#it eas also a review done by a man so....

[trashyswitch]

Henrik Meets Jackie

Henrik ends up in a mandatory CPR course due to missing the CPR course provided by the hospital. But this unfortunate circumstance ends up providing Henrik a brand new friend...

This fanfic was suggested by Shannon. I hope you enjoy!!

This is how Henrik met Jackie: 

Henrik was due to get his CPR certificate renewed again for the next 5 years. And because of circumstances, Henrik had to miss the hospital’s colleague-specific CPR course. Later, his boss had told him the only other way to do the CPR course that was required for him, was to go through a 2-day similar course offered to the outsiders by the ambulance company. This meant he was put with a mix of college/Uni adults getting their certificates for school, as well as parents and EA’s, CYW’s and ECE’s. Henrik was originally dreading having to do the CPR course with complete strangers. Though he didn’t realize that things were about to get so much better for him. 

You see, a certain superhero was also going to be taking the 2-day CPR course. In fact, it would be the exact same day and time as Henrik’s CPR course would be. Jackie had been wanting to keep his own CPR course up to date. And thanks to the connections he’d made with the ambulance team over the years, Jackie was able to get into the class without having to worry about revealing his secret identity to the surrounding strangers…So long as he wore his super suit to the CPR course. That was the only downside. His suit was built for handling the weather outside! Not to be cooped up in a classroom for hours on end. But…you gotta do what you gotta do. 

When Henrik looked around the room before the course had started, he had quickly noticed the bright red suit and the blue mask the person was wearing. Wait a second…Was that Jackieboy Man?! THEE Jackieboy Man, the most well-known superhero of Brighton, England, was actually here in the room with him?! Doing a CPR course?! Who decided this?! What are the chances of ending up in this rare situation?! 

At the beginning of the course, the course teacher had taken the time to welcome everyone to the course, and especially welcome Jackie personally to the course. She was honored to be able to teach everyone in the room, and vowed to treat Jackie like a fellow student in the class. 

They went over the usual things like the heimlich maneuver (Or abdominal thrust, as it was now renamed), the CPR hand stance, the different types of CPR for different age groups, and steps for navigating a person with a lodged object in their throat. They made sure to go over what to do when the part of the airway is blocked and the person is conscious, when the object is completely blocking the airway while the person is conscious, and what to do when the person goes unconscious as a result of lack of airflow. They emphasized how important it was that everyone knew how to do the abdominal thrusts and CPR correctly, so people can be helped sooner, which in turn increases their chances of survival. 

Despite knowing this stuff like the back of his hand, Henrik still found it helpful to review some of these maneuvers. It helped remind him of the different mistakes people often make when doing these maneuvers, and helped him remember what reminders to give his surgical residents when he gets back. By the time they had finished going over that part of the curriculum, it was time for a 30 minute break. To be honest, Henrik had forgotten about how hungry he was until the break was ordered. When he pulled out his lunch, he quickly grew famished. He pulled out his sandwich and started scrolling on his phone while eating the sandwich. He was so busy scrolling, that he was barely even registering the taste of shaved roast beef and ham sandwich with mustard and lettuce that he had put together that morning. He was already halfway done with the sandwich and was quickly going down a rabbit hole of updates on Reddit. Right now, he was currently updating himself on the latest posts that filled the community known as r/medicalgore. It was a community for medical professionals, patients’ experiences and curious normies who love to see things like that. He was currently looking at a picture of the small intestines present outside the stomach from Abdominal Compartment Syndrome. 

Suddenly, he felt a finger touch his shoulder. 

“Whatcha up-” 

Henrik yelped and jumped, dropping his phone and freezing for a moment. 

The person who had talked and touched him, quickly wheezed and doubled over. “HAHAhahaha! Ohoho my god- Did I scare you? Ihi’m so sorry!” The person reacted. “That was not my intention.” The person said, walking into Henrik’s field of view. 

Henrik slowly groaned and sighed as he calmed down, rubbing his forehead. “Heilige Scheiße…” He mumbled to himself. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just didn’t expect to-” Henrik looked up and widened his eyes when he saw who was talking to him…

It was Jackie! Jackie was not only looking at him, but was actually talking to him!

Jackie smiled and pulled up a chair. “Didn’t expect to get jumpscared today?” Jackie asked with a laugh as he sat down in the chair the wrong way. “Or didn’t expect to make friends?” Jackie asked as he leaned his arms on the back rest in front of him. 

Henrik thought for a moment and shrugged his shoulders. “B-Both.” He replied as casually as he could muster. 

“Do…you have a name?” Jackie asked him. 

“Oh!” The doctor quickly cleared his throat and nodded. “Ja. I’m Henrik.” He said. “Henry?” Jackie asked, holding out his hand.

“No, Henrik.” Henrik corrected, shaking his hand. “Henrik Von Schneeplestein.” Henrik replied. 

Jackie widened his eyes and gasped as he slowly covered his mouth. “W-Wait…The German doctor from Brighton General?!” Jackie asked. 

Henrik widened his eyes. “V-Vait…You know-” Henrik had to pause. 

“Yes! People rave about you all over the city!” Jackie said. 

Henrik smiled a bit and scratched the back of his head. “O-Oh…” He mumbled.

“And yet, no one seems to be able to tell me where to find you, how to get ahold of you...” Jackie explained. “Hell, there are people who barely know what you look like!” Jackie added. 

Henrik bit his lip. “I try to keep a low profile.” Henrik admitted. 

Jackie looked down and picked up something, before handing it to Henrik. “You kinda suck at that, by the way.” Jackie told him. 

Henrik tilted his head as he took his phone, before looking at it. He widened his eyes when he saw the graphic picture that was still visible on his phone. Henrik chuckled awkwardly and closed it before putting it back into his pocket. “Ups…” Henrik muttered, sounding out the U as more of an OO sound. 

“So…” Jackie leaned in slightly. “I don’t have anyone as a partner for practicing abdominal thrusts or CPR.” Jackie admitted. “You uh…” He bit his lip. “...You interested?” Jackie asked. 

“You…vant me to vork vizh you?” Henrik asked. 

Jackie nodded. “A MD with a PHD? and a superhero who uses it daily?” Jackie reacted. “We would be unstoppable.” Jackie told him quietly. 

Henrik chuckled. “You sound like a villain yoining forces vizh ozher villains.” Henrik chuckled. 

Jackie shrugged his shoulders. “I hear the monologues constantly.” Jackie replied. “I could play the part of a villain for a movie, and be given the award for ‘most accurate villainy’.” Jackie joked. Henrik hung his head and laughed at him. “Vhyhy can I see zhat?” Henrik asked. 

Jackie laughed as well. “Ohouch! My reputation is in shambles!” Jackie joked. 

“Alright everyone, break will be over in 5 minutes.” The leader told the room. 

Jackie sighed with overly dramatic annoyance on his face, while Henrik smiled slightly. “Ound yes.” Henrik said. “I vould love to be your partner.” He replied as he stood up and closed his lunch bag. 

Jackie smiled brightly as he closed his own lunch bag, before putting it back into his big backpack. 

When the class started up again, the teacher placed down CPR dummies in front of everyone. “Before we start with practicing on each other, we’re going to help you figure out how much you need to push down on the chest to get the heart pumping. To momentarily save everyone the pain of experiencing CPR in person, we will do this by practicing CPR on the dummies first.” The teacher told them. 

Henrik put the CPR dummy down onto the ground and started pushing down on the dummy while watching Jackie do the same thing. The teacher walked around the room, making sure everyone was pushing down in the middle of the sternum until the plastic click went off in the middle of the dummy’s chest. Henrik was doing CPR on the dummy, but the teacher noticed that he was actually pushing slightly too hard. “Careful, careful Henrik.” The teacher stopped him and sat down in front of him. “You’re pushing too hard. If you keep going, you’ll break a rib and cause internal bleeding.” The teacher told him. 

Henrik looked at the teacher, and intertwined his fingers before placing his palms on the chest again, waiting for the teacher’s instruction. 

“Now: Push down lightly, to see how much pressure you really need.” She said softly. 

Henrik pushed down a bit lighter, and found that the middle piece still clicked in the chest. 

“Good, good. Now keep up that same pressure.” She said. 

Henrik nodded and kept up a similar pressure. “Okay.” He replied. 

She moved onto someone else before moving onto Jackie. 

“Wow…Not bad at all, Jackie. But your elbows are bending a bit when you’re pushing.” She told him. 

Jackie stopped pushing, and adjusted his elbows so they were a little more straight. 

“Good.” She said. Now make sure you push with your body, not just your arms.” She said. 

Jackie nodded and kept going. 

She went over everyone else, before stopping the group CPR lesson. “Wonderful job, everyone. You can take a break.” She told them. 

The students all stopped practicing on the dummies, and sat back into their seats. 

“Put the dummies onto the floor under your desk.” She told them. When the students did as instructed, she cleared her throat. “Now, I would like you all to get into partners. We are going to try acting out the abdominal thrusts as well as the CPR. HOWEVER:” She spoke louder to make them listen. “You will not actually put force onto your partner, especially for practicing CPR. We don’t want to have to get an ambulance over here because one of you broke a rib while practicing.” She told them, making the class laugh slightly. She continued. “I would like you all to focus more on your hand placement rather than how deep your hands are going.” She added. 

Henrik turned around to look behind him and smiled at Jackie. Jackie waved to him, and walked up to him when they were given permission to disperse. 

Jackie looked at Henrik, and bit his lip. “Wanna go first?” He asked. 

“As vhat? Zhe victim? Or zhe bystander?” Henrik asked. 

“The bystander.” Jackie replied. 

“Ok.” Henrik replied. “Heimlich? Or CPR?” Henrik asked. 

“Heimlich first.” Jackie replied. 

Jackie started to pretend to be choking. Henrik was about to cringe at first because…you don’t need to act it out…but…he quickly jumped into gear when he realized he was ‘wasting time’. Plus, Henrik quickly took back his initial reaction when he noticed Jackie’s choking act was eerily realistic. Henrik placed his right fist on the diaphragm, and placed his left hand over the fist to stabilize his position. Then, he started pretending to do abdominal thrusts before leaning Jackie forward and giving him 5 back blows. 

Henrik continued this a couple more times before Jackie stopped him. “Okay, okay.” Jackie said. “I lost consciousness, and my lips are turning blue.” Jackie said, laying himself onto the ground. 

“Right into zhe CPR, huh?” Henrik asked. 

Jackie grabbed Henrik’s arm and pulled on it. “Dude, I’m gonna die!” Jackie reacted with a slight laugh.

“Okay, okay, mein Gott.” Henrik said before kneeling down and starting chest compressions. He did 30 of them, before pausing for a moment and starting another 30 chest compressions. 

When Henrik finished the third 30 chest compressions, Jackie sat up and patted his shoulder. “Okay. That’s enough. Good job.” Jackie said. 

Henrik rolled his eyes and shook his head with a small smile. “You’re a leetle bossypants.” Henrik teased. 

“Well, yeah. Someone’s gotta be the boss when the world’s in danger.” Jackie added. 

Henrik chuckled and helped Jackie up onto his feet. Henrik smiled and cleared his throat. “Okay. Your turn.” Henrik said. 

“You gotta act it out first.” Jackie told him. 

Henrik shook his head. “No can do.” He replied. 

