#i miss my buff raccoon

[songmingisthighs]

can we talk about how i've been making googly eyes at jongho recently ???

[ovaryacted]

Capcom are lowkey (highkey) cowards for a multitude of reasons, but two in particular irk me.

One, I don’t know why they won’t give Leon longer hair and more scars. I know allegedly they were going to give him longer hair for RE6 I think, long to the point where he would be able to tie it behind his head but they still kept his same haircut. Now don’t get me wrong, I love his Karen bang, but I WANT HIM TO BE MORE SHAGGY! LET HIS HAIR GROW OUT!! And obviously, I don’t believe in the idea that Leon doesn’t have scars on his body, he absolutely does like there’s no fucking way. Besides the one on his shoulder he got from Raccoon City and the knife scar he got from fighting Krauser in RE4 (original was on the cheek, then redone on his leg allegedly in the remake), he has to have more. I want to see it, I want to see his body covered in them. I understand they’re hellbent on maintaining this “pretty boy” aesthetic when it comes to Leon specifically because he’s like the baby girl of the franchise, but that man’s been through hell I want to be able to see it in his appearance (we have been able to see it, I’m just greedy and want to see more). If they bring him back for future games, and they better, I hope he has long hair or something, I miss my baby.

And two, I hate how they depict the women in the franchise because they just refuse to age them meanwhile they’re making these dilfs (Chris and Leon) into sexy peepaws (not complaining). Claire should definitely look older now and she does in the CGI adaptations, but not enough for my liking. Same thing with Ada, girlypop is hitting 40, LET HER AGE! (I also miss Ada like where did mama go?) Now for Jill in particular, I know her being infected with a virus in RE5 messed with her aging and that’s their reasoning excuse to make her seem younger, but I want to see Jill be more buff? She’s so fucking badass, and that’s not saying she isn’t hot or feminine she absolutely is (I want her bad). But I don’t think a character like her wouldn’t not have muscles. Like she’d pack a killer punch, I want to see her biceps ripple as she moves. I love strong female characters that also look strong, like Korra from TLOK and Mikasa from AOT.

Idk, just my thoughts fr. Capcom, I’m on to you. I’m actually knocking at your door rn to speak with you personally. Let me in, I just want to talk.

[alastorgould]

Rocket's Backstory

*deep breath* God help me

This is the most inconsistent Marvel backstory and I, the top expert on Halfworld, am here to clear it up.

I'm going to split the variants into the following catagories: 1985, 2014, modern comics, show, and mcu. (the show is simply called Guardians of the Galaxy and is on disney+ and i highly recommend).

I have compiled a spreadsheet to go over the main points

As you can see, it's a shit show.

(As i go over the stories as best I can, please note that i am not a comic buff i am a 15 yo with Asperger's and an obsession with Halfworld and if i get something wrong plz don't be mad at me just tell me and I'll fix it :3)

1985 Rocket Raccoon- Rocket is a genetically modified caretaker on Halfworld, a mental asylum used to hold the insane of the galaxy, known as loonies/shrinks (extremely offence things to call mentally ill ppl but it was the 80'ssss). They have a book called the Halfworld Bible, which holds the secrets of the planets and it's people. The planet is ruled by Mayhem Mechaniks and Dyvynicies Inc; rival toy companies owened by Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne respectively. Jakes killed Lylla's parents to steal the company and it's... horrifying robot clowns. Pyko steals the Halfworld Bible for it's instructions on how to escape the planet in a giant human-shaped ship. Jakes and Dyvyne find out about this plot and team up to crash a party and there's a big battle and Rocket, Lylla, Pyko, Wal, Blackjack, and possibly Pyko escape Halfworld on the ship, leaving it in shambles as the loonies are left to the own devices to rebuilt the planet with their newfound wisdom (Pyko manages to 'cure' them)

2014 Rocket Raccoon (my fav series :3)- This one doesn't have much in the way of backstory, all we know is what Captain Sale gives us in the last book. Throughout the series it is shown that Rocket has no memory of his creation and believes he is the last of his kind. Until he ends up on Captain Sale's ship. She gives he the key to the Book of Halfworld and he takes 4 hours to read it. He is shown to be disgusted and horrified at the contents, leaving it with Sale and going home. (Clowns and the toy factory etc are mentioned, implying it is a sequel to the 1985 version.

Modern Comics- This section is specifically about v5 GotG #8 as I don't recall any other comics going into much detail. Here, there are loonies and robots, but no clowns. They must have thought it was too silly. Rocket is a therapy animal turned sentient with cruel experimentation. This is the first version of Rocket's backstory to show him sustaining significant and lasting trauma from his past. Not to mention the debilitating physical effects of having a metal skeleton and countless other weird things he doesn't understand. After his transformation, he is shown with the 1985 gang and other past team ups in a montage. It seems there is also an attempt at continuity here but it misses the mark a bit.

GotG Show 2015- This is by far the worst adaptation in my opinion, as it completely overhauls the story. So note that I have bias here. Here, Rocket is a simple Earth raccoon that has been transformed with the purpose of being a living weapon. His purpose was more 'artificial genius' than 'genetic marvel'. Immediately after being let into a more open enclosure, he meets Groot and effortlessly destroys the robots and steals a ravanger ship. After freeing all the creatures, of course.

(i am unable to provide images for this section as disney is a pussy ass company and won't let me screenshot but just imagine it sucking)

MCU- Anyone reading this has already seen the movies but I'll go over it anyway. The High Evolutionary is a man trying to recreate a sentient Earth-like planet by modifying creatures. Rocket is one of these poor souls. He lives his early years in a cage with Floor, Lylla, and Teefs. Rocket manages to open the cage one day, only to have his friends shot in front of him by the High Evolutionary. He then escapes. He meets Groot later in a well, not shown but confirmed by James Gunn.

Wow this took long to write. Time for the conclusion. Here i will 'average out' all the stories and throw in my personal theories.

My version- Halfworld is an insane asylum built by the Kree where they experiment on mentally ill people to try to cure them(we used to do this here on earth until the 60's). The 'toy factory' is a cover-up for this operation. The robot 'doctors' use clown faces to put the patients at ease. But what do psycho robot doctors do when the asylum is abandoned and not longer supplied with patients? They turn to the animal inhabitants on the planet. The Halfworld Bible/ Book of Halfworld is an engineering manual documenting the disgusting progress of making an innocent creature sentient. Pyko frees his people after decades of slavery in a grand rebellion and Lylla becomes the Priestess and guardian of the book like in 1985. Unfortunately, during the rebellion, 89P13 and Groot get stuck in an escape pod and sent away from the Keystone Quadrent, leading him to believe all of his people are dead or re-enslaved.

I think this version harnesses the soul and vibe of all the backstories while making it make more sense in the long run.

I had a lot of fun putting this together and I hope y'all appreciate it :D (Follow for more Halfworld content <3)

[milkywaydrinker]

Day 3: Crown - 805 words

The confusing scene on the screen in front of her made her want to get up and leave. 

She couldn't, though; she promised to be nice. She promised to do her best and try to be friendly. She had to make it through somehow.

"Okay, so now, after picking up the power-up, you unlock new powers," Badyah rambled while seemingly just mashing buttons on the oddly shaped device in her hands. It must have been a remote of some sort since the character on the screen responded to her actions. 

"Yeah! In different games, there are different powers too! There's one where you can be a cat or a raccoon!" A ginger kid seated on the floor chimed in with barely contained excitement.

"A tanuki, you can be a tanuki, but yeah, different games have different cool mechanics. There are even racing games." She did something on the controller, and the screen changed into a completely different scenery. 

"No offense, but I really don't get how this is fun." Zagan wished she could just call them nerds and leave. 

"That's okay; maybe after you try it yourself?" The kid, who had to be someone's brother or something, smiled cheerfully. 

She already missed those first few hours when he was too scared of her to talk. 

"Like I don't," she grumbled before Norma's "Be nice, please" rang out inside of her head. She clenched her jaw before sighing and finally saying, "Sure, I'll give it a go."

"That's the spirit!" Badyah shouted way overenthusiastically for Zagan's taste and almost shoved the colorful bit of plastic into her hands.

"Hold up, what do I even do here?" 

"Weren't you paying attention?" He scowled at her, but a single, perfectly practiced, mean look made him shut up. 

"It's easy; those are for moving your character." Badyah pointed to the rubber numbs that could move in any direction. "Those buttons here do all sorts of things; it depends on which powers your character can use." She pointed out other buttons with symbols on them. 

"Uh, huh." Zagan pressed some of them and quickly noticed how little force the remote needed to operate. She had to be careful with it. 

"Which character is the most powerful?" She pressed some buttons, following the directions on the screen, and found herself in the character select menu. 

"Well, if you want to play the easiest character..." Badyah said with a small smirk.

"Not what I said," Zagan huffed. 

"Hm, well, you want a challenge, but the character should feel powerful?" She tapped her chin and looked at the kid next to her. "What do you think, Patrick?"

He swallowed loudly and shifted on the floor before responding. "I think Toadette would work. She has balanced basic statistics and can use the Super Crown."

"The what?" Her ears perked up. 

"Yeah, it's a unique buff only she can use. It's almost like she gets to be a princess for a while." He began to speak faster again, suddenly encouraged by even the slightest amount of interest. 

"All right, let's try that." She confirmed her character choice. 

Very quickly, she realized she didn't care about the plot. 

Another problem became apparent almost instantly.

She sucked at this game. 

Badly. 

"Oh, come on!" She growled after falling into another pit.

"It's all about timing. You keep jumping way too early." Badyah pointed out, causing Zagan to grit her teeth.

"Yeah, whatever, it's not my fault those buttons are so damn small." She tapped the button and fell into the pit again. After a few more tries, she finally made it. 

"Yay! You did it!" To his credit, he sounded genuinely happy for her. It didn't make it any less embarrassing.

"Oh, is this the crown thing?" Zagan pointed at the screen after hitting a block with a question mark on it.

"Yeah! Go pick it up!" Badyah almost shouted into her ear.

"Jeez, okay, relax." She picked up the item.

A brief animation played. 

It was, honestly, rather underwhelming. 

"Okay, now what?"

"Well, um, try to finish the level?" Badyah looked at her, clearly confused. "It should be easier now. You can jump way better with this."

"I see..."

She ran into an enemy, got hit, and lost her power-up and her last life. 

"Oh, screw it!" She snarled, and before even realizing what was happening, the plastic cracked in her hands.

"Aw, Zagan, it's okay." Badyah rested her hand on her shoulder. "Just, please don't break my pro controller."

With a frustrated groan, the vampire hung her head and passed the device over. 

"Hi everyone! We're back!" Norma, Barney, and Az walked out of the elevator.

"Oh, dope, are we gaming? I wanna play Mario Cart!" Az sat on the floor with a thump.

"I'm not playing anything ever again," Zagan mumbled, head in hands. 

[cultofthepigeon]

you're into tf2 right. can u give me an accurate all around description of each of the Main Characters so i can pick my fav :3

this is a FASCINATING question. i will do my best to be concise

Soldier-Loud USA loving hobo. Not actually a soldier and extremely ashamed of it. Insane. Does not know what year it is. Heart of gold expressed through violence. Loves raccoons and being naked

Scout- Very fast loudmouth. Wants to be a buff badass so bad but isn't. So into himself it's stupid. Daddy abandonment issues and whatever issues come from being the youngest of 8 raised by a single mom. Radioactive. Loves Tom Jones, Miss Pauling, and talking about himself.

