or- nope! It’s actually a creeper!”

And then Noah continued with a transition. “Getting even hotter now, let’s look at the nether. There’s only two hermits there right now, with different struggles to deal with.”

“Keralis is the first and lucked out a bit, landing himself in a warped forest right near a basalt delta, meaning he’s got up to stone tools. Plus, since nether gold ore can be mined with wood tools or better, he’s also got some gold boots to help with any piglins.”

“On the other hand, Welsknight is in a much worse situation. He spawned in a crimson forest and is having plenty of trouble with the hoglins.” And that was emphasized by a clip of Wels being killed by one of the mobs. “He hasn’t gotten too much wood before dying, but at the very least, he secured his spawn just enough he has some room to breathe. And hey, if he makes it out of there, he’s got a fortress nearby. But now to end this off, let’s head to the end.”

“TinfoilChef, or TFC is on the main end island, spawning on an obsidian platform just a few blocks from the edge of the island.” Goofball spoke. “It’s close enough for him to jump, but he still takes fall damage and has to deal with the ender dragon after that.”

“Not to mention the endermen too, which Scar is also having trouble with. He’s stuck on a smallish end island out in the further reaches of the end. There’s an end city nearby, but he doesn’t really have the means to get there. At the very least he’s got food from the chorus plants, but that won’t help too terribly much.”

“And lastly, there’s BdoubleO, who we’ve- who’s been lucky to not die so far being in a special situation.” Though they hadn’t been saying much, both Pixlriffs and Zloy noticed the slight slip up Goofball gave. “He’s currently looping in the end void, teleporting up to the top when he finally gets too low. There’s nothing in sight for him to know that though, so he thinks he’s just falling deeper and deeper. But hopefully he’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Well, that’s everyone, so that pretty much does it for this episode of Ev- Hermitcraft Recap. I was Toon Noah-”

“And I was Mysterious Goofball and our writer was Pin Valentine. If you’d like to see original content made by us, you can find us if you already know where to look.”

“Don’t forget to give this show a good rating and tune in next week for the next episode of Hermitcraft Recap. Thank you all so much for watching and good-Bye~!”

Finally, the screen turned black, signalling the end of the episode. The whole time, Pixl and Zloy had just sat there in shock, watching the episode and not saying anything. The thought of their show being taken over by some new people was scary enough, but the situations the Hermits were now in was so much worse.

Zloy was the first to move, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He had felt it going off during the episode, but had been too stunned to do anything. Apparently, he had missed multiple calls and texts about what had happened with the episode, who had been put in charge, what was with the hermits, and more related to the whole situation.

“We need to see someone about this.” Pixlriffs said, in a similar situation with looking at his phone. “Make sure people know we have no connection to this and hopefully also see if the studio knows who recorded this. I would also like to say that this is all fake, but…”

“Yeah, that footage looked way too real. I think the Hermits are actually in a lot of trouble right now.”

“Then let’s do something about it.”

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playernumberv · 4 years ago

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Returnal may be the best game I’ll probably end up leaving unfinished

But wait, I hear my imaginary audience ask - if a game is that good, how and why would I possibly leave it unfinished? And indeed, when I leave a game unfinished, it’s usually because I don’t have much good to say about it, and no longer deem it worthy of my time. I left Assassin’s Creed Valhalla unfinished after 30 hours in it, for example, because it just kept dragging on and on and on and I just got incredibly bored. That’s not the case with Returnal at all.

In what has been for me a relatively lull year in games (with nothing having reached my personal standard for being a GOTY contender yet), Returnal has been the most compelling and fascinating title I’ve played. It is just utterly stellar. I love how intriguing the sci-fi psychological horror/thriller setting is, and while sparse, the little narrative there is compels me to want to find out more about Atropos and Selene. The third-person shooter combat is visceral and fluid, and is a mad rush of pure adrenaline and exhilaration that is complemented by an overwhelming smorgasbord of eye-melting visual effects. Audio design can only be described as majestic, with thunderous combat soundtracks that catalyze the already sky-high intensity of the game’s combat, and the deafening roar of enemy cries truly tear right into you, making you feel as if you were truly confronted by terrifying alien monstrosities. Level design and art design are similarly masterful, creating an alien world that genuinely feels alive and horrifying. And have I mentioned how indescribably good the dualsense implementation is? You can feel the pitter-patter of raindrops; you can feel the kinetic rush of dashing; you can feel the recoil of gunfire. If Astro’s Playroom was a technical demonstration of what the dualsense could be capable of, Returnal is an applied demonstration of how the dualsense can truly elevate gaming experiences. Every aspect of this game comes together and just oozes an unprecedented level of quality in the level of immersion it achieves - it bombards you with near-endless bursts of visual, auditory, as well as sensory feedback, and in so doing creates a truly next-gen gaming experience that feels extremely immersive. Short of VR experiences, I daresay no other game has ever come close to such an immaculate level of immersion, so much so that can say unironically that the game actually makes me feel like I’m stranded on an alien world.