Jackie rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He wrapped his arms around Henrik’s belly and felt around. “Okay. So where is-” 

“eEK! Jahackiestop-!” Henrik yelled. 

Jackie grumbled slightly. “Dude, stop wiggling around! I’m trying to save your life!” Jackie reacted. 

Henrik grunted and tried to pull himself together. “Okayokay. You got the posi-hihition- HAHAHahaha!” Henrik doubled over and started laughing. “Jesus christ, you’re ticklish. Are you sure you can handle this?” Jackie asked with a laugh. 

A few of the students had stopped practicing, and started giggling at the boys. Jackie quickly noticed this, and smiled a bit as he shrugged his shoulders. The man was going crazy, even though Jackie wasn’t even moving his fingers anymore. He was being all dramatic for no reason, and his drama was creating a crowd of gossipy women.  

“Okayokahay-” Henrik pushed himself out from Jackie’s hands and turned around. “You did zhat on purpose.” Henrik spat at him, clearly angry. 

Jackie chuckled. “I really didn’t. I was trying to make sure that my hands were in the right spot.” Jackie admitted. “And you’re just being a big baby about it.” Jackie added, crossing his arms. 

Henrik narrowed his eyes at him, before freezing when he heard giggles from the other side of the room. Henrik looked over, and noticed a few of the other students were watching him, and either whispering to each other or giggling at Henrik. 

Henrik quickly grunted and sighed. “Fine. Ve’ll try it again. But NO tickles.” Henrik ordered as he turned himself around. “I am embarrassed enough as it is.” Henrik added. 

Jackie wrapped his arms around Henrik. “No guarantees.” Jackie said. This just made Henrik roll his eyes. “But if you don’t wiggle around too much, we might get this done faster.” Jackie said. “Now…” Jackie placed the side of his fist on the upper abs. “Here?” Jackie asked. 

“Ja.” Henrik replied. 

Jackie started pretending to do the abdominal thrusts before bending Henrik over in front and doing the 5 back blows to the back. 

Jackie did this a couple more times before watching Henrik bring himself to the ground. “Okay. I passed out from lack of oxygen.” Henrik told him. 

Jackie knelt down and interlocked his fingers before placing his palms in the middle of Henrik’s upper chest. Jackie focused more on placement instead of how deep he was going, and pretended to do 30 chest compressions. When he was done, Jackie paused for a moment before starting up another 30 chest compressions. 

“Not bad, Yackie.” Henrik said. 

Jackie chuckled. “You’re supposed to be unconscious.” He reacted. 

“Eeeh.” Henrik waved his hand. “It’s yust a demonstration.” Henrik mentioned. 

Jackie smirked and poked Henrik’s belly in response. 

This just made Henrik jump and sit up super quickly. “HeY-” Henrik lightly punched Jackie’s shoulder, which made the superhero laugh. 

“Sorry, sorry. Couldn’t resist.” Jackie admitted with a giggle. 

“Alright everyone, stop what you’re doing.” The teacher said. 

“Aw man…” Jackie muttered. 

Henrik got up onto his feet. “It’s time to go back to your seats and begin learning about medical conditions and assistive devices like inhalers and EpiPens.” She told the class. 

Jackie and Henrik sat at their tables again, and continued to pay attention as the teacher moved onto the next thing. The teacher went over the assistive devices before telling them what they would learn the next day. After the class, the teacher gave the students all tests. If they pass the test, then they earn their first part of the certificate. And once they finished the test, they were free to go. Jackie and a few others finished their tests early, meaning they could go home early. When Henrik finished his test, he handed it to the teacher and let her mark it. “Thank you, Henrik.” She said before going over the test. It didn’t take long for the teacher to mark it, and tell Henrik that he passed. “Congratulations, Henrik. You can go home now. See you tomorrow.” She said with a smile. 

Henrik nodded and waved to her before leaving the room. He left the building through the front door, and started to walk to his car. But the man paused when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see who it was, but found there was no one. But Henrik wasn’t stupid. He looked up and turned around enough to find Jackie flying in the air above him. “Vell look who it is.” Henrik said. 

“Finally finished, doc?” Jackie teased. 

“Ja. Vhy are you still here?” Henrik asked. 

“Because maybe I wanted to wait for my new friend!” Jackie reacted. 

Henrik raised an eyebrow. “You…vant me to be your friend?” Henrik asked. 

Jackie shrugged his shoulders. “Only if you want to be.” Jackie explained. 

Henrik slowly smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Okay.” Henrik replied. “See you tomorrow?” He asked. 

“Right-o!” Jackie replied. 

“Okay.” Henrik hopped into his car and closed the door. “Tschüss.” Henrik said. 

“Gute Heimfahrt!” Jackie replied before flying away. 

Henrik had to do a double-take when he heard Jackie. Did he just speak almost-perfect German?! 

Henrik quickly looked out the window, and opened his car door, hoping to catch him again. But he was gone…Completely gone. Nowhere to be found. It was…a little freaky, to be honest. 

Henrik blinked and looked down. How did Jackie know German?! And…how much German did he know?! Does he know the basics? Or a lot more than that? And why did he wait until NOW to speak his native tongue?! Henrik now had to wait until tomorrow to ask these questions. 

[rikalovesrice]

Rika’s Wittle Review of Pokemon Violet (Spoilers ahead!!!)

I’ll go ahead and say that, aside from the atrocious framerate and occasional glitchiness, I had a blast playing this. It’s beautiful to see how far Pokemon has come in terms of immersion. With such a rich variety of Pokemon wherever you go in this vast landscape with different habitats, all interacting and exhibiting behaviors specific to their species (and even their natures!), I genuinely feel like I’m in the world of Pokemon. I love it so much >w< I quite enjoyed the three stories and the CHARACTERS. Ahhh the characteeersss I love them all so much lol

Now for the more spoilery bits in good old bulletins. These aren’t in any particular order but in general I’ll start with stuff I loved and things that were kinda eh. Let’s goooo~

There’s now a canon Pokemon character named Rika aaaayyyeee XD Feels a little weird, ngl

Unpopular opinion, but I actually love Meowscarada lol At first I was like, “Uuuggghhh of course they made it stand up” but the more I understodd what it was, the more it grew on me. She’s a jester, magician, dramatic sort of character and she’s a kitty........all things I adore lol

Arven is a precious bean who must be protected at all costs. Seriously, I adore him so much and his story was so saaaad T_T My poor baby...And then it turns out his dad not only wasn’t around but he freaking DIED.

AND YOOOOO SPEAKING OF WHICH I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. Like bro, Pokemon actually went there. At first I thought Turo was stuck in the future or something and that’s why his transmission got all wonky. BUT NAH. HOMEBOY STRAIGHT UP GOT DEAD AND UPLOADED HIS CONSCIOUSNESS INTO A ROBOT LIKE???? Every time I saw his face on the screen I was like, “Why is his face so...stiff?” Oh. That’s why. AND MY POOR BOY ARVEN.

Also that final battle was legitimately a little terrifying. I loved it haha

Miraidon is electric Toothless and I loved him and we’re best friends forever uwu

I know some people may be bummed that Team Star didn’t turn out to be a bunch of hardcore criminals. But the fact that Pokemon decided to tackle a subject as serious as bullying in school? Big, big claps. And in my opinion, it was really well done and heartfelt. By the end of game I adored Team Star and little Penny. Seeing them go back to school and bumble their way back into society, awkward, shy, but being true to themselves, was so precious. (Giacomo is literally like, “Let’s yell at everyone so they know we’re friendly” and for that I cherish him)

I’d join Team Star in a heartbeat, facts.

Penny being Cassiopeia wasn’t immediately obvious to me but as soon as she mentioned her hacking skills I went, “....Waaait a second...” Might I add that when “Clive” first showed up I physically buried my face into my hands lol

Okay and then when Clavell “revealed himself” as Cassiopeia I went, “Huh?? That...How??? Makes no sense but ok...????” And then was like “just kidding” and I just...wtf dude XD 

Can I just say I love Clavell’s character? He genuinely cares about every student with all his heart and shows compassion towards Team Star. He turned out to be such a good-hearted man who wants to do right by his students and I love that.

While I do love Nemona (what’s the girl version of a himbo? lol), I will say her character felt the least fleshed out, in my opinion. But I guess it could be all that energy conceals more subtle character traits? I liked how she mentioned that people mistunderstand her because she comes from a wealthly family and assume she was born with her battle prowess. When if fact, she’s just super passionate about battling and so became really good at it. Wish the game had leaned a little more into that but Nemona still cool lol Paradox Pokemon are gonna destroy the world and she’s just like, “ Can battle? :D”

While I loved Path of Legends and Starfall Street, Victory Road was the most....meh storyline for me lol There wasn’t much to it, really. And the Elite Four and Geeta were so easy. After the nightmare that was the BDSP League I was fearing for the worst but they were about as easy as the Kalos League. But that’s overall neither here nor there for me.

Picnics were fun but I wish I could get closer to my Pokemon like I could in SWSD and pet them like the Switch has a touchscreen whyyyy T__T Or just use the same format as the washing bit but with a hand :(

Welp, following Pokemon didn’t improve all that much rip Same issue of some Pokemon just being too dang slow. Or too dang fast to the point that they look unnatural cause they keep slowing down and speeding up so rapidly. I always have to ride Neon (my Miraidon) when I let Jellica (my Meowscarada) out cause otherwise she’s just constantly startin’ and stoppin’. Still a lovely feature but I just wish it was better. The Pokemons’ mannerisms are still adorable tho <3

This game removed a lot of little shortcuts (like using items on Pokemon, certain buttons when using the Boxes, switching Pokemon around, etc.) and I gotta say, not a fan lol

Customizatiooooon. I get it, we’re students. BUT WHY DOES PENNY GET TO WEAR HER LITTLE CUTE FIT HMMMMM?????

Socks, gloves, and shoes are fine, I suppose...I just wish there were more ways to customize the uniform at least. It would be cool if the school sold jackets, sweaters, t-shirts, skirts, scarves, ties, etc. Freaking Atticus’ little compadre bought NINJA OUTFITS from the school store. Where’s my ninja outfit huh????

Also Clavell said we shouldn’t let our Pokemon out inside the school and then there are Pokemon in the school at all times for the entire game lol Plus Arven, Nemona, and Penny get to have their Pokemon out in their rooms so why can’t I??? D:<

Side note MC, Arven, Nemona, and Penny gotta be my favorite Pokemon friend group besides the SWSD squad ^^ (That shot of all of us climbing aboard Miraidon before plummeting into the Crater was so precious holy Arceus my fwieeeends)

Ehhhh what else?

Sad to say that a lot of the Pokemon designs this gen weren’t really my taste. It was hard for me to put together a Paldean team cause I just...didn’t like how so many of them looked lol

Grusha has no right being that pretty. Also poor thing ;__; Would’ve loved to know more about him.

Larry. That is all.

All the Gym Leaders were so much fun. Wish we could battle them over and over like in BDSP.

History Class was my fav because looore.

I actually riverted back to a student mentality for a bit playing lol I was like, “M’kay, I’ll take my level 2 classes, explore, then move on to my level 3 classes before dark. Lemme fight this Gym and then I’ll take my midterms. What’s that, I gotta go the Great Crater and finish the story? I should finish my finals and graduate first.” Lol

The music in Area Zero o__o

Ummmmmm

I mean yeah, the framerate is awful but we all know this probably lol The game’s performance ain’t it, sis. Like I said, this would probably be my favorite Pokemon game to date if it ran the way it should.