Pyro- Huddah

Demoman- Drunk 99% of the time. The other 1 percent his bones start producing alcohol for him. An orphan. Lives with his mom. Has a sword and a haunted eyesocket. Loves bombs, being drunk, drunk crying, drunk napping, and killing that wizard fuck merasmus

Heavy- Big. Three younger sisters. Can fight bear with bare hands to feed them. Hearty laugh. Quiet off the field but loud on it. Has a seperated bed for his minigun and a literature degree. Loves guns, fighting, and sandwiches.

Engie- Has a robot hand that he probably almost certainly chopped off his healthy hand to make room for. Also 11 hard science phds. Invented teleportation decades before Black Mesa or Aperture. Texas. Pyros bestie. Hates spys. Loves telling bad jokes, making more gun, and yeehaw

Sniper- Aussie piss man. Tunnel vision. Lives in a camper truck. Good at living outdoors. Doesnt have a kanagroo wife, possibly because he's from new zealand. Call his patents regularly even tho they disapprove of his job. Probably hunts aliens. Loves camping, camping, and throwing jara of piss.

Medic-Does not have a medical degree. Removed his team mates souls and uses them to bargin with the devil. Experiments on anyone who gets within a 30 foot radius of him. Loves his doves, acts against god, and to do a little heehee hoohoo laugh.

Spy- French. Thinks hes fancier than everyone else which he is. Thinks hes saner and better than everyone else, which he isnt. Has son abandonment issues and whatever issues come with knowing Scout is your spawn. Horrid laugh, backstab instakill. Loves being invisible, disgusing himself, and having sex with your dad

[leonisdumbasallhell]

I'll bite. 8, 9, 16 and 21 for the violence asks~

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about Idk, I haven't been as active in fandom stuff recently cause I just kinda vibe in my own little corner, but I feel like people make Chris into a boring hardass, and he's not actually that much of a hardass? re7 and 8 are weird, and he's literally got a brain injury in 6, but in every other thing, Chris is v compassionate and caring. I kinda like a goofier Chris, give him a lil bit of dad energy. I think Chris should get to make a 'hi hungry I'm dad' joke. Tho i also have complex feelings abt him being a father figure to Rose, since like. Literally none of what happened to her Would have happened to her if Chris hadn't been a massive fucking idiot. Like if Chris had just gotten over himself and had a fucking conversation, her dad would probably still be alive, lets be real.

9. worst part of canon ACAB <3 I love raccoon city era stuff cause I think it's really interesting, but boy howdy unfortunate these folks are cops! Also just there's a tendency in wider fandom to glorify cops and the military I find kinda uncomfortable, and i know it's a part of canon, but like. hnnn. Yucky <3 16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc) the 'Leon's a bottom' thing is really annoying tbh. I've made a few jokes abt it in the past, but it just got to be so annoying and kind of gross and I really don't get the appeal of jokes abt ppl's sexual positions. It just seems like a way of degrading a character. Actually, most Leon jokes annoy me, (IE. Leon can't drive, redfield bloodline, Leon's a slut) I just find them all kinda weird and demeaning, and also a lot of them are lowkey feminizing and somehow misogynistic??? How y'all figured out how to be misogynistic to a buff cis man is impressive, so congrats on that ig.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped I don't get the hype around Piers. I just don't find him to be very interesting? like. He's just kinda there. And it feels kinda cheap to have him be the one to bring Chris back when like. If this was supposed to be a return of everyone, where's Claire? Where's Jill? You're telling me that Chris goes missing for 6 months and they're not doing anything about it?? I know there's stuff in the manga that expands on why Piers's important to Chris, but it wasn't really discussed much in game, and I shouldn't have to go read an obscure manga to get an emotional payoff for a mainline game. If I wanted to do that I'd go watch a marvel movie <3

[sepublic]

Kipo Season 2 Thoughts!

-Wolf smiles a LOT in this Season, at least moreso than usual, and I’m living for it! Maybe one day I’ll make a “Smiles I want to protect” montage, but it’s just every shot of Wolf smiling...

-I have to wonder, is Fun Gus a result of the lab experiments as well, or did he just sort of move in after the place was blown open by Song?

-Emilia though... Ugh. Not really much else to say about her. She talks big about humans having built an empire or whatever, but she also seems to conveniently forget that it was humans who also brought it down. Or, not- Maybe Mutes deliberately had an uprising, but still. I wondered if we’d have Human characters who are very pro-human, but at the cost of Mutes as a result... I guess we got them, and in the form of a genocidal jerk!

-The Rats were my favorite Mute group followed by the Umlaut Snakes, so OF COURSE the show had to mess with me by having Scarlemagne attack them! Thankfully, Brad and Amy made it out alive and good, but I’m still depressed over them! Ratland was THEIR dream- Which confirms they were in charge, but also we saw other background rats? WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM??? But hey, at least Brad and Amy are okay, I just wish they got their Goat Cheese! Maybe they can make a NEW Ratland from the ruins of Aurum, that’d be fitting! Also the Umlauts are fine, although I didn’t see one of them... I think she was the one voiced by a famous celebrity? That’d explain the absence, guest voices can be hard to reprise. However...

-DANG, I did NOT expect the Mod Frogs to die like that! After Brad and Amy got away fine, I just... YIKES. I knew Scarlemagne was going to be upset at them for messing with his family, and in his own house no less, but... OOF. RIP to those frogs, they shall be missed- Really, I was just thinking about how much I enjoyed the designs and vibes of them before, y’know... Jamack really dodged a bullet there, huh? And talk about MESSED UP... The Mod Frog Boss got to choose her own place in Aurum, and that’s why she and the others were there before everyone else! That blessing by Scarlemagne led to a Butterfly’s effect of their horrific execution, I just... It’s messed up, especially knowing that their bodies are forever buried under who knows HOW many karats of gold?!

-I realized that the Goats adopted a reverence for Cheese because Goats have their milk used to make cheese (as well as other culinary purposes), but like... It didn’t really SINK IN that it was their milk until Dave asked. Brilliant way to end THAT episode, I tell you!

-Back to Wolf... WE GOT TO SEE HER SING! We saw her make Stalky! RIP Stalky... hopefully she makes a new one- Possibly from that same Death Stalker she beat, though I’m not sure if it’s still alive? Regardless, it was a TREAT to see more backstory for her, and how she learned to fight off the Death Stalkers, and then chose to attack one for its stinger! Anyhow, I need to hear her sing Heroes on Fire at least... TWELVE more times after this!

-Did NOT see that twist over the masked figures being the ones to put the collar on Song, not Scarlemagne! One might say that the show is ‘predictable’ in some ways, but in those ways that predictableness FEELS good and proper! Like how an actual story should go... At the same time, KatAoW still saves its genuine twists for what really matters!

-Love the usage of Mulholland by the way, glad to see the friendships made along the way have paid off! I wonder if he’ll be used to help Song speak to Kipo and Lio more! Also, it was weird to see some Fitness Raccoons boo Kipo and Co. while at Cappuccino’s place, but I guess the animators just needed some background variety.

-And, hey! Cappuccino has a fun design, although it feels awkward since I’ve just recently eaten shrimp... Although I HAVE recently visited some brunch places, so I can still appreciate her cafe!

-Did not expect the potential plot thread of Kipo losing control and hurting others as a Mega-Jaguar. I was legit concerned when she almost went for the kill on Gerard, and I love how Wolf, who is very much survival of the fittest, still respects and admires Kipo’s compassion to save her from doing that!

-Good for Jamack, by the way, getting the fame he also desired with those The-Otters! On a small note, I love the gag of the whole gang being unmasked, before we see one Otter, because then you remember that there was that one dude who was also in a costume! Pretty surreal seeing the gang play caricatures of themselves, in COSTUMES of themselves...!

-Zane and Greta are himbos, they’re total Kronks. Not much else to say, I just like that about them! I’ve seen TWO buff, himbo ladies working for the bad guys by Dreamworks -Scorpia and Greta- and I’m down for more!

-It was ADORABLE seeing Mandu try to mimic the tusks of those Boar-Mutes, and how they low-key were encouraging Mandu as well?

-Also, will Kipo’s community NOT LISTEN TO EMILIA SHUT UP YOU’RE THE WORST CHARACTER NOW I WAS WILLING TO GIVE SCARLEMAGNE A CHANCE BUT THEN YOU-

-Dave is apparently so immortal that he can survive being blown apart from the inside? Those Bats made a point that I’d become desensitized to, but... He really IS the weirdest character now that I think about it!

-Poor Kipo, each season ends with her thinking her journey is over, only for someone else to come in and change the current objective after the previous one was fulfilled! Give Kipo a break, dang it!

[raywritesthings]

Scares and Sweets

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Thea Queen, Moira Queen, Robert Queen Fandom: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Halloween, 2000: Oliver's plans to impress Laurel are waylaid and then improved by his baby sister. Inspired by @unusual-raccoon *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

“Mom, no come on!”

Oliver couldn’t believe this. Had his parents always been trying to ruin his life or had it only been since his little sister had come along and decided to be such a pain?

He didn’t normally feel that way about her. And it was hard maintaining the anger as Thea skipped around him in her yellow princess dress, humming under her breath. But she was seriously cramping his style here!

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but Raisa is too sick to go out tonight.”

“So pay somebody else a little extra,” he suggested.

His father now shook his head. “You know your sister doesn’t listen to anyone else as well. We don’t want her going out tonight without someone who can handle her — why, thank you, your Highness,” he added as Thea stopped in front of him and gave a little curtsy, tripping over the plastic shoes she was wearing. Their dad bowed and reached out to straighten her back up.

“Can’t one of you take her, then? Tommy’s got Scream 3 on DVD,” he said. “There’s no point watching it if it isn’t Halloween. Laurel’s dad even okayed her staying till 10!” He’d been over the moon when she’d told them at school that morning. That was like a solid two hours longer than she could stay out most school nights.

“Then you can watch your movie after. I’m not sure why you’d even want to watch something like that,” his mother said with a shake of her head.

Oliver’s gut twisted a little as he wondered himself. But Tommy had gotten the DVD and said that girls loved it when guys comforted them during the scary parts. This could be his chance to really impress Laurel and show her he was more than a goofy slacker at school.

“And you know your mother and I are meeting with Walter and the board tonight about goals for the rest of this quarter,” his father said. “We won’t be home until dark, and that’s much too late for your sister. It’s her first year, Oliver. Don’t you remember how excited you were at that age?”

As if on cue, Thea looked up at him with her big green eyes. “Trick or treat!” She chirped through the gap her missing front tooth created.

“Man,” he groaned. “Fine, I’ll take her. I gotta call Laurel. I promised her a ride.”

Oliver got out his cellphone and pulled her up in his recent contacts, waiting for her to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Laurel!” Oliver said, his hand jumping into his hair and ruffling it as he continued, “Listen, I’m gonna be a little late picking you up for the movie tonight. My parents are making me take Thea trick-or-treating.”

“Aw, is it her first year? What’s she going as?”

“Uh, Belle. The Disney Princess? She liked the dress, and mom said no to the seashells.”

He heard Laurel’s giggle on the other end of the phone, and it caused his heart to pick up a little as a chuckle left him in response. “I remember those fights. Did you want some company while you take her? You could still pick me up on time, and we could just go to Tommy’s after.”

Oliver felt his mouth drop open in shock for a moment. “Really? Yeah, great! I’ll let our driver know right now. See you in a bit!”

When they picked her up, Laurel was still wearing the headband with cat ears she’d had on at school that day, and she smiled ear to ear at Thea. “Wow, I get to meet a Princess tonight!”

Thea bounced up and down on the seat in excitement. “My name’s Belle!”

“Well, Belle, you look very pretty in that dress.”

