#got round to it finally after phantom visuals were released

[mihotose]

“You’re blushing. Are you a man?”

[queer-author]

Escapade

Summary: After consulting the Arcana for help solving the mystery ahead, Auriel gets a reading that sends him on an adventurous night at the tavern.

Word count: 3,166

Pairing: Julian Devorak x Auriel Drake (Original male apprentice)

Fandom: The Arcana (Visual Novel)

________________________________________________________________

The shop was quiet, despite the chaos that occurred that day. Between preparations for the Masquerade and searching for clues to clear Julian's name, Auriel felt like he hadn't been calm enough to hear himself think since this whole situation began. That's why he came back to the shop; the place that he had come to call home. He always found peace there and had always known warmth and safety amongst the menagerie of herbs and magical paraphernalia that filled the small shop. The calming smell of lavender that permeated the space made Auriel's body relax almost immediately upon entering, and all of the tension that had built up during the past few days finally started to release.

      After a deep breath to collect himself, Auriel made his way to the table in the back of the shop. Even though he yearned to head upstairs and collapse onto the bed and sleep for about a week straight, he knew that there was work to be done. There were questions that needed to be answered. And while he didn't know how to find all of the answers, he knew where to start looking.

      Reaching into his bag, he pulled out Asra's tarot deck and laid it on the table in front of him. It was a familiar action, (he had done hundreds of readings at that very table for as long as he could remember) but for one reason or another, he was nervous of what he might find. Slowly, he sat down, gauging the energy he read from the deck. The cards were practically buzzing in his hands, but maybe that sensation was just shakiness from lack of sleep. Whatever it was, it was clear to him that they had something to tell him.

    Auriel started to shuffle the cards and allowed his mind to quiet so he could focus. It was hard, truth be told. Even with all the practice and training under Asra, there were a million questions running through his mind. Was Julian truly innocent? If Julian didn't kill the Count, then who did? Was there a connection between Julian's missing memories and Auriel's own elusive past? Did they somehow have a history with each other that neither of them remembered, and is that why Auriel felt so drawn to the roguish doctor? His fingers fiddled with the cards of their own accord as his mind was taken with these questions. Then suddenly-

    Stop.

It was more of a feeling than a command. The familiar sensation of finding the card he had been searching for shook him back to reality. His fingers felt electric where they touched the chosen card. With a flourish, Auriel flipped the card over to reveal the face and, hopefully, the truth.

    The Lovers.

    His face immediately filled with heat, even bringing a touch of pink to the tips of his ears. Asra had always warned him of the dangers of letting your mind wander while doing a reading. "The cards have a way of telling you exactly what's on your mind, even when you don't realize it." Well, Auriel guessed that Asra could tell him 'I told you so.'

    Heart still slightly elevated, Auriel wondered what this meant. He knew that the cards often had double meanings and were hardly ever literal, but he was still very caught off guard. Surely there was another interpretation. Either way, the Arcana always had something to say. Whether or not that something was helpful was an entirely different story. Regardless, Auriel picked up the card and listened for the voice of the Lovers to tell him their message.

    Immediately, and to Auriel's chagrin, the image of Julian Devorak popped into his mind. The phantom doctor had a wolfish grin on his face and seemed to be looking right at Auriel, as if he was in the same room. Julian's eyes held a familiarity that Auriel hadn't seen before. Or... had he seen it before? Was this a memory, or just some vision conjured by the Major Arcana?

    In one fluid movement, the image of Julian raised his hand and gestured for Auriel to follow him. A single hooked finger that beckoned him and also seemed to grasp onto something deep within him.

    Now, usually, Auriel would proceed with caution if a vision like this told him to follow them. Asra would urge him to think about what the Arcana wanted to show him, and whether or not he wanted to see it before doing anything. But Asra wasn't there. And yes, the Arcana could be mischievous in their ways, but Auriel was hopeful that whatever this was, it would give him insight into how to prove Julian's innocence, and he was going to take whatever chance he got to do it.

    So, Auriel rose from the table and made his way back toward the front of the shop, making sure to grab the deck before heading out the door and locking it. Not Julian appeared down the alley next to the shop, now a full-body apparition and Auriel watched as he disappeared around the corner heading south. Okay, that was a little suspicious. Maybe Auriel would cast a protection spell just in case.

    Auriel followed the vision like that for a while; watching Julian's doppelganger appear in the distance and walk out of sight around the next corner before Auriel could reach him. It was a game of cat and mouse, but soon it was over. Auriel finally rounded a building and saw where he was being led. Warm light spilled out of the door of the Rowdy Raven as Not Julian (?) made his way inside, his cloak swishing behind him. Quickly, the apprentice slipped inside and was met with a wall of loud pub-goers milling about the place that stopped him in his tracks. There was no sight of Julian, which Auriel only thought fitting. Of course, a hallucination wouldn’t have to worry about crowds getting in the way.

    With a sigh, he weaved his way towards the bar, hoping it would be a better vantage point to scope out the place in order to figure out what exactly he was doing there.

    He finally popped out of the throng of people, a bit breathless, and walked over to the bar to take a seat on one of the honestly rickety looking stools.

    "Can I get a pint of... something?" Auriel asked the barkeep. He was too distracted to think of the name of the drink he wanted, so he just decided to take a leap of faith and hope the barkeep had good taste. The apprentice twisted around on the stool to take another look around the pub, his eyes scanning for some kind of sign. Maybe a long cloak, or a shock of red hair.

    "Here you go." The voice of the barkeep was gruff and somewhat tired. Looking out over the sea of drunken patrons, he could understand why. Grabbing the tankard by the handle and taking a swig, Auriel was pleasantly surprised by the taste. It warmed his chest as it went down and soon Auriel felt a wave of calm lightly lap over his body. Hell, maybe the cards just wanted him to relax and get a drink, Gods knows he needed one. He took another long drink, savoring the taste, when someone spoke right next to him, making him sputter mead back into the glass.

    "Hello, Goldy," Julian said with a bright eye and a charming smile. Auriel almost choked on his drink and had to set it down and cough.

    "Gods, you could have at least tapped me on the shoulder," Auriel said indignantly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Or, maybe he couldn't have tapped him, seeing as this still might be the vision of Julian and not the man himself.

     "I'm sorry." The doctor did look genuinely sorry. "But I was just so surprised to see you here that I couldn't help myself." His smile widened as he leaned towards Auriel. The faint smell of alcohol caught Auriel's nose, and he recognized the drink immediately. Salty Bitters. Julian seemed to have had at least one so far. And seemed to be getting another, as the man turned to the barkeep, empty glass in hand, and asked for a refill. The barkeep poured him one, and shot a glance to Auriel, as if to wordlessly convey that yes, he was at least a few drinks in.

    So, the barkeep acknowledging Julian meant that this was probably the real one, but just to be sure... Auriel held his hand out tentatively and, before he could change his mind, placed it on Julian's arm. Soft leather met his touch, and Auriel breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to deal with any more apparitions tonight, especially not after dealing with that wretched goat.. thing. Julian gave Auriel a questioning look, his brow raised above his eyepatch, and Auriel squeezed his arm lightly and gave him a quick smile, his own brows wiggling playfully. Hmm, maybe this drink was a bit stronger than he thought.

    "So what are you doing here?" Julian asked, returning the touch with a nudge. "Other than for the great drinks." Auriel barked a laugh as he eyed Julian's drink with a mixture of amusement and mild disgust.

    "I just seemed to wander in," Auriel muttered, knowing that it would take too much time and effort trying to explain how he really got there. Julian wasn't too knowledgeable of magic in the first place, so trying to get him to understand something as high concept as some weird vision leading him to a bar was probably going to go right over his head.

    "I see," Julian mused, and he took a swig of his drink. "Come on, how about we go grab a booth? Sitting at the bar is a bit too out in the open for me." Julian stood and held out his hand for Auriel to take, which he did, glad to be headed somewhere a bit quieter. The pair passed a few tables with patrons crowded around them, sharing tales or playing games. The patrons barely gave them a second glance, which was good. Julian was still on the run for murder despite the bits of evidence that said he might be innocent, so the less attention they attracted, the better.

    Julian led Auriel to a table towards the back of the tavern, and there were a few people sitting quietly at separate tables, drinking and eating. The two of them settled into a booth, sitting across the table from one another. The benches, Auriel noted, were scored from years of bar brawls and stained with alcohol spills. He felt the energy of hundreds of memories of reveries made at that very booth, and some of them, Auriel guessed, were Julian's. He looked across the table and watched Julian as he took another long drink from his cup, almost draining it completely. How he could drink so much was beyond Auriel's comprehension.

    "Now, Auriel," Julian sighed, "do you want to tell me why you're actually here?" Julian's gloved hands steepled in front of his mouth, and the brow above his eyepatch quirked. Auriel blushed, feeling sheepish about having lied to him, and scratched the back of his head.

