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maxwell-grant · 1 year

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Street Fighter 6: Issue #2 thoughts

Not at all a fan of this new art style especially for the women characters but I must say, I never thought Street Fighter of all franchises would make their geriatric Russian terrorist wizard villain look cute and not as an ironic thing.

Seriously though he looks WAY different than he does in-game, but I’m not complaining. I actually really like how Johann is drawn here, one of the highlights of this issue for me. The way he’s drawn here actually succeeds in making him look like he’s not a villain. He looks way more like someone you could buy as a deceiver, someone who’d trick you into giving your savings away to help poor starving children.

They scale him down hardcore from his game design in a way that would suck if this was meant to be in-game, but here? It works great. He has this breath of expression that you just don’t see in the usual villains of the series, because he is putting a lot of effort into pretending not to be one and actually succeeding! He gets sad and worried over hearing about the opposition, he reacts with convincing shock over the broadcast, he looks scared and distressed over the news reporters closing in, he even displays enough moments of genuine concern over his assistant without anyone looking. I know none of this is that groundbreaking but we never actually see fighting game villains in storylines putting in effort when it comes to this stuff, even the ones we’re supposed to buy as great deceivers or upstanding public figures. The art style really does a lot for him here.

In fact, JP in-game doesn’t act like this, he quite clearly embraces his villainy more openly in it, which means this is pointing to a neat little arc of sorts where we’re seeing Johann on the backfoot working the long game in terms of attaining power, versus in-game where he’s clearly not afraid of openly skewering and poisoning his opponents with Psycho Power and then making a point out of not crushing their heads beneath his heel when he’s through because they are that insignificant to him, and I really want to see that mask-off transition as it plays out.

Okay so for those viewers at home trying to keep track of the score so far: After last issue where Ken was almost assassinated with a car bomb in the midst of a political riot, this issue kicks off with him being framed by a terrorist hacker group of anti-capitalists dressed like plague doctors (a BANGER of a fitting design choice the more I think about it) who wish to “expose the agents of chaos to the world”, who seem to be using A.I deepfakes to frame Ken and claim he was both working with the Nayshall establishment as well as funding terrorists to manipulate the cryptocurrency market, and that they have seized these funds to be “an iron hammer, swung down upon the head of all capitalist exploiters”.

And this is part of a master plot to increase viral searches for Nayshall and the tournament, thus driving the crypto value up as well as bets related to it, which we know has to with a N.G.O oligarch and policy advisor’s personal project to secure military power and political stability for his nation through, among other things, viral popularity and weaponization of content and successfully scamming a billionaire into thoughtlessly tanking his country’s economy so he may rebuild it better than before.

...

I feel like I should clarify that Street Fighter and pretty much all fighting game have never really so much as acknowledged the word “capitalism” before, let alone made a plotline focused on it. And yeah the “anti-capitalist terrorist” is a loaded archetype to say the minimum in it’s own right, I’m certainly trying to keep expectations measured, but look, it is insane that this is happening at all, this is the franchise putting on big boy pants in regards to a storyline in a way it never really has before.

Street Fighter’s been dark enough allright, even too much, and it individually brushed past or even handled mature storylines from time and time, but it’s never remotely been this topical or even tried to be, it’s never made a conscious effort to go hard on being political, that’s just not what fighting games tend to do. Maybe they’ll botch it, maybe it’ll just be window dressing, but I’ve not been dissappointed so far and I think it’s very commendable that they’re actually giving it an effort here.

(Also calling it right now that Amnesia’s leader is JP’s assistant)

How long was this before the game? In this, Chun-Li’s still with Interpol and got promoted apparently, but in-game she’s clarified as an ex-agent. So how much time passed?

Chun-Li’s fairly boring in here visually and character-wise, I’m not happy to see her as a cop ever. I like them putting her in work clothes and putting the characters in different outfits in general, but I don’t like how generic she looks. I like her scene with Li-Fen though.

Completely forgot Li-Fen was put in SFV as a hacker prodigy because I forget most things about SFV on the regular, but I dig her being Chun’s “guy in the chair”. Some people got confused by it but I dig that Li-Fen calls Chun her older sister, that’s kind of a role Chun-Li’s played before with other characters and I like that it makes their dynamic more casual than if it was a mom - daughter kind of thing, gives them more room to bicker a little and I think it gives Li-Fen a little more independence in their dynamic.

I do like that Chun-Li clarifies she isn’t fooled one bit by the video and that she’s keeping Ken in custody for his own safety, because Ken turned into a worldwide-hunted criminal overnight and it’s the safest place for him to be on. I also like that they’re clearly not close and barely even recall meeting each other and so they don’t really talk things through, I like it because it acknowledges that these characters don’t all know or even like each other just because they’re on the same sides. Small thing I know, but the more recent games really homogenized the cast dynamics so I like anything that corrects that.

Oh man now THIS is great, Ken is so fucked. I need to talk about this guy.

This is deepfake A.I Ken, and if anything he looks way too convincing to be an A.I thing (but then again Street Fighter has enough sci-fi tech, I mean Seth was a thing years before this and so were the Illuminati shape-shifters), but putting all that aside, damn, this was kind of a revelation to me. I finally figured out why I just never liked Violent Ken as a concept and this is why: because he quite clearly should have always been THIS guy.

Violent Ken was designed as a counterpart to Evil Ryu, a Ryu who’s overtaken by the Satsui no Hadou and fully given in to his worst self, but because Ken doesn’t have the Dark Hadou, instead he’s based on the SF II film concept of Ken having been fully brainwashed by Bison’s Psycho Power. He’s not that terrible a concept or design, I think the SVC Chaos artwork is pretty cool, but he was never really worth much, not that much more interesting than if they did like, Evil Dan or Sakura (...well I guess they did do both at some point).

See, Evil Ryu as a character is not the best idea in the series by a long shot, but he works mainly because he’s Ryu designed around Akuma, which is not just cool but also works meaningfully, since Akuma was already designed to be Ryu’s darker opposite and ultimate enemy. Besides the fact that “hero becomes like their own worst enemy” is a time-tested cool idea with a lot of storytelling power and Akuma being an incredible all-timer design that is very clearly worth ripping off, Evil Ryu takes the shared traits they have, powerful martial artists who wander the world in pursuit of strong opponents to challenge them and to prove themselves the greatest among warriors, and twists Ryu into the fascimile of Akuma that he always dreaded becoming and was always in danger of becoming with or without supernatural bloodlust, changing very little about his motivation.

I’d argue Evil Ryu only really reached his potential as a character when brought back for IV, when they made him look like a monstrous and savage endgame for Ryu instead of just Ryu with a tan, and showed more thoroughly what would happen if Ryu was consumed by the Satsui. His already tattered gi is shredded beyond repair, he burns with overflowing uncontrolled power, and he is more animalistic and brutal than even Akuma because he has no control whatsoever over this power. Like Ryu, he lives for battle, he wanders the world with nothing on his back to seek out and fight the strongest warriors, but he has fully devolved into a fighting beast who fights and maims and kills wantonly, who finds no answer in the heart of battle because the heart isn’t there anymore and there’s only a volcanic gaping necrotic mark of shame and tragedy where it should have been.

Twisting Ryu to make him more like Akuma works because Akuma is Ryu’s nemesis, and because they have enough in common to have a middleground, something that Ryu cannot concede ground on (because the one time he did, he nearly killed the world’s strongest fighter with a cheap shot attack, over a fight he clearly lost). But twisting the other shotos to be more like Akuma always felt more tacked on than anything, because they just don’t have the same dynamic and motivation that Ryu has, and that’s kinda the major problem I have with Violent Ken: he’s an evil version of Ken who actually has nothing to do with Ken’s character, he’s just an imitation of Evil Ryu in Ken cosplay, and he doesn’t even get to fall in the dark side of his own accord since it’s Bison’s doing.

And so this is why I think this, this thing that shows up for like a couple of pages? This is what Evil/Violent Ken should have always looked like. A Ken who becomes the worst version of himself, who maintains his basic character and motivations but is wholly and completely stripped of humanity, isn’t going to be a fighting hobo in torn clothing and an obsession with pursuing strength, because that’s not what Ken is.

Ken is the upper class rival who has everything his rival does not, the champ who flaunts his strength and privilege and fights with flash and style, the “arrogant steward of globalized capitalism” as he’s called in the comic. Evil Ken isn’t going to be a battle berserker caked in blood and dirt, he’s going to be Dio Brando squeezed into an immaculate yuppie shitbag suit. He’s going to be the picture-perfect image of selfishness

I frankly really hope this design shows up again even past whatever else they have planned for this cover-up. I love this split-second idea of Evil Ken too much to never see it again. I really want Terrorist A.I Ken to be a thing they bring back.

#street fighter #sf6 #street fighter 6 #capcom #ken #ken masters #jp #johann petrovich #chun-li #li-fen #videogames #sf6 comic

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shivroyisbisexual · 1 year

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one of those things that I find pathetic are those succession fans who make videos and comments on videos where they GENUINELY root for the man with the most “top dog” vibes and have a whole running hierarchy in their minds about it.

It’s one thing to analyze the show for that — I definitely do, and the characters within the show definitely are keeping score within their different information-limited perspectives. It’s important, a key part of the culture and what makes the characters tic as people.

It’s another thing to really buy in and huff top dog farts about it.

Here’s my list of red flags for boring dude bro succ commenter (woman inclusive term though it’s usually men)

In honor of it being a show about rich fucks I’m using the little golf red flag emoji

⛳️ promotes and defends Logan’s politics and behavior as great and true right down to repeating his lines on being totally self made, knowing how people “really are”, how everyone is out to get him for no reason, he’s a strong family man, he should be in charge because he’s strong enough to tell it like it is blah blah

⛳️ that fucking “hard times make hard men who make good times that make soft men that leads to hard times” crap or however it goes — they really believe in this shit

⛳️ Logan’s word is gospel, to the point of quoting his views line for line as THE literal truth summary of a situation or character

⛳️ The above is taken as true especially about himself and his kids, but this goes triple for anything he says about Shiv. If he says Roman has no fucking acumen that’s taken to be probably mostly true, but Roman is seen as able to rise up and prove him wrong. If he says Kendall is not a killer, that’s probably mostly true, but Ken is seen as able to “rise up” and prove him wrong. If he says Shiv has no real experience and isn’t as smart as she thinks she is, not only is that unquestionably true but she can never rise above it AND she’s not just not as smart as she thinks she is she’s downright stupid. The worst. Definitely married Tom 100% because she’s a coward and that’s alllllll there is to it because notorious family man Logan is an oracle. Perfect font of wisdom. Interestingly this is also how the wrapped around Logan’s finger grown up abused kids act when stressed — they throw Logan’s take downs of each other in each other’s faces as unquestionable truths

⛳️ has little or nothing to say about Connor other than memeing him or calling him likable because he’s not in the fight for succession really and he’s too on the nose a parody of “anarcho capitalists”/“libertarian” crank leaders whose 1%er (in more than 1 sense) runs for high office these boring dude bros have likely donated to and hyped before

⛳️ succeeding Logan is consistently viewed as an unqualified “win”, as is becoming “a killer” like Logan even if a few flourishes toward how evil he is are made, or how they would be better off cashing out. Commenter still reverts to succession = winning. Adopting Logan’s personality = winning. Except for Shiv mostly, she’s just a cold two faced b*tch especially if she acts more like Logan to Tom.

⛳️ former game of thrones viewer who’s main interest was Who Would Win (tm) mostly adjudicated based on who was confident and powerful with snappy lines or bold moves that day and probably was a dude or could be said to owe her shit to a dude or they predicted she’d win but would be horrible as a ruler and wouldn’t “deserve it”

⛳️ even if they hide it you can tell the vibe is they do think any sign a character is gay or bi is a mark against them like they’re definitely laughing at it in a “haha eww” (mentally deducts points) kinda way

⛳️ super basic conventional dude bro views on the wives, girlfriends and escorts being gold diggers, with 0 introspection on the dynamics of that when true being the fault of the rich man leveraging being rich and choosing it also, not being some poor baby getting taken for a ride by a master manipulator, and 0 interest in the complicated cases where yes the money is the main part of it but also there’s real relationships there in some cases too, or the heartfelt delusions of them at least

⛳️ tends to not remember the names of characters like Sophie, Iverson, Rava, Jess and just call them Kendall’s kids, Kendall’s ex wife, Kendall’s assistant lady

⛳️ hard to quantify or prove but they say the SAME thing like at first you think it’s the same dude but no it’s like 100+ different yt commenters saying the same thing word for word on different succession clip vids. Part of this is for sure yt commenter culture where people get into saying whatever broadly appealing thing gets likes or upvotes or whatever they’re calling it there, similar to reddit

⛳️ switches their views on the likelihood of a character to “win” on a dime with the whole dude bro commenter crowd moving as one, and not really seeming to take time to analyze why they were mislead (if they were) before. Like if they now think something else, they were wrong before, and that raises how and why. Here I’m thinking of the group that was totally all up in arms about Machiavellian Greg now hyping Kendall the Killer After-all. With no introspection on why they were SO easily convinced this other guy was going to get it (more or less because it would be a funny narrative if he did and they saw themselves in him and his “perchance” shit). They just really have a gut reaction to narrative beats that Feel Snappy and either clever or dominant, and therefore significant. But they have to rationalize and act like it’s more than it is.

