#disk one nuke

[yellowocaballero]

Any thoughts on ace Vash? I know it's not a popular headcanon, but ever since that scene of him just faking falling asleep to get out of anything more with those ladies it's been on my mind.

SUPER interesting note about that scene: in the 98 anime, he says "could I be regretting it just a little?". In the manga, this is the scene:

It's very interestingly ambiguous, but the manga scene implies it's more typical Vash self-hatred! Regardless, the utter unfuckability of Vash remains.

I sincerely cannot imagine Vash being sexually interested in humans, and probably romantically too. There's that scene of him escaping sex, every time he flirts with women it's a complete bit, and the thing with Meryl always felt really one sided. Beyond that, we see utterly nothing from him indicating any interest in women or men.

I think Vash is an alien space hydrangea, of a species that's either extradimensional/inorganic/????, and it frankly makes no sense for him to be sexually attracted to people. I don't really even HC him as ace/aro, because that's an orientation and Vash is botany.

Unfortunately we've also seen Knives naked, so we canonically know that they are Ken dolls down there. There's no genitalia. There's no reason for him to be attracted to people or have an innate sense of human gender.

Hey, how the fuck did Rem even know they were boys? They were Ken dolls! She really did just spin a fucking wheel on that one! Even as children they were super androgynous! Literally assigned male by your Mom!!! Randomly!!! FWIW, headcanon: I think Knives doesn't have a human gender and Vash uses he/him pronouns like he wears his red coat: it's always with him and it's integral to his appearance, because somebody he loved gave it to him :). I think to Vash 'boy' isn't something he is, it's how he presents.

This is sticking to the text and completely ignoring the subtext and narrative stuff happening for Vash and Knives with sexuality and gender in Stampede. Cause. Hahahahahaha.

TL;DR: Vash is a space hydrangea and Rem threw darts at a dartboard why is anybody giving him and Knives a sexuality and gender at all.

[badolmen]

“I’m scared to pirate stuff - ” do it scared!*

*with Firefox and Adblock and a VPN and -

If you want a nonspecific, nonexhaustive “where do I even start” guide…

Sail the cyber seas at your own risk!

Streaming - “I want to watch xyz”

This is normally what most people want when they talk about pirating.

Use Firefox with uBlock Origin and additional privacy add-ons such as PrivacyBadger, TrackMeNot, etc.

Free VPNs are out there. Get one - but vet it’s efficacy. My go-tos are Proton VPN, or Windscribe if you plan to do a bit of torrenting.

What is torrenting? How does it work? Here’s a guide!

Back to streaming -

Make sure that a) you’ve got your Mozilla browser with all its adblocking private glory, and b) you’ve got a VPN turned on to hide what you’re doing in that browser from your ISP (internet service provider).

Now you need to actually find a site to stream from. This is the tricky part, because openly sharing these sites will get them taken down if they’re talked about widely enough. (Remember how tiktok idiots got zlibrary taken down?)

You’re going to have to talk to people on forums. You’re going to have to experiment with sites you find yourself. Search for ‘x online free’ and look at the links that come up - is the preview text mangled or clickbaitey? Are there Reddit threads about that website confirming or denying its content? A good rule of thumb is to ignore the top result or two - copycats of good streaming sites will often buy out the top result spot. Eventually, you’ll develop a good gut feeling and understanding of what a good site ‘looks like’ from the results page alone.

However, there are some places that compile good sites that haven’t been nuked by lawyers (yet) - check out r/FMHY! The masterposts are actively curated and updated when a site goes down or is found to have malicious downloads.

Remember - loose lips sink ships. No tweeting (xeeting?) or Facebook statuses about your new favorite piracy website and where you found it. Even posting to tumblr (kind of like this…) isn’t a great idea if you want those websites to stay under the radar and stay accessible. Nobody talks, everybody walks (away with their share of pirate booty)

If you aren’t downloading media, pick pretty much any site and watch away! Adblock and Firefox will keep away pop-ups and other annoying ads, and your VPN means your ISP can’t tell that you’re visiting an unofficial streaming service.

Note: In my experience, I’ve never heard of visiting a site and watching stuff on it infecting or otherwise compromising your computer. That tends to come from misclicks on invisible or overwhelming pop-up ads that redirect you to an automatic download or similarly malicious bullshit. If you’re using Firefox and uBlock, you shouldn’t be in any danger of an accidental redirect.

Downloads - “I want to keep xyz”

This is the realm of pirate archiving - you’re keeping files physically on your hard drive, an external hard drive, or burning a disk.

Adblock + Firefox browser? Check. VPN on? Check.

Go to your streaming site of choice - most if not all have download options. You can download those files or, manually, right click and save the video file from the webpage as an mp4. I honestly don’t know if there’s a difference in quality or more danger in clicking the download buttons, but regardless -

Run that puppy through VirusTotal.com! It’s a reliable browser based virus checker - if the file is too large, use a local virus checking program (your native Windows Defender on Windows computers or, I prefer, Malwarebytes)

Generally mp4 and mp3 files are clean - choose where to save them for the long term, and bam! Free forever media.

Optionally, I also upload mp4 files to a named Google document - this way I can easily share them or make them findable through a ‘xyz Google doc’ search for others :]

Torrents - “I want to keep and share xyz”

I’m not going to go into this subject in depth because, honestly, it’s not something I do regularly.

See the previously linked Torrenting guide for information on how the process works, and check out r/FMHY for recommendations and warnings about different torrenting clients (I’ve personally only used qBittorrent - I’ve heard to stay away from the Pirate Bay and Bittorrent.)

As with streaming, turn on that VPN baby! You��re going to need one that supports peer-to-peer (p2p) connections, so Proton’s free version is a no-go. Windscribe is what I’ve used for torrenting (and it’s a good free VPN on its own - I’m just partial to Proton). You get 10GB every month on Windscribe’s free version, which is more than enough for a few movies/a season or two of your favorite show.

(Bigger torrents like video games are easily 30+ GB, so be prepared to either pay for a no-limit premium account or spend a few months downloading your files in chunks.)

VPN on? Double check.

Boot up your torrenting client - I use a slightly out of date version of qBittorent, but there are other options. The Reddit thread and previously linked torrenting guide have a few dos and donts of selecting a client, so be thorough before you download your client of choice.

This is getting into the logistics of torrenting a bit, so forgive me if this is vague or incorrect, but now you need a torrent seed. These will be .tor files found through pirating websites or archives - these are rarely malicious, but it’s good to run any piracy related download through something like VirusTotal.com or scan it with a local program like Malwarebytes.

You open your seed file in your client and wait. A ‘healthy’ seed tends to have lots of seeders and few leeches, but sometimes you’re stuck with an obscure seed you just have to wait for.

Your torrented files have fully downloaded! Now what? a) keep your client open and seed those files for others as long as you want to - sharing is caring! and b) run those files through a security program like Malwarebytes (not sponsored it’s just the only program I’m familiar with).

Be wary of what gets flagged - sometimes the files seem important, but are just trojans, and likewise sometimes they seem malicious, but are just cracked software getting flagged by your system. It’s good to check and see if others have had a problem with this particular torrent before - Reddit threads from 2008 are your long dead friends.