    "I... followed you here?" Auriel replied, his voice unsure and quiet.

    "Unless you've been here for hours and I miraculously haven't seen you in all of that time, you did not follow me here." Julian searched Auriel's face quizzically.

    "Well, it wasn't you... per se."

    "...What?"

    After a lengthy and confusing explanation from Auriel, Julian finished off his drink in one big gulp and sighed in exasperation. "Wait, so what were the cards even telling you to do? Come and get drunk?" Auriel decidedly didn't tell Julian that he had pulled the Lovers card. He decided that it wasn't relevant. He really hoped that it wouldn't become relevant.

    "I- uh, I guess so," Auriel said, and took a long drink from his glass, hoping that would be the end of that line of questioning.

    "Well, then, who's to argue with the ever-wise Arcana?" Julian mused, wiggling his brows mischievously at Auriel. Oh, no. Auriel definitely did not like that look. "Barth, another round!" Julian shouted, and slapped his hand down on the table and looked Auriel up and down.

    "Tell me, Auriel, have you ever played Ring of Fire?"

    Auriel gulped thickly.

................................................................................................................................

   "And so I told him, 'If this is your ship, then why are you the one walking the plank?'" Julian roared with laughter, and Auriel clapped a hand over his mouth trying to stifle the giggle that bubbled in his throat.

    "You did not!" Auriel shouted incredulously.

    "I did! And then I almost fell overboard myself!" He went into another fit of laughter, and Auriel couldn't help but join him. His face felt warm and his head felt light. How many drinks had he had? He seemed to have lost count after 5.

    Suddenly, the band in the corner switched songs, this one a sultry tempo with a thick bass line. The singer's grumbling voice crooned the lyrics as he swayed to the music. The accordion and violin played a hypnotizing melody that captured Auriel's attention. He couldn't help but move along to the tune.

    Julian gasped almost melodramatically. "This is one of my favorite songs!" He was stood up before Auriel could even process it, and his hand extended toward him.

    "Auriel, would you care for a dance?" Julian's uncovered eye sparkled in the flickering candlelight, his handsome features perfectly shadowed. Auriel felt a bit taken aback, but the prospect of dancing with Julian, to this song, in the dim back room of the Rowdy Raven... He would hate himself if he didn't.

    "I thought you would never ask," Auriel replied, his voice low, his eyes lidded. Julian's mouth crooked into a smirk as he took Auriel's hand and led them to the middle of the room. The pair took up a stance; Auriel put one hand on the space where Julian's neck and shoulder met. His thumb absentmindedly brushed against the skin below Julian's ear, and Julian almost shuddered. Julian's hand fell instantly to the small of Auriel's back and pulled him closer, leaving Auriel just the tiniest bit breathless. Auriel grabbed Julian's free hand and laced their fingers together, and he couldn't help but note how much bigger his hands were, and how the doctor’s calluses felt against the sensitive skin of his palm.

    And then nothing existed but the two of them and the tempo of the song. Julian’s gaze was taken by Auriel. His hair, his face, his golden eyes. Julian couldn’t look away. And neither could Auriel.

    “You know, Auriel, I’m glad we did this.” Julian’s voice was low as he leaned next to Auriel’s ear. “I’m glad I got to know you before…”

    “Before?” Auriel leaned back to look at the taller man, concern lightly furrowing his brows.

    “Ah, it’s nothing. I’m just happy to be here with you.” Julian spun Auriel away from him, twirled him back into his arms, and dipped him. Auriel could barely breathe, and his cheeks burned.

    Julian smiled knowingly. “There’s no one else I’d rather dance with.” He pulled Auriel back up to standing and held him close against his chest. Auriel felt the doctor’s heartbeat against his, and it felt like the room was spinning. Hopefully, that was just the drinks. The final notes of the song faded into silence and all the pair could hear was their breath coming out in quiet huffs against the other's skin.

    “Bravo! Bravo!” The few patrons left in the pub applauded them from their seats, and the band even gave them an appreciative nod. Oh, Gods, was it hot in there, or was it just Auriel?

    “Thank you for the dance,” he managed to say, looking up at Julian and smiling softly.

    “My pleasure, dear,” Julian replied, and brought Auriel hand to his lips and kissed it sweetly.

    “Guards!” The barkeep ran into the room, looking pointedly at Julian, to which Julian gave a curt nod.

    “I hate to dance and dash, but I’m afraid it’s time to run.” Julian gave Auriel a wink and snatched his drink from the table, chugged the rest of it, and headed towards the back door.

    “Wait, I’m coming with you!” Auriel grabbed his bag and followed suit.

    “Well, after you, darling,” Julian purred as he opened the door.

    And then they were running. Flying through back alleys and around corners. Past flickering flames of fireplaces through windows and over the canals sparkling under the full moon. They lost the guards blocks back, but they weren’t stopping. A laugh bubbled in Auriel’s throat, and he couldn’t help but watch Julian as he smiled, steam puffing out of his open mouth and hanging in the air like a cloud.

    Finally, and much too soon, they skidded to a stop in front of the shop. Julian should be safe here. Now, to get past the warding. Auriel was a bit lightheaded, but he managed to open it and unlock the door. The two of them stumbled into the shop, and Auriel all but collapsed onto the nearest chair.

    “That was… the stupidest thing… I’ve ever done.” Auriel huffed, his chest heaving, head spinning.

    “You drank with me, I feel like it actually turned out well, considering.” Julian raked a hand through his auburn hair and let it flop back down over his eye. “Now, let’s get you to bed, you’re definitely going to need your rest.”

    “What, no, I’m fine! You still might be in danger.” Auriel stood up, but far too quickly, and he had to brace himself on the chair as to not fall over. “Well…”

    “It’s alright, Auriel, there’s no way they could find us here. Anyways, you had quite a few drinks. You can hold your liquor surprisingly well.” Julian appeared by his side and draped Auriel’s arm around his side, half picking him up. He helped Auriel upstairs and up to the bed, taking off his cloak and boots and covering him with the blanket.  

    “Now, there you are. Nice and cozy.” Julian smiled softly and sat down at the foot of the bed. Auriel felt sleep coming over him like the tide coming in, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the doctor.

    “Thank you,” he whispered and sat back up to lay a hand on Julian’s arm.

     “No need to thank me, Auriel. Showing you a good time was a prize in itself.” Julian held Auriel’s hand in his and looked down thoughtfully.

     “Auriel?”

     “Hmm?”

     “What card did you draw?”

     “...The Lovers.”

    “Ah, of course.” He kissed Auriel’s hand and stood from the bed to stand next to Auriel.

    “Tell them I said thank you.” Julian smiled and leaned down to kiss Auriel on the forehead. And then Auriel was asleep.

[eggoreviews]

My Top 10 most hyped games for 2019!

Now the first Nintendo direct of the year has come and gone and some more of the big releases this year have become a bit more concrete, I think it’s time to vomit my excitement all over you once again by detailing the ten games I’m most looking forward to this year!

10. Yoshi’s Crafted World

This adorable little cardboard platformer has been floating around for a couple of years now and I’m v happy that it’s finally nearing release! The striking visuals, unique art style and variety of play-styles with the introduction of the rafting and the kart racing all definitely piqued my interest for this. While I haven’t played a Yoshi game before, I really enjoyed the recent demo they put out and this seems like a whole load of fun you don’t really need to think too deeply about. I’m pretty sure I’ll pick this up at some point.

9. Astral Chain

From the dudes who brought us Bayonetta comes this steampunk JRPG with a touch of massive robot. And boy, does it look cool. The trailer we were shown in the most recent Nintendo direct kept it cryptic enough that I really didn’t know much of what was happening, but still let me grasp the basics. And I’ve seen enough to know that I want to hear more about this. Plus, the apparent ‘fighting as two people’ has definitely intrigued me. I almost sort of don’t like how easily I’m drawn in by game trailers, but you know, it’s happened now.

8. Man of Medan

The latest title from the same devs as Until Dawn, a game that very rightfully got into my top 10 games of all time, is the first in their new horror anthology. Keeping the same decision based, quick-time heavy gameplay, this time we’ll be taking control of five tourists trying to find out what happened to this weird war vessel in the middle of the sea. And boy, does it look pretty spooky. If horror is your thing, this might just have slipped under your radar, and it looks so far that it could match the quality of Until Dawn.

7. Animal Crossing

Yet another Nintendo franchise I’ve somehow never touched, the announcement of a new AC for the Switch alongside Isabelle’s Smash reveal got me hyped anyway. I’ve heard so much about how calm and fun this whole series is and I’m purposely avoiding the other titles now so my first experience can be with this Switch version. I’m just really hoping we get some gameplay footage soon! I really want to know what the features of this one are gonna be. Can we build anywhere we like this time? I hope so.