🪂 Special shout out to a different set of succession commenters who annoy me: those think piece writers who claimed Greg and Tom had more “humanity” for sounding like stilted try hards and brought in academics to try and push that.

#Please feel free to add more.#I’m like 90% sure it’s Roman who Logan says has no fucking acumen but I’m doubting myself a bit #he says he’s a jackoff in plenty of ways #succession #hbo succession #kendall roy #shiv roy #roman roy #logan roy #connor roy #succession fans #sophie roy #iverson roy #rava roy #jess jordan #greg hirsch #tom wambsgans #succposting

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skycotl-before-and-after · 2 months

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The old Oreo summon in beta was pray. It was changed to butterfly call before live because the pray emote is so much harder to get. It discouraged brand new players who had instant access to Daylight Prairie but hadn’t advanced far enough to get pray. Just getting into this area is hard as a moth/sparrow, but to possibly be the only person there who couldn’t pray, preventing everyone present from succeeding in summoning Oreo? Plus others often think you’re not praying just to annoy them?

I have on the beta cape at the bottom. It’s like the founder’s cape you can buy with money in the office, but white on the inside instead of black. It was given to beta players who had played to a certain level shortly before the game went live. It’s the same icy blue as the TGC logo, but so similar to the teal cape almost no one notices.

Good old Chris. Always cheerful, thoughtful and uplifting. I don’t see him often any more.

Bonus poop candle on the monument. They were the old style messages, and were permanent unless you removed them.

#sky children of the light #thatskygame #thatgamecompany #sky cotl #sky cotl before and after #sky beta #8 lock #oreo #old sky cotl capes #beta cape #poop candles

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kidsinsaturn · 2 years

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amusement park

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characters: itachi uchiha; sasuke uchiha; shisui uchiha

genre: fluff; modern au

warnings: gn!reader; suggestive themes

Part 2

-pretty boy itachi isn’t really fond of these places:((

-he loves being with you and appreciates your kindness for inviting him to such a nice place buttt he wouldn’t want to get on on any of the games that can potentially give him a heart attack

-still, he will try to convince you not to try the most extremes ones because he doesn't want anything to happen to you ok please bare with him he just wants you to be with him so he is sure you are safe

-he will always take care of your purse/backpack; from the start–because he is such a gentleman– itachi would ask for whatever it is that you're carrying so you don't have to bother,,, omg this man seriously

-itachi pays for everything !! no objection, please don't even try to argue with him because he will NOT allow you to even spend one cent even if you were the one who invited him

-will take care of your belongings and your food if you have to go to the restroom

-not too much of pda because he is like that, will probably just hold your hand if you're not holding anything, but in the crowded areas, he is definitely touching you

-if you get very smoochy all of a sudden (?), unless it's only the two of you–like in the ferris wheel– he will give in, but if there's people around then no !! wait for his kisses

-(this happens a lot here where I live) it is impossible to scam this boy, ok he is too smart for the system, he knows all the tricks and is always except from any scamming; will be over you if you are talking to anyone in case they want to scam you

-at the end of the day, he is very exhausted omgg,, poor boy, so if you had fun then he is very grateful and happy, but an amusement park is not definitely his thing; wouldn't want it for a date

-[I really don't know how to write him I'm so sorry in advance:(]

-i hc sasuke as someone quiet, calm, and definitely enjoys domestic quality time, so these types of places aren't really his thing

-you somehow succeeding in convincing him going with you to an amusement is beyond this world, so if it took a lot of begging, then maybe sasuke would be more sensible about your feelings and enjoyment

-he'll be particularly ok if you like riding those big extreme games, but will make a fuss if you are later on feeling bad for all the rides lol like you literally asked for it why are you complaining

-I feel like sasuke wouldn't object if you want to spend your own money as long as it is for something worthwhile

-like for example if you want to try some new exotic food, sasuke will tell you not to buy it because then what will you do if you don't like it? throw it away?? excuse him he doesn't like wasting food and money

-if you ask him though, he would play those games where you can win prizes and my looord he is so competitive lol

-he is most likely to want to be accompanied with another couple like kind of a double date,,, [idk why i just think so]

-my boy don't appreciate pda sorry:(( so if you even try to hold his hands he will be so shocked and even disgusted hahjd my god as if he wasn't a closet pervent pls sasuke go home or go big

-he wouldn't like to stay out all night, he'll probably grow tired from all the loud noise and the people,, he don't like people ok,, so after a few hours, say like three maximum, he would like to treat you with a nice dinner in his or your house uwu Im soft

-my beautiful sunshine boy shisui !! he is the BEST person to go to an amusement park with

-will try all the games with you, even those that can give you a heart attack ok he loves that feeling lmao any kind of ride or roller coaster he is so up for the experience

-if you don't like those type of games, then he is okay with it, he puts your comfort and joy before his

-shisui will also be carrying your purse/backpack from the beginning !! he is such a young gentleman I love him so much and will carry any other thing you get through the day

-my god I feel like shisui is such a show off, he will try–and succeed–any of those stands where you can win prizes and get you a million prizes; he does it because he wants you to have something from him and also to show his incredible abilities ok

-he pays for everything as well !! he is a young gentleman don't go and try to take that title away from him; he pays for every insignificant thing you take a minimum interest in, for your food, and for anything else

-double checks your belt is well secured and takes a million photos of you and himself ok I picture him with almost half of his gallery full of embarrassing and cringy photos of both of you

-steals your food my god you insist to get two ice creams, but he claims he isn't hungry but then is all over your food

-he isn't against pda so he is all over you all the time, he has to be always touching you and sometimes he wants more than just holding your hand, he wants to be hugging you from the back or has you whole ass arm tucked in with his, he is clingy asf

-and if you get in the Ferris wheel !! he is devouring you no objections, you get off with your clothes messed up; he isn't probably doing anything more than just a steamy make up sesh,, unless,, of course you are up for something a little riskier

-shisui is always up for a date in an amusement park, he really enjoys the adrenaline from the games, and thinks it is the perfect environment to be with his favorite person, you

#itachi uchiha #shisui uchiha #sasuke uchiha #itachi x reader #itachi uchiha x reader #shisui x reader #shisui uchiha x reader #sasuke x reader #sasuke uchiha x reader #uchiha itachi #uchiha sasuke #uchiha shisui #uchiha clan #naruto

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lake-archive · 2 days

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A Mirror

AO3 Link

Fandom: Ensemble Stars

Series: Ein schlafender Ritter und die Liebe

Characters: Ritsu Sakuma, Eli (OC by @watersofcamelot), Anja-Sophia 'Ann' Wolff (OC) (mentioned), Nyeli (OC by @watersofcamelot)

Summary: Similar… Eli at first doesn’t believe it. No way he and this Sakuma guy are that close. He decides to observe… But the day passes and Eli couldn't help but wonder about one thing…

Previous Chapter - Masterlist - Next Chapter

“Yes, you and Ritsu! At first I thought it was just your looks! But the more I think about it, the more I can see it!”

That had been Ann's words a few days ago and they kept rubbing Eli the wrong way. She talked about how similar they are… And he hated it. It was like being compared and she wanted to see who had been the better one of the two. Now, he was sure that his sis meant nothing by it. She wasn't that type of person. But that didn't change the sour aftertaste in his mouth. She's got something in her eyes and ears! He was convinced of that! He and Ritsu, similar? No… There's no way in hell this was true! As if!

But Eli hated the mere thought. The only thing he could not deny was their appearance. One good luck and he knew this much was true… That dude looked almost like him, the only differences being their heights, obviously, and their eye colors. Other than that, pair them side by side and you'd believe Eli is that Sakuma guy's older brother despite being younger than him. Aren't they similar enough? What does it even mean that they act similar!? Ugh… It was a little frustrating, to say the least…

Still, some odd feeling in his stomach that there might be something to it… Might, a very slim chance. What if Ann was right? It was always lingering somewhere deep inside… After all, according to her she and Ritsu hit it off pretty much right away and outside of Eli these two seem to talk a lot. It was… Weird to think about.

Ann wasn't someone who got along with just anyone, he learnt that fairly quickly. Even when just texting back in the day she always kept quiet in group chats and even now she had barely any friends to hang out with. Work and assignments may as well be the only friends she has, given how much time she spends on each. Or the keyboards she tends to type on. So if some rando got her attention and was close to her, it meant something at least.

However, the reason being a sense of familiarity because of Eli? He didn't buy it, or at the very least he refused to believe it. 'No way' he told himself and tried to ignore it for the past few days. It succeeded, kind of, yet it creeped up every so often. During class, in the hallway, while pulling someone by their pants for fun or at home playing games. It always came back up one way or another and he hated it!

So he saw no other choice but to dig deeper into Ann's claims. And how would he do that? Oh, that was easy. By stalking the upperclassman in question. How else? By talking to him and getting to know him? Pff, that's boring and honestly, Eli didn't have the energy or patience for that. Stalking someone on school grounds is way easier. Besides, the teachers are always relieved whenever he skips class. So it's a win–win. He didn't have to go through boring ass lectures and he couldn't be a pain in the neck during their classes. Surely no one will mind this.

And thus the tall boy had been hanging around the school gates rather early, just so that he could spot his target. And he did not too long after arriving, spotting a yawning Ritsu making his way through the school gates. It made Eli stare from the hiding spot he was at, or as much of hiding as he could manage due to his sheer size alone, and observe the guy.

Nothing out of the ordinary, not even that sleepy face yet he came to a sudden halt when hearing some noises coming from his back as well as a… 'Nye'? What's 'nye'?

Ritsu seemed to be all too familiar with it at the very least when sighing. "Not again…" He mumbled out loud before opening the school bag where the face of a tiny chibi–like cat creature peeked out. It looked close to Eli himself, with the exception of the cat ears and his blue eye color. Even the clothes are close to what Eli himself would wear in his free time: A blue hoodie with some black trousers, a little dirty as well.

Though the presence explained a lot, Eli knew this cat. Much to his own embarrassment and surprise Ann had named the cat 'Nyeli'. As a kid she just thought the name sounded cute since he says 'nye' a lot… What are the chances of her meeting Eli years later after taking the abandoned cat home? It was… Something, to say the least…

And now Nyeli was located in Ritsu's school bag, the two seeming to be close. Then again, Eli remembered that much. From what he heard even Nyeli took a very quick liking to the guy ever since first seeing him and has refused to leave ever since.

"Hey, weren't you supposed to stay with your sisnya today?" Ritsu asked while facing Nyeli. Said cat was looking up at the guy with wide eyes, ears wagging, as if confused.

"I'll have to call her I think… She's going to be worried sick…"

This was met with a sudden pout from the cat as well as constant head shaking. "Nye nye Papa nye!" The kitty even protested while tugging onto the sleeve of the male's jacket with his tiny nubs. "Nye nye nye!"

"I know you want to stay but—" Ritsu was about to reason yet the cat climbed out of the bag, right onto the arm and nuzzled against it while pouting, shaking his head profusely.

"Nye!"

"Oi, listen for one—"

"Nye!" The cat refused, of course he did. Taking no as an answer? Not going to happen. The kitty is stubborn beyond belief and was having none of it. He refused by every sense of the word, not allowing anything of that sort. So as much as that Sakuma guy tried to reason he had to give in, visibly sighing.

"Alright alright. You can stay." He said, his hand having moved to the top of the cat's head the pet it, makimg the kitty nuzzle and purr right away. "But you have to promise to keep on the low, alright?"

The cat nodded eagerly, enjoying the pets some more before sliding back into the bag, then the guy procceded to walk into the buioding. It was… Unusual yet not necessarily something Eli hated to see. It was rare to see Nyeli to grow attached to someone by this much, to the poimt he was called a 'Papa'. Maybe he wasn't so bad…

That was about the only moment though as the rest of the day Eli spent observing Ritsu… Sleeping. Either in class or during break time. One time he also got up when spotting the student council president, just hogging onto him while being like a clingy child, resembling Nyeli in that regard. He even called that guy by a nickname. 'Maa–Kun', was it? And then begging to take care of him or at least carry Ritsu back to class… Talk about handful! It was… Something else. Eli had no words whatsoever, seeing more of the cat than him. And yet Ann insisted that the two were similar, very similar. He didn't see it though, far from it… And when spotting all of that lazy, clingy behavior Eli only had one question in mind while observing Ritsu Sakuma…

"Is that how Sis sees me?"

Previous Chapter - Masterlist - Next Chapter

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rohirric-hunter · 8 months

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Hey dear! As you are one of the lotro specialists on here I have to ask: did you do the epic battle in pelargir? Because I just can't finish it, every time I play the instance one of the twins dies, no matter which approach I try. I am a solo player, but at this point it seems like I will never be able to complete the battle and continue with the epic storyline :( do you maybe have any tips or tricks for me?

Bear with me as I hit you with kind of a wall of text, because this is a question with multiple parts to the answer.

I assume Retaking Pelargir is your first Epic Battle, since it's the first one required to advance the main quest. The thing is... it's kind of a terrible first EB. It's not impossible to complete it solo without having already done some EBs before, but it's really hard, and I think you have to already be really familiar with the instance. (In fact, I honestly think it's the hardest one to solo, personally.)