And that’s about it. Feel free to correct me if anything I’ve recommended is malicious or outright wrong. I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t had an active problem to my knowledge, so if there is something fishy with how I do things, I am a statistical outlier and should not be counted.

I wish you smooth sailing and strong winds in your ventures me hearties!

Obligatory ‘don’t pirate small author’s or artist’s works what the fuck dude’ statement.

[dreamsclock]

prompt: no nuke au discduo arguing over whether c!Dream abandoning his plans is feasible ^^

could not resist writing this hoooooly shit. cdiskduo AND no nuke finale AND an apple prompt. my three fav things rolled into one. this isn't EXACTLY what you asked for but it was still fun to write !!!!!!!!!

warnings: suicidal ideation, suicidal tendencies, mentions of the prison and exile arcs, trauma, trauma responses, general dark themes

The story goes like this: one man prepares for self-destruction, and another man watches. He thinks he's heard this story before.

Dream's movements are steady, controlled. He doesn't make a single uncalculated step, and Tommy, watching, is struck with the sudden thought that maybe Dream knows how much of a ticking time-bomb he is; maybe Dream knows, and that's why every little movement and gesture and word and thought is restrained, cautious.

"Scouting tonight," Dream calls over his shoulder, "should be back before sunrise. If I'm not, don't message. You know what to do."

His voice has never quite recovered from prison. It's still that weird unfamiliar way from Tommy's last visit: hollow, hoarse. Almost unrecognizable, if not for the lilt that Tommy just knows from years of knowing Dream. From watching manhunts, from playing in MCC, from fighting against him, from-

Well. He checks that last thought before it has time to finish. Not from winning. Or losing. Because Dream has never been as obsessed with him as he'd assumed. He's not sure he's ever been the main focus of Dream's plans.

...Working with Dream now, he's beginning to realize that he doesn't know him as much as he'd assumed before.

The Nuke - or lack of it - has changed everything. Everything except the prickly sting in Tommy's voice when he replies, "This is fucking stupid, man."

Favoring his left leg, Dream turns. Observes him. There's a tilt to his head that is almost long-suffering in a way that makes Tommy defensive. "Look," he says, voice reasoning, "the more we know about the Egg, the better. It means we can construct a plan that actually works instead of running about making no progress whatsoever. If we- It doesn't matter. I'm going out."

"Your plans don't even work, Dream," Tommy tells him, an edge to his words that he doesn't quite recognize, "when's the last time anything you've planned has actually paid off?"

To his left, Dream goes very, very still. From behind his mask, even his breath pauses.

Tommy pushes forward restlessly, getting to his feet as he does. There's a horrible energy in the room, and it's worming into his bones - Dream's sudden stillness doesn't help.

"You always- You make these big complicated fucking plans, man, acting like- like you're ten steps ahead of everyone else. With prisons and fucking- the disks, when you found them through your freaky hearing, and- books and traitors and TNT." He swallows, thickly. "None of them ever fucking work. But you just make bigger and bigger plans. You take more risks. When's the last time anything you planned actually paid off?"

Dream is quiet, unresponsive. And then he clears his throat, lifts one hand, very self-consciously, to fiddle with his mask. "This isn't about scouting, then."

The very idea makes Tommy want to laugh. He does. It feels nasty, angry. "Scouting and fucking everything else. You never tell anyone about your plans. You have these big ideas, complicated and stupid and dangerous plans, like exile. Like Manberg, with Schlatt. Like the fucking prison you wanted to keep me in. Your plan before, Dream? Was fucking awful. What was the next step? Why don't you ever just- fucking- speak to people on your side, actually let us help? Instead you're just shutting me out, making tiny plans that we know about, just to hide this big fucking plan that-"

It's Dream's turn to laugh. Tommy trails off when he does, and resists the urge to shrink back, exile-like, when the other man approaches him. It's been a while since he's felt fear while facing Dream: bone-deep exhaustion and stubborn resolve has kept them going for months now, but it's not enough here. Dream approaches him, and Tommy flinches. When he does, Dream stops. They're the same height now, Tommy notices, distractedly, though Dream's posture is tense, like every bone in his body throbs with pain.

"The prison," Dream tells him, very slowly, very deliberately, "was never about you."

Silence deafens him, blinds him. Tommy stares at Dream, struck with the sudden image of another man in a long brown coat and a cigarette hanging between his teeth, the smell of gunpowder and sacrifice hanging like a knife between them. He's older now, and Wilbur has been long gone for almost a year, but in that instance he's transported back to banishment and Pogtopia and the choking smoke of his older brother's suicide.

For a long moment, the fear Tommy feels is not for himself anymore, but for Dream.

"Dream," he finds his voice, and it doesn't even sound like himself any more, "Dream. This plan is gonna kill you, isn't it?"

The man does not answer. Tommy knows the silence is answer enough. Instead, he turns, sharply, on his heel, and plucks a stack of golden apples from a battered chest at the door. The enormity of his admission is written into his smiling mask when he spares a glance back.

"If I'm not back before sunrise," Dream says, quiet, soft, "you know what to do."

Tommy's nails bite into the soft skin of his palm. He knows what to do.

Dream leaves.

He doesn't return at sunrise the next morning. Or that night. Or the morning after that.

Tommy is a lot of things. He has never been a follower. He's never been good at obeying instructions, either. But he and Dream have something in common despite everything: a love for the server.

On the third morning, he knows what he has to do.

Clutching Dream's spare cloak in his arms, Tommy sets out for the Syndicate.

(He passes the prison on the way there. Fear fills him as usual at the sight of it, standing as a testament to suffering and self destruction.)

(For the first time, the fear he feels isn't for himself.)

SEND ME MORE C!DISKDUO / NO NUKE PROMPTS OR ASKS!!

[melon-colli]

Yapping about Inscryption

Just 'finished' (that's in quotes cause I'm not convinced that the games not DONE done) Inscryption and overall I really enjoyed it! I stopped live blogging after a certain point so heres a post to get those out.

!Spoilers for the whole game under the cut!

>I wasn't too sure about the art style change in Act 2 at first, and the fact that I was dog water at the new card mechanics didn't help, but it really grew on me and so did the new gameplay!

>The other scrybes were really interesting, there wasn't a single one I found boring. If I had to rank them I'd go Leshy<Grimora/P03<Magnificus. Grim and P03 only occupy the same space because I love them both equally.

LUKE CARDER INTERLUDE

>He's so quirky! Love him! Seriously though he was an endearing main character, truly creepypasta protag material. Seeing him get shot in the end really caught me off guard, and honestly shook me a little. Idk but why I didn't expect him to die, especially like that. Expected like a computer monster birthed from the old disk to get him, not for the GameFuna rep to cap him in the face. Had my chest tight for a second. Anyways rip bro, raising my mantis god to the sky.