Their driver took them back out to the suburbs and to the neighborhood Oliver and Tommy’s parents had always designated as a safe place to walk from house to house when they were little. The sun was only just starting to lower in the sky as they all got out of the car and started down the sidewalk, Thea tugging on his hand to pull him towards the first house.

Oliver stopped on the sidewalk and let go. “Just walk up there with the other kids, okay?”

“Ollie, we can go with her,” Laurel scolded him. “Come on.”

So he found himself standing back a little from the stoop as Thea proudly brandished her bag for a middle-aged lady. “Trick or treat!”

“My, what a sweet princess you make, young lady! Here you go.” She dropped two candy bars in Thea’s bag, her eyes rising to him and Laurel. “And aren’t you two precious! Would you dears like anything as well?”

Oliver and Laurel exchanged surprised looks. “Uh… okay.”

They continued down the street, Oliver unwrapping the chocolate bar they’d received to split with Laurel. Sometimes Thea would run up to the houses ahead of them, sometimes she needed some encouragement and hand-holding, especially if one of the houses had put up freaky or gory decorations. Oliver found himself frowning at those more often than not.

“They know little kids are coming tonight,” he remarked to Laurel as they came up the walk, passing gravestones and a fog machine.

“I know,” Laurel agreed. “We can always skip—”

A large man burst out of the bushes with big fake paws on and fangs in his mouth. “Rawr!”

Oliver and Laurel both jumped, but Thea screamed.

“Oh, geez, I’m sorry!” The man said, faltering back a step.

“Hey, what’s the big idea, you jerk?” Oliver demanded, scooping Thea up as she wailed and tucking her into his body. If she wasn’t here along with other kids up and down the block, he would have said asshole like he was thinking.

“I couldn’t see her over the bush. I swear, I thought it was just you two,” the man excused. 

His front door opened, and a woman stuck her head out. “Stan, what’s going on?”

“Your husband made my sister cry, that’s what’s going on,” Oliver snapped.

“Oh no.”

“We’ll keep moving,” Laurel suggested, tugging on Oliver’s hand to get him to stop glaring at the couple. Though she cast a scathing look back over her shoulder as she added, “Maybe put up a sign with age restrictions next time.”

Oliver did his best to rub Thea’s back with one hand as he continued to carry her down the block, his other hand gripping the candy bag she had dropped in her fright. He could kick himself; he’d ruined his baby sister’s first Halloween. 

Gradually she quieted and stopped shaking like a leaf, though she remained clinging to him, her plastic shoes dangling precariously from her toes. He kissed the top of her head and kept walking.

Laurel reached out with her sleeve to wipe at the tears running down Thea’s chubby cheeks. “It’s okay, Thea. The bad man’s gone.”

“I- I’m not, not scared,” his little sister stammered.

“That’s right. You’re a brave little princess,” Oliver encouraged her. “And we’re gonna get you all the candy that a brave little princess like you deserves, okay?”

Her head bobbed up and down in a nod. “Okay!”

He set her down, and she took one of his hands and one of Laurel’s, walking down the street once more. Oliver kept carrying her bag as he glanced over and shared a relieved smile with Laurel.

By the time they’d made the full circuit, it was dark enough that the porch lights and lampposts were all lit, and Oliver was still carrying the candy bag due to the sheer weight of it. Thea was skipping ahead once again towards the car, already babbling excitedly to the driver who stood at the ready to open the door for her, the earlier scare totally forgotten.

“She’s so cute,” Laurel said, and he felt her slip her hand into his as they walked the last few yards to the car. “And I really am glad you gave that guy back there a piece of your mind. He was totally out of line.”

“Yeah?” Oliver tried to play it cool as he added, “Well, all in a day’s work being a big brother. But, uh, we can stop home with Thea and then head over to Tommy’s, okay? He probably hasn’t even missed us.”

Unfortunately, when they got to the Manor, his parents still hadn’t returned from their dumb meeting. None of the house staff that was typically assigned to watch Thea if Raisa was unavailable were still in. Just his luck.

“I’ll text Tommy to just start the movie without us,” Laurel offered, and Oliver let out a defeated sigh as he flopped onto the couch. Thea dumped her whole bag of candy onto the rug in front of him, sorting it into piles and cackling with delight. He was suddenly very sure supplying Speedy with all this extra sugar had actually been a terrible idea. But hey, at least one of them was having fun.

Laurel settled down on the cushions beside him, smiling as she watched his little sister. “She is gonna crash so hard in an hour.”

“Mm-hm. Sorry we aren’t gonna make it to Tommy’s.”

Laurel shrugged. “That’s okay. I’ve already seen it anyway.”

He sat up and looked at her. “You have?”

She grinned. “I went the first day with mom. Actually, she just paid for both tickets and left the theater to grade papers in the lobby. Sara was so mad cause dad wouldn’t let her go.”

“Dinah Laurel Lance, are you a horror film buff?”

She gave another shrug. “Maybe. It’s okay. I would have warned you and Tommy about anything too scary.”

His cheeks burned with embarrassment. So he’d been caught out. “We just thought it’d be cool to, you know, watch something grown-up.”

“I know. But I kinda like that you’re a big kid at heart, Ollie. And that you’ll go trick-or-treating with your little sister instead of ditching her for some movie. It’s really sweet.” She sat up a little as well and leaned in, pecking him quickly on the lips. Laurel looked away as she tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear.

“Oh,” he said, just as soft. “Cool.” He nearly smacked himself in the forehead after. Cool? He was such a moron.

But he was distracted when Thea toddled over and dumped a whole bunch of candy in his lap. “Here, Ollie,” she said, her lips smeared with chocolate. She repeated the process with Laurel. “Thank you.”

Oliver reached out and ruffled his little sister’s hair. “Thanks, Speedy. Happy Halloween.”

“Happy Halloween,” Laurel agreed with a smile.

“Trick or treat!” Thea crowed one more time.

The pair of them dissolved into laughter, Laurel’s head leaning on his shoulder. On instinct, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders in return, and she didn’t pull away.

Well, turned out he didn’t need a scary movie after all. Awesome.

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #35)

(cw: discussion of addiction) ----------

01/23/88   4:02 PM

Hey.

So. I’d admitted that I was an addict. 

Which was, as I’d realize in the days after, not just a sentence you could say and be over with. It was an admission to so many things, many of which I’d been trying so hard not to believe over the course of my addiction. That it really was that bad. That it wouldn’t just go away with time. That I could not stop of my own free will. That I couldn’t fix myself alone.

That counselling really was my one chance at beating this thing for good. 

Which, in itself, was a scary thought. If it was my last chance, I could not screw it up. And I’ve always loved screwing things up. It’s so, so important that I get this thing right, and it’s been really hard at points to picture myself doing that. Even as early as the second step, I felt doomed to fail.

The second step, of course, is Hope. 

Hope that a higher power could save us from ourselves.

Yeah. It’s not that I don’t believe in the Devs. I do, unfortunately. It’s just that I’ve always believed they’re fickle dickwads who don’t give a crit about any of us. They’ve only ever been a source of pain for me. Honestly, I outright hate the Devs. So being faced with this idea that if I didn’t find faith, I could not complete this extremely important counselling, I was understandably more than a little stressed. I didn’t get why that had to be part of the deal. So many of the steps are built around this faith. It’s integral. I had to beg the question: Do only Devout deserve saving?

Fix-it’s response to my spirited rants was to suggest that it did not necessarily have to be the Devs, just a higher power. Something bigger than him or me, some deeper meaning to life, something I truly believed in. Like he, himself, while he is a practicing Devout, places more importance on ‘duty’ than anything else. ‘Duty’ informs his actions, ‘duty’ colors his lens of the world. I probably don’t need to tell you the jokes I made out of that. He didn’t seem to get it.

That widened things up, I’ll give him that. But it widened them too much. I could either pick the Devs, or pull something out of my ass and make a religion out of it. The latter sounds like something I’d only enjoy doing while high, for cuss’ sake. I’ve never been too big on philosophies in general. Partying hard had always been enough of a philosophy for me, but then I went and partied too damn hard and wound up the mess that I was. A junkie with no rhyme or reason.

Step two was looking even more depressing than expected.

On the night before my third session, Fix-it brought out a surprise that he thought might help me relax or cheer up or what have you. He laid down a tarp, a few blank canvases, and gave me an assortment of tubes of paint and scraggly, used brushes. I was a little taken aback. I so rarely use normal, boring, non-magical paint. I was worried that using it would just make me feel worse about my brush still being on the fritz, but I was drawn to the naked canvases anyway. Fix-it sat at the table and watched as if he had put down food for a feral raccoon and wanted to give it space. Having him watch may have bothered me at one point in time, but he had done a genuinely pretty cool thing for me. I’d deal.

And let’s be real -- I am a feral raccoon.

It didn’t take me long to decide what to paint. The one thing that had been consistently on my mind: Revenge on Worluk. All in various gruesome ways. In one painting, I’d ripped her throat out with my teeth. In another, I crushed her with a giant fly swatter. The last one, which was my favorite, showed her dismembered and built into a chair that I was sitting on.

Fix-it said they were all beautiful, and they’d look so good on the shelf in the broom closet. I argued for a place in the kitchen, but no, he insisted that they’d look better in the closet.

As I worked, as I painted the gnarly details on that bug’s face, I couldn’t help but wonder what she had done for step two. What was her higher power? What could she possibly turn to for peace after what she had done to me? The Devs? Duty? Or are there just some things you can never make peace with? That is, if she even felt remorse for it at all. I couldn’t imagine a remorseful pixel in her body.

And then that led to me thinking, of course… What about me? What could ever really bring me peace? I knew for sure that I felt remorse. I definitely wished I had not gone down the path I did over the course of… well, ever since you left. I’d seen and done some really awful things. There was Tapper, there was that poor sap I threatened for a hit of GC, there was… everyone else I’d come in contact with, really. My actions had taken a darker turn than I’d ever gone down before, even in my past pits of depression. My mind was so haunted by then, I didn’t recognize it anymore. Relentless, nightmarish thoughts plagued me all the time. Trauma, guilt, hopelessness, existential questions without answers. Your death, and the blame I placed on myself. My Dev-given, meaningless lot in life. Hatred from what felt like the entire arcade over a crime I didn’t commit, enough to nearly get me killed. All this weighed down on me. It had trapped me. And the only escape I could ever see was in buffs. The thing that I felt the most fondness for, the thing that I had come to long for above all else, was a mind-numbing high. Buffs could save me from my mind, even if they ended up killing it in the process. 

That was my argument in favor of the addiction.

I had to find something, anything, that would bring a counter-argument strong enough to hold up. My guilt for hurting Tapper, while it was very deep and genuine, would only have so many legs to stand on. I even remembered my weird, buff-induced conversation with the river, wherein I realized I owed my own survival to you… and to myself. That had been a groundbreaking epiphany at the time. But it was not enough. I knew that.  Because I remembered what it felt like to be in the thick of my addiction, and I remembered how no one around me mattered anymore. Nothing I owed to anyone else would make a difference to me if I relapsed and fell back into that state of mind. Neither would anything I owed myself, certainly, not with my self-preservation offline. And in the face of all those facts... I was scared.

I didn’t feel safe. I felt like the floor beneath me could have broken at any moment, and I’d lose control again. I needed something to hold onto that could actually bear my weight, because I had become quite heavily burdened. But I had no idea what that thing could be.

It was so frustrating, nearly enough to bring me to tears as I painted. I kept remembering what Wreck-it told me when we fought, about how I didn’t actually want to get better, how I just wanted to keep using everybody, so there was no use helping me. That in particular stuck with me. I didn’t understand why at first. Maybe that was true when he said it. But it wasn’t anymore. 