Ultimately the reason why you're not succeeding is kind of technical. EBs are designed with sort of a cumulative gameplay style in mind; the more you do them, the better you get at them, by filling out your EB Promotion skill tree, which is a lot like your regular trait tree, but more annoying. Promotion Points are gained by completing objectives in EBs (the better you do, the more Promotion Points you get), and then you can use them to unlock EB-specific skills, like the ability to use siege weaponry, command soldiers, or whatever the hell is going on in the Vanguard trait tree. And unfortunately, you can't easily solo Retaking Pelargir without a fair number of Promotion Points already invested.

Once upon a time, you had to do the Rohan EBs to advance the main questline through Helm's Deep, before they added the Storied Tale instances that let you skip them. (I think they plan on doing this for the Gondor EBs too, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.) As a result, by the time you got to Pelargir, you already had quite a few Promotion Points under your belt that prepared you for the challenge.

Basically, you have two options. You'll have to get someone to run it with you, or you'll have to get some Promotion Points.

It's a pretty fun instance so if you're willing to venture into LFF you might find some people willing to run it with you, and if you get a full group of six you can usually get away with just running along with the group and attacking enemies as they come. Alternatively, if you have a friend who's already got some Promotion Points you can duo it. As with most instances, the duo setup is exactly the same as the solo setup, so it's easy to take a friend through. (If you're on Crickhollow or Evernight, I have characters on both servers who can do it, although with my current schedule finding a time for this might be a challenge.)

Before I launch into the somewhat messy explanation of how to earn Promotion Points, it's worth noting that you can just buy them. It's in the LotRO Store under Account>Content>Instance Finder, 395LP for 10. I don't think this ever goes on sale, although with the new store interface you can probably use coupons on it. If you're really frustrated and just want to get it over with and don't want to play with other people, this might be the best option for you.

Personally, though, I think that's overpriced and always earn my Promotion Points in-game. In order to do this, you're going to have to do other Epic Battles. Good starter EBs are Helm's Dike and The Defence of Minas Tirith. But you might want to avoid the latter, as it is also part of the main quest later on, and Helm's Dike is easier IMO anyway. It almost plays itself, although it is a huge timesink. (In order to get through the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, you'll have to do The Defence of Minas Tirith and Hammer of the Underworld, but don't worry! They're way easier than Pelargir. If you get through Pelargir you'll get through them no problem.)

So. How to earn Promotion Points. This is, in my opinion, very inadequately explained in-game, so my apologies if I'm overexplaining. It took me forever to figure this out.

Every Epic Battle has one main objective and several side objectives. You earn Promotion Points by completing these objectives. The better you do, the more Promotion Points you earn. There's a finite number of Promotion Points you can earn from each objective, but you can replay the instance as many times as you need to earn them. There's no way to permanently lock yourself out of Promotion Points, so don't worry about that.

The first time you run an Epic Battle you're not going to do well (or even succeed) on all your side-objectives. That's part of the design. The idea is to earn a few Promotion Points, do the battle again, do a little better, earn a few more, etc. etc. and so on. But as I said before, Helm's Dike is pretty easy, and has a lot of side objectives so even if you don't do well you'll come out of it with a good number of Promotion Points. The thing to keep in mind is that your first few runs are going to suck. This is normal, you're not doing anything wrong.

Anyway, once you've built up some Promotion points, you can really start making a dent in Pelargir. Ideally, you'll want one hundred twenty. Sixty, however, is just fine. As a general rule, you want to invest in the Engineer (yellow line) trait tree in Rohan and the Officer (blue line) trait tree in Gondor. (Vanguard is only useful if you're playing with other people.) Pelargir is a little bit of a special case, though. If you have one hundred twenty Promotion Points, put sixty into Officer to unlock Two-handed Stance and sixty into Engineer to unlock the ability to deconstruct barricades. In the Officer trait tree, invest points into your heal and haste orders. Ignore banners (they buff other players) and corruption removal (it basically never comes up). In Engineer, get as many levels in traps as you can and then focus on Disable Contribution. If you have sixty Promotion points, set up one of your trait trees to have all of them in Officer and the other to have all of them in Engineer. You'll be switching between them throughout the instance. You can only switch trait trees out of combat, but I'll explain where to switch in a little bit.

Ideally, your trait tree should look something like this:

The key to keeping the twins alive during retaking Pelargir is to keep fights from lasting too long. Out of combat, they heal very quickly, so as long as you can get them to drop out of combat regularly they will be fine. Throughout the instance, you will want to right-click on Captains to buff the damage dealt by their squads. If you're using two different trait specs, start in the one with points in the Officer tree. First, click on the sword icon in the Captain's menu and then on the axe icon to switch the squad to Two-handed Stance. This will make them deal more damage, but have less defense. They'll be fine, though, because you can heal them through this menu. My go-to strategy is to just hit all the buffs at the beginning of the fight and then hit them again as soon as the cooldown ends and repeat.

(Epic Battles are less like other instances in that you're more directing/commanding troops rather than doing the fighting yourself.)

As soon as you have the first captain set to two handed and have buffed his troops, switch to your Engineering spec for your traps. (Officer buffs still work in this spec, but they're weaker, so try to buff before switching whenever possible.) The first part of the instance is pretty basic, just take down the corsairs as you run up the stairs. As you start the final climb to the winch above the gate, drop a trap in front of the door in the wall, then switch back to Officer spec when Elrohir starts talking about opening the gate. Defending the winch is pretty simple, just keep buffing your troops and taking down corsairs until the gate is open. If you have enough Promotion points to have traps in Officer spec, drop them as often as you can, too.

As soon as the gate opens and Aragorn enters, jump on a mount and run down the stairs to the next gate. As soon as you can, click on the next captain (click through the gate if you can), switch him to Two-handed Stance, and buff. (You may have to dismount for this. If you do, mount up again immediately. This part is all about speed.) Then, immediately switch to Engineer spec and ride forward to where you can see barricades. I assume this is where you're losing the twins, as this is where they always die for me in this instance. Buffing your troops here will help a lot, but the only thing that consistently keeps them alive for me is the barricades, and this is what you really needed all those Promotion Points for. You have to have sixty promotion points in Engineer to deconstruct the barricades and reposition them. You want to deconstruct them and move them to the chokepoint between the two static barricades. (You may want to load up Helm's Dike and practice moving and placing barricades, as it's kind of an awkward system, and in Pelargir you only have a very short time to get everything set up.) The barricades should be two deep, and spread out a little bit, as their area of effect is a little bigger than their actual model, and no enemies should be able to get through this chokepoint without passing through them. This will slow down enemies dramatically, essentially giving your troops free hits on them. Enemies will also sometimes attack the barricades instead of your allies.

You can still attack enemies while building the barricades, as long as you don't move, but be careful, because when you're done with the barricades you want to be out of combat so you can switch back to Officer spec. Enemies in Epic Battles prioritize NPCs over you, so as long as you haven't attacked anyone in a bit you should be fine. If you are in combat, find out who with and take them down without aggroing anyone else ASAP. A good alternative to attacking while building the barricades is dropping Engineer traps, especially caltrops, which damage enemies over time and can be devastating in combination with a wall of barricades.

Once you're out of combat, switch back to Officer spec and keep buffing your troops for the rest of this fight. During this bit, there will be two optional side objectives and one required side objective. My advice is to ignore both of the optional ones. You don't have to complete them to complete the instance, and one of them will ask you to leave the immediate area, which can get one or both of the twins killed unless you have a rank 6 Engineer (and sometimes even then). The other one sends a boss after you. If you ignore him, he will despawn after 90 seconds or something. I recommend only engaging him if one of the twins does. You can also cut grappling hooks to reduce the number of enemies attacking you; I never do this as it makes this stage of the fight last longer, but it can help prevent you from getting overwhelmed.

The required side objective is Kisung Teng. Once he spawns, you're basically done with this part. Immediately focus in on him and take him down ASAP, as he speeds his allies up and can do a lot to counteract all your hard barricade-building work. But by the time you take him down pretty much all of the other enemies should be taken down themselves.

If you get this far, congratulations! That's the hardest part of the instance. It's a cakewalk from here. There's still a slight chance of losing a twin at the very end but it's not too bad. The instance is paused at this point; Elladan and Elrohir will run ahead to the next gate but they won't open it until you follow them. I recommend switching back to Engineer spec, deconstructing a barricade, and picking it up, but to be honest you don't have to. If you do, wait for the cooldown to reset and switch back to Officer spec before following the twins.

Another captain will run in from the right after you pass through this gate. You know the drill. Switch him to Two-handed stance and buff. There are a few enemies in the streets here, but nothing too challenging. When you get to the very last bit of the instance, switch back to Engineer spec and then place the barricade, if you have it, somewhere along the wall to the left, where it will catch enemies climbing up. There are two catapults set up here; build at least one of them and then start firing it into the corsairs you can see below. This will reduce the total number of enemies you have to fight hand-to-hand. When they start to make it over the wall switch back to officer stance and start buffing, but keep firing the catapult until you can't hit the enemies below anymore. At this point there will be another optional side-boss. If it's Thisarti my advice is to ignore it, if it's Okurayo definitely attack him and hold his aggro or else he might take down one of the twins.

After a bit of this, there will be a cutscene where Aragorn and the Oathbreakers will arrive on the scene. You have a brief reprieve during the cutscene; my advice is to heal your troops during this time. Then a whole bunch more corsairs will come your way, pursued by Oathbreakers. You can try to hit them with the ballista before they climb up the wall if you want, or not. The regular corsairs aren't much of a concern to be honest, especially with the Oathbreakers that follow them up. Keep an eye out for Zagaroth. He's the last non-optional boss, and once you've beaten him, you've won the instance, pretty much.

TL;DR: the two main takeaways are that you should be buffing your soldiers constantly, and you gotta set up those barricades or you'll get overwhelmed. Keep in mind that in order to succeed at the instance and advance the main quest, you don't have to do any of the side objectives (except Okurayo), so every time the game tells you to do something proceeded by "New Quest" you can probably just ignore it. Elladan and Elrohir dying or the winch being destroyed are the only failure conditions. I've never once seen the winch actually get destroyed, though, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just stick close to the twins and keep all your troops doing as much damage as possible as fast as possible.

EDIT: I just realized I mentioned Helm's Dike as a good way to get Promotion Points and then moved on, and I forgot to say that I have a mostly-finished guide to Helm's Dike somewhere that I can dig up and post if you want, which should help if that's the route you decide to take.

#lotro #oh this turned out even longer than i expected #sorry its just that epic battles are just so much. theres so much going on #and the game doesnt really explain it so i feel like i have to reinvent the wheel every time i talk about it #anyway the offer to run you through it with one of my characters stands if youre on the right servers #if not shoot me another ask and maybe we can hook you up with someone on your server #unfortunately the thing is. the fastest and easiest way to get it done is to get help #but i get it tbh playing with others is very scary/stressful unless i know them well #long post

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dynamite-derek · 4 months

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Final Fantasy and Accepting the Warts of Age

Note: This is the first of a planned series on the Final Fantasy franchise. I plan on posting these on my own website, vidyathoughts.com but for now I will also crosspost here. I hope you enjoy!

A mixture of reality and fantasy

The origins of Final Fantasy are pretty well known. Hironobu Sakaguchi wanted to make a role playing game but the genre was not a proven commodity in Japan. Then Dragon Quest came out and changed everything. Dragon Quest would go on to become such a phenomenon that according to a Game Informer interview with current series producer Yu Miyake, following the release of Dragon Quest 3, Japanese police requested that Enix not release new Dragon Quest titles on weekdays because too many kids were skipping school in order to buy the game. Even before 3, Dragon Quest proved that the role playing genre could be successful in Japan and Sakaguchi was given the go ahead to start making his own RPG. So a team of seven individuals went on to make the first title in what would go on to be one of the biggest franchises in the world.

The cute version of the FF origin story that gets repeated time and time again is that Square was a company on the verge of financial ruin and the title was named “Final Fantasy” because it was the company’s last shot at success. If Final Fantasy were to be a failure, it would indeed be the final fantasy title Square would ever produce because the company would be out of business. This tale has likely been embellished because, well, it’s cute. Who doesn’t like a Cinderella story?

“The name ‘Final Fantasy’ was a display of my feeling that if this didn’t sell, I was going to quit the games industry and go back to university. I’d have had to repeat a year, so I wouldn’t have had any friends – it really was a ‘final’ situation,” Sakaguchi said in an interview with MCV UK in 2007. But in an interview with Chris Kohler of Wired from 2009, series composer Nobuo Uematsu stated that: It’s true that Sakaguchi was going to quit, but the bigger reason, the real reason, was that Square was going to go bankrupt and the designers believed that it would be the company’s swan song.

And most recently, you have a keynote speech that Sakaguchi gave in 2015. Casey Baseel of Sora News translated what he had to say about the naming of the franchise like this: ”The team had already decided they wanted something that could be easily abbreviated using the Roman alphabet. They were also set on something that could be condensed into a four-syllable abbreviated version in Japanese, and FF (pronounced ‘efu efu’ in Japanese), fit both criteria. Given the genre the game fell into, making one of those Fs ‘fantasy’ was a no-brainer. But what about the other one? Actually, ‘Final’ wasn’t the team’s first choice – the initial idea was to call the game Fighting Fantasy. However, they had to nix that plan when they discovered there was already a board game called Fighting Fantasy, which was in turn based on a series of British gamebooks.”