>As for Act 3, I liked it! P03 is such a delightful dickhead, who I just know would be so annoying about Pokemon natures. Botopia was less immersive than Leshy's campaign, and I like what that says about P03's character, who cares way more about gameplay. This chapter's talking cards have my heart. Lonely Wizard specifically, but Angler was nice for the 5 minutes I knew him. (I traded him for another card specifically because he said 'choose me'. Sorry man I thought you had a plan)

>Obligatory Goobert Mention. Great guy, glad his pain was lessened by the tubes. Idk why you still want to go back to Magnificus, but I wont tell you what to do.

>The Uber bot bosses were still pretty interesting for a bot who supposedly doesn't care much abt crafting characters. I made my own special hell for the Make-your-own boss. Where for every dead card, another is drawn. P03 tried to stop me multiple times, but I was determined. For phase two I just chose leap bots for every dead card. Silly boss. Golly was also a sweetheart, loved the mole. As for the scribe Uberbot, the file deletion threat didn't get me nearly as bad since I came off of Kinitopet and knew the game couldn't actually do something like that and be on steam, but it still had me a little nervous lol (cause like what if it did?).

I got weirdly giddy at the prospect of finding the pelt man again. Idk why because I despised him in Act 1, Got a few pelts but never actually found him. Got scammed at the mart cause I thought buying the pelt would make him show up lol.

>Falling into the factory and seeing the 3 scribes just standing there scared me a little, thought they were gonna jump me.

>After that part, going back to P03 knowing what's going to happen, I felt a bit bad. At first. Sure P03's a smug jerk, but it just wanted to be free right? The walk back when it's reminiscing about the game amped this feeling up, but I love that the game yanked the rug from under me and went 'yeah no this puter just sucks' once it starts gloating. Lol. lmao. Also I didn't expect Leshy to just rip its head off wtf bro.

>Saying goodbye to everyone at the end was sad. Having one last game with the Scrybes was so bittersweet. Grimora's game was interesting, and its a crime we didn't have time for a boss battle. Leshy. Leshy I love you so much. I like that Magnificus wasn't going gentle into that good night at first, but his insistence to keep going lost him the chance to shake our hand. I was never super into his play style, but his game was really cool looking, even if im not super into that stuff. (I know the arm thing had something to do with Yugi-oh but I know nothing abt it sorry).

>The lead up to unzipping the Old Code was done so well. Grimora may have nuked the game to get rid of it, but Luke's curiosity still doomed him in the end. The totem lady's last words before we found it were quite unsettling. I don't know what was on that zip, but whatever it was clearly messed Luke up.

>I loved the ending of the game. Already talked about it in the Luke section, but it was so abrupt and final. Idk what I expected but I knew it was over when Luke opened the door for the Funa rep. Rip.

Overall, 10/10 game. There's still something called Kaycees mod for me to do, but all in all I really enjoyed it!

[less-dev]

[Technical] Chunk saving is done!!

ALT TEXT: 3 display windows are open. The first is the game window, which includes many randomly colored tiles in sphere-like groups. These are all the same kind of tile, each with unique NBT data to give them a random colour. The second window is a text file, containing unusual characters, this is because it contains some highly compressed data in the form of binary. The third window is also a text file and includes various human-readable text and numbers that are neatly formatted, notably a tag "SpecCol" and a random value is included. This is that aforementioned 'Unique NBT data' and it is difficult to compress, which is why it is written in plain text instead of binary.

Wooh!!! Holyyy shit!

Once again nothing flashy here, so feel free to skip this one... This is mostly me tooting my own horn and getting excited about how well this turned out haha

So apparently compressing and saving world data is a lot easier than expected, and decently optimized. I even tested including what is basically "NBT data" in quite a few chunks, and they saved correctly as well.

I think the system could use a few tweaks, but after that I have so much faith in it I doubt we'll be changing it ever again.

Saving is so efficient in fact that world changes can almost immediately be written to disk as soon as they are made, without stutters. In short, that means losing progress to a crash is almost impossible.

Well... Not quite... I imagine if you used an unreasonably large nuke or something the game would take slightly longer to save those changes. But is the player really going to have that power?

Granted, we don't load this data yet, nor do chunks actually unload when they've saved yet. But those problems are so small in comparison that I'm not worried. Optimizing an entire planet's worth of content when not in use has been such a daunting task, and it's finally done...

For additional context, A chunk averages about 300 bytes. Though this can be significantly smaller and occasionally larger, depending on it's complexitu. A Megabyte (MB) is 1,048,576 byes. That's 3000+ chunks PER Megabyte.

Chunks are 16x16 tiles and can have 3 layers. The test above assumes they have tiles on all 3 layers with slightly unfavorable complexity.

Feeling good lol

[pennycat83]

I'm sorry I absolutely fucked him up in the lab guys

I just really wanna talk about my take on Bob2.0 'cause I wove him too much.

(This only makes sense in my series canon sadly so TLDR: cartoon characters can die in various ways and go to a purgatory but sometimes other forms of media sneak in unknowingly)

Since the third book ended with him floating off into space this is a variant in which he, somehow, died. He can't remember how and he's far away from both HEAVEN-1 and all the other Bobs. The only ones he can interact with are the ones that have canonically died and the first generation (who also can't remember how they died), all of which are hard wired to his IBM 5150 computer monitor he's stuck in.

They can be sent out into space by hijacking other spaceships but it's too risky to do (he's fully skint too).

🪐✨꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦🪐✨

Additional Notes and headcannons

⚙️ He's quite bitter he lost Charlie since he's now shorter than before (mainly 'cause the android model he stole was prebuilt and he doesn't know how to readjust it). He also has to recharge as well and can't do much either (he can access the IBM computer system his head belongs to but then he just turns into a regular ass computer, it does let him adjust his system which he does every night with the ROAMERS controlling stuff outside).

⚙️Since most of the other Bobs are still in slight control of his system he tends to flip between personalities and even memories (rarely shows up but sometimes he casually drops stuff that never happened to him).

⚙️ The other Bobs can intervene if they're put in the IBM system (some are more hardwired in than others but some can be transferred to floppy disks, much like Bob-1 they all lost their ships except for Milo).

⚙️LOOK ME IN THE EYE AND TELL ME THIS MAN DOESN'T HAVE AUTISM! Gestures with his hands when he talks, prefers solitude and can do it for long periods of time, hyperfixates on random subjects and sci-fi, struggles with interacting with others outside of his small group of friends and family, an inability to comfort others. I can SMELL it on him man!

⚙️ This man has a roadtrip soundtrack, no one can change it and anyone who does gets put in the ship storage hull (it's mostly a mix-trail of 80's/90's stuff, ELO, Thomas Dolby and Talking Heads).

⚙️ He's essentially completely denounced any type of romance between him since he's too out there for most others (flirting has been observed to cause him to do a mental tailspin).

⚙️ Feral as fuck. Not only does he forget he's still human to a degree at times but he tends to go into weird manic over analysis moments (also tends to devolve into a mad scientist without realising).

⚙️ Suffers with slight touch starveness due to him being unable to properly touch anyone intimately for a long time* (this is most evident with casual touch so it's unsure if he could handle anything further).