Looking forward to patches and whatever new updates and shenanigans will ensue in the DLC hehehe

Those are the biggest things, me guesses. Loving the game and will definitely keep playing it~

[liugeaux]

Repost Vol. 58: In The Year 2000….Liugeaux’s Top 10 of the Decade

I found this today and thought it would make a good remixed repost. 14 years ago I was writing a lot of video game stuff for Techpedition.com. I’m sure no one ever read it, but it was fun putting my opinion out there, much like its fun doing it here. The only difference is, here, I KNOW no one is reading it. So there’s a bit more of a laissez-faire attitude to how weird I get. Hence, these re-visited “articles”. As I’ve done in the past, I’m posting the original article from Techpedition, warts and all, and I’ll be inserting commentary with my current opinion throughout. As always, this should be fun.  

Originally shared via Techpedition.com on December 24, 2009. Commentary will be in Bold.

In The Year 2000….Liugeaux’s Top 10 of the Decade

Right from the start, the presumption that my internet name is important enough to include in the article title is hilarious. Also, the “In the year 2000...″ was a reference to a 10 year old Conan O’Brien bit. I don’t know if it played well in 2009, but it definitely doesn’t play well in 2023. 

We are 10 years into the new millennium and I don’t have hoover boards, flying cars, or food in pill form, but what we do have are some kick ass games to play.   I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 games of 2000-2009.  Now before throwing the inevitable “How can you exclude game x?”, remember that I am only one man and can only play so many games. Actually I can tell you exactly how many games I’ve played, lol. The games I’m listing here are games that have either had a profound impact on my gaming habits, consumed ridiculous amounts of my life or left an imprint so strong they cannot go unmentioned.  Let’s see what I’ve chosen. I still had a real problem with using a double space after periods. Clearly a hold-over from college research papers.

10. Burnout Paradise Burnout has always been the critics favorite arcade-style racing game, but it never sold as well as it’s (that’s the wrong its) EA stablemate Need For Speed (probably because of the licensed cars). Paradise brings much needed open world gameplay to the series and its (that’s the right its) year’s worth of DLC updates makes it a compelling purchase to this day. It’s seemingly never-ending list of online content is what made it the the only racing game to get my attention in almost a decade. I guess I’m not counting Mario Kart.

9. Bioshock I have gushed about Bioshock before (That’s a link to a Bioshock review I did 2 years after the game came out, as part of my short-lived review series GST-Gamer Savings Time, where I reviewed games that were newly cheap. It was a bad idea.), and with good reason. Bioshock’s gameplay may not be perfect, but what it lacks is more than made up for in the story, atmosphere, and characters. Such an uncomfortably written sentence. To this day, Bioshock’s plot twist is something that I refuse to spoil for anyone and it holds the distinction of being one of the games I simply could not put down.

8. Metroid Prime Trilogy I know that putting the “trilogy” on this list is a kinda cheating, but I felt that I had to put one of the Prime games on the list, so why not make it the best package. My purchase of Metroid Prime was done as “why not” purchase. The game was $4.99 and I had run out of games to play. I wasn’t playing FPSs and I wasn’t too familiar with Metroid. By the time I was done, I found myself wanting to play more FPSs and being disappointed with many that I would pick up and play later.  As good as the original Gamecube titles were, I highly recommend you pick up the full proper experience and grab the Trilogy. The point and shoot controls are near perfect and you get all three fantastic games. Not mentioned here is how Metroid went on to be one of my favorite gaming franchises, with Super Metroid being one of my favorite games ever.

7. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Uncharted 2 is the newest game on my list, but its no less deserving than any other. By blending cinema quality cut scenes with an extremely solid single player campaign, Uncharted creates an experience that is more like an interactive movie than a video game. Its big in scale, with action set pieces that Indiana Jones, John McClane and Jason Bourne would kill for. So far its one of the only games that has proven that the PS3 has significantly more horsepower than its competitors. I really had no grasp on the English language, or I just refused to properly proofread. That paragraph, while accurate, is so full of grammatical errors, even I can’t take myself seriously.

6. Super Mario Galaxy As almost a joke, the idea of Super Mario Galaxy, seemed ludicrous. It was almost like Miyamoto said, “we’re out of ideas, let’s send his ass to space.” What came of this decision is the most engaging Mario adventure since Super Mario 64. Adding almost a 4th dimension to the adventure, Galaxy’s puzzles and gameplay mechanics are truly revolutionary and left me blown away. Two too many “almost”s and one too many “adventure”s, but again, what I’m saying isn’t wrong.  

5. Shadow of the Colossus Team Ico’s second outing on the PS2, was one of the most interesting games ever released and truly a marvel for its time period.  Released towards the end of the PS2’s hey day Shadow, threw all gaming conventions out the window and gave players exactly what they wanted, Boss Fights. As simply a series of elaborately well orchestrated puzzle-like boss fights your character, Wander, must find the weakness of each colossus in the game and exploit it to defeat it. This combined with a brilliant art style and a hauntingly vague story makes Shadow an absolute must-play on the PS2. Was I drunk when I wrote this? I sound like a 15 year old.

4. The Orange Box Again, I’m kind of cheating by putting The Orange Box in this list, but its inclusion is more of a symbol for the roll (it’s role, you dumbass) that Value (it’s Valve, yeah I definitely didn’t proof this at all) has had in gaming since the turn of the century. With the release nearly half a dozen critically acclaimed and eqaully fantatic (equally fantastic, sigh) games (many of which are included in The Orange Box) Valve has cemented themselves as one of the few publishers that can find success on the PC, and with the advent of Steam, Valve has revolutionize digital distribution and helped numerous smaller developers become overnight hits. Oh, and on top of that, The Orange Box is hands down the Best Deal in Gaming History.

3. Super Smash Bros. Melee Two Smash Bros games were released in the past ten years, but only one kept my attention for a solid five of those, and that would be Melee. Melee is easily one of the most balanced fighting games to ever be released and its equally as exciting as it is pure fan service. Even if you are not that good at it, buying SSBM is still a good idea for all Nintendo-philes.

2. Lumines 2 Not since Dr. Mario, and Tetris has a pure puzzle game been so effective at destroying my time. Lumines 2 improved on much of the problems that Lumines had and took the puzzle genre on a much needed acid trip. Its deceptively simple gameplay, mixed with music and atmosphere creates an experience that even after sinking 60+ hours into it I regret not having played more. To this day Lumines 2 is the only PSP game I take on every single road trip. In retrospect, putting Lumines so high is a bold choice. Personally, it DID have a profound effect on my gaming habits, but at #2, that might have been a bit too much. 

1. Rock Band 2 What can I say about Harmonix and Rock Band 2 that I haven’t already said. As the creators of Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution, Harmonix had already established themselves as the leading rhythm game developer, but Rock Band and its infinitely improved sequel combined everything they have learned and brought the genre to levels not previously seen. So much so, that even with RB2 being over a year old, their competitors, with 6 games released since RB2, haven’t even come close to eclipsing the sheer quality of the Rock Band product. I still play a decent amount of Rock Band 4 and the disc exports from previous games added value on top of value. Since this is a personal list, RB2 being at the top makes perfect sense, but I might have to go back and redo this with an updated opinion. Something just doesn’t sit right with how some of these landed.    

I know that the last one there was pretty predictable, but again, this is my list. I encourage anyone else to share their 10 below and lets start a new decade with some strong titles. Tony Hawk Ride, we’ll try to forget about you…okay. Wow, Tony Hawk Ride, just sitting there, catching strays. I throw it in like it was some landmark of bad game design. What a dick move. 

Yeah, I’ll probably redo this list, and while I’m at it, I’ve got the ‘10s I can dive into. See you next time!

Cheers

[felassan]

Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source] 

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok.  What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important.  They're like sets in a play.  (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source]  Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source]  There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars]  except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves. [source]

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

[the-apocryphal-one]

Apo Plays BG3 EA Part Six: Companion Thoughts

So I guess I’m pretty much finished with EA, three playthroughs has been fun (especially Isaniel’s), but it’s gotten to the point where I’m getting tired of doing the same content over and over. Which means it’s time to stop either until full release or a major update.

I’m probably gonna procrastinate on a proper review like forever, but I did post my thoughts on the companions in a reddit thread and decided to just copy + paste them here.

(unmarked spoilers ahead)

-

For Gale and Wyll, I don't think their motivations can easily be summed up in just one word. Like yes, there are selfish undertones to why they do what they do--but at the same time, there's layers. Wyll wants to be perceived as a hero, but he takes time to teach little kids to swordfight. He hates the goblins for what they've done (the war party that torched that town and stole his eye) and wants to protect people from them, but also wants vengeance. He's a mix of selfishness, appearance and genuine altruism, imo.

Likewise, Gale simps for Mystra, but will go for you, which isn't exactly faithful (I've heard--can't confirm--but I've heard that he'll try to persuade you to cheat on your LI with him, if you got the Weave scene but didn't pick him at the party, which is Not Cool). He regrets his past actions and wants to make sure no one else is hurt by them, so he's willing to go off and die alone. But he doesn't want to just lay down and give up, he wants to find a cure. So he'll consume magical artifact and not stand up for his principles when it matters the most (not turning on you if you attack the tieflings). I think he's a man who talks a lot about the value of life, protecting kids, helping others, and believes it, but is being held back by fear from committing.

Astarion is definitely the most relatable of the companions right now, imo, just because his reactions are exactly the kind of stuff you'd see from an abuse victim. Flinching away from genuine vulnerability (the shoulder pat), trying to mask his pain at what he went through (look at how often he talks about what Cazador did like it's a joke), and showing genuine terror at the thought of going back? All super humanizing and compelling. Then he turns around and laughs at people being hurt or hurting animals and it's awful, unjustified--but it makes sense because sadly, abuse victims can become cruel themselves as a way to cope. But then he goes and approves of helping Karlach, so maybe he's not beyond hope? You could take out the fantasy stuff and plop him in the real world and he would still fit, is what I'm saying.

Lae is full of herself, but the way the other gith treat her really gives me the impression she's a young teen trying too hard to impress the adults. Like with that context, the scenes where she talks about how she's definitely going to have a silver sword and ride a red dragon one day, or where she talks about proving her loyalty to Vlaakith, come off less as sure arrogance but more as a kid talking about what they want to be when they grow up. Which, along with her complete inexperience with the Material Plane, is kind of adorable. But I definitely think she's been indoctrinated by her culture to not question anything and just lay down her life for Vlaakith, which is not so adorable.

SH's super secrecy frustrates me as a player, but as a roleplayer it's great and fitting for her deity worship. I think there are a lot of hints lying around that she's not who she thinks she is, with the missing memories, magic stirring up around Selune, and her own (to her admitted surprise) compassion for the tieflings. I feel like I don't have as much to say about her as I do the others? Maybe because there's a lot missing from her past, but what is there is very consistent with her secretive personality.

-

tl;dr the “evil” companions’ worldviews stem from past evils done to them--abuse, indoctrination, or cult brainwashing--and hopefully you can help them heal from that, thus bringing about a redemption arc; the “good” companions aren’t entirely altruistic, but struggle with human flaws that hinder their better natures; and all of the companions so far have been nuanced, consistent, and interesting.