Again I hear my imaginary audience ask - this makes no damn sense, if Returnal is as magnificent as I claim it to be, why would I leave it unfinished?

And to that, my answer is this: Returnal is simply far too punishing and inaccessible. For a working adult who—I’m ashamed to say, despite my immense love of games—isn’t especially skilled at gaming and who has relatively limited time and energy for gaming, Returnal simply demands far too much. It’s utterly soul-crushing. To begin with, I am not a fan of the repetitiveness of roguelikes, and even a roguelike as polished and well-designed as Hades did not especially impress me, as I mentioned in my earlier review of it. Yet Hades’ roguelike is, ironically enough, heavenly compared to the genuine hellishness of Returnal’s roguelike, where permanent upgrades are extremely scarce to the point of being nearly non-existent. Virtually everything resets with each death. Your weapons: gone, reduced to ashes. Your suit upgrades, health upgrades, all gone. And that may have been fine were the game itself not nail-bitingly hard—it’s not uncommon at all to have to spend an hour or even more on preparation, only for one small mistake to be severely punished before you even manage to reach the boss, and to have to restart from zero all over again. Furthermore, as is standard of the roguelike genre, there is a fair bit of randomness—and so how successful each run is may in part be determined by whether you luck out on obtaining the desired suit upgrades or your desired weapon. This randomness further compounds the amount of time that needs to be spent on preparing, failing, being unlucky, and trying all over again. That may have been fine once in a while, but repeat this cycle enough times, and Returnal becomes a miserable punishment. It’s utterly soul-crushing to have to waste hours on preparation, only to fail and have all the preparation completely reduced to nothing. And this isn’t even accounting for how gruellingly tough the boss fights can be. Returnal makes you squander hours upon hours—it severely punishes failure, to the point where its rewards, majestic though they are, become overshadowed by its punishment.

Yes, yes, I can already hear a portion of my imaginary audience chanting. ‘GIT GUD’, they say, and I don’t deny at all that I am not good at Returnal. But I am certain that there are other gamers, who like me, do not play games to be punished, challenged, and pushed to our limits—we play games for entertainment, for relaxation, and for escapism from the stresses and difficulties of the real world, something that may be especially important in the broken, pandemic-stricken world we live in currently. Returnal is the utter opposite of relaxation, and if a (mostly) healthy, able-bodied person like me finds it inaccessible, I imagine it to be even more so for a huge proportion of others out there. To be fair, I hesitate to call any of this a ‘flaw’ on the part of Returnal, and I do understand the sentiments of the ‘git gud’ crowd—there’s a strong charm to Returnal’s unflinching adherence to its vision, and its insistence on having an identity of relentlessness and challenge is in its own way very respectable and charismatic. I also do understand the immense elation and satisfaction of surmounting a seemingly-impossible challenge—beating the bosses of the first and second biomes of Returnal filled me with a raw euphoria no game has given me in ages. In part, having no recourse towards an easier way out is part of this charm. Knowing that one cannot simply choose an easier option, for there is none, truly does magnify the immense satisfaction of conquering a challenge.