I didn’t want to be miserable anymore. I didn’t want to be a plague on everyone around me, not really. I wanted to get better. But the means to do so felt like a cruel puzzle I couldn’t solve. Like a battle I had already lost.

Fix-it went to bed, but I stayed up into the night painting and pondering. Even after I was done, I took one of the paintings and began slowly and idly covering it with lazy patches of color. I did some serious soul-searching that night. I tried to harness whatever it was that drove me as a living being. Whatever it was, it must have been old. Older than my knowledge of the Devs, even. I tried to cast my mind back to my very first days and remember what inspired me then, before the Devs’ gospel tainted my life. But I couldn’t come up with anything substantial. Fun, mischief, laughter, all very important things, but no solid foundations for philosophies. Philosophies that could keep me away from substances, mind you.

It seemed hopeless. But I tried to relax with my painting. I took deep breaths and let the color flow, creating no image in particular. Just beautiful, abstract motions that felt self-soothing in the cleanest way I had attempted in a while. It really did feel great to have access to a full spectrum of color again, even if it was real, physical paint and not magical like mine. I so deeply missed having full functionality of my tools. All that time without it, I’d felt like I was hobbling around with a missing limb. I need my color. It’s just embedded in who I am. Always has been.

My very first coherent thoughts after being plugged in were about the color pulsing inside my code.

I froze.

Was that it?

Could that even work?

The force bigger than me, the deeper meaning to life, the one thing that had been with me since the very first second I remember entering consciousness… well, that was color. I see it and feel it in all things, and always have. It inspires me. It does guide my actions, in a sense. 

But color? It felt too obvious, almost. It was one of the most important things in the world to me. But could I really pull a philosophy out of it?

I felt cold, but not in a bad way -- more like a refreshing breeze on a sweaty day. But that breeze also felt hundreds of miles high, with me suspended on this one new idea that I had to strengthen before it could break. What if there was something even bigger than the Devs? Something that ignored games, roles, class, age, gender? Something that, if I played my cards right, could free me from the life I felt trapped in?

Something strong enough to weaponize against the Devs’ presence in my mind?

Even kill it for good?

I remember bursting into Fix-it’s room and scaring the bits out of him. I leapt onto his bed and stained the blanket with my paint-splattered hands.

“Color,” I said firmly.

Fix-it stammered, reaching to turn on the lamp. “Wha-- Wha-- What’s-- Mavy?”

“Color,” I repeated. “That’s my higher power. I think. The thing I believe in? I think it might be color.”

He was quiet for a second, his hands raised cautiously, his mouth open in hesitation to speak. “Mavy-- Mavy, settle down, now--” he said, not really registering my relatively controlled demeanor after my very aggressive entrance.

“Don’t tell me to settle down,” I told him. For some reason, I was shaking with adrenaline. I was so unsure. I wanted to be right, but I barely felt like I had an idea.

“Oh, it’s-- It’s just that last time you started goin’ on about color, you went and stabbed your hand with a fork, so, I just wanna make sure you’re not gonna--”

“Oh...” I said, the memories blowing up in my brain. “The kaleidoscope. In my dreams-- trips-- whatever-- the kaleidoscope… Me becoming color…”

I held my sticky wet glove to my forehead, my mind connecting more and more wires. Every thought and memory coming into my head was telling me that I was right. I stared past Fix-it, feeling my heart pound. “That can’t be a coincidence. There’s no way. That all has to mean something, right?”

“C-Color?” 

“Yes!” I jabbed him in the shoulder, at which he groaned in pain. “That’s it! My stupid higher power homework. I think I’ve got it!”

I heard him give vague and confused murmurs of encouragement as he sank back down to the pillows. “That’s great, Mavy, that’s wonderful… I’m so… so happy for you...” And he was out like a light, even with the light still on.

Whatever, I thought. Maybe he didn’t understand, but I… sort of did. That was what mattered.

The following night, though, I’d have to put that thought to the test. I went into my third session of counselling with a nervous sweat. I would have to explain my revelation to the group in words, when so much of it was just… how I felt. I’d been running through my speech again and again up until the moment I sat in that circle of chairs, and as I did, I began to doubt myself more and more. I don’t know anything about making solid philosophies, or if what I made could even be considered a philosophy. Maybe my idea was actually garbage, and they wouldn’t accept it. It was so vague. I hadn’t even worked out all the kinks in it yet. I just hoped I would understand it more as I said it out loud.

Stage fright has never been a problem for me. I’m a born performer. But this was not a performance. This was real life. I had trouble opening up like that even to you, and now here I was in a room with sprites I barely knew, including one who tried to kill me. I definitely didn’t like the idea of showing vulnerability in front of her. I didn’t want her to know anything about me.

But I knew the drill. Just deal with it.

When the turns eventually came to me, I introduced myself as an addict, and told everyone that I’d done some work on step two. There were a couple claps and nods.

“Except,” I told them, “I, uh, didn’t pick the Devs as my higher power. That’s not against the rules, is it?”

“No, no, of course not,” Clyde told me. “We have a few others here who also picked their own.”

“Charity,” someone said, waving slightly.

Another piped in, “Honor.”

Then, to my shock, the raspy voice of Worluk chimed in, with just about the most unexpected word I could think of.

“Friendship.”

Yeah. That threw me off. I tried not to raise my eyebrows so obviously at her, but I had to glance at least. I found her still not quite looking my way, but without a hint of shame in her body language. Who the hell was this chick?

I told myself to shake it off. The spotlight was on me, and I had no time to be tripped up by murderous mosquitoes. 

“What about you?” Clyde asked me. “Would you like to share?”

I swallowed. Now or never. “Sure. I picked, uh… color.”

Clyde’s featureless brows raised a bit, making my stomach clench in embarrassment. “Really? Well, that’s one we haven’t heard of before. What does color mean to you, Mavis?”

I looked out at the expectant faces. Except Worluk, who was still not looking, which I tried not to read into and just carry on. She could not ruin this for me. I had to be strong and confident, like I know I am. All I had to do was say a few words. It seemed like a simple thing to do, but I felt so damn seen, and I didn’t like it. I saw some impatient frowns from sprites who still didn’t want me there, I saw some eyes full of curiosity over what I’d say, but the rest just looked… neutral. Like I was just another part of the process. Like it didn’t matter to them either way if I fumbled or stuck the landing. 

Normally, I’d hate that. But in this context? It seemed to take so much pressure off. It wasn’t about them. It was my step to take, and they were just witnesses to it.

So I took a deep breath, and I just started talking.

“Color is… everything. I mean, it’s what I do, but it’s also who I am. Y’know, inside. Color is the first thing I remember from the moment I was plugged in. I don’t just see it, I feel it. And it’s… I mean, it’s in everything. Almost all of our games have color. That’s all we are at the end of the day, just blotches of color behind screens, and that’s… that’s kind of awesome, when you think about it. It’s something everyone has in common, no matter what game or role you’re programmed into. That makes things a bit simpler, y’know, to think of yourself not as a Good Guy or a Bad Guy or an Easter Egg, you’re just… a living splash of color.”

I wasn’t sure if I was actually making any sense, but to my surprise, I saw quite a few receptive faces even leaning in a bit to listen. They were intrigued, which was encouraging. So I took it a step further.

“As far as philosophies or things to live by, well… It just got me thinkin’ like... I’m an artist. And artists know that every color is useful. Any color can be mixed, or painted over, in any shade, in any shape. And usually…it takes a lot of different colors and shades to make a beautiful painting. So when you’ve been using the same color again and again, just monochrome, or even analogous, like I have… you’re not gonna be happy. There are so many things I’ve believed, so many things that I’ve thought to be absolute truths that have led me to take buffs. Like… I’ve never been into the whole Easter Egg thing. And I thought buffs were the only thing that could save me from that. But… maybe they’re not. Color, to me, feels like…”

I sighed, trying to pull the words out of myself. “...Flexibility. Possibility. An open mind, I guess. A new color is like a new way of thinking. And... there’s always another color. There’s always another way. And… y’know, it’s probably high time I started acting like it.”

There was silence for a moment. 

But then I saw smiles, and I heard claps, even some small words of encouragement. They were congratulating me and thanking me for sharing. Even some sprites that had given me standoffish looks before were giving me grudging nods.

I… did it. I did it right.

I could hardly believe it. I felt like I’d just spilled out some of my ugliest, most confusing guts, but they loved it.

I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. It was too heavy. I was too vulnerable. 

But all I could do was… grin.

“Mavis,” Clyde said, “thank you so much for sharing. That’s just fantastic to hear. You’re gonna do great things here -- and remember that even when you stumble, it’s that faith of yours that’s going to lift you back up again. You’re going to have to hold onto it from here on out. Don’t forget that.”

“Yeah,” I sighed so hard, it made me dizzy. “Yeah, of course.”

There was a bit more discussion, and the meeting carried on as usual, as if I hadn’t just done something incredible (for me, anyway). But I had a feeling I was going to have to get used to that. Bending myself in unnatural ways to reach this lofty goal of sobriety, and then carrying on as if everything was normal.

Because that was going to be the new normal, after all.

And my first night in that new normal, I tried to find ways to embody my colorful philosophy in whatever small way I could. I looked around at everyone in the circle, and I asked myself to examine the colors that each of them made me feel, beyond what I could see. Specifically Worluk, the one who had been giving me so much trouble, making me so much more nervous than I already was.

To me, she felt… like a toxic yellow. Barely touched with green. Just bright, garish, nauseating and impossible to ignore. While everyone else just blended into each other’s vague, muted tones. It became very apparent just how much I had been ignoring the rest of the group and honing in on her.

Surely, there was something I could do about that.

I wasn’t sure how effective it would be, but I dared to challenge myself with this: If I could not mute Worluk’s color in my mind, maybe I could at least let the rest of the group grow brighter.

[shaylogic]

One of my first thoughts when I woke up this morning was that--out of EVERYONE in the MCU--James Buchanan Barnes has had the weirdest freaking perspective on the change the world went through in all the movies.

Like he starts out as just a normal human dude--guy in the 40s joining the war effort, like most other young adult men at the time would have.

Then his scrawny pal gets super tall and buff but he could maybe chalk that up to Steroids or something. He, himself got captured and experimented on, which is awful, but not a thing unheard of at the time.

Then he’s “KIA” and doesn’t know anything. For a bit.

Then almost a century goes by that he probably only remembers like snippets of nightmare after nightmare, dissociated from the experiences but unable to fully reject or accept them. Who is he anymore? What has the world become? Is this Purgatory? Is this Hell? He doesn’t have much time or lucid consciousness to consciously take in the newer world around him.

Then, when he finally breaks free, he has to go on the run and piece it all together on his own. This future world, the new technology, how history remembers him and his friends, all these crazy and colorful superheroes. Aliens, magic, themed villains.

And it’s all A Lot but he’s doing his best to get by. But after all the hurt he’s caused others, and all the craziness of the Civil War being over him, when he doesn’t even have a good sense of identity anymore as it is, it’s too much. He needs to have time to process and heal, and deprogram.

Then it’s assumed he’s been woken periodically for Shuri to help deprogram him and for the Wakandans to kindly take him in and help him readjust. But he’s in a totally foreign country, a secret country that’s been hidden forever and that he could never have imagined! He’s in a very different time, place, and mindset now. He looks different, he feels different, he’s missing an arm. This isn’t what he signed up for in the 40s. This isn’t how he thought his life would go.

But at least his ridiculous friend is still here with him, despite everything. Just like he said, with him until the end of the line.