6. Luigi’s Mansion 3

Again, I’m totally new to this series as I never really got round to picking up the DS ones (and I’ve never owned a Gamecube) so I’m excited to learn more about this one. Especially after seeing Simon Belmont’s Smash reveal, exploring a spooky mansion as Luigi seems a bit too ridiculous for me to pass up. So I’ll be getting this. 

5. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth

I’m REALLY into Persona 5 at the minute and, on top of that, my 3DS has been kinda dormant for a while. And if Nintendo are slowly unplugging the life support for their long serving portable, it feels right to send it off with a cool dungeon crawler with my phantom bois in it. Apparently it hasn’t actually been dubbed over here, but still, it’s Persona! I’m sure it’ll be big fun.

4. Pokemon Sword & Shield

Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid Pokemon for my whole life. Never picked up literally any of the games, never watched the show. So when I tuned into the direct last week out of curiosity, I was nearly blown away by how massively expansive and interesting the world looks. So many colours! And cities and like a mine you can go into?? I’m down for that! This looks to be a pretty great RPG and I think my boyfriend would be sad if I didn’t pick this up so there’s that.

3. Super Mario Maker 2

And now for the title that makes me SUPER glad I didn’t pick up Mario Bros U Deluxe, Nintendo have now announced that they’re giving us a second helping of infinite Mario on the Switch, this time with a 3D World texture pack! As someone who’s never really delved into a new 2D Mario, other than like ten minutes of the Wii one, I’m pretty excited to basically have an unlimited supply of (probably impossibly designed) levels to toy around with.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I honestly thought the whisperings of a new 2D Zelda were just baseless rumours, so I really wasn’t getting my hopes up. But considering Breath of the Wild recently became my favourite game ever, seeing this adorable 2D remake of Link’s Awakening at the end of the last direct was enough to make my heart explode. So yeah, call me a sucker for anything Nintendo, but I think it’s honestly earned my pre-order on that trailer alone. I’m mega hyped to literally never put this down.

Here are some games I’m still hyped for, but didn’t quite make the main 10:

Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Dragon Quest Builders 2

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

1. MediEvil remake

This may seem like an odd pick for number 1 considering the rest of the list, but this total reimagining of one of my favourite games of all time, a game I thought Sony had completely abandoned, also made my heart explode but like slightly more. The soundtrack is as amazing as ever, the game looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL from what we’ve seen of the redesign and the upscaled graphics and I am beyond excited to experience this brilliant adventure platformer with its wonderfully stupid British humour in a whole new way this year.

Got some games you’re excited for in 2019? Let me know down below if you want to! Thanks for reading!!

[daleisgreat]

PSP 15th Anniversary & Neo-Geo 30th Anniversary - Flashback Specials!

A couple months ago in March, the PSP hit its milestone 15th anniversary of its North American launch, just a few months after its end of 2004 debut launch in Japan. It came and went without much hubbub in the gaming media however due to that hitting around the same time the COVID-19 outbreak started to make waves in America and that pandemic rightfully getting the bulk of the press attention. Writing about game platform anniversaries over the past several weeks has been helping me get through these wild times we are now in by reflecting on my memories of these platforms, so with that said, please join me in looking back at Sony’s debut handheld….and later on in this very same flashback special I will have a bonus addendum with my memories of the Neo-Geo since it recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.

I remember when the PSP was surprisingly announced at Sony’s 2003 E3 press conference. I was there in Los Angeles covering my first E3 that year! The website I wrote for at the time, the long defunct vgpub.com, was a smaller gaming press outlet and only had one invite to the Sony press conference so our website founder, John attended the Sony conference while I and another staff writer slept in! I will never forget when John got back shortly after it ended and my colleague and I asked him if there were any big surprises (still a year or two away at this point with conferences being live streamed and with MySpace being the only major social media in 2003, there was a lack of live minute-by-minute news reporting and you would have to wait at least a couple hours until after the conferences ended to check gaming websites for news updates). John replied with an ‘oh yeah’ and proceed to hand us a little PR packet with a press release announcing the Playstation Portable (PSP) and how it would have near identical tech to the PS2 and be able to play movies with its UMD-discs. By mid-2003 the PS2 was a juggernaut around the globe and took up a little over half the market share in the home console gaming market against the Xbox and GameCube. With the PSP offering a big upgrade to the then-current GameBoy Advance out on the market and having near PS2 quality graphic capabilities, and with DVD movies being a huge factor into PS2 sales, it only seemed logical the PSP would be a sure-winner in the handheld gaming market. All three of us were buzzing about the news and how the PSP would be huge for handheld gaming and how Sony likely would take over. That did not quite happen however due to the surprise success of the Nintendo DS, but that did not stop the PSP to go on and be a viable gaming handheld alternative and have a fair amount of global success. I recall being incredibly stoked for the PSP launch, with a lot of hype going into its 20-plus launch game lineup.

I particularly remember being excited for Lumines, a new puzzler from Bandai that put a new twist on Tetris-style dropbox puzzle gameplay. It achieved this by making combo-clearing squares, instead of lines, and having a mesmerizing evolving soundtrack and graphic scheme whenever certain score targets were hit. Amazingly, the gameplay ranked right up there as top-in-class puzzler gameplay with Tetris. Combine that with its dazzling visuals and phenomenal soundtrack and it resulted in Lumines being the surprise killer-app of the PSP launch. Earlier this week I popped in Lumines Remastered on the PS4, and the gameplay is still as addicting as ever, and my anticipated quick five minute round for a refresher resulted in nearly playing an hour nonstop! From the other launch games I remember getting Untold Legends, Twisted Metal: Head-On and Tony Hawk’s Underground 2: Remix. Head-On was an all-new Twisted Metal game that was a good handheld version that also offered up online play, which was among one of the first of all handheld games to do so. I was a big fan of the hack ‘n slash action-RPGs on consoles during that era like Dark Alliance and Champions, and Untold Legends was a fun portable take on that which also offered up local wireless multiplayer. My friend, podcast co-host and also fellow VGpub staff writer Chris, along with my brother Joe, met up for a few memorable multiplayer sessions of Untold Legends.

All three of us played a whole heck of a lot of PSP in its initial weeks. At this time in early 2005, downloadable audio shows were kind of catching on but it was still a few months before Apple officially dubbed them as ‘podcasts’ on iTunes. I brought up the idea to Joe and Chris to get together to record an audio show for VGpub all about the PSP launch and our initial thoughts on the games available. We had no idea how to set it up on the technical side, so we winged it and Chris brought over one of those old-school stationary, coffee table tape recorders that are kind of stereotypical in psychiatrist or detective interview scenes in movies. We hooked an auxiliary cable from it to my PC and somehow produced a digital tin-can-and-string version of what would be the pilot of VGpub’s podcast. We sent the pilot to the VGpub editors to see what they thought, but we were dismayed when hearing back they thought it was too long at around 50 minutes in length. Bummed with that reception, we wound up not posting the PSP pilot show, but eventually gave podcasting another go when that scene took off several months later after it caught on with iTunes. We had a fun seven year run on the podcast, and when VGpub sunsetted a couple years after we started, we continued with the podcast on its own site for a few more years and as part of the launch posted the long lost pilot episode. And now in honor of the PSP’s 15th anniversary, I dug out that amazingly awful audio quality pilot from my hard drive archives and uploaded it to YouTube so now you all could relive our initial highs over the PSP’s launch. You can check it out by click or pressing here, or by checking out the embed below!

Behold our low-tech, amateur endeavor of the very first podcast I participated in that focused on the launch of the PSP. THUG 2: Remix was a nice port of the console version of that Tony Hawk game I played a lot of. It was shortly after playing this is when I realized I did not want to play PS2 ports on the PSP. While a lot of them packed in a lot of the same content as their PS2 counterparts, they suffered noticeably due to the PSP having one analog ‘nub,’ only one pair of shoulder buttons and having to dial back the graphics and/or features in order to get it running on the comparably lower-powered PSP. I realized this moreso over the next year picking up and trying out PSP versions of BurnOut, Virtua Tennis and Gun. Once again, nothing against the PSP versions since a lot of them played and looked fine on the PSP, and if I primarily was on the road or travelling I would have been thrilled with these versions. It was over this next year I realized I would rather play these PSP ports on the PS2 instead of dealing with those compromises.