Stuff of folktales. Would the fun origin story for Fighting Fantasy be like “Square realized they didn’t have a fighting chance unless this game succeeded. And it was a Fantasy title. So the title Fighting Fantasy was born.” I like to picture the warrior class as some sort of Paul Bunyon character with a chocobo as a blue ox. I think it’s fitting that a fantasy franchise has fantastical and exaggerated origins.

Personal failings

My first experience with the Final Fantasy franchise was with Final Fantasy VI (III in the U.S.) on the Super Nintendo. I was a poor kid who was coping with my lack of access to Final Fantasy VII by playing the next best thing my game rental store had. I tried to get into it but it was difficult because I knew the GREATEST GAME OF ALL TIME FOREVER was out there and I just couldn’t play it because I didn’t have a Playstation. Eventually though, I would get there and become a fan of it all. I loved moogles and I wanted more of them.

So like any person who discovers their new favorite franchise for the first time, I needed to experience every single game that it had to offer in some way. Even as a middle schooler, I was savvy with emulators. How else would I play Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension? So instead of being a responsible member of society and purchasing the easily available Final Fantasy Origins on Playstation 1, I instead downloaded NESticle and a rom of Final Fantasy and…boy was it not for me. I saw the heights the franchise would get to and this just didn’t compare. Where were the fancy summons? The card games? The story?

I feel like this is probably a very common experience when trying to play the old Final Fantasy games. The franchise wasn’t always about delivering a game and a story, it was at one point just a game with a story as scenery dressing. I would go on to play Final Fantasy I on the NES as an adult and was able to see the beauty in it, but I will never forget running into a brick wall the first time I played the game.

Actually playing the game

Final Fantasy I is a different experience from what I was used to. While it is turn based like those Playstation games, it feels like more of an adventure game than the later titles. The player will need to really explore the world they are in in order to find out where to go next. You have the basics of your journey: Everything is fucked and you need to restore the light of the four crystals in order to make things right. The four crystals are representative of the four elements (Earth, Air, Water and Fire) so your adventures will take you to those biomes far and wide across this massive – for the time – world.

The NPCs do give you hints about what to do next, but they don’t hit you over the head with it. There isn’t a line of dialogue that explicitly tells you that you need the rosetta stone from the sunken shrine in order to understand the people of Lufenia, which will then lead you to the tower of mirages, which will eventually get you into a fight with Tiamat. You have to talk to everyone and piece it together. You have to explore.

As you explore, you will be slammed with random encounters. Since you aren’t expected to know where to go on your first playthrough, a lot of your grinding might feel natural. Even still, when you first get to an area, you’re probably not gonna be able to waltz up to the boss and smack them down. In later Final Fantasies, I find that if you just don’t run away from fights, by the time you get to the boss of an area you will probably be well equipped enough to defeat them. This is not the case in Final Fantasy I. Grinding is a big part of the gameplay. The first time I played the original Final Fantasy, I waltzed over to the Chaos Shrine to fight Garland and got my ass handed to me because I didn’t spend enough time beating up goblins.

While a lot of people might look at grinding as cumbersome, I think it’s important to note that it was a big part of the gameplay. You weren’t playing for the story with this game, you were playing for the adventure and part of said adventure was fighting a lot of battles. It was also about keeping track of your inventory and using magic responsibly. Instead of magic points like later entries use, the original Final Fantasy uses magic charges. It’s a system much like you’d see in Dungeons & Dragons where you can only use your spells so many times until you rest to recharge them. Originally, there was no way to recover your magic outside of this. If you wasted all of your Fir3 (Firaga) charges on random enemies, that was it. You couldn’t use it again until you rested. Need it for a boss? Too bad. Go back and try again.

When your main gameplay loop involves fighting a lot of battles, your strength becomes more apparent as you play making progress feel really significant. Let’s say you just got done dealing with Mount Gulug and you head back to the first area of the game, Cornelia. When you get there, you’ll find that those goblins that you had to wail on in order to ensure Garland didn’t knock you down aren’t so bad anymore. Even your White Mage can probably one shot them! This isn’t an experience unique to this particular Final Fantasy, but when a lot of your random battles are won by the skin of your teeth it really does feel quite special here.

The battle system itself, primarily attributed to Akitoshi Kawazu (though I’ve also seen Hiroyuki Ito credited), is truly turn based. You can attack, use magic, use items or run. Barebones, but you can take as long as you want to select what you want your character to do, which might feel strange to series veterans more accustomed to the ATB system. I’ll get more into THAT system in the first game that uses it: Final Fantasy IV. The basics of FF1’s system would carry the first three games of the franchise, though some elements around the battle system get changed in those titles. In the first game, I would say the combat is fairly simplistic and the actual gameplay is more carried by things you do on the periphery like item conservation, but I think they expand things a bit in the next two games. This is a fine baseline.

Changing things up

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the screenshots I am providing for this game come from the Pixel Remaster. In this version of the game, they make things a little easier for the player. Shops sell ethers, you generally don’t need to spend as much time grinding and there is an NPC in Cornelia that specifically exists to tell you where to go. The Pixel Remaster tries to take this ancient title that middle school me rammed his head into fruitlessly and make it accessible to more people. It is nice in the sense that it will allow more people to play the first Final Fantasy, but is that really the same experience?

When I first started the Pixel Remaster, the very first thing I did was walk over to the chaos shrine to fight Garland. My head was going back to my middle school days where I was mercilessly killed by what a lot of people consider a joke boss. I didn’t do any grinding and I stepped in and…I just won. And in like five hits to boot. Not feeling confident before a boss? Just quicksave. Gone was that need to grind, instead it felt like I was playing the game on fast forward. Just like with later Final Fantasy titles, I would go from location to location and if I just didn’t run away, by the time I reached the boss, I would be well equipped enough to win. Sure, some of the crystal guardians (the four fiends) were tough battles that would feature one party member getting killed, but most of the time these fights would be uneventful.

Looking around to see if I was misremembering my experience with Final Fantasy I, I found a reddit post that said the remaster was made for people with jobs or had better things to do. In a sense, I agree, this game does get to the point a lot quicker…but is that really Final Fantasy I?

I think in order to get the true experience with the original Final Fantasy, you need to toss up that emulator – or NES classic, or NES or whatever you have at your disposal – and throw yourself at hordes of enemies. As I said earlier, the original Final Fantasy is not a game you play through for the story. If FF1 had a narrative as engrossing as Chrono Trigger but was locked behind this really hard to approach (in a modern sense) video game, I would say it’s necessary to ‘dumb it down’ so people can experience it. I don’t know if I see it that way with the Pixel Remaster though. Sure, you can beat the game this way and that’s great for people that just want to play every single Final Fantasy game and get on with their lives, but I don’t think you’re getting the authentic experience. The tedium that comes with random battles, the rage you might feel after finishing a dungeon only to die on your way out of it and the grind is every bit as much of what Final Fantasy is as the four crystals are.

Now that’s not to say I think all of the changes are ‘experience ruining.’ I think most people consider video games of yesteryear to be a little obtuse in order to sell strategy guides. That’s a slightly cynical way to look at it, but how the hell else were you supposed to figure out Casltevania 2? Were you supposed to just blindly bomb every single wall in Legend of Zelda in order to find a path through the dungeon or were you supposed to find a copy of Nintendo Power to very helpfully point you in the right direction? So quality of life features that don’t actually alter gameplay, like the hint giving dancer NPC and the remake offering a wide variety of maps, are fine by me. You’d have to pay a premium to see these in a strategy guide in the past, so I don’t think having easy access to that content is game ruining. You can also just ignore it! You can’t ignore not needing to grind though.

I also think this specific remake of the original Final Fantasy does one thing way better than some past remakes. It retains the magic charge system. Your level 8 flare (nuke) spell can only be used so many times and its usage is independent of your other magic spells. This makes it so if you want to have an authentic experience where you have to strategize your magic usage in dungeons, you still can. Having all your magic tied to the same magic points system changes things too drastically and I think most players could not forsake quality of life items to experience something closer to the original.

And visually, while I prefer the charm of the older sprites, I love that this remake does its best to remake those and present them as something new. Here I have compiled the playable character sprites from the original and the Pixel Remaster. In case it isn’t obvious, the order goes NES, Remaster, NES, Remaster. You can tell the new ones are based off of the old ones, even if some of the changes are odd (I miss my fighter having red hair). I compare the way this looks to how the Super Mario All-Stars games look. Yeah, the sprites are redone but they are close enough to the original where it still feels authentic. Now, let’s take a look at the GBA remake sprites.

They just look completely different. There’s no ‘trying to retain the spirit’ of the original, your characters look completely different. Yeah, your thief looks more like a thief but it’s a different guy entirely! The class ups no longer look like ‘grown up’ versions of their original selves, they just look more advanced. Your black wizard no longer looks like Sabin, he looks like Vivi! I think a good remake that is trying to be faithful should try to embody the spirit of the original as much as possible and just changing things this much feels superfluous. So I’m glad Square Enix did something else for the Pixel Remasters. The best option would be to include the original game with all remastered versions of the game but that will likely never happen.

I’m only going to touch briefly on the music. I don’t think Final Fantasy I hits the heights of the later entries, but there are definitely some classics in there. The battle theme is iconic, for instance. I think the original versions of these songs are definitely the way to go. Something about the remixes the Pixel Remaster collection has just sounds too pure. They sound like something off of an RPG maker assembly line. Thankfully the console ports offer an option to stick with the original songs but for Steam players like myself…uh, well, I hope you know how to mod!

My experience through the early Final Fantasy titles for this series will be through the Pixel Remasters just because they are the most convenient ways to play them in 2023. But I have also played each of these games before. Maybe not to completion, but I know what they are supposed to feel like. But for people who just want to play every Final Fantasy game, I encourage you to at least try to play the original version instead of the Pixel Remasters. It just isn’t the same experience. If you’re a returning player though, nothing wrong with trying a different way to experience a classic.

Notable characters

I have wanted to write something like this about Final Fantasy games for quite a long time. I was inspired by articles written by a guy named Pat (Pitchfork) for the website Socks Make People Sexy. These were all done a long time ago though and I wanted to make something similar, but in my own voice and from my own perspective. One of my favorite things he would do in these articles is do a rundown of the cast. So I plan on doing that with my retrospectives as well. Final Fantasy I doesn’t have a ton of plot important characters, but let’s look at what we have. These impressions are based on my most recent playthrough of the game.

My party: The Warriors of Light

You need to pick four characters for your journey through this game and unlike (most) later entries, your characters have no personality. You have to name your crew, pick from the six classes and kind of imagine how their personalities would be.

Chuck the Warrior/Knight. So both my party composition and a couple of their names come directly from an old webcomic called 8-Bit theater. I feel like the most recognizable gag for the Warrior in those comics was ‘sword-chucks’ which is a genius invention that works exactly as it sounds.

In this playthrough, Chuck was an absolute beast. He took 1 damage from most enemies and almost never died. In fact, I think he never did keel over until the final battle with Chaos. He almost single handedly carried me through the entire way. I have never been one for challenge runs because I am a giant baby, but I would wager simply not having a Warrior would make things really hard for most people. Truthfully, I think a party of three Warriors and a Red or White Mage would probably be more effective than my diverse and fun party of rapscallions. Hey though, it’s early, they were still figuring out the job system!

GP or HP? the Thief/Ninja. The second of my 8-bit theater references. This line has stuck with my for the years and I don’t know why. So it felt natural to name my Thief that. Unfortunately the Pixel Remaster decided to rename GP to ‘gil’ as that is the series standard so now my little thief’s name makes less sense. Ah well.

Despite being named a thief, you can’t actually steal anything in the original Final Fantasy. So what differentiates him from the king of DPS the Warrior is his speed. The Thief can dodge a lot of things and as a result, he didn’t really die all that much either. He wasn’t quite as invulnerable as the Warrior – the fight with Marilith/Kary/the fiend of fire was basically a Warrior solo effort at the end – but he was a very effective secondary damage dealer. He received a brief promotion during the battle with chaos to be every bit as important as the Warrior though. I gave him the most powerful weapon in the game, the masamune, and when he was hasted he would sometimes out damage Chuck. Wow!

Rich Evans, the Red Mage/Red Wizard. I am stupid. So when thinking of a name for my Red Mage, the first thing I thought of was another thing with the word red in it: Red Letter Media. And then I was like, well, you’d have to be a real asshole to hate Red Mages. So I chose the one RLM guy I thought you’d have to be an asshole to hate. Rich Evans.

For people unaware, the Red Mage is a jack of all trades. They can cast white and black magic. A healer and a damage dealer! On top of that, they are handy with a sword so they can do just a bit of everything. Unfortunately, I found Rich Evans to not really be good at much of anything. Casting black magic as a red mage is pointless. My Black Mage out-damaged Rich Evans by a lot. The physical damage he would cause was handy during random encounters, but against actual bosses he might as well have been swinging a twig. There Rich Evans was a heal bot and honestly I didn’t think cure or cura healed enough to be horribly useful. If I were to run again, I’d just use a white mage because I think the added hp on each heal would make a big difference. Plus they get holy which is canonically the coolest Final Fantasy spell.