And then aliens attack and magic is flying everywhere and the army of a secret society is leading the assault and and and and

there’s a fucking norse god, a humanoid tree, and a talking raccoon

and the raccoon is fighting with him

and at this point, Bucky just fucking accepts it

TLDR: Bucky Barnes is the epitome of the Mood™:

[dapper-ships-herself]

Should you fight my f/os?

Tagged by @megane-shipping @rose-wine-selfships @firebird-inkheart

I have many f/os, so this isn't all of them but I still did a fair number of 'em.

Also the rating system confused me but I did my best.

Dazai: He looks pretty scrawny, and while he is a pretty good fighter fighter through skill he isn't the physically strongest opponent, but you still wouldn't be able to beat him. He'd come up with some sort of plan where you'd probably think you'd won but then you turn around and oop no Dazai won. How does that work? Who fucking knows.

No fighting Dazai. 2/10

Erza Scarlet: She will kick your ass with the power of friendship and her eighteen thousand swords. Are you kidding me? She's queen of the fairies, no way. Beating her up only inspires her to win for the sake of her guild.

No fighting Erza. 1/10

Shinobu Kocho: She will poison you with a smile on her face. Unless your name is Douma, I would not recommend (ouch).

No fighting Shinobu. 4/10

Chuuya Nakahara: if you're looking to get crushed by a manlet in a fancy hat, then go for it. He's quite possibly one of the strongest ability users out there, but tell him Dazai called him a nerd or whatever and he'll fly into a rage that you can either use to your advantage or will result in you being crushed faster.

No fighting Chu-tan. 1/10

Yosano Akiko: Holy shit what? You're going to fight her? She will hack you to pieces, put you back together, and then repeat, repeat, repeat until she has to go and catch a sale.

No fighting Yosano. 4/10

Howard Phillips Lovecraft: You have a chance so long as he continues to give into his tiredness, he may simply lay there while you beat the shit out of him. Make sure you keep him from going all eldritch monstrocity on your ass though.

Not advised to fight Lovecraft. 3/10

Edgar Allen Poe: He's baby, why would you fight him? I know his best friend is a raccoon and he looks like he hadn't been outside since he was a baby, but what would you accomplish by fighting him?

To remain a decent person no fighting Poe. 5/10

Mark Twain: He's allergic to wearing shirts properly and thinks he's all buff and stuff, but you can punch him in the eye and knock him the fuck out. His little doll friends ain't gonna do shit. So long as you get too close for him to snipe you, you've got this.

Fight Mark. 7/10

Margaret Mitchell: I would really rather you not, she's napping. If you did, though, be ready to get caught in your own personal tornado while she rants about restoring her families honor. Unless your name is Akutagawa, be careful.

Not advised to fight Margaret. 5/10

Higuchi Ichiyo: She's certainly not the most formidable opponent, but she would gladly cut a thousand bitches for the sake of getting senpai to notice her.

You could fight Higuchi but it's not advised. 6/10

Gin Akutagawa: You wouldn't even hear her coming. The thought of fighting her would be brand new and then whoops, you've got a knife to the throat. She's not a leader of the black lizards for no reason.

Not advised to fight Gin. 4/10

Beelzebub: There is a chance that he would literally eat you, but for the most part while he is a big, beefy demon, he's also a teddy bear; he'd probably let you punch him over and over with a straight face. Stay away from his food and you should be fine.

Maybe fight Beelzebub. 6/10

Mammon: On one hand, he is the second most powerful of his brothers, he could easily destroy you. On the other hand, boy gets beat up verbally and physically by his brothers every damn day and has a mountain of insecurities, poke at those and you could probably win. Or make him even more mad. It's a gamble with the avatar of greed, my guy.

Maybe fight Mammon but not advised. 5/10

Jae-ha: He's a quick fellow, and his aim with those daggers is pretty spot on, it'd be very difficult and your best chance would be to try and ground him so he can't use his dragon leg. Although, he's a pervert and would probably like getting beat up, so you could win simply by that

Not advised to fight Jae-ha unless he's feeling especially nasty: 5/10

Chain Sumeragi: She can literally make herself completely undetectable and then stick her hand through you to play with your insides, unless you can get past that somehow, you're fucked.

No fighting Chain. 3/10

Steven Alan Starphase: He will Esmeralda Blood Freeze you before you can even blink and the shatter you into ice cubes for his drink. He ain't afraid to get his hands dirty.

No fighting Steven. 3/10

The Happy Huntresses: They're an experienced team of top of their class huntresses; four badasses trained not only to fight people but also giant evil monsters.

No fighting the happy huntresses. 4.5/10

Meis and Gueira: I mean they look decently tough with those bikes and the armor and the fire, but everytime we see them in a fight they get their asses handed to them in like two seconds. Best to be equiped with a fire extinguisher or like some ice cubes to chuck at 'em.

Maybe fight them. 6/10

Aizawa Shouta: Your best bet is to catch him in the middle of a nap, but please be so careful not to wake him up, he's most likely be so cranky that he'd forget he's a hero and snap your neck.

Not advised to fight Aizawa. 5/10

Idia Shroud: His scrawny ass barely ever leaves his room, he hasn't lifted anything heavier than his phone ever, he's a flaming stick basically.

You could fight Idia. 7/10

Sesshomaru: He has very little mercy to spare and has killed a great deal of people and demons.

No fighting Sesshomaru. 2/10

Annie January: She is capable of blinding and throwing you across the room with a beam of light from her hands and can lift like thirty two times her bodyweight. Unless you also have superpowers, would not recommend.

Not advised to fight Annie. 5/10

Byleth: She's a skilled fighter on her own, but she also has an army of feral students ready to beat the shit out of anyone who messes with their proffessor.

No fighting Byleth. 4/10

Shatina: Her greatest joy is beating people up and watching them bleed, she steps on and torments even her closest allies on a near daily basis. She would crush you and the go right back to drinking.

No fighting Shatina. 4/10

Maeve: I'm actually not sure what kind of fighting ability she has, but why would you want to hurt a goddess?

No fighting Maeve. 5/10

Ban: He's a member of one of the strongest groups of fighters in the land, and he's able to almost immediately regenerate after any and all damage. Also, he's like 10 feet tall, what are you going to do? Chew on his ankles until they snap off? They grow right back.

No fighting Ban. 4/10

Joxter: Fucking feral cat man, too lazy to fight back. Kick his ass.

Fight Joxter. 8/10

Shigure Sohma: Please fight Shigure, please. I will put my bet on you and watch.

Please fight Shigure. 9/10

Vodka: She's used to fighting giant fallen angels, she'd have no trouble kicking your ass and looking good while doing it. Also, she could simply send her hawk Andre to peck out your eyes before she even has to do any work.

Not advised to fight Vodka. 5.5/10

Jordan 'JD' Davies: They're the Jersey Devil. Literally, the Jersey Devil. They'd burn you to a crisp with their fire powers. But, your chances of victory aren't zero if you could find a way to deal with that. They're strong, but you could find a way with a fist fight. Fuck knows they deserve to be fought.

You probably shouldn't but fight JD anyways. 7/10

Zoro: You're going to fight a guy who wields three swords? One of which he sticks in his mouth? He's clearly crazy. Also I'm pretty sure he cuts a mountain in half at some point or something like that? So there's that to take into consideration. You're best bet would be to also be amazing with swords.

No fighting Zoro. 3/10

Nami: She's not the most powerful out of all of all of her crew, but if you beat her you will leave afterwards and notice that your wallet and all your valuables that you had on you are missing and she's already sailing away.

You could fight Nami but you will be poor afterwards. 7/10

Mollymauk Tealeaf: Hasn't he been through enough?

No fighting Molly please. 5/10

Zora: She will turn you into a literal baby, how do you plan on beating her up as an infant with your chubby lil baby hands?

No fighting Zora: 4/10

And I wanted to include some familial too

Yukichi Fukuzawa: Have you seen him fight with a sword? You won't even see him draw it.

No fighting Fukuzawa. 2/10

Ogai Mori: He will trick you into thinking he's merely a simple, friendly neighborhood physician, and then the moment your back is turned there will be a scalpel buried deep in it. Also, he has a demon baby at his command.

No fighting Ogai. 2/10

Kouyou Ozaki: You might think you're sneaking up on her, but her Golden Demon will cut you down without her even needing to look away from admiring the flowers and sipping her tea.

No fighting Kouyou. 2/10

Oda Sakunosuke: HASN'T HE BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH.

No fighting Oda PLEASE. 4/10

Ranpo Edogawa: While he has eaten nothing but processed sugar since the day he was born, he will eviscerate you with his words and leave you too mentally beaten to lift a finger. Stuff your ears with some cotton and kick his scrawny ass. The rest of the detective agency will come after you, though.

Not advised but go ahead and fight Ranpo. 5/10

Yumeno Kyusaku: So much as look at this child wrong, much less lay a finger on them, and I will be the one fighting you.

NO FIGHTING YUMENO. 0/10

Lio Fotia: I know he looks like a dandy who was abandoned and raised by a biker gang, but he is also the strongest known burnish. The only thing saving you is his code against killing.

Not advised to fight Lio. 4/10

Laxus Dreyar: He's an asshole, and I completely understand wanting to fight him, but he is jacked as shit with the power of lightning at his finger tips.

It's not smart but I would like to watch you do it anyways. 2/10

Noctis Lucis Caelum: He'd rather fish than fight you, but he is capable of taking down giant monsters and mini armies with the ability to teleport. Tell him Hot Topic is going out of business and he'll crumble.

Not advised to fight Noctis but eh maybe you could. 4/10

Pretty sure all the people I would've tagged have already done it? So do this if you want to.

[moonlitwing]

It’ll Be A Picnic

When they were 14, Steve Palchuk and Eli Pepperjack went into the woods of Arcadia to look for goblins. While out there, they ran into Jim Lake ... and Bular.

Contains death and implied gore.

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Steve was taking selfies the first time he saw a goblin. Since he was starting high school next week, his mom finally agreed he was old enough get a cellphone. He was messing with the camera in the backyard and saw something moving behind his back.

He turned around – which meant the thing wasn't on camera anymore – and squinted. It was green, and climbing a tree, and looked more like a monkey than a raccoon. Steve switched the camera settings and got about three seconds of video before the weird creature was hidden in the leaves.

He watched for a while, but it didn't come back out. Then his mom called him in for dinner.

Steve didn't say anything to her about the green monkey. If he tried showing her the video, she'd probably think it was a camera filter he'd been playing with.

The first person he told was Eli Pepperjack. Pepperjack was some kind of conspiracy nut. If anyone was going to believe Steve wasn't just messing with them, it was him.

Besides, Pepperjack was the one to approach Steve.

Sort of.

"Things in this town aren't what they seem!" Pepperjack insisted, trying to pass out fliers to passing students in the hallway between classes. "Join the Arcadia Investigations Club and we'll get to the bottom of this mystery! All the mysteries!"

"Don't you need a teacher to sponsor a school club?" asked Jim Lake, who was trying to get around Pepperjack to reach his locker.

"Um … well, it's not an official school club yet." Pepperjack took a step back from Lake and bumped into Steve. "Hey! Want to uncover Arcadia's hidden secrets?"

The flier had four blurry photos framing the club name. One of them might've been a flying saucer, or a dark out-of-focus cloud. The second was of some kind of animal tracks. The third, Steve couldn't make out what it was supposed to be. The fourth showed a green blur leaping into a bush, one leg almost in-focus. It was the same shade of green as the monkey-thing.

Steve took the flier and found Pepperjack after school.

"I've seen one of these," he said, pointing to the green picture. "In the woods behind my house."

"Really?" Pepperjack's eyes and smile widened.

"I got it on video." He got out his phone. Pepperjack actually squealed, making Steve flinch at the sudden high-pitched noise, when the video played.