Unfortunately in the early years of the PSP, it was dominated by PS2 ports and five star original titles like Lumines were few and far between. This culminated with barely getting any play out of the system and selling off my PSP a little over a year later in mid-2006. Things were looking dire for a little while for the PSP, but Sony and strong third party support from companies like Square-Enix, EA and Capcom continued to pump out games and eventually the PSP established a strong portfolio of original releases. Some of the original efforts from Sony were so strong that games like Twisted Metal: Head On, Syphon Filter and Motorstorm: Arctic Edge got remastered ports on the PS2 to keep up first party releases for the PS2 in its twilight years. I want to make sure to give a shoutout to other strong original PSP titles such as the Patapon series, WTF: Work Time Fun, both Phantasy Star Portable entries, all four SOCOM titles, Resistance: Retribution, both Pursuit Force games, Killzone: Liberation, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Final Fantasy: Crisis Core, both God of War titles, Mega Man: Powered Up and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. In 2012, I acquire PSP’s successor from Sony, the Vita. It featured digital backwards compatibility with a fair amount of the PSP’s library. I wound up acquiring about a dozen of the PSP games I always wanted to try this way that I missed out on after selling it. The Vita was also compatible with most of the PSone classics that were available on the PS3. This lead to me playing a lot of Final Fantasy VII a couple years ago in anticipation for the recently released and long coming FFVII Remake. This past week a fired up a few of them for a refresher on some of the PSP titles in preparation for this article. I had a lot of fun with the original Pursuit Force….at least the first couple missions anyways since that game had compatibility issues and frequently froze on the Vita.

I dusted off my Castlevania skills in my attempts at playing the remake of Rondo of Blood that is part of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. It has a challenging but fair degree of difficulty in the few levels I progressed through. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops I dug a lot for its first couple bite sized missions that focused on the origins of Snake meeting Campbell. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker I consider to be the true, fully featured fifth installment of the series since it essentially has a full length story and slate of missions available. I did not play it on the PSP, but instead on the HD remaster collection that released a year later on the PS3 and loved grinding through its wide variety of missions that set the stage for The Phantom Pain. While it is not compatible with the PSP’s physical discs, the Vita is a good alternative to experience most of the PSP’s library through digital download for those still curious about the PSP’s games. On the UMD movie side of things, launch PSPs came bundled with a copy of Spider-Man 2 which I eventually watched on a plane trip. The quality of the UMD movies were undeniably good. Later on, I got sent a UMD to review of the fun underdog sports film, Dodgeball and those wound up being the only two UMDs I owned. For the first year or two of the PSP lifespan I remember game stores being flooded with physical UMDs, but a lot of them cost nearly as much as their DVD versions at the time and I am speculating that people anticipated they would only cost half or a third as much as DVDs kind of relative to how the portable-to-console game pricing goes, and when that proved not to be the case it lead to a quick exit for UMD movies on the PSP. I look back at the PSP and will fondly remember those awesome early months I had with it, and how it later redeemed itself by having a fleshed out lineup of original games. I want to also give the PSP props for becoming the only platform that easily surpassed portable efforts from other companies that tried to compete against Nintendo in the handheld gaming market like Atari, Tiger, Sega and SNK. I adhere caution when tracking down used PSPs due to reports of some PSPs being susceptible of having bulging battery packs over time. Sony released a few different revisions of the PSP, so I do not know if that is related to only the launch version, or for all versions of the PSP. This is why I recommend tracking down a Vita instead to get your PSP fix for those interested.

In the bonus addendum to this PSP anniversary flashback, I will touch on my brief memories with SNK’s Neo-Geo to commemorate its recent 30th anniversary of the original launch of the Japan arcade hardware. The arcade side of the Neo-Geo was dubbed the Multi-Video System (MVS) and it debuted in Japan in April of 1990, and following in American arcades a few months later in August. For those not in the know, the 24-bit arcade hardware had a home console version called the Neo-Geo Advanced Entertainment System (AES) that launched in Japan later on in 1990 and in 1991 in America. The unique thing about the Neo-Geo is both the MVS and AES used the exact same technology so it was possible to have 100% faithful home ports. SNK wanted the home experience to as close as possible to the arcade that it bundled the system with two mammoth arcade sticks. I first remember seeing Neo-Geo games in MVS format at various arcades in the early to mid-90s. The MVS cabinet was unmistakable with it having the eye-grabbing Target-red color and the two-to-four mini-game marquees listed at the top of it. The big draw to arcade operators at time of the Neo-Geo MVS was that the games came on friendlier priced cartridges that could easily be swapped out like games in a console instead of ordering whole new arcade machines to replace them. I have seen the four-slot MVS plenty of times, but I mostly remember seeing the two-slot version more frequently in arcades over the years, and for the most part it was the same two games featured on them: Puzzle Bobble (AKA Bust-a-Move) and Metal Slug. These were the two game I primarily encountered on the MVS in my childhood arcade experiences. I was not all that great at Puzzle Bubble with its unique spin on puzzle games by shooting bubbles onto the playfield from the bottom of the screen. I did however love Metal Slug and its sequel that I also recall seeing originally on the MVS. Metal Slug was arcade bliss at the time, with charming cartoony soldiers oozing with detail and twee animations as they run ‘n gunned with an arsenal of over-the-top weaponry, villains and larger than life boss battles. Metal Slug is one of the few games where slowdown is a good thing in my opinion because it primarily happened when encountering daunting bosses and explosions that filled up the screen and it felt like the machine was doing all it could to keep the action moving.

Jason and John from the MetalJesus crew do a fine job here giving a 101 lesson on the Neo Geo hardware and have lots of footage here of some of the best games to hit Neo-Geo.

A few weeks ago I did a quick playthrough of Metal Slug X on Xbox One since it was on Game Pass, and everything that I fondly associated with those run ‘n gunners was still there, even the slowdown! Thankfully the AES and MVS games did not remain trapped on their original expensive hardware. By the mid-2000s, SNK regularly started to output various collections of games both digitally and physically. I highly recommend Metal Slug Anthology that hit PS2 and Wii, and later got digitally ported onto the PS4. A majority of the individual Neo-Geo games got ported over individually in recent years on PS4, Xbox One and Switch. Since all these marketplaces frequently run sales on their back catalog, you can now find a lot of these games well under their default price of $7.99 each. Over the last few years I checked out plenty of original Neo-Geo games this way. I tried out too many fighting games to count by doing this, but also finally got a chance to play SNK’s arcade sports offerings that got overlooked by their many fighting games. Three Count Bout is a graphically impressive wrestling title, but its button-mashing leniency takes a toll on thumbs. I loved Dunk Dream/Street Hoop, which is SNK’s take on NBA Jam, but with a hip-hop makeover and catchy rap-filled soundtrack. Neo-Geo Turf Masters is a fast-paced, fun golf title and until recently I had no idea that the Super Volleyball game I loved so much on Genesis had a beefed up version and a sequel featuring amped up robots and robotic attacks on the Neo-Geo. The Neo-Geo is renowned for its acclaimed catalog of fighting games with several entries each in hit series like Samurai Shodown, Fatal Fury, World Heroes, Art of Fighting and its flagship fighter, The King of Fighters which saw annual entries on the platform for 10 years from 1994-2003. Of all these, the ones I frequented the most of were various re-releases were King of Fighters ‘97 and ’98. Its team based fighting style made it standout from the other fighting games, and it was only in recent years with some longer sessions with KoF ’98 that I finally started to come around on it. One of these days I want to give an honest effort at getting into Samurai Shodown. I remember the gaming mags were hyping up its debut entry at the time as a major breakthrough to fighting games with its gruesome swordplay it brought to the table. I eventually picked up its anthology disc on PS2 and dabbled with a couple entries, but never too seriously and need to correct that sooner than later. A random memory is attempting to play Samurai Shodown II at Arcade Infinity in Koreatown one evening in the afterhours of covering E3 in 2003. Shortly after starting it up, someone sat down and challenged me and proceeded to properly dominate me. Looking back, that may have something to do with why I never gave it that much of a shot.

I never had a chance to play the AES home system until well after its lifespan in the early 2010s at regional retro game conventions. That was because I did not see one in the wild until then. Unfortunately in 1990, the home console market was dominated by the NES while the Genesis was only a year old and just starting to break in, so while the MVS was a bargain for arcade operators, the AES arcade perfect tech was way ahead of the times and cost exponentially more compared to the NES and Genesis at the time. Reading copies of Game Players and Electronic Gaming Monthly back then I associated Neo-Geo AES games as being the games that literally cost $200-300 individually in the back of the magazine ads for mail service game catalogs. Occasionally there would be SNES/Genesis ports of the popular games like the original Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown, but obviously there quality was dialed back to run on the weaker machines and that was realistically all of what was available to a majority of the home console market until those anthology collections started to get released in the mid-2000s. I never owned an AES, but I was stunned by its lasting power with official games being released for it all the way until 2004. I only a saw a Neo-Geo AES for sale once at my local retro game shop all these years back around 2008 and I want to say it was going for about $200, and part of me wanted to get it for the standout collector’s item it would be, but another side of me knew the games went for insane amounts by that point and the games were already by then starting to get re-released on other consoles in more wallet-friendly anthology discs. If you have yet to dip into the Neo-Geo catalog, I would highly recommend either grabbing the digital copy of Metal Slug Anthology on PS4 for some awesome two player run ‘n gun couch co-op with a friend as the perfect way to start off. Otherwise, type in ‘ACA’ in the Xbox One/PS4/Switch digital marketplaces to see most of the Neo-Geo games released digitally under the ACA banner. While it was damn near impossible to afford to play the AES games at home during their initial release, I will close by giving major props to SNK for keeping their back catalog of Neo-Geo titles alive for current generations to discover on current platforms at consumer friendly prices! Thanks again for sticking with me in reliving my memories of the PSP and Neo-Geo with this two-for-one flashback anniversary special! Want more retro-game goodness? Then take a peek at my other flashback specials below!