Vivi, the Black Mage/Black Wizard Wow gee whiz I wonder why I named my Black Mage Vivi. In case you didn’t know, this is the Black Mage that appears in Final Fantasy IX and he pretty much just looks like a Black Mage. Unfortunately I forget that the Black Wizard looks like a completely different Final Fantasy character

Ah well. I’ll just pretend Sabin came in to replace Vivi halfway through and he learned black magic or something, I dunno.

In this playthrough, Vivi was pretty much my ‘oh my fucking god I don’t want to sit through this random battle, use Flare or something so we can move on’ character. In boss battles he was my second most valuable damage dealer, but he was also squishy enough that it felt like he would go down before I even knew it. But boy, casting Blizzaga once was great. Usually my strategy with him would be to cast haste on Chuck or Rich Evans and then cause whatever damage I can (In FF1 haste makes it so you hit someone more times on your turn, so it’s a damage buff. It doesn’t make you faster like it would in an ATB game). I like having a magic damage dealer in the party just because you run into those pesky slime-style enemies that take like four damage to sword strikes, but I didn’t run into THAT many of those and when I did Chuck or GP or HP? would usually score a crit and take care of things. I didn’t mention it above but the crit rate had to be upped by like 1000%, I got them all the time.

So basically in my next playthrough it’s KNIGHT KNIGHT KNIGHT and White Wizard. Speaking of White Wizard, I didn’t mention the other two classes: Black Belt/Monk and White Mage. I, uh, didn’t use them but I thought I would mention them. Masters, the evolved form of monk/black belts, are a more useless dps than the Ninja and White Mages/Wizards are healer first characters. There!

Princess Sarah

She is the princess of Cornelia/Corneria. Calling her a major character is a bit of a stretch, but the journey of the Warriors of Light technically starts with her kidnapping at the hands of Garland. Plus, she gets used in a lot of supplementary material later on. She gets a major role in World of Final Fantasy from what I remember. I included this specific screenshot because I have no idea what she’s trying to say here. Is she trying to say she wants to have some alone time with Chuck? Is the screen fixing to fade to black with her going “you’re so norty?”

Bahamut

For funsies I decided to compare Pixel Remaster Bahamut to other forms of Bahamut. On the left is NES Bahamut. Not quite intimidating, I would say Pixel Remaster Bahamut looks like Bahamut Zero in comparison. On the right is a version of Bahamut from the PSP version of Final Fantasy. I haven’t played that specific version but I included it because I just think that style really sucks compared to the more pixelated version.

Bahamut has one role in this game: to give your team a class change. It’s the one thing I would call a sidequest in the original Final Fantasy and it is so important that I almost hesitate to call it a sidequest. Changing your class makes your character exponentially more powerful. For challenge run fanatics, I’m sure using the starter classes is neat and all, but for people like me who cower at such things…you’re going to want to run around with a ninja instead of a thief.

He doesn’t have much of a character outside of this though. He’s just a kindly king of the dragons. I just thought it was neat that the most iconic summon in the franchise got his start in the very first game. A lot of series staples from Final Fantasy don’t originate with the first game, but this bad boy does.

Cid!?

The above screenshot is talking about the creation of the airship. Cute! Of course, this line of dialogue isn’t in the original game because it’s a little too on the nose. The tradition of Cid in numbered games wouldn’t start until 2, but this little throwaway line of dialogue that was added in the GBA remake of Final Fantasy tried to tie it all together. I don’t like this little bit of retroactive continuity but felt it was important to note that it’s in the most easily accessible version of the game. But it’s a lie! Ignore this NPC! Booo!

I didn’t know where to put this but I love the Troll

NES on the left, Pixel Remaster on the right. Look at this guy! You can practically hear him go “AIEEEEEEE YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE IT’S OVER FOR ME AGGGGGGGGGGH” Plus I love the shadow on his crotch. This is a family game, you can’t just put troll penis everywhere all willy nilly.

The Four Fiends

Some more sprite comparisons for you. I really like the updated versions of these guys, I think they do a good job of capturing the spirit of the original designs. Upper Left: Lich (Earth). Upper Right: Marilith/Kary (Fire). Lower Left: Kraken (Water). Lower Right: Tiamat (Wind)

These guys are your main ‘boss’ enemies, they guard the four crystals. They snuffed the light out of them so to speak. They have no characterization at all, but they are the big bads of the game and even show up for rematches in the final dungeon. In this playthrough, I struggled the most with Marilith. She was unleashing fire attacks that would just obliterate my entire party, save for Chuck. I think he wound up winning the fight with about 40 HP left. I think these enemies are particularly effective in the Pixel Remaster because they represent a spike in difficulty. The game is a total cakewalk until you reach Lich. He has more HP and causes more damage than anything you have faced so far and, to me, represented the first serious threat of death. It’s a little unnerving seeing your number two DPS cause like 30 damage.

The fights you have against them at the end of the game are intense. A lot of end game enemies love using death against you. While you can guard yourself against that, it can still be a little frustrating to be smacked with it if you’re not ready. In the Pixel Remaster, this is lessened by the ability to save before each battle but in the NES version you really need to be on your game to make it out of the final dungeon alive.

Garland/Chaos

The first and final boss of Final Fantasy. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. He was once a loyal knight of Cornelia but became corrupted at some point and kidnapped Princess Sarah. It turns out the four fiends you defeated were Garland’s servants from 2000 years ago and sent him back to the past to heal after your party kicks his ass at the start of the game. When you defeat the four fiends, it opens a portal in the chaos shrine to that period of time so you can finish things. You then fight his true form Chaos. To learn more about Garland and Chaos, make sure to play the hit game “Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.” Are you a bad enough dude to take out Chaos!?

Chaos represents probably the harshest swing of difficulty in the Pixel Remaster. The game doesn’t present much of a challenge until this point. As I said, no game overs. Then you fight Chaos and all of a sudden the game remembers its NES roots. Chaos causes ~300 damage per attack – Vivi had 450-ish HP on my first attempt – and this gets boosted up to around 700 per hit if he casts haste on himself. On top of this, he can randomly cast curaja on himself to completely heal up. It’s frustrating causing thousands of damage only to see that 9,999 in green text. It’s a true endurance fight and definitely worthy of being the final boss of this game.

When I got to him, I believe my party had just hit level 50. This is the original level cap and it took a zillion years to hit it in the NES version, so I assumed I would just stroll up and win like I did with every other battle. Nope! Obliterated. Luckily I took advantage of the quicksave function the remaster added and after I got slaughtered about five times in a row I went back to grind. Finally, I was getting that authentic FF experience I spent a few paragraphs bitching about up there! I decided to give it a go after my characters hit level 57 and…I did better but I was still getting my ass kicked. Eventually though, I prevailed. I used an item to get Saber on Chuck and kept him hasted, I used an item to get blink (helps with evasion though if it did anything who can say) on GP or HP and I just prayed Vivi stayed alive long enough to cast Haste on everyone. I suck and didn’t realize I had temper and that temper could stack so that probably would have helped but hey. I won in the end. And only Vivi died! So I’ll take it.

I was just relieved he didn’t have another form. Hey it’s early, the form changes will come later I assure you.

It started here

With each Final Fantasy, I want to note when certain series traditions start. Sorry if some of these seem really obvious.

Four Fiends, Crystals, Warriors of Light, Jobs, turn based battles, the world map, random encounters and Nobuo Uematsu

This is the game that started it all, so of course it establishes the basics of the franchise. Felt it was important to list Uematsu here because he is the main composer for the franchise. He’s been here since day one!

These all get talked about in some way above, so I won’t dwell on it too much, but these things appear over and over again in the franchise. Jobs, called classes here, get several games in which they are more prevalent so I will save that discussion for a later day. The other elements pop up from time to time too, whether in the mainline series or in spinoffs. Final Fantasy IX, for example, lifts the four fiends and crystals wholesale for its endgame, which makes sense given that FFIX is sort of a ‘series celebration’ game.

Class changes

Hardly a Final Fantasy invention, but still something that I would consider a staple, especially in those job heavy games I mention above. When your character gets a class change, it feels like a significant moment and comes with a giant change in power. They don’t happen in every Final Fantasy title but you always remember when they do happen. Probably the most remembered example of this is Cecil’s transformation into a paladin in Final Fantasy IV.

Airships, boats, etc

Another little graphic comparison for you. On the left is the Pixel Remaster airship and on the right is the NES airship. I actually prefer the NES airship because it reminds me of one of those wacky flying inventions people would make. But this isn’t a bad take on it.

Final Fantasy is a game about exploring the world and one of the best ways to explore the world quickly is a vehicle! The first one you get in FFI is a ship and later you get an airship. This progression is consistent with the rest of the series because you don’t usually just get an airship, you receive various vehicles with various limitations. Sure everybody loves the Highwind in Final Fantasy VII, but you can’t get that without first experiencing the tiny bronco, the buggy and a chocobo.

Colored magic

Not exactly a Final Fantasy original, but this game establishes black magic as the damage dealing kind of magic and white magic as the healing sort of magic. Black magic has a lot more support options in this game than it typically does, so the distinction isn’t quite as stark as it would become. We do not get to experience the joys of blue magic just yet, but it will come whether you want it to or not.

Some beloved enemies

A couple of series staple enemies start here, though their designs aren’t quite familiar. Evil eye (I always call him Ahriman, even though I know that isn’t the species name), Black flans, Minotaurs, Goblins, Ochu, Elementals, Gigas, Giant Worms and probably many others that I can’t think of right now pop up here. No cactuar or tonberry though. You gotta earn those mascot enemies!

Super bosses…kinda

It’s not actually the hardest boss in the game, that’s chaos, but in the Flying Fortress you have the chance to randomly encounter an enemy called Warmech. This guy is stronger than most bosses and basically every random encounter in the game. It only appears on one floor though and you may not even encounter it unless you’re unlucky – so you either prepare for it and hunt it down like you would a typical super boss or you get unlucky and have to either run or die. It doesn’t have the difficulty of a super boss but I think the odd nature in which it is encountered makes it kind of close.

Ultimate weapons…kinda

The Excalibur is the second most powerful weapon in Final Fantasy I, behind the Masamune which can be found in the final dungeon. It is exclusive to the Warrior and you have to find an item called Adamantite in the Flying Fortress (where the Air crystal is) in order to have it made for you. Character specific ultimate weapons would go on to become a major staple of the franchise, so I thought this game having a class specific ultimate weapon was worth noting. The reason I say “kinda” in the header here is because I really feel like the ultimate weapon should be the strongest one.

In conclusion

So is this game worth playing? Yes. Ideally in the original format but if you don’t have the patience for that sort of thing, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play the Pixel Remaster version of the game. I do think your experience with the game isn’t as authentic and you’re not experiencing the most ‘true’ version of the original Final Fantasy, but it’s at least closer to the real thing than other remakes. I would say start with the NES version and if you find yourself running into a brick wall early on, switch it up. At least you have an idea for how the original feels.

The original Final Fantasy is an old and hard to approach game and it only gets more so with age. But if you want to appreciate what the franchise would go on to become, if you want to understand just how far things have come, you should try.

Thank you very much for bearing with me and reading this far. Just like with the original Final Fantasy, I’ll be learning just what I want to make of these writeups as I do them. As I said up there somewhere, I have wanted to do a writeup of this series for a long time. At least a decade. So even giving me a couple of minutes of your time is appreciated.

Up Next

Final Fantasy 2, a notorious sequel.

#Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy I #Final Fantasy retrospectives #video games #retro #jrpg #ramblings #video game thoughts #vidya thoughts #ps5 #pc #switch #opinion

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elliewiltarwyn · 3 months

Note

Top 5 Mounts! I love seeing which mounts people are drawn too!

ohhh, that's not something I think about often, and I'm lucky enough to have acquired a hefty number of rare ones, so this is going to be fun and sentimental! and maybe a little humblebraggy im sorry im not trying to be! :D

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Eden

like many players I'm sure, Shadowbringers was when the game really for good hooked me for life, and Ryne is a significant part of that. I loved her character so much that I was overjoyed when I realized the raid series was not only going to expand on her as a character, but give her a girlfriend.

But that's not the only reason; Eden's Promise is also the tier my static formed and we began to take on savage raids, and one of my greatest memories of this game is defeating the final E12S boss alongside them like 0.7 seconds before she enraged. The Oracle of Darkness is still one of my favorite fights in the whole game, and between that, the fact that the whole raid storyline is a handwrapped gift for lesbians who have Ryne as their favorite character, and a personal fondness for FF8 YEAH THAT'S RIGHT I SAID IT SUCK IT GAMEFAQS BOARDS FROM 1998...well, getting to ride Actually Eden in this game kind of rules.

I do wish it played The Extreme though. :V

2. Sunforged

Meanwhile, Abyssos was extremely memorable for, unfortunately, much different reasons. A lot of our group started facing a lot of personal problems IRL, and we had to say goodbye to some very good friends we had made and then bring new ones up to speed on the tier, so it took us an immensely long time to make it all the way to P8S, prog both phases of the fight, and get eight clears for all of us; we were struggling so much that even when the tier unlocked, we weren't able to clear him more than once a week. I still think P8S is too rough around the edges and I like the fight a lot less than the other Pandaemonium finales - not necessarily poorly designed, but extremely demanding to the point it was actually taking a toll on us.