"I can't believe you actually got it on camera! This is the clearest image of a creeper I've ever seen!"

"Creeper?"

"That's what I've been calling them. Things that creep in the night! Arcadia is a hotbed of paranormal activity. Where exactly did you see this one?"

Eli came to Steve's house after school. His mom was thrilled he'd 'brought a friend for dinner'. They went out to the backyard and hopped the fence – well, Steve did; Eli needed help.

The creeper wasn't hanging around, and it hadn't left any footprints or claw marks that Steve could recognize, although Eli excitedly photographed some scratches on the trees.

They went deeper into the woods.

It started to get dark.

Steve was starting to think he should just leave Eli to it – the woods weren't all that interesting if you weren't already into nature and stuff – when something ran through the branches above their heads.

"After it!" Eli yelled, and went running. Of course Steve had to follow him now. If Eli fell and broke his leg or something, someone had to call an ambulance.

Did he even get service out here? Steve would check once Eli slowed down enough that Steve could actually stop and still keep Eli in sight. Getting lost in the woods would be bad enough. Being lost alone would be worse.

There were more things in the trees now. Steve could see them sometimes when they were on low enough branches. Fat, long-limbed, shockingly fast, all going in the same direction. One of them looked at him and hissed. Its eyes glowed red and yellow. Its big pointy ears made it look like some kind of mutant cat.

The trees thinned out a bit. Steve saw someone standing ahead. He grabbed Eli by the shoulder and yanked him back.

"What –?!"

"Ssshh!" Steve pointed at the … person? The cat-monkey-creepers swarmed around them. The figure started passing stuff out, which the other creepers ate. Steve couldn't see what exactly it was.

Eli shook Steve off and got closer, getting out his phone and shining a flashlight at the creeper picnic. The green things hissed and scattered. The big one whipped around, ears up, pupils slitted –

"Jim?" said Eli.

"Eli?"

It was Lake. The face was different, but still sort of similar. The hair was about the same, discounting the horns sprouting out of it. The blue sweatshirt was the same.

"Oh, man, you just ruined the shot," said Lake. "Tobes and I are doing a mockumentary on the Billycraggle. Hence the costume," gesturing at his blue face and big stuck-on pink nose. "It took ages to train Nana's cats for the … baby-billies scene."

That made no sense. A bit more sense than supernatural creatures, but still.

"So where's Domzalski?"

"Wha – Steve? You're here too? How many people are out here?" Lake squinted past him. Those creepy slit pupils widened a little. "Toby's … in the trees somewhere. I kept looking into the camera so now I'm not supposed to know where he is exactly."

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence while Steve and Eli waited for Domzalski to reveal himself and confirm Lake's excuse.

"… Maybe he needed a bathroom break." Lake shrugged. "He'll be back. It'd be super awesome if you guys'd just … go … and pretend this didn't happen."

"If you're doing a Billycraggle movie, I should be a consultant." Eli pouted. "I'm an expert on everything that goes bump in the night."

There was another awkward pause, and then the green things came swarming back.

Those were definitely not cats. They were laughing, and making a repeated low noise like a chant; "Boo-la … Boo-la …"

Lake's ears went back – Steve refused to believe that was a costume, it was too twitchy, too alive – and he shivered.

And a monster came out of the woods.

It was big. It had yellow-red eyes like the green things. Steve could only tell because the eyes were glowing. Everything else was just a hulking shadow.

Could – could he outrun that thing? Through the woods, in the dark?

Eli turned his phone light on it. The monster growled. It was buff, with horns and tusks … and swords.

"Explain, Impure," it snarled.

"Lord Bular …" Lake's voice wavered. "I … I hope you're hungry. I brought you something to eat."

Eat?!

Steve made a run for it. Eli, behind him, also tried to run – the light from his phone shook wildly, flashing in all directions.

Wham! Steve tripped on the uneven ground. Something heavy pinned him. Behind him, Eli screamed. There was a wet crunch and the light went out. Steve struggled and started to cry.

"Please … please …" Steve blubbered. Eli wasn't screaming anymore. Don't kill me I won't tell anyone I swear I'll do anything just please – "Please!"

Lake, the stone monster pinning him, hauled Steve to his feet and offered him to the other, bigger stone monster.

+=+

Jim checked himself carefully for blood before going home.

He hadn't known Bular would be close enough for the goblins to call over. He wasn't sure there was anything different he could've done if he had. Maybe he could've stolen Steve and Eli's phones and told them to run, and dealt with the fallout of being seen later.

If a human catches sight of Bular while you're with him, say you lured the human there for him to eat. He won't believe you but he'll let it slide.

He didn't know Eli or Steve that well. He would be able to plausibly claim ignorance if anyone questioned him after they were reported missing.

Thank the Pale Lady that it hadn't been Toby or Barbara who'd followed Jim to the 'goblin picnic'.

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I'm using the same Changeling!Jim model, for looks and personality, as I do in 'Becoming the Mask'. Those who read the main fic will notice it is set two years after this, and that Eli and Steve are still alive as minor characters. The events described above did not happen in that timeline, but they could have.

[aabaker1]

Just finished Harvey Girls season 2

First spoiler-free Version. Season two of Harvey Street Kids or Harvey Girls Forever call it what you want, was...uneven. The season started and ended in good places, but there was a block of three episodes towards the middle that just fell flat. Good new characters, though only a few of them got developed. And I am really hesitant about the cliffhanger, it could easily go wrong in a lot of ways.

Okay time for the full rundown after the break.

Hoo boy this series had some highs and lows. I’ll break down by episode and then final thoughts.

Raiders of the Lost Park:

Okay does anyone else notice that the episode titles Netflix presents aren’t always the same as the ones on the title card? It’s not that big a deal, but come on, it’s Dreamworks and Netflix. A little consistency would be appreciated.

Nice way to start the series. This was a risky move, introducing brand new characters was one thing, but giving Audrey and Melvin, two established characters, brand new siblings? That was taking a risk. If I had to complain about something the tension and strife Dot caused in the season 1 finale was brushed aside way too quickly, but that’s a nit pick at most.

Dottie Rocket/Weekend at Audrey’s:

Good Dot episode, nice to see her obsessive compulsiveness get the better of her sometimes. But, Dot sill came back down to Earth in the end, even if it took a sugar-induced hallucination to do it.

Digital pets kicking the bucket, sigh, I can relate. But Audrey was just a bit out of character here. Not her recklessness, but her attempts at covering up. Audrey is not the type of person to hide mistakes, get frustrated by them, sure, but not hide them. Okay, she didn’t want to disappoint Lotta, but Audrey just doesn’t have that kind of deception in her.

Boy Story/ Puzzle, Puzzle, Toil and trouble.

And this is what I meant by character development. It’s nice to see that even the Bloogie Boys have limits, and legitimately like more than stereotypical boy hobbies. Also, nice touch remembering Dot and Pinkeye are friends.

Frufru, getting character development? Didn’t we already do this in season one? Okay, I know, people don’t just change overnight. But, for being so eager to be recognized for her brains, Frufru was a bit too quick to cheat. Though nice callback to Audrey Parkour. And I seriously don’t want to know why there’s an old well full of butter, that is just leads to several nasty implications.

Treasure of the Sierra Harvey/ Babies Day in:

And the character development continues, this time for TIny. Also not all old toys are dangerous. The treasure trove of old toys idea has been done before, but this wasn’t a bad example. Though I thought for sure Tiny was going to leave his action figure behind in the storm drain.

And a nice way to show that Lotta’s compassion can get out of hand some times. Also nice way to show that raccoons aren’t always jerks. Just gonna say it now, ninja pajamas, just ninja pajamas. Also, Dot, running bare-foot, outside, in the park? What kind of bizzaro world is this?

The Lice Storm/ Mission Impossibow:

This one kinda fell flat for me. Audrey over reacting is expected enough, but everyone going along with it, including Dot, that was a bit too far. But, the big letdown was the Harvey Avenue Kids. Okay we’ve seen them before in season one, but this was there chance to shine. And most of them came off as background filler, just like before. Penny was the only one who got any kind of development. But, she and bald Audrey did just enough to save this ep for me.

Decent episode and it shows Dot’s possible great weakness. She’s creative, but in a scientific, A, to B, to C kind of way. Imagining fantasy scenarios on the spot is just not in here wheelhouse, props to her stepping outside of her comfort zone.  Bow initiated the plot here, but didn’t get a lot of character development. But, I’m okay with that. The Bow doesn’t really need development. She’s the bow, the weird kid who does her own thing, sometimes you don’t need to add more to make something good. My only complaint is that there just wasn’t enough of her this season, but I guess there can be too much of a good thing. Did I mention Bow’s my favorite character? Could you tell?

Fandom Menace/Moby Dot:

This one was a meh for me. It didn’t do Lotta any favor. I know she’s the trusting type, but she’s not dumb and certainly not the type to willfully delude herself. I think this was a bit of a miss step. Thankfully they didn’t do the cliche of scamming Zoe out of the ticket she sold. Lotta’s online appeal did fit her character and kudos to Crush4you to being stand up guys and respecting their fans like that.

The Cheer Hunter: Dot’s entertainment:

And more character development in an unexpected direction. So far Zoe’s two appearances had her solidly in the antagonist role, but here we she she’s actually a person, not just a stereotype. Also Maria feeling generally dissed by Zoe fast-tracking Lotta felt genuine. It’s nice to see them do plots that don’t involve someone getting their comeuppance. And everybody coming together to cheer Lotta up was a perfect touch. Also, Dot and Stu being completely (whatever) to the whole situation was funny as hell.

And once again we have Dot at her Obsessive Compulsive best. She discovers a new side to herself and like Dot, naturally takes this to the extreme. Also, nice to get a glimpse of how Dot’s brain works.  Also, Fluffy’s still around, what? You do remember that was just a rat covered in garbage can fuzz, right?

I wanna Crush Your Hand:

And this is where the dip in the season started. I’m just going to say it now, I’m not the target demo for boy bands, not by a long shot. But, that wasn’t the problem I had with this episode. No the main problem was Lotta’s obsession taking up the whole spotlight. It felt like Audrey and Dot just got shoved into the background. Plus this episode just dragged. I’ve gotta say it, I think the two stories an ep format works best for this series. The double-length story just doesn’t fit, here.

Beyond Thunder Dot: Ten things I hate about Ew:

And this is where the season hit the valley for me. Seriously, you’re doing the “Let’s shove the environmental message down kids throats” Thing in 2019? I thought that went out of fashion in the 2010s. But, the most galling thing for me was all that character developing they were doing came to a complete halt. Frufru’s character development? Nah, let’s just turn her into a low rent Captain Planet villain. And since when did Dot get that preachy? I’m sorry but this got so painful for me I had to stop the ep and walk away. Ten things I hate about Ew might have been a decent episode, I don’t know. And I never will if I have to sit through this outdated, anvilicious garbage to get to it.

Something’s Glotta Give/Afernoon Contrite:

I think the main thing with this story is it made no sense to me. I thought Gerald and Lotta got together in season one, now Lucretia’s trying to hook them up, what?

This is where the season started to pick back up for me. It’s nice to see that even after the previous character development Melvin can still be Melvin. It’s nice to see that Lotta tries to fix things, even if she did it by accident, but naive Lotta is back and I just don’t know how I feel about that. Still seeing Melvin get a bit more character growth saved this one.

Can’t Hardly Wait/Bring it Prawn:

Ah that’s more like it. This touches my fanfic-writing heart. It’s nice to see Lucretia stretching her active imagination. It’s also nice to see the Audrey Girls and  Tiny encouraging her self confidence. Plus in short order we got return of Audrey the Destroyer, Sci-Fi Dot and Lotta Moon, what’s not to love?