With all that being said, I cannot help but think that sacrificing a small part of that charisma and charm in the noble pursuit of accessibility is a worthy cost. This need not even involve sacrificing the roguelike genre in favour of a more generic third-person action-adventure style of gameplay—although admittedly, given my general disdain for roguelikes, this would probably have been a better fit for me. I do have to say that the roguelike genre is perfect for Returnal. Its central narrative theme of being stranded on an alien planet where the main character returns by death—wait, wrong series—provides perfect ludonarrative harmony when melded with the roguelike genre, and this harmonious complementation between game-play and narrative is truly brilliant. Even maintaining its roguelike genre, I sincerely believe that Returnal could have been made to be substantially more accessible and less punishing, and to shift the mechanics away from randomness and towards granting more player control. Having difficulty options provide a convenient way to accomplish this, but I do believe the roguelike itself could also learn a number of lessons from Hades. For example, even maintaining its present difficulty levels, a larger number of permanent upgrades would go an incredibly long way in making Returnal’s roguelike far more meaningful and palatable. More forms of permanent suit or health upgrades, as well as more permanent weapons—being stuck with only a pistol at the start of every run is extremely unwelcome—would be immensely appreciable as well. Implementing these changes would indeed compromise some of Returnal’s unflinching and unrelenting vision. But would it not be a worthy trade-off if a greater number of people can experience the utter majesty of what Housemarque has accomplished here in terms of audio design, game design, art design, and narrative?

I truly am impressed by Returnal, and when awards season comes by at the end of the year, I think it unquestionably deserves every accolade it will almost surely obtain, be it in audio, narrative, or gameplay. It is the best game I’ve played this entire year so far, and even as I type this, I feel a rush of sheer awe at just how unbelievably excellent Returnal is. Unfortunately, my affections for Returnal feel unrequited. My circumstances and my relative incompetence as a gamer make it near-impossible for me to ever experience in full all that Returnal has to offer, despite my great desire to be able to. So, it seems, despite my deep affections for Returnal, I may never finish it, and I will think back to this years later with deep regret, wishing that I were in more suitable circumstances, wishing that I were a better gamer, and wishing that Returnal could have been more accessible. Alas, these wishes were not to be.

#returnal #housemarque #playstation #playstation 5 #ps5 #sony #gaming #games #accessibility #roguelike #roguelite

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theecryptiid · 3 years ago

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this week on [untitled]! cass releases a wither into the end....twice

no i’m not kidding.

It’s been a fruitful week for me on the server, which included working on a raid farm for selling totems at my shop, and the extremely daunting wither skull farm. Raid farms are pretty simple to build, especially with a pillager outpost very near to my base, so I finished that in a couple of hours.

[ID: An image of a Minecraft inventory below, and a Minecraft Shulker Box inventory above. The shulker box inventory is completely filled with totems of undying. End ID]

as you can see....it’s been extremely productive.

the wither skull farm on the other hand. not as easy. I went into it thinking, “yep! this will probably take me about seven hours based on the tutorial i watched!”

i was gravely, gravely wrong. the total build took about 30 hours to complete over the course of almost a week, which is mainly for spawnproofing, FUCK spawnproofing all my homies HATE spawnproofing. for those of you who have never built a farm like this, it requires a 128 radius spawn proof...which is a lot of ground to cover. I was lucky to get a spawn primarily over a lava lake that was also in a soul sand valley, but it took soooooo many slabs. like an IDIOT I decided to use deepslate, rather than the much more easily farmed stone.

[ID: The first image is of a nether fortress in a soul sand biome. It depicts extensive amounts of deepslate slabs being used to cover the surface of the fortress.

The second image is overlooking an ocean of lava, where a part of a soul sand valley has been completely covered in tall pillars of lava, obscuring the ground below. Below the viewer is a fortress that has been covered in deepslate slabs.

The third image looks towards the nether fortress from a nether island that has been covered in deepslate slabs. The fortress has been also covered in deepslate slabs, and at the base of it, a wall of lava spills over the edge into the lake below.

The third image depicts a nether fortress in a soul sand valley. The top of the fortress has been covered in slabs, and below it is a large lava lake. End ID]

I ran the farm for about a half hour today and it’s producing well! hopefully the server puts the beacons it’ll make to good use.

so cass, you might be asking, what about the thing you mentioned at the top of the post? ah yes, the two withers I nearly lost to the end. I had already killed the wither legitimately, and now just wanted to use it to farm wither roses, which I needed for the wither skull build, so I decided to use the trick where you stick the wither underneath the bedrock portal in the end and at first the wither successfully spawned and killed the chickens I wanted to be turned into wither roses....but then the wither came loose.

after almost loosing the wither to the void, and dying like four or five times, i got some help from my amazing servermate jocoserious, and we managed to take down the wither with relative ease!

at this point I thought that the reason the wither escaped was because I had hit it with my sword while it was in its first stage, knocking it loose, but when I went to summon a second, I was not very surprised when it came loose again without me doing anything. I was more prepared this time, and managed to take it down by myself....only dying three times.

i’ve now fixed the problem (the obsidian outline was placed one block back on accident), and spent about ten minutes murdering wither successful to stock the ENDGAME EMPORIUM with lots of beacons.