...So basically, to me the Sunforged represents us dragging our broken, battered bodies over the finish line of the raid tier, succeeding despite all the shit both it and real life threw at us. We fought really fuckin' hard for this fucker, and as difficult as it was I'm really, immensely proud of us for managing it.

Also the mount itself is just sick af. Big fire snek!

and it turns into a godsdamned phoenix for flight, come on!!

3. Garlond GL-II

i mean come on this thing was built for biker girl femroes!!

4. Megaloambystoma

I am BEYOND LIVID that the Axolotl mount is locked behind Savage. Savage is for neckbeard no-lifers who play this game 24/7. Give them a crappy Magitek mount or something but cute mounts do NOT belong to raiders!!!

okay but seriously look at this dope. what a good boy. and in addition to being cute AF he ALSO has a sentimental story about my static's experiences with the relevant raid tier: for some strange reason, for the last bits of phase 1 and all of phase 2 of P12S in particular, I was the one who ended up studying the fight, writing down explanations, walking the group through the mechanics, and making callouts. it'd be a little aggrandizing to claim that Pallas Athena is my victory because obviously it's the whole group's... but it is the fight that somehow made me the one confident enough to lead my friends through it.

So in a weird way, this little dope is like, a representation of my self-esteem. I love him.

5. Fat Cat

I'm a cat person. I was morally obligated to buy this. Pay no attention to the mount description that posits that it is either a VOIDSENT using a BLOATED CAT'S CORPSE AS ITS CORPOREAL VESSEL, or a DECEASED PET REANIMATED by one well versed in the NECROMANTIC ARTS. these are lies and slander. look at this :3 face. is this the face of someone who would hide their true insidious voidtinged nature? clearly not. stop worrying about it. you don't need to sleep with a knife under your pillow with this baby around. >:3

this was really fun to reminisce and write about, thank you @disciple-of-frost for the ask!!

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #femroe #wol questions #ask games #ffxiv mounts #ffxiv raiding #there are so many good mounts that deserve honorable mentions but it was shockingly easy to narrow down top 5 at least lol #honorable mentions include: pod 602 because i love nier; battle panther which was my first tank achievement mount;#rolling tankard because it comes with a laser button; lunar kamuy because wayward daughter is AMAZING; fae gwiber bc trans rights dragon;#demi-ozma bc i like orb and cube; amaro because Seto still makes me cry; miw miisv bc it's just so out there and hilarious #there's a lot of good stuff! and i don't want to think about how long i've spent collecting all these rare ones! :')#long post #just in case

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crushedbyhyperbole · 1 year

Text

Bewitched

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Original Female Character (First Person Bucky POV)

Summary: After a poker game ends in victory for Bucky, one of his team mates doesn't take it lying down. Wanda Maximoff is a sore loser and seeks revenge in any way she can, which leads to an unexpected encounter between Bucky and the illustrious Dr Veronica Edwards, in the form of a Maximoff-aided vision.

Bucky has only just realised that he no longer dislikes the woman but this encounter ramps that all the way up to eleven. Things that are seen can't be unseen and things that are felt will be realised.

Words: 4.3k

Note: Part four of Muscle Memory. In this we see a more confident Bucky who is starting to find his way through his new life, learning things about himself and others and also about what he wants. It's just an excuse for some smut really. Sorry about the shitty banner but I hope you enjoy ;) Comments, likes & reblogs are very much appreciated

Warnings: Smut, voyeurism, coming untouched, mind control, dub con - it's very mild and pre-implied that Wanda can't make Bucky see things he doesn't want to see.

***18+ content - this content is created for adults - minors do not interact***

Bucky Barnes MasterList

Wanda Maximov was a sore loser. Ever since I beat her at a friendly low(ish) stakes poker game here at the compound the other week, she’d been trying to get revenge.

The Scarlet Witch had apparently been trying to read my mind during the game. Maybe I was impervious, or maybe it was too fucked up in here for her to get anything from me but she’d been unsuccessful and had huffed like a teenager afterwards.

“If I’d known Metallica over there was going to clean all the ladies out, I’d have suggested playing for clothes instead.” Stark had said out of the corner of his mouth; a joke that was meant for everyone to hear and to be a suggestion for next time.

“He cheated.” Wanda exclaimed for the umpteenth time. “He used his abilities to tell if I was bluffing.”

“Love,” Vision tried to calm her, “he can’t help it if your poker-face left nothing to the imagination.” He smiled softly as Wanda slapped his shoulder, too hard to be just playful.

Vision still hadn’t mastered many facial expressions; a smirk was beyond him at this point.

“If it makes you feel better, you can take the money.” I offered. Funny though Vision’s comment had been, I could tell she was raging inside.

“Money can’t buy pride.” She huffed as she left.

I mouthed the word ‘sorry’ to Vision before awkwardly scooping up my winnings of $1791.

Later I would donate the money to one of Pepper’s charity recommendations; the little princess foundation.

Since that night, Wanda had been trying to haze me by drinking my beer, eating my snacks, and even deleting my recorded tv programs from the Teevo. The only problem with that was that I didn’t really record anything and she only succeeded in pissing Steve off because it was his stuff that she canned. This made her more annoyed.

“I forgive you for drinking my beer. And I’m sorry about the poker.” I said when Steve and I had confronted her about the Teevo. “If I’d have known it was so important to you I’d have backed down.”

That hadn’t helped at all. She’d raged out and tried to tap me with her power. When it didn’t take properly she stormed off again, leaving me feeling dizzy and a little nauseous.

“She’s getting benched until she sorts her attitude out.” Steve grumbled. “I can’t have loose cannons out there on mission when we could all be fighting for our lives. She’d be a liability.”

“That’s probably a little harsh. I’ll just tell her I cheated. It’s far easier than the alternative.” I gave him a reassuring smile.

“She tried to read your mind, what’s that if not cheating? All you did was read the signs in her body language. The super-soldier serum doesn’t enhance perception, Buck.”

“I know that, but I’ll take one for the team on this. She’s an asset but she’s lost her way. I know what that’s like more than anyone.”

“You’re a good friend, Buck, always were. That’s one thing that will never change.”

Despite me agreeing that I cheated, and telling everyone else that she was right - I’d cheated, she still wouldn’t drop her vendetta. She behaved nicely to my face but behind my back she was like a snake in the grass. She figured out that she couldn’t fuck with my mind like she wanted, couldn’t make me see things I didn’t want to see, but she could do it to everyone else.

“What was that you just said?” Sam said to me when we were going through schematics for a target building in the next day’s mission.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Nah, nah, nah, I heard you. You called me bird-brain.”

I searched his face for any sign of a joke but all I caught was the slight red mist that tainted the whites of his eyes and I knew what was going on. Christ!

It carried on like that for another day or two after the next day’s mission, so I decided I was just going to stay in my room until it was time to do my job. But soon I had people knocking on my door or calling me at all hours of the day and night, asking my why I’d shouted for them or why I’d called them and hung up. I was getting frustrated.

After that I’d taken to sleeping in one of the Escalades I’d park in various places around the compound, only coming inside when I needed to eat, train or shower.

It was one of those nights I saw her. Veronica. Asleep on the sofa in the communal lounge.

I’d come in to grab a quick meal, sneaking in through the glass doors of the spacious first floor lounge. It was easy for me to scale up onto the roof-top patio and let myself in silently with my keycard. I spent decades being a ghost, a shadow seldom seen, that part of the training hadn’t gone away.

The light was low and rosy with a flickering starkness from the muted TV. She lay stretched out on the 4-seater, one leg bent, knee against the backrest, and the other laid out flat. She had one hand tucked behind her head and the other hung loosely over the edge of the seat cushion where her book had fallen from her fingers and lay crumpled on the floor.

Her hair cascaded over the arm rest beautifully and her long lashes flickered against her cheeks as she dreamed, her lips slightly parted. She looked so serene.

It only felt like a moment that I stood there watching but as I took the opportunity to look at her without the scorn of her scrutiny, to really see her, I noticed things about her that I’d never paid attention to before. She was stunning.

What the fuck, man? You suddenly realise you don’t hate her and now you’re making the ‘goo-goo eyes’?

Her legs were smooth and graceful, the skin lightly tanned and almost glowing with inner radiance. The light grey sports shorts she wore showed them off perfectly, the black trim around the edge where it clipped up at her hip gave way to a sliver of white underwear. The waistband of the shorts sat low on her hips and the way the fabric bunched between her legs showed the perfect v of her mound.

God damn!

My heart quickened. I shouldn’t be staring like this but she looked divine and honestly I had never had the opportunity to see her this way, relaxed and unguarded.

Jesus Christ!

Her belly button was a delicate oval peeking underneath the white of her vest, stomach smooth like her thighs and also lightly tanned. The white fabric was a little loose over her ribs but stretched tight across her breasts which were… holy fuck! Glorious. They were larger than they seemed, parted slightly as she lay there braless. The slight outline and soft peak of her nipples so painfully obvious to me.

I felt my groin tingle as pressure began to build. What the hell was I thinking? I was going to spontaneously combust.

Mentally shaking myself, I made a move toward the kitchen; my goal had been a meal and then right back to the Escalade. I set my eyes on the kitchen and clenched my jaw. I had to go.

One step. One small movement to sidestep the sofa that had put me at Veronica’s feet. That was all I managed before a sensation of proximity at my shoulder told me I’d made a grave mistake.

I felt the jolt, like I had many times before. It was like a puff of air against the skin of my temple, but it penetrated and seeped into my head, settling like ash over my consciousness. All the other times I’d managed to shake myself loose before Wanda’s mind tap had taken hold but this time I’d fucked up. Big time.

The scarlet smoke shrouded my vision and the only thing that pulled me through was a heavenly sigh that deepened into a soft moan, and I swear it pulled on my cock so hard I almost stumbled forward.

Blinking rapidly to clear my eyes, I let the dizziness dissipate. That had been a close one.

There was no sign of Wanda when I scanned for her. Stretching my senses outward yielded nothing, there was just me and the sleeping woman on the sofa. Veronica.

She moaned lightly in her sleep, a hint of sexual need lay in the sound and it made my cock twitch in my sweatpants. Her back arched a little, pushing her breasts up further, stretching the fabric of her vest until I could see her nipples as slightly darker rounds beneath the sheer white vest. They were achingly hard, like my cock. I watched her hand slip up over one breast, fingers circling the bud through her clothes.

Holy shit!

I knew I shouldn’t stay to watch but I was fucked if I wasn’t rooted to the spot, my erection begging for attention. Screwing my eyes shut, I tried to will my legs to move but they wouldn’t obey. Maybe I needed more time to come down from Wanda’s mental touch, she’d almost got me this time after all.

Panicking a little because I knew I couldn’t get caught here like this, my heart thudded in my chest, making more blood pump straight to where it was most definitely not needed.

“Bucky…” Her sigh kickstarted my adrenaline, making my eyes fly open. It had been so soft, barely a whisper but it had hit me like a sucker punch.

I watched in disbelief as her other hand snaked down into the front of her little shorts, covering the smoothness of her mons, fingers teasing lazily.

I moaned then, low and guttural, stirring her from her sleep. Her eyes fluttered open and she sighed deeply, relishing the sensations she was creating.

Shit! I needed to run, get the fuck out of there before she fully came to and realised I’d been watching her, but my legs… Fucking traitorous things! Thighs of betrayal. Feet like cement blocks. They wouldn’t move. It was like when HYDRA had given me the first damn arm and I’d struggled to integrate with it; it had seemed to have a mind of its own.

She focused on me but instead of shock and horror, a sultry smile curled her lips and she blinked slowly. My hand was gripping my crotch through my sweats half to cover my obvious arousal and half to create friction. She flicked a glance down my body before closing her eyes again and resuming her finger play. She definitely noticed.

Oh my god!

After a few panicked and torturous moments watching her tease herself, and me along with it, I slipped my hand into my pants and gave myself the long slow stroke I craved, sighing with relief as I did.

Veronica was looking at me again, watching me loosely stroking under my pants as she did the same, eyes moving between my face and the rise and fall of the clothing over my crotch.

It felt amazing, exciting even, having someone look at me the way she did then, lust-filled and wanton. My cock was solid in my hand, the tight feeling grew as I slowly built my pleasure from the heavy pressure between my hips.

She bit her plump lower lip, catching it in her teeth and drawing her lips up into another seductive smile. She knew exactly what she was doing to me, she knew she was wrecking me without even laying a finger on me.

“Mmmmmm.” She moaned a little louder and ground her hips as her fingers circled quicker. “Bucky!” She gasped, pinching her nipple hard through her clothes.

“Jesus!” I throbbed so hard even my asshole clenched.

If I wanted nothing more for the rest of my life it was her. To touch her, kiss her, and bury myself in her so deep I’d get lost forever.

“Show me….” She sighed as if she read my mind.

So I did, sliding my sweats down under my tightening sack, letting my cock bounce free and the goddess before me grinned, she actually fucking grinned, eyes flashing with desire.

How is this even real?

“Do you want me, Bucky?” She sighed erotically as she spoke, sending a spark of tingling pleasure across my scalp and down my spine where it ignited something in me that was long forgotten.