EDIT: I should clarify Gale’s unfaithfulness isn’t because he’s with Mystra (he isn’t, and he even says he’s not sure how to feel about her), but because he still has some hang-ups from that relationship and thus can’t give full emotional fidelity right now.

EDIT #2: I should also clarify that I have no delusions that Astarion was a good person pre-turning. I would be more surprised if he was than if he wasn’t. I just think he may not have been as bad as he is now and that many of his beliefs have been predominately shaped by his experiences with Cazador.

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Free City or Liquid Suffering

Free Guy is an exceptional movie and you should go watch it right now. It’s worth every penny. I wanted to get that out there up front. That’s the review. The rest of this thing is going to be me just gushing about why i think it’s one of the best films of the year. If you’re curious as to why i loved it so much, read on. But you don’t have to if you don’t want because I'm telling you, right here, right now, up front, Free Guy is totally worth everything. Its exceptional. Go f*cking watch it right now! Also, just to clarify, the title of this love letter to Free Guy has a double meaning. Free City is the name of the world in which the movie takes place but it's also the name of a pretty dope St. Lunatics album. Batter Up!

The Outstanding

I have to say, the execution of this idea was fantastic! You’ve seen this the of movie before in films like the new Jumanji joints and Ready Player One, but you’ve never seen them executed like this. I was thoroughly surprised by how entertaining, how original, the Isekai Video Game Experience was presented. F*cking outstanding!

With that in mind, credit has to be given to the director of this spectacle, Shawn Levy. He has a strong vision because this f*cking thing definitely passes the eye test as a video game. It Feels like walking into the world of Saint’s Row III, the only thing missing being giant dildo swords.

I also have to mention how brisk this thing moves. There is next to no fat on this plot an it gets you to where you need to be with purpose. I appreciate that, not because i don’t like a slow burn, atmospheric, feat for the eyes but because that type of film making wouldn’t work with this type of film. It’s long, don’t misunderstand, but it never Feels long. I never needed to pause it and take a break or try over and over to start it. It’s a solid watch that, by the end credits, will have you absolutely enveloped with the pathos onscreen.

One of the stronger aspects of this thing was the cameos. A lot of the recognizable people, like Channing Tatum and Chris Evans came through and did their thing, for sure, but a lot of the streamers made an impression, too. Color me surprised when i is aw Pokimane and Ninja. Now, I'm old as sh*t so i only have a cursory knowledge of who these people are but for Gen Z and the Alphas? I imagine they were stupid excited seeing their versions of celebrities up on the being screen like that.

Speaking of cast, i just want to give a nod to Lil Rel Howery and Utkarsh Ambudkar as Buddy and Mouser, respectively. They were great as the supportive third string partners. I was particularly surprised by Lil Rel because i generally can’t stand him in stuff but he never overstayed his welcome in this. Well done.

Ryan Reynolds is Ryan Reynolds. You know what you’re going to get in a starring vehicle for dude. Mileage may vary but I'm a fan of the motor-mouth, super quippy, schtick. My favorite superhero is Spider-man so of course i am. That said, his Guy is very earnest and likable. Even when he’s moving down player after player, he’s still just that Blue Shirt Guy. It’s real hard not to like him.

For me, the stand out of this flick was Jodie Comer. I love this chick. I was put on to her way back when i stumbled upon Killing Eve an have been absolutely enamored ever since. Her Millie the Molotov Girl is a fantastic character and she is great in the role. It’s so different from what I've seen her in and it’s testament to he skill. I’m glad she’s getting bigger roles and can’t wait to see what she does in Thor IV. I’m actually curious who she’ll be since we already got a version of the Enchantress in Sylvie. Plus, i just really like hearing Jodie’s speaking voice. It’s cute.

What can i say about Taika Waititi other than he’s Taika Waititi? Dude is doing Hitler from Jojo Rabbit but as video game company CEO named Antwan and it absolutely works. Antwan’s not even villainous, he’s just a petulant, corporate, shill, obsessed with profits. So, basically, EA but, you know, a person. Which is kind of genius because if you ask any gamer, they’ll tell you the final boss is definitely companies lie EA, Activision, and Take Two. F*ck those guys and f*ck Antwan!

I’m more than on record of loving everything Joe Keery does. From my initial introduction n the excellent first season of Stranger things, his amazing growth in the second, and becoming the best f*cking thing about the show by the third. I loved him in Molly’ Game and was shocked by his range in Spree. I can’t say he flexes his acting chops so much in this as the unrequited love interest, Keys, but he’s still fun to see.

I think the best thing about this film, though, is how much genuine heart it has. This movie is chock full of emotional nuance. I was surprised by how much i cared about the characters by the time this thing ended and all credit to that has to go to the writing. In order for these performances to present such complete relationship arcs, that sh*t on the age had to be on point and believe me, it was. Hats off to Matt Lieberman and Zack Penn. Those two mad lads delivered something really special.

The Verdict

I already said it up front. Free Guy is fantastic. It’s loaded up with great performances. Rich characters, a wonderfully world, and striking visuals. This thing Feels like a video game and movies that try to do that rarely pull it off. Like, Ready Player One does a great job articulating that same Feeling but it’s not something that is so easily capture. Free Guy does it better than that one, better than Spielberg. While all of that sh*t i said makes this thing more than worth the price of admission but, for me, it’s the overall writing that gives the movie legs. It’s incredibly well written and smarter than you’ think based on such a pedestrian premise. I’m really enjoyed my time in Free City and I'm glad it got made. Fox was playing with house money when Ryan Reynolds dropped this into their laps. They basically gave him a budget and told him to create because why not? Sh*t would be Disney's problem after the merger, right? Well, surprise-surprise, free of corporate meddling and financial projection, Free Guy turned out to be an amazing, entertaining, original, IP that everyone should support.

[cosmiciaria]

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order review! (Spoiler free)

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (SWJFO) appeared out of fricking nowhere and to everyone's surprise, it was a striking success? How? But… EA was so bad at making SW games!! I don't see micro transactions and… is this… actual… plot… with actual… good characters?? I'm shooketh.

So, yes, SWJFO is a good game! It's not perfect, it has its flaws, yes, but considering where we come from… Battlefront II I'm looking at you.

The game takes place between Episode III and Episode IV. I won't say it's a "bridge" between those two Episodes because it isn't, and some may argue that talking about Jedi in the middle of those two pieces of media doesn't take you anywhere, since we all know what happens next, but let me explain to you: the story fits so well. So well.

We follow Cal Kestis, your average ginger Good Boi, who's a padawan in disguise. It's been five years since Order 66 and he's been hiding all this time in Bracca, a junkyard, where he works mostly enslaved by the Empire. His good pal Prauf tells him he should go outside and explore the galaxy, since he's young and cute probably, but Cal is so scared of being found and he's suffering such a huge survivor's guilt that he doesn't take any action to leave that planet.

It all seemed to be like another ordinary day of work, dismembering old ships and searching for useful parts, when the wing that Cal and Prauf were working on suddenly falls from the body of the ship, and Cal, who hasn't been using his Force since the execution of the Jedi, is forced (pun intended) to save his friend from falling to his death. Prauf understands the stakes, and swears to keep the secret.

However, destiny seems to hate him, because the Inquisitors (the Second and Ninth Sisters to be more precise), an order of Jedi-turned-to-dark-side that serves the Empire, arrive at Bracca, looking for a remaining Force-wielder who hides among the workers. Prauf steps up for his comrade, only to be impaled quite literally in front of Cal. Cal loses his composure and snaps at the Second Sister, revealing his nature as Jedi, and so the hunt begins.

Cal faces the Second Sister, who menacingly swings her lightsaber with red emitters, but he's too weak to defeat her. Just when we thought that everything is lost, a new spaceship arrives: the Mantis, and a woman reaches out from the main gate, asking us to jump. Cal doesn't think twice, bids farewell to a very angry Second Sister and jumps into safety.

Inside the Mantis, Cal meets his saviors: Cere, a former jedi who purposely cut her link with the Force, and Greez, a lateros who is the owner and driver of the ship. Cere goes straight to the point: she's been looking for Cal (or any other Force-sensitive to be honest) for years now, because she has a clear plan: to rebuild the Jedi Order.

From here onward, the game opens up. You'll be visiting Bogano first, which is the sanctuary more or less of Cordova, a dead character that will have a great impact on the whole story. Cordova was Cere's master, and he's worked and compiled information about the Zeffo sages and other interesting mythos from around the galaxy. Cordova swears that in the ancestral chamber in Bogano, sealed by ancient technology created by the Zeffo, lies the Holocron: a cubic thingy only readable for Jedi, that holds key information about the names of the kids who are Force-sensitives. With this list of names, Cere plans to bring back the Jedi and strike back at the Empire.

So the main objective is to get this Holocron, but to get there, you'll have to go to many planets and explore many nooks and crannies. I won't spoil it for you, because I try to never spoil in my reviews, and like I said before, it may sound like this goal doesn't make any sense since we know they don't succeed in rebuilding the Order (hell, not even with Rey and it's been a whole generation since then), but hear me out: the story still fits so well! PLEASE TRUST ME IN THIS ONE

So instead of talking about the plot, let's talk about the characters!

Cal will be your main character. I read that some people think he's boring, ok, I can take that. The reality is that there's so much more to him than just his dashing appearance (alright, maybe I am biased, since I love red hairs) and his kindness and good-boy-ness. Cal is deeply regretful by his actions during Order 66 and he can't forget nor forgive what happened to his master. He feels remorseful and blames himself for the outcome of the purge. He has a scar on his face that constantly reminds him of it. He's a clear case of survivor's guilt syndrome, and it doesn't take one much to see it. I won't say when or the context, but there's a moment in which he has to ride a escape pod, and he looks around, nervously, as if he's going to suffocate, because it reminds him of the purge – man, there's a lot not said that really touches you. I don't need a character to tell me that he's sad. He can show it to me and that's exemplarily well done with him.

Another example of a sad character, more in-your-face this time, is Cere. A former master, now devoid of the Force, Cere wanders the galaxy with a clear goal in mind. But in her past, she hides torture and some too-close-for-comfort connection with the dark side. She wants to redeem herself and she trusts that this sacred mission will, not wipe out, but compensate for her mistakes. Cere is a great north in this game and she always supports Cal in everything. Her unconditional trust may seem overwhelming at first, but she's careful and she knows with what they're all dealing with. Besides she's badass af.

Greez is a less warrior character but much funnier than the rest of the cast. As the owner of the Mantis, he takes care of this ship as if it were his daughter. He has a knack for cooking and even though he tries to hide it, he does have a soft spot for Cal. Maybe his past of gambler and addiction makes him come across as the one who doesn't give a damn of what's going on, but if that were truly the case, he wouldn't be here, trying to rebuild the Order as well. He has by far the best lines in the script, and he's so unintentionally funny. There was this scene, out of context, where Cere and Cal were having an argument while eating, and he was sitting in between, in the background, adding peppermint or whatever spice to his dish, but the thing is, he never stopped throwing peppermint to his dish because he was watching them argue. Damn. I love him.