Thank you! Thank you for showing that cartoon siblings can do more than just fight with each other. This almost makes up for the environmental debacle, almost. In one fell swoop we see Maria and Melvin get along and Zoe and Audrey put their differences aside and work together for a common cause. Bonus points seeing Zoe stick up for Audrey. Audrey may be an annoying twerp, but she’s Zoe’s annoying twerp, damn it! Also, anyone else imagine buff Zoe and Audrey when Dot kept saying aabs.

Hover, may I board with danger/free Gilly:

And here’s Stu’s character development. Stu always seemed the odd man out. While Zoe and Maria have Audrey and Melvin to play off of, Stu was just sort of there. Now we see his too cool for school attitude is really a front for him being sensitive and a little insecure, that’s a nice touch. Also Audrey gets to grow as a person. First she was just legit conning Stu for time on the hover board, which was really just a Segway without the handles, but then she genuinely gets into the contact juggling. And one of her plans actually works for once, what? Also, what is up with Bobby this season, last season he was the older kid who doled out sage advice and could be a little jerkish sometimes. Now this season the sage advice stuff is all but gone and we just get the jerk, everyone else gets character development, but Bobby actually backslides a bit, guess they had to cut corners somewhere. 

Finally a payoff to the running gag of Audrey’s goldfish issues. Nice to see that finally wrapped up. But, was it strictly necessary to give the animals voices? Okay, I admit it wasn’t so bad for Bobby the skunk, but every freaking animal? Yeesh, I mean there is such a thing as subtlety.

That thing you Dot!/Where the streets have no games:

You know, at first I thought I was going to hate bring Chevron back, didn’t she and Dot make peace back in season one? But, then I found that I really didn’t hate it. Dot used the wrong word. Chevron is not a frenemy, she’s a competitor and that may actually be a good thing. Dot and Chevron are very similar, they like to take hobbies to the absolute extreme and there’s nothing wrong with that. They two drive each other to succeed. In fact if they didn’t have each other they probably wouldn’t do half as much as they do. And Kudos bring Penny back and giving her a voice, she’s going to be the lead Harvey Avenue kid, I just feel it.

And here we are, okay, I’ll go through ep first before getting to the diamond-studded elephant in the room. Nice commentary on mobile games and how their designed to addict you. And yeah they really are just excuses to gather data. Also, nice touch Lotta and Audrey being the only ones who weren’t suckered in. Sadly Dot’s obsessive compulsive tendencies made her an easy target. But, then we go into that cliffhanger. Yeesh, that cliffhanger.

Finale Thoughts:

I’ll just say it. I know they were going to pull Richie in at some point. But to quote the Bow, not this way. The entire idea behind Richie Rich is that in spite of being the richest kid on Earth, Richie was a normal, average kid, who just wanted to make friends and have fun. He was never portrayed as being snobbish, sheltered or clueless.

Only now it’s clear Richie set up the mobile game and the contest to try to figure out how kids have fun. Not only is being clueless, he’s using money to try to solve his problems, which Richie never did.

And worse it’s predictable. I can tell where this story is going. The Harvey girls together maxed out the fun-o-meter, so Richie’s going to take them off to his estate to be his new friends and the Harvey Girls are going to bring him down to Earth.

But, they shouldn’t have to. Richie has always been portrayed as already being down to Earth. Now they’re going out of their way to portray Richie as a clueless rich kid who doesn’t understand how the real world works, and that is just wrong. That’s not Richie. Although nice touch with the Irona reference.

But, there’s something that worries me even more. Now that you’ve pulled the pin on Richie, where do you go with him from here, does he become a regular? I hate to say it, but I hope not. 

You have to remember, that by default, Richie is the biggest presence in the room. If you over use him he could quickly over shadow Audrey and the others, in fact, he already has once before.

I’m taking about Harvey Comics. For over ten years, Audrey, Lotta, Dot and their friends ruled Harvey comics. Then Richie, Wendy and Casper came along. And within a few short years Audrey and company were all but forgotten. I just hope to go they have enough sense not to try to make this the Richie Rich show. I think they do. I think they understand a way to use Richie right and they already done it in the same episode, with Chevron.

Chevron is a big personality, so they don’t overuse her. So far she’s shown up once a season and that’s just right for her. It’s all she needs. If she were on regularly she’d drown the others out too much. But, this way when she shows up it’s a big deal. I think that’s the perfect approach to take with Richie, less is more. Just don’t turn him into a clueless rich kids, please? 

[grootiez]

The Joys of Raising a Teenaged Groot- Chapter 16: Groot’s Fate

Rocket walked in the conference room. Inside were big brown leather chairs on wheels surrounding a giant circular oak table. The walls of the room were filled with an array of book cases filled to the brim with books about different medical conditions and research into those ailments.

The raccoon took a seat on one side of the table. The nurses, emergency room techs, and all of the other people that were assigned to Groot’s case sat on the other side. Rocket could tell just by the sheer amount of paperwork, files, and other important pieces of documentation that the news probably wasn’t good for Groot and he should be prepared for the worse.

The nurse that was assigned to Groot when Rocket came to visit with his son spoke first. “Rocket, I’m Kalika and I was Groot’s nurse when he came in last night. It was very touch-and-go with him and he was in a lot of pain when we took him to the procedure room, where we had no choice but to place him in a medically-induced coma until his condition stabilizes and improves. But he showed no immediate improvement as is typical of people who come in with these types of injuries. There were also a couple of times when he stopped breathing and was deprived of oxygen for at least fifteen minutes. And he was also clinically dead for a couple of minutes twice in the span of ten minutes before we were able to revive him.”

Rocket bowed his head down at hearing this. He sighed before mumbling to himself. “So there’s no hope for him, is there?” He looked up at the other people in the room. “You’re going to pull the plug, aren’t you?”

The nurses, specialists, and technicians looked at Rocket as they silently nodded, confirming Groot’s fate.

“All the signs point to brain death. He also contracted a very severe infection from the blades of the knives he was stabbed by and some of the stab wounds he suffered were very deep and close to some of his vital organs, further increasing the severity of the infections. Now, he suffered a very bad black eye that’s extremely swollen. We tried to get him to open it while he was still conscious so that we could look at the damage and determine if his eye could be saved, but he couldn’t. He also has a few lacerated muscles and a few fractures in his arm and both of his legs.” Kalika explained as Rocket’s expression changed. “His chances for survival, let alone a full recovery are less than a 0.01% chance. If somehow he did make it, he would be severely brain damaged and would be a bed-ridden vegetable for the rest of his life, and I know that neither you nor him would want that, so it would be best to remove him from life support and let Groot die peacefully.”

Rocket does his best to contain his emotions. He tries not to cry as he asks “Can I see him one last time before he-.” The raccoon couldn’t finish the sentence.

Kalika nodded as she and all the other specialists got up and escorted Rocket back to Groot’s room. On the way back, they pass the waiting room where a few familiar faces greeted them.

“Gammy? Drax? Nebula? Kraglin? Mantis? Star-Munch?” Rocket was surprised at seeing the other Guardians in the waiting room. “What- what are you guys doing here?”

“We figured that you needed some moral support while Groot recovers.” Drax answered for the others as he placed an arm around Rocket. “I would’ve wanted the same if my wife and daughter had a chance to be saved after Thanos slaughtered my people.”

“That’s very kind of you guys.” Rocket acknowledged their kind gesture towards him. “But...” He paused, the next words tough for him to say. “Groot’s going to be taken off of life support.” The other Guardians were saddened at the news as they joined Rocket in walking down the long lonely ICU corridor to Groot’s room.

When they arrived, the Guardians all stood around Groot’s bed in a semi-circle. There were two nurses already there to clean Groot’s wounds and treat them with a special ointment before covering them up with gauze wrappings. Groot also was recently given a sponge bath and had a fresh diaper and gown on him. He was still alive, but just barely and the machines that were hooked up to him were doing the breathing for him. His entire face and body were extremely swollen and Groot’s expression told the Guardians, especially Rocket that he was in extreme pain and wanted it all to just go away. Rocket didn’t have the heart to tell Groot that it would be over with soon.

The other nurses left the room. Kalika was still present to oversee the Guardians saying goodbye to one of their own and then she would turn off all the machines that were keeping Groot alive. Moments later, the coroner stood at the doorway with a cadaver cart that he would transport Groot on once he died and take him to the morgue that was in the basement of the facility so an autopsy could be performed on him to determine what injuries contributed to his eventual death. The coroner also had in his possession a fountain pen in his front pocket and laying on the cart was Groot’s death certificate. It was already filled out, the only things that were missing was Groot’s cause of death and the date and the time of his death.

The pastor entered the room and said a final prayer for Groot before the Guardians said their goodbyes to the teenager.

Up first was Mantis. She placed her hand upon Groot’s forehead to see if she could read his thoughts.

“I-I can’t tell what he’s thinking!” Mantis wailed as she trembled. “It’s unending darkness!” Drax then picked her up and carried her to a chair.

Nebula approached Groot’s bed. “Hey, Groot. I know that we didn’t actually get along all that well and you were scared to death of me when I first came to visit but, you eventually got used to seeing me everyday and became less scared. Even Gamora said over these past few weeks you were starting to look at me as your Aunt Nebby.” Nebula reminisced to Groot. “I’ll always be your Aunt Nebby, no matter what.” She added before she got up and walked over to where Drax and Mantis were sitting.

Kraglin walked up to Groot next. “Hey, Twig.” He greeted the teen, hoping Yondu’s nickname for Groot would miraculously wake him up. Nothing. Kraglin thought of something to say. “Remember the time that we went to Terra for a weekend vacation of rest and relaxation? And on our last night we were looking for some place fancy to eat? And every other place was either closed, out of business, or didn’t want to serve a mangy raccoon or a fat guy who refuses to wear a shirt.”

“Hey! I’m not a mangy raccoon!” Rocket snarled at Kraglin.

“And I’m not fat, I’m buff!” Drax corrected the Xandarian.

“Oh, yeah?” Rocket challenged. “Then why can’t ya wear a shirt? They make em big enough for fattys!” He roared as Drax charged towards the raccoon.

“I CAN’T HELP IF I HAVE SENSITIVE NIPPLES!” Drax exclaimed.

“OH, REAL CLASSIC! THE ‘SENSITIVE NIPPLE’ EXCUSE!” Rocket mocked. “LIKE WE HAVEN’T HEARD IT A MILLION TIMES BEFORE!”

Peter and Gamora separated the two before they got to each other and got into fisticuffs. Peter using all his strength to hold Drax back and Gamora holding Rocket in her arms after he leaped into the air.

“ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU!” Gamora yelled at the two. “This is not the time for you two to be fighting. Now, calm down and apologize to each other.”

“Rocket, I’m sorry for my sudden outburst.” Drax said as he bowed his head in submission.

“And I’m sorry that I called you fat.” Rocket apologized. “Hey, do you and your sensitive nipples wanna get some Ben & Jerry’s later?”

“Small friend, it would be a pleasure to get some Terran Ice Cream with you.” The Destroyer accepted Rocket’s offer.

Kraglin waited for everything to settle back down before he continued to talk to Groot. “Anyways, as I was saying, Groot, that night, the only place that was open was Souplantation. Quill was tired of trying to find some place that would please everybody. Long story short, I guess that’s where my soup addiction came from. And I remember the time when I babysat you and there was no soup for us to eat. You showed me that cereal is the breakfast version of soup and all the different sugary types got me addicted to cereal now.That brings me to my next point, I’m sorry about sneaking out of the house to go to the soup kitchen the other night. I knew that it would embarrass you, but Drax dared me to or he would show Quill my secret soup stash...” Kraglin looked around at everybody. “...And now that that secret is out...” Kraglin regrets talking about his secret soup stash out in front of everybody. “Anyways, Twig, when ya meet back up with Yondu in Heaven, tell him that I’m holding down the fort and keeping Quill in line.”