⚙️ Is "slightly" hyperfixated with both Spore and 90's alien stuff (I'm going HARD on my headcannoning here. I'm not against him being a classic sci fi nerd but I like the idea he's more into a specific sub genre rather than just being a generic nerd**).

⚙️ Adding a bit more to it I also like to think he's into the LEGO Space sets as well. Alongside Guardians of the Galaxy (man probably had enough time to binge it).

⚙️Most of his other attributes and habits from before still stand. He still likes to talk shit about religion and often gets a bit arrogant when talking about his old job and achievements. I did nuke a bit of his overt geniuses from the book since I (for some reason) think he gets slight moments where he messes up hard by over assuming stuff.

⚙️Every single Bob treats Homer like the lil brother once they found out he's still kicking. The second he comes in at a bad time the others just try 'n shoo him out so he won't see anything too graphic.

⚙️ I'll probably go into this a more later but he has like the weirdestly wholesome dynamic with P.C, like they're just two mad scientist weirdos talking about random stuff and being feral.

*I know this one sounds dumb but like... I don't think he ever tried hitting on any Deltans at any point for obvious reasons, and his only friend was Archimedes. So obviously the man's gotta be a bit on the touch starved side.

**yes I know he's fan girly over Von Neumann Probes I mean like media, he's only really into conventional sci fi stuff so I like to think his other ones are more tied to space in different ways.

[rosebarry16]

"Aftermath"

This is a sequal for this page click "this page" to get to it easily

TW : mention of abuse, gore

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

"Tell me, what's your connection with perseus?" Hudson asked me with more like disappointment look on his face as he was close to me excepting a response from me, I gazed at the floor and stayed silent so I won't get harmed if I answered, the lady who was behind seems to notice i'm too scared to answer so she had to bring herself to me to avoid hudson getting closer and creep me out

"Don't hesitate if you're worried for us to hit you we won't infact we have to know what perseus is up to"

"I worked with perseus since 77' well I was forced to join the soviet just to stay alive, the kidnapped me because they knew I have a connection to a person in the CIA"

"Who's the person?" After this sentence came up I dared myself not to say anything about it, I didn't want people to know I'm married to him but It's necessary.

"Adler..."

"Wait what?" the woman is open to doubt that this fact is true, infact Hudson stares at adler like he's the one who set me up on all of this.

"Where did you two meet? How do you have a connection?"

"It's classified"

"You better talk"

"Stop she refused to talk"

"Russ you stay out of this"

"Saira, you better talk or this is not going well"

"FINE! I'm his fucking wife you happy now??" My tone got aggressive and wanted to shout but I had to get a grip for myself to not do anything related. I could say much more but I get very pissed on how Hudson has gotten this kind of his character.i don't remember him being this hostile, russell came forward to me in additional of placing his arm resting around my neck and smoking his cigarette

"Tell us more, maybe you have something might help us or improve evident"

"He would always tells us about the nukes all over Europe but after some disappeared I began to receive their roles which he is not being easy. All i know is that he used to be aggressive and whine all the time to me so i don't have any info and if you do ask me where is he then none of us know where he goes"

"So, you don't have enough info on him even if you're working with him?"

"No it's not that easy. This is all I have I promise" her and adler seems to accept my answer but hudson didn't so he just left the room like he wasted his time on me, i glanced down feeling like I failed on giving them what they need. At the end of the day I can't help them

"I tried to avoid it but I can't"

"We'll if you don't have information that is concerned evidence then that's fine" she understanded me more and accepted it all which is good, I settled down on the chair and my plams ended up on my face feeling off track. She said she'll left was alone and left the room that mean it's only the two of us

"I'm sorry..."

"It's okay, that's all you got hun"

"I couldn't really ignore the offer, I can't risk my life and leave you all alone" I couldn't let my tears escape I just couldn't cry, he grabbed me for a hug and didn't bothered to embrace back. I let go, all that left is us staring into each other's eyes until his words escaped from his lips

"What's up with your eye?"

"It's just a little accident, nothing serious"

"You don't have to hide it from me"

"Yeah..while I was in a conversation with perseus.."

<Flashback>

"Are you getting any sign?"

"No, I barley got anything related for them to come and get the evidence they need"

"Ah" all he said as he's watching me messing around the CIA's system to get on what are they going to do next as a sign, nothing really was interesting to collect.

"What about adler? He must be up to something"

"Not even him, I'm trying everything to get information but nothing is available"

"Saira I might have a feeling"

"What?"

"That you are hidding something from me"

"Oh no Iam not doing something like that"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, of course"

"Mmm" I got back on looking at the screen again until he threw a floppy disk infront of me and standed still, I picked up the disk and tried to read what's on it but it didn't really have something written on it.

"What is this?"

"Load the disk and see it yourself" his Russian accent sounded so greedy I couldn't help but to Load it, as the computer was reading it i waited till the screen showed a map of the lubeyanka building and the mission is assigned for adler, I deleted the screen so they can take the names but too late since perseus copied the info, I felt his hard grip on my hair forcing me to get up.

"So you tried to delete it just to let that street dog take it"

"P-please let go!"

"This isn't how we do it" Perseus then threw me on the ground then placed his foot on top of my stomach, I hissed in pain and grabbed his leg to get it off but he was strong

"Let go of me you fucking prick!" He didn't respond instead he picked me up, threw me on the wall and pulled his gun out then I felt the deep pain started to infect me

"AH FUCK!" I yelled and I began groaning when he held my neck tight .

"Listen to me, I might be missing something but I'll never be fooled on that day you go there and stop that piece of shit. Other then that I'm Erasing the names, do you understand me??"

"Y-yes" I responded in a low voice as he let go of me, my knees met the ground as I'm covering my bloody eye

"I'll show you" I thought to myself.

<end of flashback>

"And this is how my eye is fucked up"

"That asshole" Adler swapped his thumb on my cheek, I placed my hand on his including letting my eyes close to feel his soft hand on my skin.

"Sit down, let me cover it for you" he told me and did what he told me to do, 2 minutes passes he was done covering my eye. I smile weakly

"Thanks sweetheart"

"Anytime let me talk to Hudson and see if he gets to accept the answer if he doesn't then that's too goddamn bad he has to"

"Good luck with that" he nodded and left the room but the woman came back

"I hope your doing well there"

"Iam good I suppose"

"I didn't mean to scare more but is it true about the fact your his wife?"

"Oh yeah, I wanted to keep it a secret but hudson forced me"

"He's like that, nobody really has his trust then mason and woods"

"That's weird he trusts me"

"Not anymore since you retired 4 years ago"

"Makes sense..whats your name?"

"Park, Helen park"

"Pleasure to meet you park"

"Same goes to you saira, if you need me I'm outside or you can go out and see the other crew"

"I will, and thanks for the offer"

This was a rough one..

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Hii,

Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed it! Tell me what you think and if you don't want to then that's fine no pressure!!

♡

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for being mad at a kid and letting my anger control me?

(Canon character, my own take on their lore.)

I guess i should explain some stuff. My friend managed to get me into this world, which was much different from my previous worlds. We all had 3 lives, everyone in the world did. When we first came to the world, there was a nation with some of my friends. I joined after a war where some guy betrayed the nation and another guy lost his disc's. I still don't see the importance in those disks, but they ruined my life.