Merrin is introduced later in the game, but she does play a large role in the story. Born and raised in Dathomir, Merrin is a Nightsister, an order of 'witches' let's call them that have twisted the Force and use it in a different way than the Jedi. After General Grievous (as much as we assume, because he's mentioned as "armored man wielding lightsabers") wiped out all the life in Dathomir, Merrin remained as the sole survivor of her planet, roaming around the corpses of her sisters with no goal whatsoever. She resents the Jedi and has sworn to fight them even if it cost her life. This led her to get in with a bad crowd… but she'll find a better purpose after she meets Cal (And if you ask me, this SHIP HAS SAAAAAIIILLLLEEED).

And last but not least, the Second Sister, who, as I said before, was a former Jedi who was forced into the dark side, now hunts the remaining Force-sensitive that have escaped from the purge. She seems your ordinary villain at the start of the story, but slowly the plot will be unfolding a lot of details about her past and how she became an Inquisitor, making her as much, if not more than, important like the rest of the cast.

If there's thread connecting all these characters, is their broken pasts. These are all broken characters who now must face the consequences of their decisions, however much they don't want to look that way. They have to reconcile with their pasts and overcome their fears. They have all suffered, but in this suffering they found strength. And each other.

And I cannot not mention BD-1, your companion droid. He has personality, you can't deny it. Every time Cal went like "How is it going, BD-1?" and the droid threw his "Boops-beeps", please, they're having a profound conversation DON'T INTERRUPT THEM.

As far as gameplay goes, this game borrows from other great creations of the PS4 era: Uncharted (you'll be climbing and doing parkour a lot), Tomb Raider (sliding down and tomb raiding, yes), Dark Souls (meditation/save points where you can level up your skills and also whenever you die you lose your exp gained, but not the ability points. You can recover that exp though), and Sekiro (parry. Parry a lot). This may seem to all of you like the game lacks originality, and while it's debatable, I still think that it has a lot new and original gameplay to offer, specially when it comes to Force wielding and lightsabers. Oh, yes, you're a Jedi (padawan, actually), you'll be using the Force! The game tries really hard to integrate the Force not only in combat, but also while you explore and while you solve puzzles. The more you level up, the more powerful your abilities become, and it comes a point when you feel unstoppable. The Stormtroopers might sound cocky at first, but when you start pushing and pulling, oh, yes, fear the Jedi! So yes, the game may look like a copycat of previous works in the gaming industry, but it does make a good use of all those mechanics, while still throwing something new elements into the mix.

The level design is ASTOUNDING, sometimes I turned around one corner and appeared somewhere I thought it was like miles away from my place, and I was marveled at how well everything interconnects with everything. The level of detail also is so meticulous and well crafted, like there are so many little things that if you stop to stare and pay attention you'll be so mesmerized by them. Some of the places are so eye candy, even Dathomir with their "I AM DEATH" vibes has such a beautiful color palette, that I couldn't help but take a thousand screenshots. This game looks gorgeous, and it shows. You know, when a game has a photo mode, you know the devs are convinced of its beauty.

But, like I said earlier, the game isn't without flaws. While I praised the intricate level design, there's also one thing I hate a lot: backtracking. Yes, in these huge maps, there are no fast travels. You can create shortcuts and such, but, if you want to get to that 2% that was left unexplored in that particular area, you must return to it by foot. This is a huge let down for me. I did the game with a guide, so I grabbed most of the collectibles during my first time in each planet, but still there were some things that I missed, and I had to go all the way there to revisit places with the only purpose of grabbing that stupid chest or filling that small percentage of the map, while trying to survive against the enemies, since everything in this game, everything, wants to actively kill you. Damn, Cal was wanted.

Another huge drawback for me that it normally doesn't bother me much were the low framerates. I played it on normal PS4, not the Pro, and the rendition of the game wasn't good. I wasn't even fighting or doing a lot of stuff on screen, I was just climbing and chilling, and still the framerates would fall like under 20. When there a lot of things going on screen, the game suffers from it and it makes you know that the play station is giving its all to make it function. I believe this isn't a problem for those who have a nice computer and play it with the highest specs, but as I know that there are people out there who really care about the performance, I had to at least mention this.

Also, do not come here thinking that this is an open world game. Yes, granted, you can travel from planet to planet with no real rush and take things with time, but the maps are mostly linear (except for the interconnections between each area), and once you explored or got all chests, that's all there's to it. Now that I have completed the game and platinumed it, the planets feel barren, empty, like there's no real life breathing through the leaves or the rooms. And I think I know what this game could've benefited a lot from: sidequests. There are no NPC's here, except for some Wookies at that moment in the story or your crew members, so there's no one to give you a sidequest. But even without NPC's, they could've thrown sidequests from the different collectibles that you come across in your path, or maybe when on arriving at a certain place. There's like one thing that gets close to a sidequest and it's exploring a crashed Venator in the planet Zeffo, but that's all there's to it: more of the same killing, climbing and cutting ropes. If you're a rookie collector, then yes, this game got you covered, for there are over 200 collectibles (I think over 300 actually, considering echoes and chests and scans), but it's not like there's anything in between these, except for enemies. No banter with your crew members while you walk around, some occasional beep boops from BD-1 only.

I think those are my main complaints, but all in all I believe that the good compensates the bad. The last "mission" is reaaaaally good, and they did something I really like, which I won't spoil. I'm just going to say that I'm so glad with the decisions they took. The relationships between the characters grow vividly before our eyes, and we see Cal develop from a frightened fugitive into a fighter. There are moments in the story and in the gameplay where the game made me go like "whoa", I was truly amazed by what was going on. The acting is flawless, the music gets under your skin and the vistas are just dreamy. There so many easter eggs to appease even the most hardcore SW fan! They could polish all the things I said, but if there's another SW game developed by Respawn and with that writing team, I'll be there to buy it.

It's not perfect, but it's good. Give Cal a chance!

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: The Hindenburg Archives: The Story of the Fireside Family Podcast (Episode 104)

Author: Mike Selinker

Rating: 5/5 stars

Follow-up to my final review of The Hindenburg Archives. This was a pretty good episode, and as always with Selinker, if I had more time I'd want to get back to it and provide some analysis on individual episodes. This episode, however, is pretty self-contained and should not be missed.

In case you missed it, here's the scenario:

In the late 1980s, a Howard Hughes-esque billionaire named Michael Whitney II used an old oil derrick in rural upstate New York as his second (and last) family home. In 1992, Whitney's daughter and his wife discovered a radio broadcast from the derrick; Whitney and his family were trapped inside the burning building, which was quickly growing in size.

We meet several of the people involved in the crisis at this point: Whitney's son, Ethan, the only person with any sense; Whitney's daughter, Ariana; the Whitney's pets (a Bearded Dragon and a Leopard), which include an injured tortoise and several chickens; and also a fly named Gordo, for some reason.

So far, so familiar. After some time, Whitney's daughter (who has been apparently named Ariana in error) decides to leave the building, going down an elevator and out of the burning building. Ariana uses the Internet (as can be imagined) to contact her father, and learns that he's still trapped inside.

This story moves at an interesting clip: after Ariana's father sends a frantic message on the Internet, a machinist named Dave Dunne (the founder of a website called "Emergency Alert System," or "EAS") receives the message and decides to try to convince Ariana to get out of the building.

Dunne is as baffling a character as you'd expect someone to be in this situation: he is a mysterious, sardonic man who broadcasts on a website called "Second Opinion" and seems to be some sort of odd gangster. He broadcasts on Second Opinion, as well as a website called "Trader Joe's," which sounds like it might be a front for some sort of con, and he may even be one of the people trying to free Whitney from the building. It's also mentioned that he seems to be a friend of Ariana's boyfriend, named Andrew, and that Andrew has been helping Ariana out.

Dunne apparently communicates via a website, "Second Opinions," which is frequently followed by comments that become increasingly panicked and bizarre, then abruptly cease. This website appears to be a front for a con, and Dunne has made some comments that sound as if they could be threats.

Then, right at the end of the episode, a guy named Brad Gage arrives to help, seemingly from nowhere, and places a harness around Ariana and Ariana's pets. This seems to get the job done (although maybe there was a mistake), and he then leads the way out of the building.

Now, if you've watched the original episode, you know that Ariana was actually really stuck. If she didn't have the harness around her, I can't imagine she would have gone down the elevator -- and the people she was with seemed pretty aware that there was a lot of danger in the air. It is no wonder she didn't listen to Dunne.

So, what happened in this new episode? Well, Ariana uses her iPhone to contact a bunch of people, including Andrew. Andrew tries to get Ariana to go back to the building, which she doesn't want to do, but then Andrew drops the ball. He tells Ariana that, actually, everyone is probably dead, and that they probably aren't getting out alive.

Ariana's response is surprisingly reasonable: "What happens after I die, I dying?" Andrew, who may be mad at her or sympathetic to her, replies that they'll "go out in style." Ariana complains that this may not be enough to get her out.

Ariana gets the harness on Andrew, which seems to work -- Andrew goes down to the elevator. And then Andrew and Ariana are in the elevator together! Andrew expresses concern that he may have "screwed up," but Ariana reassures him that "it's a safe thing." Andrew says that if they are worried about making things "too comfortable," maybe they can just go straight to Whitney's, "because we don't want to be stuck in some part of the building."

Andrew and Ariana then try to get out of the building, but Andrew is in trouble: Whitney's security guards have locked the door. Andrew asks Ariana for help, and she tells him that if he gets out of there alive, "you just give us the code for the roof and we'll go down in an elevator and we'll be fine." Andrew has a plan, so Ariana says they can just pretend to be dead in the elevator, and he agrees to try it.

Now, the elevator is about to leave the building, but Ariana, after telling Andrew that they'll "go down in an elevator," has a new idea: "We'll go down in an elevator, but we'll come up with a real plan first." So Ariana and Andrew get in the elevator (where there is a box of cash and a note that says "Help wanted") and, apparently, did not die in vain.

Meanwhile, we see Ariana in Whitney's dressing room. Whitney and her friends have just learned of Andrew and Ariana's escape. Ariana appears on screen, saying she "did some tricks" to get out of the building and try to contact her father. We then see Ariana, Andrew, and Whitney's daughter, who seems to be Nellie Oates. Ariana introduces herself and asks if she can help, as Nellie's daughter. Nellie seems unsure, but agrees to help -- although she doesn't seem sure whether she did it to help Ariana, as Ariana had apparently "screwed up" somehow. Whitney and her friends appear slightly uneasy, and when Ariana begins to explain the details of Andrew's plan, they "shut [them] down," and immediately end the call.

It's now ten minutes to nine, and Ariana's on the phone with her father. Ariana is expressing her frustration that Andrew and Ariana didn't just get a plan together, and that Andrew screwed up. Her father then tells her he's going to check the building to see if they're all okay, and then hangs up.

This scene seems to be taking place in the elevator, but Andrew has already gotten out of the elevator when Ariana hangs up. We see Andrew exiting the elevator. The elevator doors open, and Andrew exits and sees Whitney and her friends, who are also standing in the elevator. Andrew suddenly notices a strange thing on his chest: he has a "t-shaped" scar on his chest. He is now suddenly covered in a thick, black cloak. It is now nine minutes to eight.

Ariana and Andrew argue in a darkened alley. Andrew pulls a gun on Ariana. Ariana says that Andrew isn't dangerous, and she will never harm him. Andrew angrily says, "I am dangerous! I am very dangerous!" Andrew points his gun at Ariana and asks Ariana if she can "tell that to my wife." Ariana refuses to tell her, saying that there are some things that are too dangerous to talk about. Andrew continues to insist that she harm him, and she says that "I can't." Andrew pulls the trigger.