My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary PSone 25th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

[jacewilliams1]

All’s well that ends well… right?

In September 1969, Gaddafi kicked American forces out of Wheelus Air Base in Libya, a facility used for decades training American pilots stationed in Europe. It was a terrific capability—great weather, and lots of airspace for air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons deliveries. This was opposed to operating on the Continent and in the UK, where air and ground space for use by jet aircraft was scant and the weather was problematic many months of the year.

After a hasty exodus of aircraft, associated equipment and personnel back to bases like Bentwaters, Lakenheath, and Weatherford in the UK, and Bitburg, Hahn, and Spangdalhem in Germany, a search was on for new training facilities. Konya, a range in Eastern Turkey, was one; another was Mantiago in northeastern Italy. Both had shortcomings, but were used as alternatives to ranges in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. Lumped together, they still didn’t meet the training needs of the several hundred US fighters supporting NATO commitments.

One alternative was Bardenas Reales, a Spanish gunnery range near Zaragoza Air Base, a former SAC base about half-way between Madrid and Barcelona. Remember, Spain was not a NATO member in those days, so negotiation was necessary to even start discussions about basing forces and conducting operations in country. I really have no idea of what went on to get the door open, but it wasn’t long before the Spanish Air Force got some slightly used F-4C Phantoms in their inventory.

To cut to the chase: in early 1970, USAFE started operations at Zaragoza with Phantoms from Germany and the UK sending detachments to use the air-to-ground range within 20 minutes or so from the base and conduct live fire air-to-air operations over the Mediterranean.

The target for today’s mission.

One day I was on a mission to fire 20mm ammunition against a target towed by another Phantom, the DART. The DART closely resembles a paper airplane—it consists of an X-shaped, pointy ended aluminum-covered wooden frame 15 feet long and 5 feet high and wide. It has some weight in the nose and a radar reflector on the very back to provide a bigger radar signature.

The DART attached to a special rig mounted on the tow aircraft and has about 1500 feet of cable attached and runs out when released from the tow aircraft. It takes a few minutes to fully extend, and if stable, ready to serve as a target. The concept was the tow, and DART, would accelerate to between 350 and 400 knots indicated airspeed. The fighters, normally four, would position around 4-5000 feet behind. It is important to note that, before firing could commence, the airspace and ground (or sea) would be checked for vehicles, boats or other aircraft. This would be done visually, and if available also by any radars covering the target area.

After the clearing, and some perfunctory radio calls, Tow would call “Fight’s on” and start a turn. The intensity of the turn would vary based on the level of training and skill of the shooters. A basic maneuver would be 60 to 70 degrees of bank and 3 to 3 1/2 G on the tow aircraft. The fighter, a single, would call in “Hot” and attempt to maneuver to a firing position, ideally about 1500 feet behind the DART (and 1500 feet behind the tow aircraft).

There are lots of techniques for attacking the DART, but essentially the shooter pulled lead and closed. As the range decreased, the focus switched to the gunsight, reticle and pipper (a two-mil illuminated dot) in the front panel of the windscreen. As the pipper approached the DART, the idea was to have a stable g and as the pipper approached the dart, hold the pipper on the DART and pull the trigger. Getting hits, you’d see the sparkle and the tow could probably sense the impact. Then, a breakaway to avoid collision with the 5 ft. x 15 ft. DART, as it was filling your windscreen at an ever-increasing rate.

If you felt you had hits, you’d fly back close to the DART, making an assessment so the other shooters could judge their results accordingly. On a typical DART mission, you’d be loaded with around 200-400 rounds of 20mm, and fire that in nominally 50 round bursts. Sometimes the first shooter would get lucky and actually shoot the DART off. Not too often.

It varied by the situation, but most often the first two shooters would take their turn and then depart, gun safed, i.e., Noses Cold, returning to base or do some formation flying with the residual fuel. After the last shooter, if the DART was still intact, the tow would descent to about 1000 feet and cut the DART and the tow line off, dropping it on land or in the sea. (I often wondered what some future civilization would think when they discovered several hundred DARTs clustered in a remote valley or at the bottom of the sea, maybe draped over an ancient hull.) There were procedures for dragging the DART off and taking home a thousand feet or so of cable—details for another day.

Sounds easy but even in the most controlled of firing passes there are lots of variables and hits don’t come easy. If you read accounts of most gun kills, the shooter closes to inside 500 feet and often the target is a “duck,” doesn’t know he is prey and is dispatched without knowing it was about to happen. Today’s aircraft with radars to nail down range and gunsights using fast, accurate computers make it way easier, but it is still an art many never master.

Two runways – similar, but not identical.

After firing, I was coming back as a single. Zaragoza had two off-set, parallel, 10000+ foot long runways. The north side of the base was Spanish, with F-86 fighters. Our ramp was on the south side, and there were typically 40 or so Phantoms from the UK and Germany deployed for good weather and good airspace training opportunities. On the north of the base was the Ebro river, which often caused ground fog to cover good portions of the base in the early morning. You could see through it, but on final approach it often created a very challenging obscuration.

Normally we took off on the south runway and headed northwest before recovering in the same direction. Arriving in the local area, I was right at recovery fuel. Today the ground fog was there, thickest on the south runway, making landing there iffy. I certainly didn’t have fuel to divert to Torrejon, a couple hundred miles southwest.

My plan was to do a normal overhead, pitch out and roll out on final to set up a landing attitude for the north runway, going through the fog, which was 50-60 feet thick. I would land on the centerline, slow down on centerline and clear off to the ramp on the south. Good to go. All was normal—a Navy Phantom driver would probably have recognized the touch. Roll out was routine until about 2000 feet remaining, then suddenly two gray shapes appeared ahead, just offset on either side of the centerline. They were two Spanish Sabre jets, parked, awaiting clearance from their tower to depart the runway. About 20 feet clearance on either side—just fine. They were on their tower frequency and I was on mine. Stuff happens.

I taxied in, debriefed, and went to the bar for a steadying San Miguel. Over the beer, my backseater asked, “Were you scared when you saw those two shapes up ahead?” I had the chance to use a favorite line from a Joseph Wambaugh book, one cop to another sitting in the patrol car after gun fire drug bust: “Not me, but I think someone crapped in my seat while we were looking outside.” Or something like that. No go around, but, a taxi through I’d never want to do again.

Sidebar: One of our favorite tow pilots was a rated flight surgeon who’d flown Sabres in Korea before going to med school. He liked any flying and we were glad he was our doc and also took the tow mission. He also had a pretty well-known Dad—Ansel Adams—but you’d never know it.

The post All’s well that ends well… right? appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/01/alls-well-that-ends-well-right/

[blooblooded]

3500 words of BG doing nothing

This could have been way longer but I wanted to finish it up during my night shift so I’m saying it’s done. Ignore any plot set up this is literally Team BG doing nothing.

Nightmare Squad is so lame and awkward compared to Death Squad. Like. They kind of suck when they aren’t being deployed for their specific flavor of terror types of missions....also BG sucks as a leader and one of his big flaws I think is that he overlooks people doing bad things just because he is close to them (Silas, Lady). Also he is brainwashed and {Kip Voice} kind of a fascist. 

They all kind of suck except for Bizo.

#######

Stakeouts were the best kind of mission. Everyone wanted to be assigned to them. They provided copious amounts of free time out in the city. They allowed agents briefly to feel like they had normal lives if the mission involved hiding in someone’s apartment or going undercover. They were also very rare-- usually assassinations and secret executions could be carried out by a squad quickly over a single shift. Anything that could not be done in this fashion meant that the intended victim was weary prey that was difficult to track as well as dangerous, even for the secret police. Because of this, stakeouts were more rare than the usual ops and were only assigned to Elites.

Team BG was made up of Elites. However, they did not have a good kill record, even compared to Team Smiles, which was always held back by containing a B-Class and C-Class agent. Bubblegum’s squad just..ill-suited for physical combat. Their main purpose was basic counterintelligence and causing terror. There was a reason other agents referred to the group as “Nightmare Squad”. BG’s primary skill was agility, and quickly getting to places others could not. Lady was terrible in the field, on account of her being psychicly unstable and unable to take even a single punch. Bizo could fight, but she was better suited to demolitions. And Echo was the best physical fighter out of all of them but they were so moody that sometimes they didn’t want to act as part of the team.