Now, I joined and Immediately joined my friends T(minor, male) and Theseus (fake name, 17ish, M) and we were a trio. at least I thought we were.

During the elections for the nation, I supported my friend Theseus and W (male, adult). They were exiled for the first time, and i was...busy with other things. I came back to a war, my friends who all left me for another nation fighting my other friend. I sided with my friends. Surely theseus hadn't betrayed me on purpose...surely they just forgot to tell me about their new nation, right? Well my friend, W, killed me during the fight, claiming he'd gone mad. I brushed this off as an accident, even though I did lose a life.

Now, my friend theseus ended up exiled after something went wrong. I visited him, but he destroyed the floor beneath me, causing me too lose everything, and my second life to lava.

I lost my third life later to unrelated stuff, but I knew I would be permanently dead if I didn't do shit. So I crawled out of hell, coming back with a body that was bad and wrong. All I could feel was rage, and when I stopped feeling rage I felt like I was dying and it was fucking shit.

I focused all my rage on theseus, who had constantly hurt me and T. yet T remained loyal to theseus, and would always choose theseus over me. I hid my anger, but it boiled inside me. But then things changed.

I made a new friend, N (F, adult) and she agreed with me. No one agrees with me. She was such a wonderful friend and she actually listened to me. Me and N teamed up, secretly trying to harm theseus.

Now here is where I may be a dickhead, actually trying to hurt the child, as everyone called him, instead of just being angry, but I couldn't control it.

It was like my body controlled me and I didn't control it, but even so, I don't regret launching the nuke at the little dickhead. He deserved it. He took away everything. My home, my life, and everything I had. most of it was gifts for him when I visited him, but he killed me a few times after that. I'm not human anymore so it doesn't matter anyways. I just keep coming back. I can't die anymore. I don't know if I really care anymore, if I'm even angry anymore.

Update: he died. but not to me. probably won't update anymore

Update 2: he got revived. He got fucking revived. I had to crawl out of hell and this fucking dickhead just got revived. Now I remember why I hated this little prick.

[autisticsupervillain]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters....

Captain America vs Soldier Boy!

Conditions:

MCU Cap. TV Show Soldier Boy. Cap does not have Mjolnir.

Scenario:

Vought International has gotten its hands on the Tesseract, so the Avengers have been sent in to retrieve it. The Boys had the same idea and go in with Soldier Boy. Soldier Boy and Cap meet up and fight over who gets the Tesseract.

Analysis: Captain America

Steve Rogers was once a normal man living in Brooklyn during the dawn of World War 2, desperate to join the army because "I don't like bullies, I don't care where they're from". Unfortunately, his plethora of health conditions kept him from qualifying. Realizing the boy had a pure heart, Abraham Erskine subjected him to an experimental super soldier serum to turn him into Captain America, The First Avenger.

In his final mission, Captain America seeming sacrificed his life by crashing a plane full suoer charged nukes into the arctic, only to be dug up years later and brought to the 21st Century. Now stuck desperately searching for a purpose in a world that seemingly left him behind, Cap joined the Avengers to protect the world from all sorts of threats, ranging from aliens to robots to even SHIELD itself, before leaving to rescue his mind controlled best friend and dividing the Avengers into Civil War. All throughout, Cap proves himself to be nothing less than the perfect soldier.

Even on a team full of gods, geniuses, and master assassins, Cap manages to keep up with his mastery of hand to hand combat, photographic memory, and excellent tactical mind. Steve led the team to victory against the otherworldly alien invaders the Chitauri, fought hand to hand against the God Loki and the master assassin the Winter Soldier, and unearthed a plot by neo nazi organization Hydra to take over SHIELD from within. Moreover, Cap's healing factor allows him to power through gun shots to the gut, survive being frozen alive, and drink Asgardian beer that Thor claimed wasn't safe for mortals.

Steve is strong enough to pull down a helicopter with one arm, skilled enough to fist fight an air craft and win, and tough enough to contend with Iron Man's Mark 46 armor. This armor would be much tougher than the suit Tony wore in Iron Man 2, which could create a massive explosion between him and War Machine. Dividing the result to account for the combined effort and each suit would be generating and tanking energy equivalent to 171 tons of TNT.

Source:

He's even fast enough to take down MCU Spider-Man, whose fast enough to compete with The Amazing Spider-Man verse Spider-Man, who can dodge lighting traveling at Mach 1514.

Source:

But none of that competes with the Captain's strongest weapon - his shield. This vibranium metal disk can absorb and reflect almost any attack thrown at it and bounce off of anything. Cao uses it as a super frisbee to knock targets out of the air, cakculating its velocity in his head so that it always ends up right back in his hand. It can even take hits from Thor's hammer, reflecting a blast that completely leveled the forest around them. A 6 kiloton yield feat.

Source:

Finally, Captain America would take up Thor's hammer himself to lead the final charge against Thanos and his army, saving the universe from completely annihilation. Though the Avengers may go on, Cap will always be the remembered as the First Avenger.

Analysis: Soldier Boy

Before there was the Seven, before there was Homelander, before there were even Supes, there was Soldier Boy and his team of legendary Freedom Fighters, Payback. America's very first Superhero and one of the strongest Supes who ever lived, Soldier Boy was a beloved national icon and a war hero of World War 2.

Behind closed doors, Soldier Boy only became a hero to impress his abusive father and when that didn't work, he nursed his wounded pride by doing whatever it took to ensure he remained Vought's most popular superhero. This included keeping his team under his thumb, brutally beating them in sparring matches to remind them who was top dog, and crippling them when they dared to show any ambition. In one instance, he brutally beat Black Noir so badly, he was left scarred and crippled for the rest of his life, forcing him to wear a full body suit to cover his injuries, leaving him unable to speak, and giving him lifelong schizophrenia from the trauma of the event.

The abuse got so bad, Payback sold him out to Russia the first chance they got, setting him up to get captured in an undercover mission and allowing the Soviets to experiment on him for years. It wasn't until 2022 that Soldier Boy was found snd rescued by the superhero hunting group called The Boys for his help in taking down the most powerful superhero in the world: Homelander. Soldier Boy agreed, on the condition that The Boys help him get revenge on his old team for abandoning him.

Soldier Boy is an absolute juggernaut of a Supe. Although he's over a hundred years old, he hasn't aged a day past his thirties, thanks to the Russian's experiments giving him a whole new slew of powers. Years of torture have made him completely immune to fire, radiation, acids, and poisons, with only the deadliest substances on Earth being able to knock him out. And that's on top of being an expert combatant trained in military combat and hand to hand techniques. Soldier Boy carries a knife, a pistol, and a large titanium shield, each of which he uses proficiently in hand to hand combat to beat down his foes. While most of Soldier Boy's supposed war valor was faked, he was still skilled enough to go toe to toe with Billy Butcher, himself a war veteran and proficient superhero hunter. He heals from scarring injuries with superhuman speed and is tough enough to take on Homelander, the most powerful Supe who ever lived.