We see Ariana walking along a dark, empty street, and she hears Andrew calling to her. She turns around, and Andrew is no longer there. She sees a man walking toward her, and he has long, dark hair.

The man is Benjamin Lin, played by Michael Emerson. He tells Ariana

[simblob]

Realm of Magic Review → ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ 

Hopefully my method of using the half symbol makes sense and you can tell I’m giving this pack 4 ½ stars out of 5! This isn’t a super in depth review by any means, but it’s my two cents on what I think is a really great pack!~

As always, big ol’ thanks to the EA Game Changers for providing me with an early access copy of The Sims 4 Realm of Magic for review! 

Realm of Magic CAS → ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ 

First- oh my I love the stuff we got. The boots and tops are some of my all time favourites! Before getting into what I love though, let’s get the big ugly negative out of the way: There isn’t a single CAS item for children or toddlers. Toddlers I can understand honestly cause they can’t do magic and have a pretty set lifestate (but oh man how cute would a lil witchy dressed toddler be??) The issue I really have is that there’s nothing for kids. Nothing. Even in Vampires kids got some hair and clothes that matched the feel of the pack! I feel like it was a super missed opportunity to create some really cute clothing considering children can have familiars and can be at least slightly involved with magic. The lack of kids clothing aside, I really do love this packs CAS items. Unsurprisingly female sims got more items than males, but both are done really well and don’t feel like corners were cut. Most of the items can easily be mixed in with other packs for outfit options. Of course there are a few pieces that are a bit more situational, but the balance definitely leans towards multi-use clothes (and oh man am I thankful!) The accessories are also incredibly well done, and some are pre-tagged for both genders (looking at you dangly star earrings). Makeup, to me personally, is a miss. But I know some folks will love it! It’s a matter of personal preference really! I added in pictures of one swatch from each CAS item to give a teeny look at what I mean! (I didn’t include hair, makeup, or accessories- sorry!) One final teeny complaint- where are our witch hats at, Maxis?! 

Realm of Magic Build & Buy → ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Y’ALL!! I am seriously in love with the Build/Buy for this pack! There’s a bigger ratio of everyday to situational items than in CAS, but even those items still feel like they’re easy to integrate into everyday builds! The windows, doors, and bricks in particular, are stunning, and have so many swatches that are ornate and themed but also plain and simple. The build/buy items are a bit harder for me to get into details with because I feel like the way you do a house is very biased, so although I’m in love with these items, someone might find them too situational for everyday use (but they’re cute I swear). Oh! And the debug items from this pack?? If you’re a builder- you’re gonna want this for debug alone. There’s so much great stuff in there to help clutter up homes and make them feel lived in!! I’m also gonna add in a teeny thing here about the worlds: AMAZING. They’re both so, so beautiful and having a forest-dense liveable map is heaven. And the magic realm? Dang.

Realm of Magic Gameplay → n/a

I haven’t actually tried out gameplay yet because I’m going to explore it while streaming! If you want to hang out and watch you can follow here to see when I go live! I’ll also be posting a link later today when I start~ I’m also going to link some reviews by others that get into gameplay in case reading about it is more your style! - Storylegacysims

Realm of Magic Would I Buy This at Release → Yes! 

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! For me, I didn’t really have a stance on adding spellcasters to the game. Honestly as far as I was concerned, the only things I needed to make the game feel complete was Seasons, Pets, and a tropical pack. We had all of those and anything else was just a bonus at this point! So the level of excitement and love I have for this pack really took me by surprise!! I feel like it’s so well done, you can tell the Gurus put a lot of love into this one and tried to give the folks wanting magic the best pack possible. Even if you’re like me, and not into supernatural gameplay, I still recommend this pack! Of course, everyone has their own tastes and interests! So make sure you check out what other Game Changers are saying and see how you feel about it!~ ♡

[whtaft]

22 and/or 24 for the prompt thing!

“What the fuck is this person saying that the fucking meat wasn’t fucking tender?” Bucky yells, crumpling up the newspaper and throwing it straight into the trashcan where it belongs. Then he grabs it again, straightens it out, and reads the review again, fuming.

“It was one line of an otherwise glowing review,” Natasha says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Take it, move on. We don’t need you to get caught up on this.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, then looked back down at the article. It would be hard to track down the person who wrote the review, but he could do it. He’s done more difficult things before.

— —

Steve is trying to choose the perfect pork chop when someone bumps into his side. “Sorry,” he says reflexively, reaching out to steady the person.

“No, I’m sorry,” the guy says and wow, he’s a looker. He’s a little bit shorter than Steve himself is, with blue eyes and soft black hair that Steve wants to reach out and touch. “Looking for some chops?”

Steve nods. “Yeah, just trying a new recipe for dinner.”

“Something good?”

“Sounds like it. Involves a lot of apple cider and more work than I should be putting into dinner for one.”

The man smiles. “Wanna make it dinner for two, instead?”

Steve does.

— —

“So what did you say you do?” Bucky asks later that night. They’re in his apartment, since Bucky is a professional chef, though he neglected to tell Steve where he works. All the better, Steve thinks, since he won’t have to feel like it’s a conflict of interest if he ever has to review his restaurant. At least he can eat eas knowing that he hasn’t reviewed the restaurant with a chef named Bucky — he’d remember that.

“I’m a journalist.” It’s not technically a lie.

Bucky smiles. “Sounds like a fun job. Gotta send me some of your articles.”

Steve shrugs and asks for more potatoes.

— —

“You’re happy,” Natasha says one afternoon as Bucky preps the night’s fish.

“I’m getting laid,” he says.

“That was apparent. Who is it?” He smirks at her. Her eyes go wide. “No,” she says.

“I’m nothing if not persistent.”

“Is this just to get him to eat a steak?” she asks.

Bucky pauses, knife hovering over the red snapper. Honestly? No. Not anymore, at least. He’s not sure when it happened… Well, if he’s being honest, it happened between dinner and dessert on their first date. But Steve is more than a perfectly tender medium rare steak to him.

“Did I just send you into an emotional crisis?” she asks.

“Maybe,” he concedes, then continues to cut the fish.

— —

“I wanted to do something special,” Steve says, uncovering Bucky’s eyes. “Happy four month anniversary.”

He looks out over the spread and it looks good, if he can toot his own horn. The steaks are beautiful, the potatoes creamy. The candles are lit and the napkins are folded. In the kitchen, there’s a beautiful fruit tart that he spent hours agonizing over, making sure every piece of kiwi was just perfect. Even if he writes for a living, he can’t quite find the words to express how he feels about Bucky. (It’s love, his mind tells him, but he can’t say it.) So he hopes that a great dinner will at least get across what he wants to say.

Bucky just stares at the table. Steve gets nervous. “Is everything okay?” he asks.

“Is that steak?” he asks, voice cracking.

“Yeah, it’s New York strip. Is that okay? Do you not eat steak?” Jesus, he should’ve asked!

“No, I…” He trails off, then looks at Steve and says, “I swear to God that better be the most tender steak I have eaten, so help me God.”

Steve just blinks.

It turns out that both of them had a secret.

— —

Steve’s pissed until he’s not. But he also decides that they won’t be serving steak at their wedding.

[macgyvermedical]

3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate is My New Favorite Chemical Weapon, A “Mason+Cable+Choices” Medical Review

This episode. This freaking episode.

First of all, Charlie Robinson, who I really thought was going to stick around in this version of the series after he survived his first episode, had to go and become the instrument to someone else’s revenge scheme. We also got to see a relatively hard side of Mac in the interrogation room, and I’m not sure whether to applaud it as character development or feel like they’re going too dark.

From a medical and whump standpoint, this episode sure has a lot of things covered- the gunshot wound, the neck needle, the 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate poisoning (Yay!), the heart needle/antidote, and the toxic smoke. I'm warning you now, most of this review is about the 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate poisoning.

The Gunshot Wound

Honestly, there’s not a lot to be said about the gunshot wound- it was to the outside of Charlie’s thigh, so while it would have been painful and probably would have bled some (the duct tape wouldn’t have helped stop the bleeding) it probably wouldn’t have been enough to really threaten his life. If he hadn’t later plummeted to his death, he might have needed some antibiotics, professional medical attention, and physical therapy.

Neck Needles

Neck needles aren’t a thing, but I’ve talked about those in previous posts.

3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate Poisoning

Oh hey look, we’re already at 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate poisoning! And fam? this is where I really did my research.

If you’ve been on this blog long enough you know I like my chemical weapons. Not in a “kill everyone” way but in more of a “strong academic interest I may one day write a thesis about” way. And man, do I love having access to an academic library again. Whoo buddy. This was fun.

In the episode, Mason uses a chemical weapon called 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (also noted in the episode as “BZ”), smuggled in a false tooth, to subdue Mac before making his escape from the interrogation room. The tooth contains QNB  in an aerosol form, which when released forms a visible cloud in the room. Mac breathes the aerosol, which appears to instantly paralyze or possibly sedate him, while Mason takes advantage of the small amount of uncontaminated air in Mac’s water bottle before making his escape up the air vent. A security team makes their way to Mac, Desi calls for a med team, and Mac is revived with an antidote delivered by a needle straight to his heart.

When someone mentions chemical weapons, most people think of mustard gas or nerve agents. But poisons designed to torture and kill people aren’t the only things that fall into the category of chemical weapons. In fact, there’s a whole class of them, called “incapacitants” that are specifically designed to take people out of commission without a high risk of death or permanent disability. 

Let me just say, Jim Adler is a writer after my own heart. He wrote both this episode and “Mac+Fallout+Jack” and considering both were absolutely gut-wrenching and contained reasonable choices of incapacitating agents, I really, really appreciate what he’s done for the canon. He didn’t get everything right here (*cough cough* neck and heart needles *cough cough*), but he clearly understands enough about drugging people to buy some literary license. Not all of it, but some.

Now, as I’ve talked about in other posts, drugging people into unconsciousness isn’t a particularly safe thing to do. Unconscious people can’t protect their airway, and most drugs that render people unconscious significantly impact their respiratory rate, blood pressure, or both. Unless the party doing the drugging is prepared to devote at least one trained person to monitoring and management of the drugged individual, there’s a chance that person could suffocate and die. Paralytic agents have a lot of the same issues.

This becomes even more problematic if you’re trying to incapacitate multiple people. Case in point- in 2002 a small group of Chechan rebels held over a 1,000 Russian civilians hostage in a theater in Moscow. After several days, in order to end the stand-off, Russian military personnel used what was probably an aerosalized opioid* to render everyone in the building unconscious. They then stormed the building and rescued the hostages. Unfortunately, even though antidotes were available and used, about 1 out of every 10 hostages ended up dying due to the mass drugging, which didn’t win any PR points for the use of incapacitating agents.

But if you get just slightly more creative, sedation and paralysis are not the only two ways to drug enemy combatants into uselessness. Turns out, a variety of hallucinogens and deliriants can achieve the same goal without the same risk of death by suffocation. If you can get someone to a state where they can’t remember what they’re doing or perform basic skills like reading or decision making, they can’t easily attack and kill your own personnel.