It was all very hopeless, which was why the Directors rarely assigned them all to the field at the same time. Until BG realized that Team Smiles was getting more field missions and kills than they were and had petitioned to be assigned more Elite Missions. It had taken a while, and it had taken some arguing with the Handlers on duty.

It had also taken some convincing to get Echo to stop bitching about having to be outside of the dorms for an entire weekend. They were worried about not having access to a shower or soap or many of the other items that their vanity necessitated.

“Bro, chill,” BG told them as the squad prepared to infiltrate the apartment building that their target lived in. “Civies have showers and shit, and also you’re not gonna die if you don’t shower for a couple of days.”

-You have no way of knowing that- Echo fingerspelled crossly. They were standing next to him, hunched over with their arms crossed. Echo’s uniform was tailored better than everyone else’s. Black tactical gear and black boots. They were wearing their helmet unlike everybody else, but had the tinted glass visor propped open so that their hollow gray-blue eyes could be seen. Also unlike everyone else on the squad, they carried a firearm: a light rifle that they kept strapped across their back. -Just because you have awful hygiene doesn’t mean the rest of us are like that--.

“Ughhh!” BG rolled his eyes.

“Are you guys fighting?” asked Bizo. Her specially made, acid-proof uniform made her look dumpy. Even though the squad had only been waiting outside of the apartment building for 15 minutes, she was already bored and sitting down. By her side was a creature about the size of a cat, that was made entirely of black slime and unnatural wiry hair that looked like spider-legs. She was also bored and had all 2 dozen of her eyes closed. Zoey brought this creature, Dot, on all of the missions she went on. She-- and the rest of the squad-- didn’t want to risk another agent stumbling across her and exterminating it. “This is supposed to be a fun mission…” Zoey was not wearing a helmet. She never did. Her greasy brown hair, so different than everyone else’s shaved heads, sweetly framed her round face.

“We’re not fighting!”

It was 8pm on a Friday night and they were still standing on a rooftop across from the apartment building they were about to break into and make themselves at home inside. The 14 story apartment building in question was built in the Brutalist fashion that so many buildings in the lower level residential areas were. BG didn’t know much about architecture, but he knew that this style was ugly, cold, and associated with poverty. He also knew that this was the kind of building he lost his left arm to when he had clipped into one 5 years ago.

That was the kind of thing he couldn’t focus on. It made him feel phantom pains, and he massaged the skin of his shoulder where his metal prosthetic was bolted to. He shook himself.

Beside him, Lady was standing with her eyes closed as she focused on the 11th floor of the building. When she determined that the coast was clear, BG would simply teleport them all one-by-one into the room they were going to hide out in. Lady was a powerful psychic but an unfortunate telepath. Her skills were grounded in causing pain and accessing trauma memories, not reading thoughts as they happened. Her thin black brows were furrowed in concentration. In the past week, Lady had grown more decidedly frail. They had her working overtime up in the re-education rooms after losing another Elite psychic. Hopefully she was up for the job.

BG wanted to ask Lady how much longer she thought it was going to be, but didn’t want to distract her. He turned to Echo and tried to touch their firearm. They swatted him away. This continued for the next 2 minutes.

Finally, Lady opened her eyes. She swayed for a second and BG swerved to lend her his support. He was the only one she ever let touch her. She held onto his flesh arm. “Clear,” she said. She was breathing heavily. BG had wanted to ask her what was going on for a long time but at this point in their...friendship, he knew better than that. “There’s nobody in there and everyone on that floor is too far away or too occupied to hear the noise if you miscalculate and bang into a table or something. Next door neighbor just started a shower. You might want to hurry.”

-It took you that long to figure that out? Really? What’s wrong with you?- Echo fingerspelled before BG could slap their hands down.

Lady inhaled sharply, her lips pulled back from her teeth. The next moment, Echo made a terrible noise of pain and fear, their eyes went glassy, their face blank. It was the same face BG saw all the time on C-class agents who were trying not to let something truly nauseating make them feel bad. Echo made another frightened noise. BG had to quickly look away from his friend.

Other squads had a no-tolerance policy when it came to psychics hurting their own team-mates. Or at least, Smiles had a no tolerance policy. But BG didn’t want to do that to Lady, she didn’t have any other way of defending herself.

And she had been his partner first.

“Ok,” said BG. “Alley-Oop! Let’s get going, guys! Lady, you first.” He wanted to get her away from Echo, just in case she was still hurting them. He easily put his flesh arm around her waist. Lady was so thin. He could feel her bones pressing into him and it made him hold onto her tighter. She put both her arms around his neck. “Deep breath!”

The first time teleporting into an unknown area was always the hardest. There were too many variables like furniture that BG was unable to visualize, and it was common for him to knock into tables and chairs. His spatial awareness when it came to things like walls was supernaturally good-- unless he was stressed or otherwise impaired.

BG closed his eyes, concentrated on his spatial understanding of the blueprints he had studied prior to the mission, and then released his energy.

In less than half a heartbeat, he and Lady were inside room 113 on the 11th floor of the apartment building. They appeared right over an unaccounted for coffee table in the living room and tumbled over it with a loud crash. The two of them landed heavily, with BG mashing Lady into the floor.

“Sorry,” said BG. He bounded to his feet, unhurt, then helped Lady up. She winced like she had bruised something. BG helped her to the couch. “You good?” He started to move the coffee table out of the way for his next trip.

Lady sat down gingerly. “I guess,” she said bitterly. She looked very angry.

“You sure?”

“I said I’m fine.” She drew her dainty feet up onto the couch and wrapped her arms around her legs.

BG shrugged. “Ok,” he said. “I’ll be back in a jiffy” And he teleported back out to the rooftop where the others were waiting.

The first thing he saw when he got there was Bizo standing close to Echo and whispering to them. She had her back turned to BG and didn’t see him when he appeared. Dot was awake and wrapped herself around Echo’s boot, purring softly. Zoey had taken one of Echo’s slender, long-fingered hands into her own chubby one. It took a monstrous amount of effort for her to ever touch someone without burning them on accident with the chemicals on her skin. BG could count the number of times she had touched him. She must...really have wanted to comfort Echo for some reason.

It wasn’t like Echo had ever had to go through really horrible shit like some other agents. They were A-Class and had a cushy position. What could Lady find in their memories that could possibly hurt them that bad?

He cleared his throat. Zoey jumped. Echo pulled their hand back quickly.

“You ready, Zoey?” he asked, purposefully not looking at Echo because he didn’t want to embarrass them.

Bizo bent down to grab Dot and then shuffled over to BG. He put his metal arm around her. It was specially made to not corrode if it accidentally touched her. Dot oozed out of Bizo’s grip and up his arm, making snuffling sounds. Some of her gelatinous body seeped into the cracks of his metal joints and moved around. “Is this a bad jump?” she asked. Out of the whole crew, she was the only one who still occasionally threw up when he teleported her too far. It was hard on the human body to be spatially disrupted like that.

“It’s not bad. There’s a trash can in the living room too.”

Zoey nodded and squeezed her eyes closed.

This jump was perfectly smooth. They both landed on their feet in the middle of the living room. “Urgh,” said Bizo. She wobbled to the floor. Dot followed her and lost all her shape until she looked like a black puddle.

“You good?” he asked, for the second time in five minutes.

“Urghhh,” said Bizo, who had her eyes closed tightly. The black puddle beside her bubbled.

BG took that as a yes. He briefly looked at Lady, who had not yet uncurled herself from the couch. She seemed good too.

He teleported to the roof for a final time. Echo stood out there by themselves. Their eyes were still glassy, like they weren’t really seeing the world around them.

“Hey,” said BG. “Are you ok?”

Echo didn’t answer him.

BG walked up to them awkwardly. “Dude, seriously, are you ok? Your face is freaking me out right now, you look like Smiles does right before he goes crazy and tries to kill people, like all blank and shit. What did she make you see?”

Again, Echo didn’t answer him. But they blinked and their expression began to focus again. They looked at BG, their Primary and best friend, and swallowed hard. And then they put one arm out, in the same way everybody did when BG was about to teleport them somewhere. Operating under this assumption, BG walked up and put his flesh arm around Echo’s thin waist, but was caught off guard when Echo embraced him. For a second he froze, uncomfortable with this sudden display of intimacy. Echo was not usually the type of person who went for hugs. After a short hesitation, he hugged them back.

The hug lasted for a long time. Finally BG stood back. Echo looked like they still wanted to be touching. But they were both wasting time.

“Ok man,” said BG. “Enough of that shit, just know I’m here for you and all that junk.”

Echo nodded.

“Like, I’ll always be here for you bro. I mean, just because I have to make hard calls for the whole squad doesn’t mean I’m not specifically caring about you too.”

Echo nodded again. They still looked a bit sad.

And BG grabbed hold of them for a second time, held them as tightly as he could. Echo held onto him with both arms. BG took a deep breath and then teleported for the final time that weekend, determined to make it a good one for his friend.