#untitled smp #the wizard

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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NOTE: This is the third film released theatrically during the COVID-19 pandemic that I am reviewing – I saw Raya and the Last Dragon at the Regency Theatres Directors Cut Cinema’s drive-in operation in Laguna Niguel, California. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

As Raya and the Last Dragon, directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada and written by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, made its theatrical and streaming bow, the United States was grappling with a wave of highly-publicized hate incidents towards Asian-Americans in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This spike in racially-motivated verbal abuse, assaults, and homicides began with the pandemic and, frustratingly, had only been receiving national attention in these last few weeks. Despite the nation’s racist origins entwined with chattel slavery of black people and its continued unequal treatment of minorities including Asian-Americans, I am not qualified to say if the U.S. is “more” or “less racist” than other countries. But I can hardly think of any other people that interrogate racial inequality and oppression as much (and as publicly) as Americans – an undeniable strength. There was no way Raya and the Last Dragon’s cast and crew could have anticipated the film’s fraught timing, but the film provides a much-needed, positive, and heavily flawed, action-adventure romp drawn from Southeast Asian cultures.

The very notion that Walt Disney Animation Studios was attempting to craft a film using an amalgam of Southeast Asian cultures stoked my excitement and dread. Southeast Asian cultures – including, but not limited to, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam – are often lumped into those of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan), which dominate Asian-American depictions or Asian-influenced media in the United States. What gave me pause is that Disney’s track record in films featuring non-European-inspired characters and places inspired by non-European cultures is mixed. Aladdin (1992) and Pocahontas (1995) are aggregations of (and indulge in stereotypes towards) Arabs and indigenous Americans alike, especially in their presentations of “savagery” (Pocahontas in particular is guilty of false equivalences).

Cultural aggregations in fictional settings are not insensitive, per se. Yet, Disney’s stated intentions on this film are undermined by a voice cast ensemble almost entirely composed of actors of Chinese and Korean descent – you can bring up Adele Lim’s response to the voice casting controversy all you want, but her response contradicts the film’s promotion. Amid its gorgeous production and character design, Raya manages to avoid the worst mistakes of its Disney Renaissance predecessors. But its hero’s journey is too cluttered and too littered with the anachronistic and metatextual jokes plaguing the last decade’s Disney animated features.

Five centuries before the events of Raya and the Last Dragon, the land of Kumandra saw its people live in harmony with dragons. That relationship, however, would be devastated by the appearance of the Druun – a swirling, purple vortex that turns living beings into stone. In the conflict against the Druun, the last dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina), makes a fateful sacrifice to save Kumandra by concentrating the dragons’ collective power into a magical orb. Soon after, Kumandra’s five tribes – Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail, and Talon (named after parts of a dragon) – fight amongst each other for control of the orb (Heart eventually gains possession of it), effectively partitioning the land. In the present day, the Heart tribe’s Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) proposes and hosts a feast-summit to discuss and heal Kumandra’s divisions. Benja has taught his daughter, Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), the ways of a warrior and the necessity for Kumandra’s tribes to realize their oneness. At the feast-summit, Raya befriends Namaari (Gemma Chan; Jona Xiao as young Namaari), the daughter of Fang Chief Virana (Sandra Oh). Predictably, Namaari betrays her new friend in an orchestrated ploy to pilfer the dragons’ orb for Fang. Just as the Druun make a surprise invasion of Heart, the botched heist sees the orb break into five, and each of the tribes makes off with part of the orb. It will be up to Raya to recover the other four pieces of the orb, lest Kumandra succumb to the Druun.

The film’s screenplay is, charitably, a mess. Though Qui Nguyen (primarily a playwright) and Adele Lim (2018’s Crazy Rich Asians) are the credited screenwriters, Raya’s phalanx of story credits (mostly full-time, white employees at the Disney studios) suggest studio interference. Raya seems as if it is trying to cleanly differentiate certain tribes as based on a certain Southeast Asian nation. Instead, it comes off as a brew of mish-mashed parts (this problem extends to the otherwise stunning animation). With the exception of those from the militant Fang, the bit characters from the various tribes do not behave any differently from the members of other tribes. The partition of Kumandra, five hundred years before the events of Raya, feels like as if it had never existed for lengthy stretches in this film.