“I’ve always wanted you.” The admission was new but it felt right. So fucking right. “I just didn’t see it.”

I saw it now though, laid out in full. The soft adrenaline and serotonin peaks every time I saw her, that uneasy feeling in my gut - it was attraction. Each memory of her was a map back to that one sensation that I felt so strongly now I knew I always had; I wanted her, badly.

I had been stroking myself throughout that little realisation and she had been touching herself too. Her eyes were locked on mine until suddenly she gasped and cried out softly, closing them lightly against the pleasure she’d felt.

“I want you too.” Her face was flushed and she looked more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen. “But we can’t.”

“Boyfriend?” Was all I could say, the lump in my throat making my voice no more than a croak.

She nodded slowly, biting her lip again as she watched me fucking into my own fist.

“I’m starting not to care too much about that, doll.” And just like that, forties Bucky was right there, all confident and suave.

Fuck me, I’m going to hell for this.

She clawed at the neckline of her vest, dragging the material down under her perfect breasts, baring them for me as if she wasn’t tempting enough already.

I hadn’t even touched her yet and I was ready to pop. The singing of my nerves was too much and embarrassingly I started to come.

Shit, no!

I fell to my knees, gripping the base of my cock fiercely in a futile attempt to stave off my oncoming release but –

“Ahhh, holy fucking hell, Vee…” I moaned as I came, hunched forward with one hand braced against the floor and the other squeezing my cock in a death grip.

It was as exquisite as it was guilty and as if seeing me come undone was enough for her, she cried out, back arching in her own release.

My god she looked divine, all flushed and glowing and… just wait a goddamn minute!

What did I call her? Vee? I never call her that. I don’t even like that name on her. Then what the…? Oh, fuck my life!

My anger flared as I pushed against my own consciousness. None of this was real but I’d been so absorbed in what I was feeling that I hadn’t seen it for what it was. I was stuck in Wanda’s mind fuck, literally.

When I thought I’d avoided her mind tap it had all been part of the process, to lure me in, make me think I was safe. She’d really suckered me with that one.

It took a few seconds for me to come me back to myself. Dizziness and nausea kicking in the second I refocused on the real world.

I was on my knees by the sofa, clothing intact but a sticky sensation inside my underwear. Christ I’d actually come untouched like a fucking teenager. That was more than a little embarrassing but there were more pressing matters.

Panicking, I glanced at Veronica. She was still there on the sofa sleeping restlessly now, looking like she had when I’d first seen her there only the flush of her skin was unmistakeable. She subtly rolled her hips, grinding against some imagined thing between her thighs and Oh Jesus Christ! The light grey of her shorts was darkened with wetness; proof of her arousal.

She sighed in her sleep, hand trailing over her hip, fingers slipping into the waistband of her shorts. And fuck me if I wasn’t getting hard again.

I bolted. My feet obeying me without question. Food forgotten, I slipped out of the communal area silent but watchful; Wanda had to be around here somewhere. I headed for my room.

What the hell had she done to me? Putting shit like that in my head. It was one thing to prank someone but this was something else. What if I’d have raged out? Hurt someone? I was only just starting to trust myself and get my shit back together, the last thing anyone around here needed was to have to contain a regressed Winter Soldier. What if I’d hurt Veronica?

Fuck!

What had she been doing there in the first place? She didn’t live on site but it sure looked like she was staying the night, what with the little shorts and vest and all.

I slammed the door to my room, hard. I didn’t much care if I woke people up.

I saw her again in my mind’s eye, flushed and aroused, and touching herself. Oh come on, that wasn’t her, that was Wanda’s mind fuck. But Veronica had really been aroused, and I’d just left her there in the communal area. What if someone else found her, she’d be so embarrassed.

“FRIDAY?” I said, breathing like I’d ran a circuit of the compound.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Can you put the volume on the TV in the lounge? Loud enough to wake Dr Edwards? I don’t think she’ll want to sleep on the sofa all night.”

“No problem!”

“Oh, and FRIDAY?”

“Yes Sergeant?”

“Don’t tell anyone I asked you.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

I could practically hear the wink in her tone. It was still unnerving how human she, it, sounded.

The shower was cold. It needed to be.

I’d made a mess in my briefs but that wasn’t the most disturbing thing. Now that I’d had the mental image of Veronica, Dr Edwards, all hot and lusty and so fucking beautiful, I couldn’t get her out of my head.

I felt restless and agitated, almost giddy.

Jesus, what are you, twelve?

As furious as I was with Wanda, I had to admit to myself that I was also happy? Her little prank was unorthodox but somehow it had connected a piece of my broken emotions to the person who sparked it. It felt right even if it was wrong to feel that way. I could deny myself the urge and deny myself the act but as long as I knew what I was feeling and could give it a name, I was ok with it. Baby steps.

There was a knock at my door.

Shivering and feeling strangely alive I wrapped a towel around my waist and left the bathroom, trailing wet footprints across the floor.

There was a little excitement growing in my gut but also a healthy dose of dread. What if someone had seen me in the lounge with Veronica. I didn’t do anything wrong, but still…

I opened the door to Steve, and Wanda. The Scarlet Witch had the sense to look thoroughly ashamed of herself and Steve looked furious.

“Sup?” I pitched for nonchalant and landed somewhere near perky.

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Everything ok?” He glanced around my room, as if expecting to see someone else.

“Yeah.” I beckoned them in before hunting out one of the complimentary bathrobes that I never used.

“You know why we’re here right?”

“I reckon so.” My eyes never left Wanda’s but she wouldn’t look at me.

“Go ahead.” Steve nudged Wanda gently with his elbow.

“I’m sorry for what I did tonight. I know things could have gotten out of hand and someone could have gotten hurt. I wasn’t thinking.”

“What exactly did you do, Wanda?” I was mad at her but I kept my face as relaxed as possible, which was to say I was scowling.

“I used my powers on you.” She had tears in her eyes.

“Tell him everything.” Steve said sternly.

Oh god, no, don’t say that shit out loud. I thought, panicking.

“Wait a sec-“

“I tapped your mind right down to your base emotion, to draw out your trauma. I tried to hurt you Bucky, and I’m sorry.”

There was something dark in her eyes. Did she know what I’d seen, what I’d felt? Had she put it all in there?

I took a step back, huffing a breath out through my nose. “You see what I saw?” My heart was pounding.

She shook her head, looking at the floor; a lie.

Well fuck.

“I’m sorry.” She gasped. “I didn’t know there was someone else there, they kind of got hit with a bit of my power and I was so worried you’d…” She trailed off as the tears began.

“Hurt them? Yeah, I could have.” I bit out. “It was a pretty shitty thing to do, Wanda, and all over a stupid game of poker. You couldn’t just drop it after I lied and told everyone I cheated you?”

I paced, gradually getting more frustrated.

“You know what, just go. I’ll talk to you about this some other time. Right now I just wana sleep on something that’s not a damn car seat, alright? No more harassing me.”

She nodded.

“Ok, get outa here.” I flapped my hand towards the door without looking at her.

I quizzed Steve nonverbally with a stern look.

“Vision brought her to my room, concerned.” Steve said once the door had closed after her. “He said she came to their room, upset because she thought she’d triggered you. She hadn’t realised there was someone else in the room until it was too late.”

“Yeah, it was Dr Edwards.” I said with an annoyed sigh. There was no point in saying I didn’t know. “Is she ok?”

“Yeah she’s fine. She fell asleep on the sofa but was awake when I got there, she was just taking herself off to bed actually.”

To bed? I raised an eyebrow. So she was staying at the compound tonight after all.

As if reading my question on my face he continued.

“She’s staying here a while.” He rolled his eyes as if the story was tedious. “Boyfriend issues.”

“Right.” I tried not to put too much thought into it. “She say anything about getting tapped when Wanda got me?”

“I asked her if she was ok and she just said she’d had a weird dream, wished me good night, took her book and went off to her room.”

I nodded. Weird dream, huh? I bet. If it was anything like mine then she was bound to be pretty confused right now. In the grand scheme of things, sharing a wet dream with her was better than sharing one of my other dreams. There’d have been nothing but pain, horror and torture for both of us if that had happened.

“Well that’s something.” I said, distracted.

“Are you sure you’re ok, Buck? I mean, stripping you down to your base emotions had to be traumatic. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I’m good.” I smiled weakly. I mean I was, and I wasn’t, but it wasn’t what he was thinking. “It wasn’t as bad as you think. I don’t think she got that deep anyway, it was mostly recent things I saw, not the HYDRA stuff or the torture. It was nothing like my nightmares.”

Steve nodded thoughtfully, not quite allowing himself to feel relieved.

“Don’t worry about me Steve, I’m doing better. I don’t want people to think I’m just going to flip a switch and regress back into him.” I snorted ironically. My thinking on this really had changed over the last few weeks. Now I didn’t doubt myself so much things were better. “Just… Whatever Wanda’s deal is, that needs to be sorted out.”

And then there’s the matter about what she saw when she was meddling in my mind. I had to know.

“Yeah about that.” Steve said cringing. “Vision said it’s hormones.”

“She’s…?” I made the ‘round belly’ gesture. That was a shock. I guess I never thought about the possibility before. That Vision could-.

“Oh hell no! She’s not pregnant.” Steve said the last word through a grimace. “Her inner moon-goddess is on the hunt.” He finished, all hush hush as if even hinting at the words ‘period’ and ‘horny’ in the same sentence was the worst thing in the world.

I laughed hard. Steve was such a kid sometimes.

“Christ, man. I was right back in school with ya there for a second.”

His goofy grin warmed me inside and I broke into another snickering laugh.

“Get outa here, punk. This old man has got a whole lot of sleep to catch up on.”

Leaving me alone with my thoughts probably wasn’t the best thing to do. Without the distraction of another person in the room, all I could think about was Veronica. I stretched out on my bed in a pair of jockey shorts and closed my eyes. Of all the things to have visions of as you fall asleep, a beautiful, semi-naked woman is definitely not the worst. If it came to a choice between dreams of my past or erotic dreams of a woman I’d only just realised I didn’t hate, then I knew which one I preferred. Guilty feeling or not, I’d go with the girl.

As I drifted towards sleep I heard an echo of her sighing my name. Smiling, I surrendered my mind to the night.

#bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fan fic #bucky barnes recovering #bucky barnes x original female character #Bucky Barnes #cloudy's writing

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hlvrfreakyfriday · 10 months

Text

HLVRFF: Chapter 4

Yeah, Benry was very obviously posing at himself in the mirror just now. But luckily for the alien, Gordon's too preoccupied with other thoughts at the moment to question him about it.

Thoughts that he REALLY shouldn't be having. Especially not about BENRY of all people. Can you even call whatever the hell he is a person? You can call whatever the hell he is surprisingly cute NO. NO. THOSE ARE EXACTLY THE THOUGHTS HE NEEDS TO NOT BE HAVING.

Damn Gordon's lonely, bisexual heart.

Just- fucking- why Benry? Why this fucked up alien monster from beyond the veil who tried to kill him once? Who succeeded in killing several other defenseless people? Who got his hand chopped off by the military? Who still occasionally plagues his nightmares? Why would he EVER have feelings for someone like that?

If you hate him so much, then why have you let him live with you for the past four months, Gordon's brain supplies.

He's… not really sure why. Resignation to the fact that he's never, ever getting rid of the guy, and thus might as well get used to it, perhaps? Then there's Tommy, who Gordon pretty much owes his life to. Tommy never seemed to want to give up on the idea that Benry wasn't evil. Hell, even during the final battle on Xen, Tommy was still insisting that they not fight Benry, just try to understand him. When Benry inevitably popped back into their lives, It was Tommy who convinced Gordon to give the guy a second chance and let him move in with him. Gordon had questioned why he couldn't just stay with Tommy in that mansion the older man lives in, but Tommy's excuse was that his equally eldritch dad was territorial or something.

That, and that Benry had apparently wanted to live with Gordon more than with Tommy, despite him and Tommy being apparent best friends.

Gordon was sure that it was just so he could continue to make his life a living hell… but he really hasn't been, has he? Sure, they'll still have their arguments, but they're less straight-up fights and more just. Banter. Benry's gotten plenty of laughs out of the physicist, too, since moving in. He'll act weird when out in public pretty often, but it's always in just completely harmless ways. He's even proven to be surprisingly good with Joshie, the eldritch entity and six-year-old boy having long conversations about video games, cowboys, dinosaurs, et cetera. It's…

God. It's fucking cute is what it is.

Uhg.

IT'S FINE, THOUGH. It's fine. He can find someone cute without it meaning he has feelings for them. Totally. Yeah.

Just keep telling yourself that, Gordon.

So lost in these thoughts, Gordon didn't even notice he'd made it into Benry's bedroom and had the closet door open. Right, right. Get dressed, go to store. He kiiiiind of really doesn't want to go out in public like this, but they really do need that stim chew and shampoo. So Gordon starts to dig through Benry's messy closet for something clean to wear.

Half of Benry's shirts are a bunch of stupid gamer memes and PlayStation logos, while the other half are all skeleton-themed. Gordon obviously goes for one of the skeleton shirts. He also throws on some black jeans, and the only pair of shoes Benry owns; his old combat boots. Gordon's offered to help him buy some new shoes, but Benry refuses every time. Whatever. At least the boots were high-quality and thus not in danger of wearing out any time soon.