This is where 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, (NATO code BZ, US Army code EA-2277, Soviet code Substance 78, and usually referred to as “QNB” in medical circles) starts to stand out. QNB is a deliriant and hallucinogen. Now, there are lots of drugs that fall into these categories- think LSD, ketamine, PCP, and atropine to name a few. QNB works very similarly to atropine, by selectively blocking the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (think the opposite of a nerve agent), but with significantly more of its action concentrated around the mind-altering side-effects. It’s also safer, hardier, more versatile, and has a more ideal onset and duration of action.

The typical course of incapacitation with QNB involves:

An initial period of progressively worsening anxiety, restlessness, and confusion

A period of extreme drowsiness

Finally, more confusion, an inability to perform simple tasks, difficulty with movement, hallucinations, and bizarre behaviors including picking at things, which all gradually wane over the course of 2-4 days.

Here are some reasons QNB stands out as a particularly effective incapacitant (and all the ways the episode ignored them):

The first is therapeutic index. A drug’s therapeutic index is the difference between its effective dose and it’s toxic dose. If we say a drug has a “narrow” therapeutic index, that means there’s a very small difference between an effective dose and a toxic one, while a “wide” therapeutic index means that the two doses are very different. When drugging someone without their knowledge, no matter how you’re delivering the drug, it’s really hard to estimate the actual ingested dose. Because of this, you want the widest possible range of effective-but-not-deadly doses you can have- the best drugs for mass druggings are those with the widest possible therapeutic indices.

QNB happens to have a very wide therapeutic index compared to other possibilities for incapacitants. The lowest effective dose is about 150 micrograms, while a toxic dose is more than 650 times that at about 100 miligrams. In small doses, the drug doesn’t last as long and causes more sedating vs delirious effect, but is still very useful in lowering the effectiveness of an enemy force.

The second is its options for route and availability in an environment. How any drug is given is referred to the route of administration. These can include:

PO (oral- taken as a pill or liquid)

IV (intravenous- injected into a vein)

IM (intramuscular- injected into a muscle)

SC (subcutaneous- injected into fat)

IO (intrasseous- injected into a bone in an emergency)

Inhaled (breathed and absorbed through blood vessels in the lungs)

PR (rectal- given rectally)

Transdermal (absorbed through the skin)

Most drugs work best when administered a certain way, and some may only be produced for use by a certain route. Some, like ketamine or LSD, can’t be absorbed in the stomach, so giving them orally doesn’t work (LSD “tabs” are actually absorbed through the mucous membrane in the mouth). QNB’s advantage is that it can be given by any route. You want to drug food or drink? It works. Aerosolize it and pump it into the air? Also works. Inject it IM, SC, or IV? Yes but you might have to answer some questions. Coat something like a doorknob? It goes through skin too!

QNB is particularly suited as an aerosol, not because it readily evaporates, but because it’s odorless. No one would even know they were breathing it until it started working, and even then, they might not know what happened. It also stays in the environment for a long time- up to several weeks depending on conditions- and can survive extreme heat without degrading, so it could be disbursed via explosive (LSD would not survive). Bottom line, everyone that came into that room to rescue Mac was contaminated, probably enough to cause them problems. Also, so was Mason, so take that as you will.

The third is the drug’s onset and duration of action. In the episode Mac is almost instantly incapacitated when the spray hits his face. This is not how any drug works (even via the IV route, the quickest-onset drugs still take at least 15-30 seconds to be felt), but particularly not QNB. QNB has an onset time of about an hour, no matter the route. This is actually beneficial to the drug’s original purpose- if no one shows symptoms from drugging with an odorless aerosol until an hour after exposure, there’s no way to take protective measures. Suddenly everyone’s hallucinating and can’t do basic math. Sucks for that attack plan you were working on.

The fourth and final benefit that QNB provides is both it’s lack of (specific) antidote and the fact that there are no lasting effects. Some people point to physostigmine as a possible antidote, but it’s not perfect and has some incapacitating side effects of its own. As incapacitation with QNB is generally not life threatening, it’s probably better for most people to be cared for in a safe place and ride out the effects. Since it’s also not a carcinogen or mutagen, once the effects subside, there shouldn’t be any additional problems.

Phew. Okay.

Heart Needles

I swear I’ve talked about heart needles before, but I’ll do it again since it hasn’t been recently. In the episode, Mac is injected with an antidote directly into his heart. Now, like we said before, using an antidote wouldn’t really help him much, and its not really necessary. He’s just gonna have to ride it out (I don’t make the rules...).

But they chose to do it, so we should talk about it- in the pre-CPR era, intracardiac injections represented the only way of getting emergency medications like epi to the heart in the case of cardiac arrest. As late as 1992, there were still some groups advocating for it if the patient was in asystole (flatline) and IV or IO access couldn’t be obtained. Mac has excellent veins if I do say so myself, and he also wasn’t coding, so there’s no reason for this to have been a thing in the episode. It’s also never used today.

Also, I’m going to be particularly disappointed if that was just a callback to the similarly inaccurate Pulp Fiction scene. Because this show has already used epi to counter an acetylcholine-based problem, and you already only get to do that once. EPINEPHRINE IS NOT AN ALL-PURPOSE ANTIDOTE.

Jim Adler based on your other work I have to assume you know better.

Also it’s late and I’m not talking about the toxic smoke. See my many posts on cyanide and some time in the future come read my post on carbon monoxide.

*According to the book Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten by James Ketchum, who did a lot of the initial research on chemical incapacitants. Other sources reference the drug used as anything from traditional nerve agents to QNB itself, but the onset times and symptoms initially reported seem to match up better with an opioid than QNB.

R E F E R E N C E S

Awl - X-Ray + Penny - Duct Tape + Jack - CD + Hoagie Foil - Guts + Fuel + Hope - Wilderness + Training + Survival - Father + Bride + Betrayal - Lidar + Rogues + Duty - Nightmares - Seeds + Permafrost + Feather - Friends + Enemies + Border -

[sigmatiqvevo]

Hi. Stop white knighting Epic Launcher.

Got your attention? Good, cuz I got a hot take:

Maybe the reason people hate the epic launcher isn't because it's competition to steam

Maybe it's because it's a less secure, less feature complete, more buggy version of steam that, while it does provide a bigger cut for creators, it's not the first choice when it comes to gamers.

Maybe it's because Epic launcher deliberately searches for your private steam INI files and looks at the info then sends them to epic

Maybe it's because EPIC keeps securing 3rd party exclusivity for loved and/or anticipated franchises like Outer Worlds, which, in the initial trailer, clearly showed that it was coming to steam. Or how about Phoenix Point, the spiritual successor to XCom, which was crowdfunded with the promise that it will release on steam. While we're at it, let's also bring Metro Exodus into the picture. While it did perform well in sales figures, I can't imagine that it did that well compared to what it would've done on steam, given only two weeks before launch, long after pre orders were announced and purchased, Deep SILVER announced exclusivity to Epic after they sold countless of keys for the Steam edition.

Listen, I'm not saying Epic launcher can't improve, and I'm not saying I hate it (I hate epic, that's a lie, they were one of my favorites and now I hope they just. Burn alongside EA)

That's not my point. My point is:

The Epic launcher is lacking. A lot. Compared even to Bethesda's launcher, it is extremely lacking. And instead of focusing resources into improving the platform faster, they made a 1 year road man showing the BASICS barely coming in 4-6 months.

Not only that, but this whole situation is bullshit. Honest to cod. We literally have only two solutions.

Boycott. Boycott the games we were so much longing after to prove a point, but sacrificing the companies and love the developers put into those games

Buy. Support Epic and the developers. Show Epic that there's no way we can stop them.

Why can't we stop them? Because it's either we are cunts to those companies that we love, or those franchises, or anticipated games... Or we ignore that. We wilfully ignore Epics strategy of taking over steam in the scummiest way possible and we show them that their plan is working.

I'm not saying boycott Epic, because then you'd be boycotting loving franchises. But I'm not sure I want to support them either... Like. At all.

And it's bullshit.

TLDR: I want competition for Steam. I want actual launchers to own up to steam and say "look at me. I'm just like you, if not better". But locking in exclusivity for a launcher BARELY has friends list, looks into your PRIVATE files, doesn't have any sort of review system (well, we had to make an uproar for it to get one) and is so lackluster in features? Not to mention the security issues???

That's not competition. That's deliberately creating a divide.

And no, I don't want to nuke the divide. Not this time.

[bittysvalentines]

Zoo Date

From: @eatallofthepumpkinthings

To: @secretgeniusshittyknight

Content: Ransom/Holster, established relationship, canon compliant

“Good afternoon”

“Hello there young man. How many?”

“Two, please” he responded. He glanced over at Ransom who was vibrating out of his skin. His eyes were huge, his lips pursed in concentration, and his back stretched to try and get a peek past the gates. He'd spent a month creating and refining a spreadsheet that “perfectly maximizes our animal exploration time.” Their itinerary he now clutched in his large hands. Holster couldn't help but smile at his boyfriend's excitement.

“That'll be 35.95” He handed the woman his credit card and turned towards Ransom again. When Holster had suggested this a month ago, it was before a bombardment of new customer meetings, budget realignments, new team member onboardings, and all manner of project delays and hiccups. He couldn't wait to get in the gates and put the month behind him. He smiled again as Ransom saddled up beside him.

The admissions lady passed Holster back his card and a receipt which he signed. She slid him two maps. Before he could grab them, Ransom had snatched one away and was ripping it open.

“Excited, aren't we?” the lady asked. Holster chuckled.

She began to speak again but startled a bit at Ransom's boisterous “Woo hoos” He had grabbed Holster's hand and was tugging him towards the gate.

“Well before you guys head in there, do you have any questions?”

“No I think we have everything covered. Thanks!” He let Ransom tug him about a foot.

“Have fun and welcome to Franklin Park Zoo.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**************************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Whats up next babe?” The first section they had gone through was the “Serengeti Crossing” where they had spotted porcupines, zebras, ostriches, and warthogs. They'd just finished the “Kalahari Kingdom” section where they got to see some lounging lions and a tiger that was bathing its cubs.

They had stopped to read every info graph and inscription by each animal, plus Ransom had shared some pretty sweet, and sometimes, sick facts about each animal they saw. Holster was endeared to Ransom when he realized that his partner had spent extra time on the zoo's website and online in general to learn facts about all the animals just to share with him. But he realized they were running about 15 minutes behind schedule and wasn't sure how Ransom would react once he realized.

Holster bit his tongue as he watched Ransom review the itinerary and then look at his watch.

“We are running behind, but that shouldn't matter much right? The plan was to be out of here before closing but if we stay til then... There wasn't something you needed to get home to do right?”

“No, nothing. I got my work done for the K&R project last night so I haven't anything to do tonight. Well except maybe you” He waggled his eyebrows at him.

Ransom laughed as color rose in his cheeks. “Well then...” he wiggled his eyebrows back at him. “Lets just stick to the plan of action, but not worry too much about the time.”

“Sounds good to me!” Ransom dropped Holster's hand and unfolded the map holding it against some siding.

“If we continue down this path, we should come to the Tropical Forest building. It's what's next on the list and it's inside so we can take a quick break to cool down and to reapply sunblock to your forehead.”

Holster guffawed “Its only been an hour and a half”

“Bro, and you're already lookin' like a lobster.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**************************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hours later they sat at an empty pavilion table near the “Things Wild” gift shop, taking massive bites out of Bitty's PB&J sandwiches they had packed. Holster was thanking his stars for the forethought to pack 4 sandwiches instead of just two, and he was already daydreaming about the crock pot pork they had waiting for them at home when he looked over at Ransom who was scrolling through the SMH group chat.