After Kelly Marie Tran, as Raya, narrates the mythology and history of Kumandra in the opening minutes, the film’s structure tethers itself predictably to the monomyth. The fracturing of the dragon’s orb into five parts sends Raya onto a tedious adventure: the physical travel to a new part of Kumandra, introduction of a sidekick (all of them are comic reliefs), an action setpiece involving a necessary assist from new sidekick, and the integration of that sidekick into Raya’s ever-growing party. Lather, rinse, repeat. To squeeze the four other tribes into the film’s 107-minute runtime and set up a climax and resolving actions results in a frantically-paced movie. Almost all of the film’s dialogue is subservient to its structure, the hero’s journey. This disallows the viewer to learn more about our lead and her fellow adventurers. In arguably the most important example in how the dedication to story structure undermines the characters, take Raya’s repeated mentions to her newfound confidants that she has difficulty trusting others. Six years have passed since the day of Namaari’s betrayal and Raya’s discovery of Sisu. How has Raya’s sense of distrust evolved over time, and how does it manifest towards those of other tribes? Does it appear in moments without consequence to her quest, in gusts of casual cruelty? In terms of characterization, Raya is showing too little and telling just the basics – a dynamic that also applies to the film’s most important supporting characters.

Ever since Tangled (2010), the films of the Disney animated canon have increased their use of metatextual and anachronistic humor (e.g. Kristoff’s comment about Anna’s engagement to a person she just met in 2013’s Frozen and Maui’s Twitter joke in 2016’s Moana that still makes me gnash my teeth when I think about it). Invariably, the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has seen its brand of pathos-destroying humor bleed into the Disney animated canon and Star Wars. Like so many films in the Disney animated canon, Raya takes place in a fantastical location in a never-time far removed from the present. From the moment Raya meets Sisu, the circa-2020s humor is ceaseless. For Disney animated movies set in fantastical worlds, this sort of humor suits films that are principally comedies, such as The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) – a work that owes more to Looney Tunes than anything Disney has created. Instead, Raya’s comedy will suit viewers who frequent certain corners of the Internet, “for the memes.” Do Disney’s animation filmmakers believe the adults and children viewing their films so impatient and unintelligent about human emotions? That they will not accept a scene that deals honestly with betrayal, disappointment, heartbreak, or loss unless there is a snide remark or visual gag inserted within said scene or shortly afterward?

Raya seems like a film set to portray its scenarios with the gravity they require. But overusing Awkwafina’s Awkwafina-esque jokes and a DreamWorks- or Illumination Entertainment-inspired infant causing meaningless havoc will subvert whatever emotions Nguyen and Lim are attempting to evoke. These statements are not arguing that Raya and Disney’s animated films should be humorless, that Disney should stop casting an Awkwafina or an Eddie Murphy as comic relief. Instead, Raya is another case study in how Disney’s brand of ultramodern humor is overtaking their films’ integral dramatics. Raya is noisy, clamorous – no different than anything Disney has released in the last decade, save Winnie the Pooh (2011).

Production designers Helen Mingjue Chen, Paul A. Felix, and Cory Loftis have worked on films like Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), or Zootopia (2016). Each of these films feature glamorous, near-future metropolises or sleek digital worlds. Where the tribespeople of Kumandra might not be behaviorally-differentiated, the color coding, lighting, and biomes of each of the five lands comprising Kumandra ably distinguishes Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail, and Talon from each other. As if taking cues from the production designs of Big Hero 6’s San Fransokyo and, to some extent, The King and I (1956), it is difficult to pin down specific influences on the clashing architectural styles within the lands, in addition to the unusually empty and cavernous palaces and temples and varying costumes. As picturesque as some of these lands are, the art direction does not help to empower the characteristic of the tribes and their native lands. Nor does James Newton Howard’s thickly-synthesized grind of an action score, which prefers to accompany the film’s excellent combat scenes rather than stake a clearer thematic identity for its own. Howard uses East and Southeast Asian instrumentations and influences in his music, but, disappointingly, they are heavily processed through synthetic elements and are played underneath the film’s sound mix.