Now fully dressed, Gordon heads back into his bedroom to grab his phone and wallet. He finds Benry's gotten dressed finally, too, having picked out a Metallica shirt, featuring the art for Ride the Lightning. Good album. Benry likely picked that because of the blue, Gordon guesses. Guy's wild about that colour. When he found out there was a special edition PS4 that came in blue, Benry'd acted like he'd found the Holy Grail.

"You ready to go, man?" Gordon asks as he grabs his phone and wallet from the dresser. "We're gonna have to take the bus, since you don't have a license and so I can't drive while looking like you."

Benry gives him a little shrug. "'s cool. long as your weak human legs don't collapse on the walk to the bus stop. seriously, why are your legs so shitty, bro?"

Gordon scowls at him a little. "Sorry we can't all be immaculate, god-like beings like you."

"ha ha, yeah, sucks. your senses are all like, turned way down and shit. thought you were going deaf at first. and blind. and completely numb. and losing your sense of smell. and-"

"I get it! I get it! Human beings suck compared to you! Can we just go now?"

Benry laughs, but doesn't talk any further, opting instead to follow Gordon out of the room. Though, when they reach the living room, he suddenly stops.

"oh, yo, wait a sec," he says, and then dashes off to his room. He bumps his borrowed shoulder into the door frame, causing Gordon to yell out a 'stop trying to clip through shit!' to him. Gordon hears Benry rummaging around for something in his room, he probably forgot where he put his own phone or something.

It doesn't take long before Benry's returned to the living room. "aight. ready freddy."

Gordon gives an amused little huff, and they head out the door.

The moment they step outside, Gordon's new heightened senses are completely assaulted anew. He'd gotten pretty used to everything in the house, but the great outdoors was a whole 'nother ballgame. There are just SO many sights and smells and sounds and feelings and it's like they're all at max volume and thensome and Gordon can already feel the inside of his head and chest start to outright writhe in a very worrying way and-

"hey," Benry speaks up, resting a hand on Gordon's borrowed shoulder.

Gordon turns to him, and notices he's offering him something. A fidget toy shaped like a game pad. Oh yeah, that's right, Benry never liked to leave the house without it. Then why is he..?

"bro, just take the toy. trust me on this, man. it'll help," Benry says, shoving the fidget pad in Gordon's chest.

"Err, okay," Gordon says dumbly as he finally takes the offered toy. He's never actually used a specially made fidget before, always opting to just play with his own hair. But this… does feel pretty nice in his hand. Has a nice little weight to it. Gordon experimentally runs some fingers over the various buttons and wheels, testing them all out. He finds himself drawn to the back-and-forth switch, the circular smooth indention reminding him of a worry stone, and the click of the switch as he moves it is highly satisfying to his borrowed ears. He just stands there, playing with it for a good minute, as Benry watches with a satisfied look on his face.

Whatever writhing feelings that were stirring within Gordon are completely gone now, and he looks back up at Benry. "Uh… thanks," Gordon says, a bit awkwardly.

"no prob, bro," Benry replies with a grin, looking oh-so proud of himself. "i know all my bod's cheat codes and pro strats- don't gotta worry about it. you'll be uh, S ranking this shit in no time."

Gordon lets out an amused exhale at Benry's terminology and pats him on the arm with his free hand, before they finally start making their way for the bus stop. Gordon makes sure to keep his focus just on where he's going, which is much, much easier thanks to the fidget toy in his hands keeping him grounded.

The bus ride from their neighborhood and into town is pretty uneventful, which Gordon thanks his lucky stars for. As they approach the store and head inside, he hopes that this trend continues. But who is he kidding. Knowing Gordon's luck, it probably won't.

At one point on their way to the store, Benry had mentioned that he wanted to check out the different smells of the various kinds of scented shampoo, now that he actually has a nose that can handle them. And thus, they are now hanging out in the hair care isle, Gordon having already found some good scentless shampoo, and Benry delightedly taking in all the different fruity and flowery smells of the soaps. Gordon's once again hit with the 'oh god that's adorable' feeling as he watches Benry, but manages to swallow the starfruit lights back down this time. God forbid Benry see that shit and make a comment about it. He decides to turn away from Benry for the time being- and comes face to face with a familiar stout old man in a brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt, a lime green glow in his eyes and equally green glowing patterns on his skin, in designs that seem more reminiscent of circuit boards than Blaschko's Lines.

"Ah, hello, Benry! Or should I say, hello, Gordon?" Dr. Coomer greets in his usual cheerful tone.

Gordon blinks at him in confusion. "Dr. Coomer? How- how did you..?"

Coomer taps at his face near his eyes. "I have special eyes, Gordon! As does Benry, as you've no doubt noticed. And orange is definitely not Benry's colour."

Ah, yeah, that's right. Some of Coomer's cybernetic enhancements had apparently given the man a few eldritch abilities. Gordon already knew that Coomer could use Sweet Voice and peer into the cosmic void, so hearing that he's got vision like Benry's isn't too surprising.

"Hey, yeah, I keep meaning to ask Benry about that- what's the deal with the eye thing? And the glowing body patterns, too," Gordon asks.

"It would seem that many beings from the cosmic void have the ability to detect and see the 'Life Energy' of most living things. Everyone's energy signature is uniquely colour-coded; yours is orange for example, mine is lime as you can see, Tommy's is yellow, and my dear Bubby's is a lovely shade of cyan."

"And Benry's is apparently the entire rainbow," Gordon adds.

"He's very full of 'Life Energy', Gordon! With a direct connection to the infinite cosmos itself fueling him, it's why he never stays dead!"

Well, there's those questions answered, Gordon guesses. Both the glowing thing, and Benry's weird 'respawn' power. And speaking of Benry, it seems he's finished huffing hair care products, as he strolls up to join Gordon and Coomer.

As does Bubby, who just now appeared from another nearby isle. Gordon notices the patterns on the lankier older scientist's body are a lot different from all the others he's seen; probably having to do with him pretty much being a homunculus and not a normal human. The bright cyan patterns on Bubby look more like hotrod flames than anything else, and Gordon can't help but be a little amused by that.

Bubby notices the younger pair as he comes up beside Coomer. He gives Benry, in Gordon's body, a very judgmental-looking once over, and before anybody else can say anything, he says, "Gordon, why the fuck are you wearing one of Benry's hats? You look stupid as hell in it. Are you two finally dating or something?"

Bubby's words have Benry looking like his brain just short-circuited, while Gordon starts sputtering, trying to say something, but his tongue keeps tripping over itself. What does he mean 'finally'? The fuck does he know that Gordon doesn't!?

Finally, Gordon manages to spit out, "W-we're not- we're not fucking dating!"

Bubby raises an eyebrow at that reaction. "You're acting like Gordon," he says to who he still thinks is Benry, before turning to Coomer. "Why is he acting like Gordon?"

"Astute observation, dear! It would seem our good friends Gordon and Benry are having a bit of a 'Freaky Friday' situation, and are currently in each other's bodies!"

"Oh. Well, that's fucked up," Bubby says flatly.

"You don't even know the half of it, man," Gordon groans.

"yeah, seriously," Benry speaks up. "being human is like, SO sucks, bro. how do you even fuckin' deal with this shit?"

"I don't!" says Coomer. "I'm more machine than man at this point. Been this way for a quite a while!"

"And I'm the ultimate life-form, grown in a tube, so I've never really had to deal with being human," Bubby adds. "Sucks to be you."

Benry huffs at Bubby's ending comment, and Gordon grumbles at the implication that he's inferior to everyone else here when in his normal state of being.

I mean, yeah, sure, that's kind of true. But hey! He LIKES being human regardless! At least when he's human he doesn't have to worry about his body literally turning itself inside-out just because he got a little overstimulated! He should be asking how Benry deals with THAT shit!

Or, well, how he dealt with it before he discovered fidget toys. Gordon still can't believe that simply fiddling with a chunk of plastic covered in buttons is all it takes to keep him from turning into something out of H.P. Lovecraft's nightmares, and yet, here he is, flicking a little switch back and forth and feeling totally fine and focused because of it.

...Well okay, maybe not entirely focused. Gordon's only now noticing that the others were still conversing about something while he was entirely checked out, apparently. And they're all looking right at him now.

"…What?"

------------------------

"Sucks to be you," Bubby smirks, and Benry huffs at him.

"it's not funny, man. for real. i'm all, like, weak and shit. i feel like- like i'm gonna drop dead at any minute. everything's all dull like somebody put a fuckin', uh, glass box around me. muffles everything. can't see good, can't hear good, can't smell good. buncha other stuff i can't even feel at all anymore. only thing i DO feel more than before is pain. it's major fucked up, yo."

It really, really is. Benry had no idea this was how Gordon, and presumably most other humans, experience the world every day. He feels so... fragile. It's finally giving Benry a good idea about why Gordon always fusses at him to be more careful even when Benry's not in any kind of real danger.

Because it's dangerous for Gordon.

...Shit, that's another reason he was always so scared in Black Mesa, too, isn't it. Not just 'cause he can perma-die, but because it's stupidly easy for him to perma-die.

Benry looks back towards the human in his borrowed body, and the two older scientists follow his gaze. It takes a minute for Gordon to notice, and when he does, it becomes very apparent that he wasn't listening to a single word that was just said.

"…What?" Gordon asks.

"Oh my god," Bubby blurts out, amusement clear in his voice, "you just completely spaced out like Benry usually does!"

Holy shit he sure did, didn't he? Guess the spacing out thing is tied more to how Benry's physical brain is wired, rather than his consciousness. Come to think, he hasn't been spacing out much himself since ending up in Gordon's body. Huh, go fig.

"Ffff," Gordon practically hisses, "oh, fuck off, man." He looks away from Bubby, clearly embarrassed. Bubby chuckles, but shuts right up when Coomer elbows him in the gut.

The shorter older scientist then speaks up, "Well, gentlemen! It's been lovely seeing how completely batshit your worlds have gotten, but Bubby and I need to return to our shopping."

Gordon sighs, and nods. "Yeah, yeah, same. It was good seeing you, Dr. Coomer. It wasn't good seeing you, Bubby." Bubby just flips Gordon off in response to that.

The younger pair leave the old couple to their shopping, and get back to finishing up their own. Benry manages to find a silicone stim chew shaped like a blue raccoon that he informs Gordon 'speaks to him on a deeply personal level'. He is this raccoon, this raccoon is him, and he is going to gnaw the FUCK out of it once it's officially purchased.

And GOD is it satisfying when he finally is able to start biting it. Tommy once got him another silicone stim chew shaped like a t-rex, having underestimated how adept Benry's sharp teeth are at tearing through… most things, pretty much. What can he say, he's an extreme omnivore by nature. Gotta be able to bite a lot of things if you wanna be able to eat a lot of things. Gordon's teeth, however, are all flat and lame and barely leave any dents in the silicone as he gnaws on it.

The trip back home is about as boring as the trip to the store was, though the bus ride feels like it drags on longer than the last time. As Benry sits there and chews the raccoon, his mind can't help but wander back to thinking about how Gordon acted in Black Mesa, during the Resonance Cascade. About how all his actions and emotions, which Benry thought were exaggerated and overreaction at the time, were completely valid. About how he wasn't just acting scared, he WAS scared. Scared to death. Of death.

Benry had found out about humans' inability to regenerate body parts while they were still in Black Mesa, just before Gordon got the gun-arm. Tommy told him, and Benry was going to apologize to Gordon for all the teasing he did due to not thinking it was so serious. But then Gordon kept shooting at him. A lot. It may not have been enough to kill Benry, but it still really hurt. And so instead of apologizing, he just acted like a petulant child, getting mad and angry right back at Gordon.

When they got to Xen, Benry saw it as an opportunity to really fuck with Gordon. He did try to make nice with the human at first, but then Gordon just kept making accusations that Benry was the cause of all their problems, yelling at him, insisting that they were never friends. 'if you want me to be the big bad, then i'll be the big bad,' Benry had thought. He stalked them all throughout Xen, toying with them, putting the fear in them. Benry even went so far as to kill the actual threat the lab coats back at 'Mesa had sent the Science Team to deal with. Killed it, stole its lair, took its place as the 'final boss.' Of course, Benry didn't really want to kill them. He was just messing with them all. Fuckin' around, you know. They were still his friends, in the end, even if some of them (Gordon) didn't think so.

It wasn't until after Black Mesa, after Benry had been brought back out of the void Tommy's dad had locked him in, that Benry learned about just how fragile and easy to kill humans are.

Though they were half-hearted, if any of Benry's attacks during the fight had landed, his human friends would've been very much dead and gone.

The thought turns his borrowed stomach, and if he could still use Sweet Voice while in Gordon's body, he just knows the air would be getting filled with guilty and loathsome sanguine and shadow.

…It's no wonder Gordon still has nightmares about Benry.

Benry, so lost in thought, doesn't notice when Gordon looks over at him for the briefest of moments, a look of slight curiosity and mostly concern on his borrowed face. He doesn't say anything, and just looks back away elsewhere, remaining silent for the rest of the trip home.

#half life vr but it's freaky friday #fic repost

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