Soldier Boy's greatest power, however, is his radiation. Soldier Boy can charge up and shoot powerful radiation out of his body, usually by unleashing it as a massive explosion to obliterate everything around him. His radiation even burns hot enough nullify the powers of Supes. All Supes get their powers from the super soldier serum known as Compound V, with Soldier Boy's radiation vaporizing it in their bloodstream and leaving them an ordinary human.... provided they survive the blast.

Soldier Boy's explosions are so powerful, they can obliterate city blocks, with his biggest blast being big emough to be worth 69 tons of TNT. Nice.

Source:

Soldier Boy has even sent Homelander running with some help and he's fast enough to catch nuclear missiles, outrun planes, and outrun explosions at Mach 18.

Source:

For all his power and projected badassery, Soldier Boy is not invincible. He's as much of a misogynist as you'd expect someone from the 1940s to be and his internalized toxic masculinity and ego makes him refuse to acknowledge his flaws. His torture at the hands of the Russians has left him with severe PTSD that he refuses to acknowledge, with particularly bad episodes reducing him to a big walking bomb.

Eventually, he was deemed so unstable that the Boys turned against him, forcing Queen Maeve to nearly sacrifice herself to bring him down.

Soldier Boy is one of the most powerful, and most dangerous, Supes on the planet.

Throwdown Theme:

Throwdown Breakdown:

I think this one is pretty clear cut.

Soldier Boy's power nullification, by all rights, would be effective against Captain America due to his powers coming from a super soldier serum just like Vought's Supes. However, that relies on Soldier Boy getting a clear enough shot with his radiation to nullify him, where Cap has all the tools to keep that from happening.

Steve has both a considerable strength and speed advantage against Soldier Boy, being twice as strong and nearly 83x faster than the old war dog. Soldier Boy may have fought in World War 2, but Steve has gone in to fight planetary conquerors since then, and Cap's shield is so durable that Soldier Boy's will sooner snap in half than put a dent in it. This gives Steve all the room he needs to avoid Soldier Boy's destructive blasts and beat him down with superior skill, striking him from outside his range with shield throws and out maneuvering him at various ranges.

As Soldier Boy's frustration mounts, he'll become more explosive and more dangerous, bringing the battlefield down in top of them. This will be a footsy battle for Steve just for that alone... but Cap's solid foothold in every other field gives him all the advantages he needs to break Soldier Boy down.

Captain America is the First Avenger. Soldier Boy is just a cheap fucking knockoff.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Captain America!

[kanamori-kamper-moved]

Yu-Gi-Oh! OC Week - Day 2: Family

@ygoc-week

Not drawing anything today!

Yuuyu has a complicated familial situation to say the least. Her father was never around much due to him being an extremely busy business tycoon. She mostly stayed home with her mother and her brother, Vanilla. Vanilla has a lot of baggage as well, but I won’t give all the details.

TLDR Yuuyu’s mother suffered a miscarriage, and in her grief, she stole another baby from the maternity ward. She has a lot of resentment towards Vanilla because even though he was a baby when she took him, it like he knows that he isn’t meant to be here. But even then, Vanilla still took care of Yuuyu because even if they weren’t related, she was still his little sister. Her mother didn’t abuse her physically, or anything, but to say the least, Yuuyu’s mother suffering a miscarriage, their father never being around, and the shattered state of the family pretty much emotionally nuked everything.

Her mother didn’t care for her, she didn’t even care when she came out and started transitioning, because the only one she could see was Vanilla. After a fight between Vanilla and her mother, Vanilla picked her up and they ran away. She was young (about 10), but she still remembers it very vividly. She remembers the way Vanilla didn’t stop, the way he got her up and told her to get her stuff, and how wary she felt.

They were taken in by a man named Trip Cera. He was an archaeologist and he knew them from when Vanilla and Yuuyu would go to the park together. He took them in and later adopted them after he learned about the situation. Hes a single dad, and lives alone with his daughter, Hana.

Their parents divorced shortly after the whole adoption thing, and Yuuyu’s father was absolutely crushed about it because he knew he shouldn’t have spent all those nights at the office, all that time away, only coming back for Christmas and barely sending as much as a postcard when he went on business trips. He wishes he was better, but what is there to say? Yuuyu is sure that she doesn’t want to see them again, especially since her life now is far better. Vanilla became a pro duelist, and in the meantime Yuuyu started baking and helping out when Vanilla decided to open up a bakery. She taught him everything she knew about sweets, and everything when her mother refused to care for her. That’s why she was crushed when he died, there’s no one else to teach her what to do, comfort her when she’s sad, tell her that there’s no reason to cry. He was the last immediate family member she had left, and even as she duels, she struggles to get over it. Following his death, Vanilla entrusted literally everything he owned to Yuuyu. His deck, his duel disk, his room, his books, his book of recipes. Even if he’s gone, she just wants to make him proud.

ANGST!!! MMM I LOVE ANGST

[ultrakatua]

Act 2 trainwreck

Nearing the end and let's get real, nothing is fine.

It's been screw ups after screw ups, admitedly sometimes on purpose, but still.

(They're unwell)

Starting off with the loss of Last Light Inn right off the bat!

Dammon and Consellor Florrick are part of the people you have to kill. Bad news for Wyll I'm pretty sure. Karlach didn't make it past Act 1 so Dammon only hurts my soul.

You don't fight Alfira, Rolan or anyone that's typically inside. But they still die.

Rolan leaves a disk behind with a message for his siblings...

"If you see this message it's because I died. Such is fate, life goes on."

(I'm mentally unwell)

Malus Thorm will make a comment about the Volo eye, which is super neat. I managed to kill the other two with only persuasion checks because Bard is hilarious.

Moving on to the Mausoleum, where the mistake starts with me entering Yurgir's room through the bottom (where the chest is), thus never talking with him.

But don't you worry, I still aggro'ed his kitty cat and, therefore, all his goddamn army. Except they were all on the top floor, and all my guys below them. Yes it was as awful as you can imagine.

Yurgir went to the House of Hope without sharing a word with us, but it's funny he still calls you "little rabbit" during the fight lol Is that a Devil thing??

One thing we did on purpose, was to kill Aylin because my friend wanted to see Dark Justiciar Shadowheart. To be honest I'm unsure we could have changed her mind anyway because we literally never used her and her approval was very low.

Turns out you can still lift the Shadow Curse without Light Last Inn, because you can just Speak with the dead with Art Cullagh, so that's at least one thing we could do right (and one thing I got out the Necromancy of Thay before I lost it forever lmao).

Probably because of the Isobel fiasco from earlier, everyone was hostile by default in Moonrise Towers. It was thus impossible to rescue Minthara (in jail, but hostile as well) though we did only knock her off...

We tried to infiltrate the Towers going through the exterior, but still aggroed Marcus and friends through the wall (??) and had to make a tactical retreat. At this point we said fuck it we ball and went through the main doors lol

We rescued Rolan's siblings and oh, isn't it cute how they have map conversation about him saving the day? :) :) (I had no dialog to tell them he's dead so we'll see their reaction in act 3 I guess)

I open a random door and surprise motherfucker, it's fucking KETHERIC THORM and all my guys are four turns behind me!