Character art directors Shiyoon Kim (Tangled, 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Ami Thompson (2017’s MFKZ, 2018’s Ralph Breaks the Internet) embrace the (generally) darker and varying skin complexions of Southeast Asian peoples. The skin textures are among the best ever produced in a Disney CGI-animated feature, and the variety of face shapes – although still paling in comparison to the best hand-drawn features – is a pleasure to witness.

The number of films starring actors/voice actors of Asian descent (all-Asian or majority-Asian), animated or otherwise, and released by a major Hollywood studio makes for a brief list. Raya and the Last Dragon joins an exclusive club that includes the likes of The Dragon Painter (1919), Go for Broke! (1951), Flower Drum Song (1961), The Joy Luck Club (1993), and Crazy Rich Asians (2018). Among those movies, Raya is the only entry specifically influenced by Southeast Asian cultures. Its cast may be headlined by Kelly Marie Tran (whose skill as a voice actor is one of the film’s most pleasant surprises), but most of the roles went to those of Chinese or Korean descent. No disrespect intended towards Gemma Chan, Sandra Oh, or veteran actress Lucille Soong, but the majority East Asian cast only serves to further monolithize Asians – as the amalgamated story, plot details, and production design have already done. I will not second-guess any fellow person of Southeast Asian descent if they feel “seen” through Raya. What a compliment that would be for this film. How empowering for that person. But the life experiences of those of East Asian and Southeast Asian descent are markedly different. Disney’s casting decisions in Raya – all in the wake of the disastrous Western and Eastern reception of the live-action Mulan (2020) – have revealed a fundamental lack of effort or understanding about the possibilities of a sincere attempt at representation.

To this classic film buff, the discourse surrounding Raya strikes historical chords. When Flower Drum Song was released to theaters, the film was labeled by the American mainstream as the definitive Asian-American movie. Opening during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement, the film (and the musical it adapts) looked like nothing released by Hollywood (and on Broadway) at that time. In that midcentury era of rising racial consciousness and the lack of opportunities for Asian-Americans in Hollywood, the marking of Flower Drum Song as the absolute pan-Asian celebration was bound to happen – however unfair the distinction. Even though Rodgers and Hammerstein (two white Jewish men who made well-meaning, problematic attempts to craft musicals decrying racial prejudice and social injustices) composed the musical and zero Asian people worked behind the camera, those labels remained. With some differences in who wrote the source material, The Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians have followed Flower Drum Song’s fate in their categorizations. Will Raya? Time will be the judge, the only judge.

Before time passes judgment, we have some present-day hints. Though not released by major studios, the quick succession of The Farewell (2019) and Minari (2020) point to an experiential specificity that Raya attempts, but never comes close to achieving. Whether through aggregation or specificity, Hollywood benefits from the perspectives of underrepresented groups. Widespread claims that Raya too closely copies Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008) reflect that dearth of East Asian and Southeast Asian representation in American media. For too many, ATLA is the Asian fantasy. These simplistic observations and bad-faith criticisms (one could rebuke Disney’s vaguely-European princess films on the same principles, but I find this as lazy as the bad-faith ATLA criticisms) also suggest a lack of understanding that Asian-inspired stories are drawing from similar tropes codified by Asian folklore and narratives centuries old. If one reads through this reviewer’s write-ups, you will find an abiding faith in the major Hollywood studios – past, present, and future – to be artistically daring and to genuinely represent long-excluded persons. Many might see this faith as misplaced. But even in the major studios’ flawed attempts to depict underrepresented groups, like Raya, they concoct astonishing sights and form moving links to the cinematic past.

Assuming you have not skipped to this paragraph, the write-up that you have read may seem scathing to your eyes. Raya is no Disney classic – there has not been one for some time. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my first viewing of Raya. After a few weeks’ worth of keeping my agony private over the recent uproar over attacks on persons of Asian descent in America, it was a surreal experience to see even an amalgamated celebration of Southeast Asian culture. Over this last year, we have lost people and things that emboldened us and ennobled us. In this season of unbelonging and otherizing feelings for Asians in America, Raya’s timing is fortuitous. It is emboldening and ennobling.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#Raya and the Last Dragon #Don Hall #Carlos López Estrada #Kelly Marie Tran #Awkwafina #Izaac Wang #Gemma Chan #Daniel Dae Kim #Benedict Wong #Sandra Oh #Thalia Tran #Lucille Soong #Alan Tudyk #Qui Nguyen #Adele Lim #James Newton Howard #Disney #My Movie Odyssey

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