######

The first thing that BG did when all 4 of them were settled into the apartment was go for the fridge.

The rations that they got at the cafeteria were nutritionally dense but bland. Any treats agents could buy at the commissary were very much the same. Unlike the rest of his squad, BG had access to snacks that were otherwise contraband— always gum and candy— because of his closeness to the Executive Director, the strange but wonderful woman who spent her time hidden behind computer screens at the very top of the Capitol Building. But civie food? He could only remember eating it a few times.

He grabbed a carton of something called strawberry almond milk. BG knew he liked strawberries, since he liked that flavor of candy. He wasn’t so sure about almonds. He had only a basic idea of what an almond was. He opened the carton and gulped some of it down. Very cold and sweet.

“Hey,” he said.

Everyone looked at him. Lady still hadn’t moved from the couch. She looked like she was curling in on herself. When she looked up at him, BG caught a flash of the bored buzzing malevolence she viewed others with. Bizo sat cross legged on the floor, still jump-sick. Dot was on top of her head, chewing a big strand of her hair. Bizo and Dot were so wide-eyes. Echo had slouched their awkward body into an armchair in a way that looked uncomfortable. They sullenly played with their rifle, pretending to work.

BG cared about all of them very much, but in that moment, he felt stupid and didn’t know what to say. All he could do was stare at them while holding the milk carton.

“You have a pink mustache,” Bizo said, helpfully.

BG wiped it away with his metal fingers. “Guys, let’s totally have a good time on this op,” he said. He gestured at the fridge behind him. “Let’s have fun. Let’s eat!”

“We have rations for the weekend,” said Lady. She unfolded herself from the tight knot she was in like a spider unfurling its legs. “We can’t just eat out of someone’s fridge.”

Bizo was already on board. She popped up so quickly that Dot fell off her head and landed on the floor with a splat. Shuffling up to the fridge, she said, “Yeah but we’re gonna kill the people who live here, we can do whatever we want to their stuff and nobody will even know or care!” Then she paused and looked around the apartment. She took in all the nice things and the luxuries they weren’t afforded at home. She looked at BG with realization on her flat, dull face. “We can pretend we live here. Like normal civilians.”

Like playing house. BG hadn’t thought about that. He just wanted to party, and unlike Bizo, he had no fantasies about civilian life. He liked working for the Agency. But since this idea made her happy, it made him happy.

“That’s boring,” Lady said flatly. Chances were, if she was ‘bored’ for too long, she would resort to entertaining herself by doing something terrible to Echo or Zoey. That needed to be avoided.

BG and Bizo started to paw through the rest of the fridge together. There wasn’t much fresh produce, but lots of pre-made or frozen food. Ingredients the two of them had never heard of. Salad dressing? Relish? Chicken livers? This was what normal people ate? Bizo took an olive out of a jar, put it in her mouth, then immediately spit it back out. On the floor, Dot snorkeled it up and mimicked human laughter.

“Ok,” said Bizo, after the horror of tasting an olive had worn off. “What should we have? We can eat a big breakfast after we sleep?”

BG picked up a can of whipped cream and considered its mechanics. “I’m not that hungry in the morning.”

“What about noon?”

“That’s better.” He figured out how to work the whipped cream can and sprayed it into his mouth. Echo was glaring daggers at him. “We can all pick out what we want and shit and get settled for this op. Targets have a pattern of not coming back until Monday, so we have some time to kill.” He sprayed whipped cream into Bizo’s mouth, then on top of Dot’s body. The little creature created a mouth on top of her back to slurp it up.

Although it was early, hr figured they needed to get some sleep. Despite playing house, this was still a mission.

“Lady, you get first watch,” he said. “Echo, you get second. Me and Zoey will switch off tomorrow night.”

The targets’ apartment was small. The living room opened up into a kitchen without a wall to divide it. To one side was the bedroom, which had a bathroom connected to it. Sparse living for civilians, but extravagant for BG and his team. Here there were couches and a tv and pictures and all sorts of treasures. There were all kinds of things to do and see. All while waiting to kill a couple of criminals in their own home.

This was what Team Smiles did all the time. No wonder they were so unruly. They had too much freedom…

And it was nice.

##

All 4 of them crowded into the bathroom to get ready for bed, They had only brought the necessary toiletries-- toothbrushes and deodorant. But like any people in their late teens and early 20’s, they were interested in looking nice, so their targets’ bathroom became a treasure trove of luxury.

Lady washed her face, then took a bottle of expensive looking moisturizer out of the medicine cabinet and smeared it all over herself. She stared at her reflection in the mirror with her big black eyes as if trying to recognize the person looking back. She touched her own face and watched her reflection do the same.

Echo clearly wanted to take a shower, but couldn’t since Bizo was already making herself an unmeltable sleeping space in the bathtub. Instead, they just brushed their teeth and rifled through the medical cabinet. They pulled out an old prescription bottle and rattled it, showing it to BG. It was made out to the female target; antidepressant pills.

BG didn’t have much of a bedtime ritual. He ruffled his hair and thought about shaving it but it was too late. He just wanted to go to sleep and was thinking about what a real bed with nice blankets would feel like. He stripped down to his boxers, since that was all he wore to bed. Lady must have been annoyed by his jostling, because she pinched some of his pudge. BG jabbed her in the ribs. This nearly caused an all out scuffle because he probably jabbed her harder than he should have, but he teleported away before Lady could get him.

He teleported right into the bed.

BG saw clouds in the sky whenever he made his forays into the outside. Laying in this bed was what he imagined sitting on a cloud felt like. He snuggled his chunky body into it and pulled the covers up to his chin.

Why were the beds in the dorms so spartan and uncomfortable, he wondered, if there were beds that felt like this?

BG closed his eyes. He heard the quiet padding of Lady’s feet as she made her way to the living room to keep watch. Probably to stare out the window for 6 hours without blinking. When he heard Echo’s familiar footsteps (always distinct because their feet were clammy and made weird sounds on the floor)  he opened his eyes again.

Unlike him, Echo liked to be covered up when they slept. They had their leggings and baggy grey shirt on. So cute. So grumpy, as usual.

“Bizo tucked in?” he asked them.

Echo nodded. Even though they would never admit it, they cared about Bizo like a sibling would and would go to great effort to make sure she was ok. People bullied Bizo a lot and made fun of her. It infuriated Echo. One time they nearly tried to fight the abnormal type agent, Pete, after seeing her pretend to be nice to Bizo while making jokes about her that went over her head. Both Lady and BG had stepped in on that one.

BG patted the bed beside him. “Snuggle up, bro, you get a couple of hours of sleep before you have to be on watch at 0200.”

Echo sneered. -I’ll sleep on the floor-

“You can’t be pissy forever, dude, and this bed is hella comfortable.”

Echo made a point of laying down on the floor without a pillow or a blanket. They just sort of stiffly curled up on the rug. BG grabbed a throw blanket off the end of the bed and a pillow. He jumped out of the bed, put the blanket over them and dropped the pillow on top of their head, then teleported back to his cozy nest before he got cold. He watched them situate themself under the blanket.

“You’re like, difficult on purpose, you know that?” he told them.

They didn’t answer, except for an irritated sigh.

BG shook his head, then closed his eyes himself and quickly drifted off to sleep.

#

BG slept in longer than the rest of the squad. He opened his eyes and then started, teleporting out of bed in a fright. For a brief moment, he had forgotten where he was. This was not the stark dormitory he loved! But by the time his feet touched the carpet, he remembered and relaxed.

He could hear Bizo chattering out in the living room. In the bathroom, the shower was on. BG stretched. He rolled the ball joints in his prosthesis. He had grown in the last year and needed a new one. By his estimates, he was only 18, and would need several more by the time...by the time...well, he didn’t want to think about that! Nope! Too fucked up!.

Lady, Bizo, and Echo were all a couple years older than him. He really, really didn’t want to think about what he would have to see happen to them eventually. That was extra turbo-fucked up.

Usually in the morning, BG did calisthenics, but he wandered out to the living room instead. Lady and Bizo were sitting at the small kitchen table with an assortment of food in front of them. Bizo had poured cereal into a mug and was eating it with her fingers. Lady held a jar of pickled eggs in her lap and ate one on the end of a fork. Both had mugs filled with coffee. He stood and looked at them. For a second, they didn’t notice him.

“And then in my dream,” Bizo was saying, “I was very small and I was in that rec-room that smells like pee, and I was trying to lift a weight that was bigger than I was.” And as she spoke, Lady just nodded along blankly, appearing to be listening.

He cleared his throat. Bizo jumped. Lady flushed as if she had been caught doing something wrong.

“Did you guys sleep good?” he asked.

“I love bath-tubs,” said Bizo. “I don’t have to worry about getting slime on the bed…”

Zoey’s ability was kind of grody.