It went well

Then everything went to utter shit

No sign whatsoever of Isobel. Where the hell is she????

Gale is not suicidal anymore at the very least but I'm still afraid he'll try to take one for the team... Because his current mindset is pretty much "fuck Mystra and I don't want to die, but if she asked me to do this it's because there's literally no other way".

ngl I'm fine living with my mistakes but I will save scum if he kills himself. Mainly because I don't want a premature ending, but still. I feel wayyyy too bad for him. Also can we talk about how if you ask him to kiss you, he goes for the cheek??? Dork.

I'm still sure if we make it to act 3, Gale will obliterate me for the Raphael shenanigans I'm about to pull... But apparently it's possible to crownblock Raphael at the last minute? So I may try that.

Honestly I love Raphael but he's such an ass it's very difficult for me to commit to giving him the crown. He's got such a strong "I MUST humiliate this man" vibe to him that's hard to ignore. I just have this urge in me to go for the kneecaps (but I'm not killing him that's for sure).

Gameplay wise, I'm having a lot of fun. Bard's been scaling well on higher levels and I just learnt the beauty that is Banishing Smite. I'll probably do the last two levels as Fighter for the action surge and self heal.

People will have you believe Wizard is a nuke class, but it's mostly a jack-of-all-trades and I'm all here for that. I can imagine how good it is on higher difficulties for the versatility alone. But you kind of have to know what you'll fight beforehand to prepare. Gale can actually take some punishment with a good shield and the magical armor.

Bonus: my smitten Tav so at least one thing is good in this world (the convo destroyed me though)

MFW "Practised tongue"

[oroborosdreadwalker]

Old world blues, by far my favorite DLC for the wacky antics Obsidian could get away with, after touching a satellite you wake up feeling more brainless then normal congrats your head cant be crippled, you feel mkre spineless then normal, congrates yku cant throw your back out now, and you dont feel like donating to your local childrens hospital for kids with advanced leukemia and stage 4 cancer, congrates your a heartless asshole, enter a room where you lack the urge to punch things just for the first things tou meet to start roasting the shit out of you for existing, you get told to retrive 3 technologies to help you get into a new area where your brain is because the dumbfuck monitor men fucking lost it, get said items and some floppy disks to activate your onsuite entertainment, being a chill jukebox, horny light switches, a high as fuck greenhouse, a auto-doc who is just a cool dude, a germaphobe sink, a sedistic paper shredder, a very caffinated robot and the most violent toaster ive ever met, at the center of it being a centeral intelligence who is just 300% done with everyones shit. So you get the shit and beat the fuck out of a giant robo scorpion tip just bumrush it with melee, its so much easier, meet the guy you where told was a evil dickweasle only to find out, mans not that bad qnd just says sure its your brain anyways, hey want some drugs? Flirt with your brain and tell him to get back in your head, and confront the roastbot 4000s avoid the conflixt with high science and medicine with some speech thrown in, and complete the DLC with only really needing to kill one thing if your sneaky enough even then you can just turn it off it you want to not really killing it in a sence, time for the couriers final journy and what has to be most peoples favorites but i dont really care for outside the E-DE upgrades and nuking either the legion or NCR.

[spinningbuster98]

Mega Man Zero 3 Part 2: Dr.Weil's evil

Childre’s level....not gonna lie I don’t like this one

You have to race the submarine and hit the switches before he destroys them in order to lower the water level. It’s not necessary but it will make the boss easier and will give you more points at the mission’s end

However this means dashing like crazy and the level is not only full of enemies but also insta kill spikes, meaning that you’ll likely ram head first into them while trying to race. Trying to collect the Secret Disks while doing this is also a pain

The factory level picks up the slack though.

Fun fact: after beating Deathtanz Mantisk you gain a chip that lets you stand on “crumbling terrain”

For the longest time I thought this meant falling platforms but no, what it means is SINKING terrain, like the floors fool of junk that hinder your movement in this stage

So anyway here is where we get our first taste at what Dr.Weil is willing to do to get what he wants and it sure is a solid first impression

Oh what’s that? The Dark Elf has been sighted in a densely populated area? It could easily slip from your fingers like it’s been doing until now if you just sent in troops to try and nab it?

Well then shut the hell up Harpuia, Weil is going to drop a literal nuke on the city with Omega onboard, this way the city will be demolished and the Dark Elf will be much easier to find and capture, casualties be damned

And it works! Mainly because Weil had the foresight to send the two Baby Elf on the missile ITSELF to keep Zero busy (not to mention regular enemies) long enough for the missile to hit its target, forcing Zero to jump off at the last second.

The city is destroyed, thousands have died, Omega successfully absorbed the Dark Elf, Zero almost got killed in the explosion and if Ciel hadn’t ordered for him to get teleported out of there just in time he would have most likely been killed right there by the powered up Omega because the red guy was in no condition to fight against him judging by how he was slouching over.

I believe this is the first time we ever see Zero truly lose

Usually he either steamrolls the oppositions or manages to get one last hit in, like against Vile in X1, or the last shot he deals against Sigma in X5., or only collapsing after an entire year of fighting all alone every day in Zero 2

Here however he straight up fails his mission, he could not stop the missile in time, he could not save the people of the city and he could not stop Weil from getting the Dark Elf, and all of this not because he’s incompetent but simply because Weil has absolutely no lines he won’t cross to get what he wants and can be pretty damn crafty, knowing that Zero would play the hero trying to stop the missile and even managing to get inside it and so sending in the two Baby Elves to keep Zero busy. Now that’s a damn good first impression for a villain

On a side note: how fucking durable is Omega? He survived a point blank nuclear explosion (at least I assume it’s nuclear, it wiped out a whole city) without a scratch, yet we can damage him with regular buster shots and saber slashes? Same for the Baby Elves. At least I understand the Dark Elf what with its near limitless power

[dreamsclock]

the mechanic timeline, where 'keep inventory' was toggled on at the very start.

in the style of spiderverse multiverse, send me iterations of the dream smp!