Kraglin got up and traded places with Drax, who sat next to Groot.

“Hey, Groot.” Drax began. “I know that you and me weren’t the best of friends, but I’ll never forget the fun times that we’ve had together.” Drax wipes a tear from his face. “All the times I rocked you to sleep when you were on my shoulder, all the play fighting we would do just for fun and you teaching me how to turn invisible.” Drax chuckled to himself. “I’m sorry for calling you ‘dumber, smaller Groot’ and ‘dumb tree.’ I didn’t want it to sound mean to you. I’ll miss you Groot. Do me a favor and tell my wife and daughter that I’m doing good.”

With that, Drax sat back down where Mantis, Nebula, and Kraglin were. It was now Gamora’s turn to reflect on her time with Groot.

Gamora brushed some of Groot’s moss out of his closed eyes as she began to speak softly to him. “Hey, baby. Oh, sweetie, you’ve grown up so much since you were little. I remember all of us, especially Rocket getting excited when you started to move in your little pot. He was so happy and overfilled with joy when you stretched your little arms out and yawned. We all remember when you started to talk for the first time. Sure, all you could say was ‘I am Groot.’ But he was so happy and he took it upon himself to teach us how to understand you. When it was time for you to leave your pot for the first time, Rocket placed you on the kitchen counter to get you ready for your bath. But you wanted some cookies first, and Rocket kept telling you ‘No.’ You waited until his back was turned and you extended your little arms until you reached the shelf the cookies were on and you lifted yourself up to them. Well, your coordination wasn’t the best, so you fell over and luckily I caught you before you hit the ground.” Gamora smiled. “Rocket and I checked you out and saw that you had two very strong legs that were scrunched up in that pot and it was time for you to stretch them out. At first you were crawling, then we had to baby-proof the entire house so you wouldn’t get into stuff that you shouldn’t have been near. Rocket was against the idea of having to keep all his weapons under lock and key, but better safe than sorry. And then you started to grow up as soon as you started school and we were all proud of you.”

“We love you, baby.” Gamora finished before she kissed Groot on the forehead and got up from her seat and rejoined the others as Peter got up to talk to Groot.

“Hey there, Groot.” Peter began as he sat next to Groot. “I know that these last couple of years you weren’t the most well-behaved kid and that’s kinda my fault.” Peter looked at Rocket as the raccoon stared at the humie. “But, not once did I not think of you as my son. I know that Rocket is technically your adoptive father and he did most of the work needed with raising you. The truth is, Groot, is that each of us had a hand in helping to raise you, and in turn, you taught us new things and together, all of us became a family. A dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless.”

Peter patted Groot on his shoulder as he stood up. It was now Rocket’s turn to say his farewells to the one person that his whole life revolved around. As the raccoon walked to Groot’s bedside, he couldn’t help be reflect on Groot’s life. Not just when this Groot was reborn, but from the very first time he met the Original Groot back when Original Groot and him were both experiments and prisoners on Halfworld.

“Groot, I know that you and me haven’t had the sort of traditional father-son relationship these past few years when you became a teenager, and especially since you’ve entered your rebellious stage and started to defy all the rules I set down for you.” Rocket struggles to say as he fights back the tears. “But- but, I wish that I had been more stern with you. If I’d put my foot down when you started to disobey us, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Rocket held Groot’s hand as he struggled to look at his son through tear-shot eyes. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t the father that you wanted. I’m sorry that I wasn’t the father that you deserved.” Rocket then looked at the other Guardians, specifically Kraglin and Peter. “I wish that I was more like Yondu. If I was, Groot wouldn’t have snuck out the house. Groot wouldn’t have met up with those hooligans and gotten stabbed. Groot wouldn’t be here right now on his deathbed fighting for his life.”

Rocket looked back at Groot. “I failed you, Groot. I tried my best to raise you right and keep you safe from everything and everyone that could hurt you. I should’ve tried harder.”

Rocket stroked Groot’s face in a caring and fatherly manner. “I love you, Groot. I’ll never forget the joy I’ve had in raising you and being your daddy.” He then tucked Groot’s old Bob Ross doll into Groot’s clutched hand.

Rocket then tilted his head towards Kalika. He was ready for her to take Groot off of life support. She pulled the plug on all of the machines and took the breathing tube out of Groot’s mouth.

“Go on, Groot. Go to Heaven. Be free of this pain.” Rocket sobbed to his son as Groot’s breathing became more sporadic and his heartrate started to slow down. “Go to Bob Ross.”

With that, Groot’s heart stopped beating, the heartrate monitor flatlining, letting out the lone, long beep that signaled Groot’s death.

The coroner came in and filled out Groot’s time of death on his death certificate while Kalika disconnected all of the IV lines and monitors from his body. The coroner and Kalika then picked up Groot’s lifeless body and placed him on the cadaver cart to be taken to the morgue. Rocket was overcome with emotion when Kalika draped a white blanket over Groot, offering him one final look at his son before she covered the teen’s face with the blanket, signifying his passing.

No amount of consoling could satisfy Rocket. With some convincing on Peter’s part, the raccoon obtained clearance to accompany his son down to the morgue before the autopsy began. The other Guardians went home to let Rocket mourn in private. For obvious reasons, Rocket couldn’t be in the room while Groot’s autopsy took place and he wouldn’t see him again until all the funeral arrangements were made.

As Rocket walked into the morgue, Kalika and the coroner placed Groot on a cold table so that the autopsy could take place. The teen was washed clean and incision lines were drawn all over his body in preparation. Groot was stripped of his gown and diaper, the only thing on him was a damp washcloth covering his loin area. Groot just looked like he was just sleeping, but Rocket knew that this wasn’t true. All of the instruments on the side table said otherwise, as he knew that they would dissect Groot piece by piece to determine how he died.

Rocket climbed on a nearby stool to see his son one last time. He looked at his son in silence for five minutes until the coroner was ready to begin the autopsy with his assistant.

“Well, Groot, I’ll see you later.” Rocket sobbed as he held Groot’s hand. It was now time for Rocket to leave.

As the coroner grabbed one of the scalpels and hovered it above Groot’s chest, Rocket began to let go of Groot’s hand. As the scalpel came down, Rocket thought he could feel Groot’s grip on his hand. Rocket couldn’t believe what he was seeing, Groot grasping his father’s hand on his own. Could Groot be alive?

The coroner and Kalika check Groot for a pulse and find that Groot has a weak pulse. They perform an emergency intubation on him to make him breathe again before taking Groot back up to the emergency department for immediate care and scans as to him coming back from the dead.

Rocket couldn’t believe it as he got out his cell phone to call the other Guardians. The impossible has happened: Groot was alive again.

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

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

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

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

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order – Nintendo Switch

$59.99on Amazon

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

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

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

Everyone is Here!

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

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

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

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

“

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

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

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

Bamf, Thwip, Snikt!

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

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

“

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

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

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

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

“

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

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

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

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

We’re In the Endgame Now

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

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

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

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

“

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

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

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

No Microtransactions, but DLC Is on the Way

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

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

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

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

Source : IGN

[josephkitchen0]

How to Keep Hawks Away from Chickens

Top 5 Ways to Thwart Aerial Chicken Predators

Have you been experiencing a problem with flying predators like hawks and owls? This can be heartbreaking and frustrating and can make you feel helpless, but you're not. There are ways to help keep hawks away from backyard chickens. On a personal note, this subject is near and dear to my heart. I have experienced one confirmed loss and a couple of close calls with hawks harassing my backyard chickens. Winter in my backyard is high season for hawk attacks. To be fair, before we got chickens, we had been toying with naming our farm something like Hawk Ridge since we have so many hawks in the area on a regular basis. It's not uncommon to look up in the skies and see three or four hawks overhead. We also have nesting hawks each mating season. At the same time, for numerous reasons, I firmly believe my chickens are better off free ranging during the day. I work from home and can keep a close eye on my flock, but I'm not with them every second. Free ranging chickens are savvy and if you use some different protection methods, you're likely to reduce or eliminate losses from hawks.

Do Hawks Attack Chickens?

Yes. I have personally seen a hawk attack and kill a chicken, but in my experience, the onslaught of ground-dwelling predators like raccoons and foxes is much worse and takes a greater toll on a flock. 

REMINDER: It is illegal to kill or harass birds of prey, including hawks and owls. 

Real-Life Example — When I walked out to the chicken coop and looked up, I was horrified to see a red-tailed hawk calmly eating one of my White Leghorns. When the hawk spotted me, it flew off and dropped the Leghorn's body. As a lifelong birdwatcher, I was thrilled at the hawk sighting. But, as a backyard chicken owner, I hated to see my chicken killed. The red-tailed hawk is one of three species in the United States known as a chicken hawk. The other two are sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks. Fast forward a few months later, and I came across the scene in the snow pictured below. It's clear that a hawk or owl tried to attack one of my Leghorns. Lucky for the Leghorn, the hawk missed; all were accounted for after I took a quick headcount.

Here are my top five ways to thwart aerial backyard chicken predators.

1. Roosters Make Great Hen Protectors

My hens were always pretty good at protecting themselves. But adding a rooster stepped up the protection. Many times I've watched our rooster, Hank, scanning the skies for flying predators. If he sees something, he's quick to let out his alarm call and gather the hens in a protected spot. Then he'll walk back and forth in front of them, keeping them together until the danger has passed. Now I know that not every rooster is great at protecting his flock. But if you find a good one, keep him! Real-Life Example — I heard a huge commotion coming from the backyard. From the intensity of squawking, I knew something was wrong and ran outside quickly. I found a hawk rolling down my hill with one of my Buff Brahmas tucked in its talons. They were in a mighty struggle! Luckily, my yelling and running at the hawk scared the hawk away and my Buff Brahma wasn't hurt. When I looked up from checking my Buff Brahma, I realized, my rooster had the rest of the flock backed up against the house under an overhang. He had his wings spread over the hens and was poised to fight. He had acted quickly to save as many hens as he could.

2.Get a Watchdog

Our dog, Sophie, was great with our chickens and when she was out with them, she was a wonderful deterrent. I would let her out at various times throughout the day so predators wouldn't catch onto her schedule. If they didn't know when she'd be out, then they were extra cautious.

3. Make a Scarecrow and Hang Shiny Objects

I like to put my Halloween scarecrows to good use year-round by mounting them around the chicken yard. Just make sure to move them every few days so the hawks don’t figure out your tricks. Also, shiny, hanging objects can confuse flying predators. I like to use pie tins. I punch a hole in each tin and tie them from random tree branches.

4. Predator vs. Predator

Hawks don’t like owls and vice versa. So head to your local farm supply store and pick up a fake owl. (Mine has been around for a while, so please excuse his missing eye!) Mount him in your chicken yard and watch the hawks scatter. Just make sure to move him around to get the full effect. One word of advice, this has worked well for me, but I’ve seen reports where it didn’t work well for others. So don’t make this your only form of defense.

5. Plant for Cover

When chickens spot an aerial predator, they need a place to hide. Our chicken coop is off the ground so our chickens often hide underneath it. Plus, they love to go under our deck and the overhang of the house. In addition, I have lots of shrubs and bushes planted throughout my yard that are favorite hangouts for my birds.

How to Keep Hawks Away from Chickens was originally posted by All About Chickens