“I stayed up all night and talked to Echo,” said Lady.  BG grimaced. He knew what that meant. She was still getting in their head, after he had specifically hoped that she wouldn’t. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it…

He knew that his biggest flaw as a Primary was his inability to keep his Subordinates in check. He liked them all too much to ever reprimand them, it would feel too weird. He just wasn’t as….Bossy as Smiles or Creedo or Crossfire, who would snap at their underlings immediately, but were somehow able to keep any messed up inner-team bullying from within their ranks.

“I slept so hard,” he said. BG crossed the small room and sat down at the table. He took Lady’s mug of coffee and drank it. It was much better than what they got in the caf. Probably had caffeine in it too, which he realized as his heart began to pump faster. “I didn’t even know where I was when I got up. What’s with that?”

Lady put a whole pickled egg in her mouth.

On the floor, Dot was lapping up crumbs. She oozed over to BG’s bare foot and licked it gently. He kept drinking the coffee and jittered his leg.

One of the girls had turned the TV on. In the dorms, there were only TVs in the terrible common rooms, and they only played carefully moderated government news channels. This one had one of the big pop-news channels on. BG turned his head to watch it.

“There’s no more information on the terrorists who hijacked the truck that breached the wall earlier this week,” said a perky Artificial newscaster. “And since there’s no official footage, you’ll have to come to your own conclusion about what happened! Remember, it’s dangerous out there in the wilds! Anyone who goes out there, well, I guess they have nothing to lose!”

“Weren’t those the people who wasted Smiles and got away?” BG asked.

“He got sent up to see me after that day,” said Lady. She hummed to herself and smiled in a way that was almost sickening and made BG keep his eyes on the TV.

The TV rain to a commercial for chicken nuggets. All three of them watched, entranced. Chicken nuggets looked like the most wonderful things in the world…

BG jittered both legs. Fuck, was this what coffee did to people? Why was anyone allowed to have it? It should be a banned substance! Unable to stop himself, he began to tap on the table with his metal finger.

“You ok?” Bizo asked around a mouthful of dry cereal.

“I’m gonna check on Echo!” BG said, a bit too loudly and enthusiastically due to his excess energy. He teleported himself into the bathroom.

He ended up on top of the toilet. Echo screamed and fell over in the shower.

“Good morning bro!” said BG, like a train on fire.

Echo picked themselves up and poked their head around the curtain to glare at him. They looked extra tired. Their strange, high-cheekboned face was drawn and they still had that thousand-yard stare thing going on in the eyes. No sleep really took it out of a person. Lady took even more out.

The shower was still running. Echo liked hot hot showers and always took forever. Since BG wasn’t saying something for once in his life, they went back to their shower. The air was full of steam. BG ran his finger down the mirror and left a trail in the fog.

He wanted to say something nice to his friend, like he had last night on the roof, but he couldn’t think of anything. BG wasn’t good with words. He was even worse with words when his brain was racing a million miles a minute because of he had caffeinated it. Whatever he said was just going to annoy Echo, a person who was notoriously easy to annoy. And no matter what he said, it wouldn’t really matter would it? Because he was never going to talk to Lady about this, he was never going to tell her to stop digging around in her teammates’ brains for shits and giggles. What good would that do?

Suddenly he wished that he wasn’t trapped in the civilian world for the weekend. It was easier back at the dorms, where there was order and people to enforce the rules. It was better when all the decision making and power wasn’t in his hands.

[filligan-universe]

TOP 10 Films of 2017

As usual, my personal blurbs are from my Criticker profile. Also as usual, there will always be films from this year that I will see at later dates and fall in love with, but this year has been very kind to me in terms of cinema entertainment and I feel confident in this list.

10. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Always been a fan of McDonagh's writing. Here he lowers the heat on the comedy significantly. I gotta say, the way the film is structured kind of leads you to believe we're on a runaway course to an explosive climax, kind of like in his previous two films, but Three Billboards uncharacteristically and jarringly takes a highway exit just before we get there. Yet, character-wise, these people have gone through their changes. Tough pill to swallow but it works. McDormand and Rockwell are aces.

9. Spider-Man: Homecoming It took Spider-Man coming home to Marvel, but they've finally topped Raimi's Spidey 2. Compelling and understandable villain, fantastic and well-rounded humor, Holland is pitch perfect, RDJ doesn't crowd the show or steal scenes. Shit, this is probably the best film in the MCU. It meshes impressively well with the universe, takes past events and utilizes them in clever ways. The action is well-dosed and varied. Jesus, I'm having trouble coming up with actual criticisms. Just goddamn great.

8. The Shape of Water A very personal-feeling film. It's intimate. A film that's becoming harder to find in wide release these days: a vision brought to life without compromise from a talented artist. The characters are endearing, the score lovely, the camerawork gorgeous, the storytelling engaging. This was a treat. I left the theatre in the glow of satisfaction that only well-wrought stories give us.

7. Call Me by Your Name We're getting close to the point where films with this subject matter are in danger of saying nothing new. I had my doubts through some of this film. It wasn't until about the last two scenes that really cinched this up as cinema worth studying and talking about. This isn't to say the rest of the film isn't engaging, but rather the ending elevates it. Chalamet gives the best performance of the year.

6. Coco Lee Unkrich ought to step in as head of the studio now, because every single Pixar venture he touches is the new gold standard of what they're capable of producing. Coco is gorgeous and heartfelt. The words aren't in me right now, nearly a week after my viewing, to emphasize how this film touches the human heart. I could yammer about the characters, the animation, the music, the talent that's beating inside this film, but it would be an injustice to the truth of it. Just go watch it. 

5. Dunkirk I don't intend to belittle the events portrayed here whatsoever when I say this, but Dunkirk is kind of like riding a rollercoaster than watching a movie. It's something you experience. I hear the complaints about underdeveloped characters, but I feel the lens is intentionally retracted to relate these harrowing events in the massive perspective it requires. Again, Nolan plays with time and it's not always obvious how, but it eventually clicks and feels unique. This is an artist at work.

4. Phantom Thread Feels like a return to form for PTA, and a return to form for him is a splash of new filmmaking and story ideas seamlessly interwoven with each other. He knows exactly the kind of story he's crafted and the exact best way to showcase it; classical in presentation with his usual elegance factor ratcheted up a few dials. The cast, of course, magnificent, but I felt the truest star of the show was Greenwood's score.

3. Baby Driver It's unfair that movies can be this flawlessly orchestrated, but it's also why we love the medium. Wright's elegant direction pumps the film's action scenes with well-earned adrenaline and the quieter moments brim with endearing character moments and humor. I honestly don't have much else I can squeeze into a mini-review other than to say my score for this may continue to rise on retrospection. One of the best of the year, no question.

2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi Rian Johnson is a talented filmmaker and Star Wars benefits from his craftsmanship. Visual storytelling leaps from every frame, daring ideas explore uncharted territories, and the whole cast sells this affecting vision with renewed gusto. Driver and Hamill are especially fantastic. All of this in the most beautiful Star Wars to date. This only takes a few wrong swings, and I know fans are divided and calling it riddled with plot holes (it's not), but this is where Star Wars needs to go.

1. Blade Runner 2049 How. How did Villeneuve craft a film that fits snugly in Scott's 1982 universe while still being an original, thoughtful, aesthetically perfect piece of art? How did he fashion a sequel that will, in the future, be studied alongside its original in film classes? I truly cannot overstate how good this is. Everything about it. Deakins should finally get his Oscar, the entire ensemble is magic, the direction, pace, story, music -- flawless. This is the film to beat this year.

I said that this year has been kind to me at the cinema and while I’m aware that in the top 25 grossing films of 2017, only Dunkirk was an original work while the rest were sequels or reboots. That said, this was a good year for franchises. The corporatization of Hollywood has not yet broken me, though I’m sure it will someday. But I finally got a Star Wars movie I’ve been waiting for since childhood. I got to see Marvel take its films into weird directions with extra emphasis on comedy. Fucking Thor Ragnarok is a straight-up comedy. Homecoming, which was so good as just a film it cracked my top 10, has Tim & Eric level humor in it that still boggles my mind. The best film of last year was a sequel, and it’s living, breathing work of art, and a testament to the fact that we shouldn’t outright deride films just because they’re not original. And still, 70% of my top 10 are original works. Cinema is far from a dead dinosaur.

This said, I’d like to acknowledge some of the other films from 2017 that I had a ball with:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, dir. James Gunn

Thor: Ragnarok, dir. Taika Waititi

It, dir. Andy Muschietti

The Post, dir. Steven Spielberg

The LEGO Batman Movie, dir. Chris McKay

Paddington 2, dir. Paul King

All the Money in the World, dir. Ridley Scott

Molly’s Game, dir. Aaron Sorkin

The Disaster Artist, dir. James Franco

Murder on the Orient Express, dir. Kenneth Branagh