YES. YEEEESSSS. for some reason this immediately put me in mind of like a steampunk-esque timeline?? let me brainrot further on this:

dream didn’t actually make this server — he found it! whereas admins usually make servers brand-new, this one was the site of some kind of war. but it’s peaceful, weary, and so is dream from manhunts. the dream team settle down here, and here begins the birth of the smp.

there’s loads of left over scraps from whatever happened before dream arrived, and so technology is easier!! bombs and airplanes and the like become ingrained in the foundation of the smp, and it means war / advancement is a lot more dangerous.

keep inventory makes the disk war interesting: both sides have to resort to sneakier methods to get the disks from the other. as a result, the server grows distrustful and wary of each other VERY early on.

tubbo is a successful president, and is wilbur’s vice because of his talent in building. it’s why he’s sought after by schlatt in the election / manberg arc. he actually retains presidency of new l’manberg after doomsday!! they rebuild a metal city in the sky protected by nukes and constantly terrified by the rest of the server.

tommy’s exile was on a nuclear wasteland. he got sick a lot. so did dream. neither fully recovered.

their chats appear in the form of sentient robots !! armour was steampunk-y and tech-y and meant that ghosts - wilbur, schlatt, Etc — weren’t ghosts, but instead suits with a lingering memory of their owners (think the suits in that one doctor who episode, silence in the library)

the prison is terrifying. it’s a fully daedalus-esque maze of horrific robots roaming halls and gleaming reinforced obsidian. when dream is thrown inside, he’s stripped of his steampunk armour for the first time in months.

he’d attached loads of terrifying advancements / attachments to it, so seeing him stripped from it is… weird. he’s smaller. less scary. tommy doesn’t kill him twice in the mountain bunker. dream bargains with him before then.

i like to imagine this is one of the universes tommy visits after realising pandora is fucking insane — maybe this dream is still alive and helps him :] i’m attached to this dream already LMAO

[shadeops21]

hi, you’re pretty cool! and happy birthday :)

i just wanted your opinion, what’s the best ace combat game? also, which ones can i play with the ps3? i love jets and this franchise looks great

Hi Anon, appreciate the compliment and birthday message! Didn't catch this one until now.

"Best" has multiple categories, and I haven't played the full range (only most of them) so here's my breakdown:

Best gameplay - 7: Skies Unknown [PS4, X1, PC]. While it might not have anything new in terms of core mechanics, the handling of aircraft and their performance was good, and the implementation of the parts system allowed a little more flexibility and options when it came to aircraft and payload selection.

Best story - 5: Unsung War (Squadron Leader in some regions) [PS2]. Yeah, the writing can be corny at best and disingenuous at worst, and preachy at other points with the anti-war warfighter message, but fuck I still love it. Partly because it's probably one of the first narratives in a game that I actually got pulled into while playing it. Other 'story' games I was playing around that same time I didn't get heavily drawn into, or didn't actually have a deeper story to it (though Tony Hawk's Underground 2's story did make me laugh a lot at the time). 5 was the first game to make me cry (Chopper!) and even to this day I still find myself playing it from time to time, even if I know all the missions back to front and could feasibly speed-run it within a couple hours. One of my all time favourites to this day.

Best graphics - 6: Fires of Liberation [X360]. Hear me out. This game still looks amazing on the 360 (and on the X1 when played with reverse compatibility). I don't think 7 has the same level of smoke persistence and particle effects that 6 had, and it shows. The gameplay feature of multiple "operations" (essentially a mission has multiple objectives within a given mission, and you need to complete a certain number to progress further) allowed me to jet from hot zone to hot zone, and if one of those objectives was a air-to-air, seeing the furball of missile smoke trails and explosions grow as I flew in at Mach 1.2 was nothing short of breathtaking.

That's the first part of your question answered.

As for which one you can get for the PS3? Honestly, your only feasible option would be Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and that's if you can find a disk copy as I'm pretty sure it's been pulled from all digital stores. But even then, it's an Ace Combat in name only.

Objectively, it's an okay game. As an Ace Combat fan? It's absolute garbage. I think it would've served better if it was called Call of Duty: Aces Above. The story and concept is much more at home as a CoD/BF type game than it ever was as an Ace Combat. If you've played COD4, just take that story and put the characters in fighter jets and you'll be good.

Well, it's not that identical, but fuck, it ticks the checklist of COD4 copies of that time period:

Generic white male military officer that holds high enough rank to have authority but low enough to still see direct action? Check: Colonel William Bishop, field commander of the US contingent of NATO's Task Force 108.

Conflict in some third-world country that has the US involved in interventionary/peacekeeping efforts? Check: US Forces as part of a NATO TF in Africa.

Tense relations between US forces and Russian forces? Russians are also deployed to Africa in the same AO, and while they are alligned with NATO's objectives in the region, it's made explicit that Russia is only there on their own terms.

Internal conflict in Russia results in war breaking out, and US is involved? Yep, ultranationalist forces launch a coup and try to seize control.

Globe trotting across the world in notable cities and locations? Let's see... missions taking place over Miami, Dubai, the Suez Canal, Moscow and Washington DC.

A WMD that is either nuclear or not-a-nuke-but-just-as-devestating? The "Trinity" is a large thermobaric weapon, essentially a scaled down MOAB that the Russians made into a cruise missile.

Russian antagonist with paper-thin justifications for doing what he's doing? Alexi 'Akula' Markov's rampage of revenge against NATO and the US is because his wife was killed in a NATO airstrike during the Bosnian War.

Gratuitous graphics and explosions involving military hardware that costs more than any one of us can ever imagine of seeing? One of the game's marketing taglines was 'make metal bleed'. Need I say more?

Honestly, if you're in a position to? Get a PS4 or X1 and then pick up Ace Combat 7, or get it for PC (and play it with an Xbox or PS controller).

Thanks for asking!

[ohnothisisathing]

Thinking about c!Tommy and how he started his four part finale as a paranoid, self destructive addict who was so stuck in the past that he was spiraling to the point that he put his life and his best friend’s life on the line to kill his personal boogeyman.

Thinking about the clear theme of growing up and the repetition that “they aren’t kids anymore” and all the old jokes Tommy used to make about being a minor and how anything he did before could really and truly be excused as him just being a kid because kids are allowed to be selfish and explore because they need to grow and because no matter what they do, adults are the ones with the actual power.

Thinking about how Tommy is this force of nature that changes the world without really trying, by just being himself and loud and friendly and taking up space and how that is one of the very best, most special things about him, and how sad it’s been that he doesn’t like that about himself anymore, but nature is beautiful and necessary and uncaring.

Thinking about processing trauma and growing up at the same time and how sometimes we hold onto it too tightly and don’t have the tools to let it go but part of being an adult is taking responsibility for your actions even if they’re trauma responses and taking responsibility of your own recovery and it’s not fair at all, it’s not, but if Tommy wants to recover, to move forward and away from that tower he has to decide that he’s going to do it.

Thinking about “being adults now” and deciding to launch a nuke and how that is not the same as griefing or selling drugs from a hot dog van and how Tommy and Tubbo’s short sidedness got a lot of people killed and it’s not entirely their fault but it is partially and they’re adults now, they’re adults now.

Thinking about who in the end, with the world ending of his own making, Tommy decided to be because Tommy did not start out brave and understanding. He’d hit someone and talk a big game with clearly false bravado and hide behind those stronger and older than him, but he grew up. He found out through battles that he is strong enough to win and learned understanding and empathy through the unfair pain he suffered and he forgave Wil over and over again and he will continue to do so because love does that and now he has so much practice in it, and he always had the disks and Tubbo and one was a symbol he fought for and one was a person and he loved them both but there was never a choice between which he’d save over the other.

What Tommy chose in his final moments was ironically to move forward. Those were the first steps toward recovery too late. He looked at the person who hurt him the most, who was so big and scary in his mind, and saw that he was actually so small and human and Tommy could choose to not become him. To not become Wil.

And Tommy fucking Innit, force of fucking nature, without really trying because this is who he is as an adult with the accumulation of his experiences and choices, helped someone, out grew them, took their power away, and let them go.