They had now gone through the Tropical Forest, “Bird's World”, and the “Outback Trail”; seen what felt like hundreds of different animals; and took what felt like a million different photos. When they finally sat down for their late lunch, Ransom sent some of their better photos to the group.

Tango: Can we get an ocelot for the Haus? Its so cute!

Chowder: I agree with Tango! :D

Ollie: I also agree on the condition that its Haus trained

Wicks: Did you know that ancient Australian war lords kept trained emus in their armies?

Ford: I'm not sure you guys are cut out for taking care of an animal

Tango: C'mon!

Chowder: Aww :'[

Ford: also Wicks that is like 100% false

Ollie: Nah its totally true

Ollie: do you think a monkey could hang from our lights?

Whiskey: you mean the chandelier in your room?

Chowder: totally! But monkey's aren't heavy. And look lemurs are tiny too. They could both probably hang from it

Wicks: Swawesome

Ollie: Swawsome

Ford: NO

Bitty: good lord thats a disaster waiting to happen

Bitty: yall couldn't handle a stuffed ocelot. Let alone a live animal

Tango: I could def take care of a stuffed ocelot. It doesn't even need to eat!

Chowder: Are we talking cute stuffed or weird on the wall stuffed?

Lards: Way to talk them down Bits

Jack: Thats a great shot of the flamingo. Its very difficult to get an action photo like that on a phone.

Bitty: #masternegotiator

Whiskey: That is a good shot of the flamingos guys

Nursey: yeah yeah great shots, haus pets, blah....but did none of you notice how that red kangaroo looks like Poindexter. Its like a spitting image

Dex: sdkj;fjkdsa;kdf Nurse!

Tango: Ears

Lards: EARS

Bitty: EA RS

Chowder: eARs

Shits: that Capybara is giving me good vibes guys

Shits: good vibes

“You forgot the best one babe,” Holster brushed his hands over Ransom's and then quickly grabbed his phone.

“Hey!” Ransom laughed, and so did Holster. “Which one are you sending?”

“The one with us and the hippo!”

They had just walked into the Tropical Forest building when they came face to face with a smiling hippo. A group of school children were on the opposite side of the tank and tapping on the glass. Before the children could run up to the other side of the tank, Ransom and Holster had slid their backs against the wall, locked lips, and snapped a selfie with the hippo. Holster had thought the hippo looked like it was blowing a kiss of his own, but Ransom had cheerily admonished him for anthropomorphizing the hippo. When they had gotten to the side of the tank where the children had vacated, they found a plaque informing them that the hippos name was “Fred”. Holster held back a smug face, but winked at Ransom and his scrunched up nose.

When he sent the picture to the group chat the response was near instantaneous.

Chowder: CUTE!

Tango: OMG so adorable

Wicks: Niceeeeeeeeee

Ollie: Nice!!!!!!!!!

Dex: Noiceeee

Nurse: Why does he look like a priest at your wedding?

Shits: Is that hippo ordained?

Jack: Congratulations!

Chowder: congrats!!!!!

Bitty: <3 <3 <3 oh im gonna cry

Lards: Can't believe you got hitched without us

Whiskey: Nice

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**************************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before heading off to the last three sections of the park, Ransom guided him into the gift shop. He perused the shelves of books, knickknacks, and stuffed animals. He found a pink stuffed hippo and immediately grabbed it from the shelf. He snuck up behind Ransom and rubbed the hippos face against his cheek. “Mwuah”

Ransom jumped but turned and laughed at him. “Oh stop it you... you...”

“Me...”

“Cutie hippo butt face!”

“That was lame bro.” Ransom's cheeks colored more and Holster leaned over to give him a smacking wet kiss himself.

Ransom laughed and wiped his cheek. “So are we getting that?” he said pointing at the hippo.

“Hell yeah! See anything you like?”

Ransom gestured to the stuffed lemurs in front of him. “Look at this.” He grabbed the arms of the lemur that were clasped together and separated them. When he let go they snapped back together. “Magnetic”

“Oh man, the frogs are gonna love that.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**************************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They made it through the rest of the zoo in an hour and a half. They saw goats, butterflies, prairie dogs, and even some cute fuzzy red pandas. Holster grinned as he thought about Ransom's face as one of the zookeepers brought over a llama for them to pet. When Ransom had stroked the llamas hair his eyes had lit up like stars and his shoulders had relaxed. It was one of the few moments all month where Holster had seen Ransom relax.

He looked over at Ransom now. Took in his drowsy form, cuddling his new stuffed hippo. His eyes drifted closed ever so slowly, and reopened even slower. He doubted that he would make it home before falling asleep. It had been a long exciting day and they were both exhausted. Holster gently took one of Ransom's hands and laced their fingers together. “You had fun babe?”

“Yeah. Can't wait to get home and cuddle though.”

“Me too.” He smiled.

Notes

Zoo website: https://www.zoonewengland.org/franklin-park-zoo/

Zoo map: https://www.zoonewengland.org/media/1517583/map-fzoo-winter-2018-hd.pdf

I implore you to look up images of and learn a little bit about all the animals mentioned! Red Pandas are my favorite.

[geek-gem]

Marvel Nemesis Rise Of The Imperfects

Well I should of started making this many minutes ago. But I finished this game on my GameCube many minutes ago.

Including if I recall it was the 2nd time I played it on my GameCube. I've completed the game before on my old PS2. Gonna say before playing I had to switch memory cards.

But let me talk about this game yet I wonder if I have before. You know I don't mind this game or think it's okay. But replaying it especially how many times of dying on certain missions and bosses.

You know there's a good reason why Marvel doesn't wanna work with EA again after this. I'm not gonna make this a big detailed review. If you remember this game then awesome.

Marvel Nemesis was a 3D fighting game made by EA featuring 10 Marvel characters (Daredevil and Human Torch in the console versions, Captain America and Dr. Doom in the PSP version, I feel it would of been more fun of all four of them were on each system)and 8 new characters by EA named the Imperfects.

You know even as a guy who grew up with the game and I appreciate it's dark tone. What sucks is the story is basically all over the place, even when I think you know what's going on, some stuff isn't answered and whatever else. That you kind of how to think about what happens to certain characters.

Especially the boss battles where you play as an Imperfect against a Marvel character. You get to chose to kill them or not. But considering there are missions you can play as a mind controlled Spider-Man and Wolverine, I assumed the others get controlled.

I don't wanna talk more about this game but I need to say it.

To me I recall the matches you can have with a friend or CPU can be awesome. But there should be more arenas. Especially I hate how the difficulty is uneven in this game especially the bosses. Yeah bosses are suppose to be difficult but I just hate the fucking explosive shit or whatever.

So okay I just wanna get this done. I like the concept, I like the Imperfects (Paragon, Hazmat, The Wink, and Brigade are my favorites), especially the vs matches themselves can be fun. But the game is a mess.

I don't wanna compare it to something like Sonic 06 because that's a completely different game. It's just frustrating how the game turned out to be. I think if I remember right the game was rushed I don't know. But I feel Marvel disowns this game because how this game treats the Imperfects as more powerful than the Marvel characters.

Also what I find funny is Avi Arad is listed twice below his name in the credits.

Honestly I would like to see a Marvel fighting game against similar to this. But better please.

Edit wanna know something interesting and funny, the first time I was defeated by Spider-Man as Johnny Ohm on, "High Voltage" Johnny was behind Spider-Man t posing.....I'm not shitting you. It was, "Web slinging ass kickin" outro. The game is literally glitchy and that's a fucking problem.

[blessuswithblogs]

2018 Game of the Year Top Ten List I guess

2018 has been an interminable mire of exhausting miasma and quite frankly I feel like it has been longer than the entire stretch of 2010-2015 combined. I also didn't play many games released this year because, like last year, I'm still poor. I'll see what I can dig up.

10. Sunset Overdrive PC edition: It's a fun open world game by insomniac. The PC Port is actually balls but like. It's a good game with a unique emphasis on how you traverse the game world, where you can grind and bounce on just about anything and indeed to do so is the only way to not get totally chewed up by the hordes of mutants and scavengers and robots you have to fight. There's also some pretty fun and out there weapons to use, like a gun that shoots vinyl records or one that deploys little auto-turrets kept aloft with propellers or one that shoots out a bowling ball at terminal velocity. The base game didn't actually come out this year (I dont... think it did...?) but it was an XBone exclusive so I didn't play it then. It's got some weird problems with narrative tone and some kind of out of the blue racism but the M rated Nickolodeon toy commercial aesthetic is charming in a weird way. I guess.

9. The Forest: I think this got an official release this year? I don't know I can't fucking keep track. Speaking of a game with weird problems with racism, if you can look past the garbage "main quest" and really deeply uncomfortable racial politics where you murder and steal from cannibal mutants, The Forest is probably the best cool treefort building simulator I've ever played. This game has a love affair with lumber and I respect that. Shouldn't you be looking for Timmy, you ask me? Shouldn't you be shutting the fuck up before I put this airplane axe in your skullmeats? Gazebos are nice. I guess.

8. Spyro: reignited trilogy: haven't actually played this yet but let's be real the spyro games were fucking dope back in the day and giving them an HD coat of paint and packaging them all together is a real standup thing for insomniac to do in between slinging webs and making questionable pc ports. Also its like Dark Souls so it has to be good, right? Everything old is new again. I guess.

7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: haven't played this one either but like. I know that I am a smash-enjoyer. I even liked Brawl. This is the biggest, smashiest one yet and it's also on the switch which means it could also be portable if I decided I never wanted to leave my bed again. I'm probably going to find some money to get it soon. Should be fun. I guess.

6. The Quiet Man: look no game that is THIS hysterical can be all bad alright? Didn't play it. Won't play it. It's awful. But it's so fucking funny like oh my god. Still better than Fallout 76. I guess.

5. Dark Souls Remastered: was this even a good remaster? I don't fucking know. It's Dark Souls. It's better than 90% of released games by default. I miss Solaire of Astora. I guess there's Shadows Die Twice to look forward to. I guess.

4. Subnautica: I wrote a lot about this actually. Subnautica is great. Just fantastic. A wonderful, visually stunning (mostly) (when it works) journey under an alien ocean to unravel an ancient mystery behind a deadly plague. Building seabases is so much fun (when it doesn't hard crash your computer) and the peaceful playstyle you adopt where you really only kill things for food until you can grow your own, much more efficient produce is a welcome change of pace from everything else. Leviathans are scary, especially now that your cyclops is mortal and not indestructible. This game actually Came Out this year so it deserves to be on the spot. I guess.

3. Dragon Ball Fighterz: Honestly I'm hell trash garbage at fighting games that aren't smash but this was a very well put together, visually impressive as all hell fast paced tag fighter where you can have 3 gokus on the same team fight 3 other gokus on the same team. Goku density alone makes this game worth recommending. The eSports scene that has popped up around it is fun too. I guess.

2. Dead Cells: Another game that gets to be on the list by virtue of it actually coming out this year. Wait, was this on last year's list? Let me check. Ok good it wasn't. Early access is a fucking trip. It's fun, stylish, challenging, has a great deal of variety in ways to play, might have erased my entire save because it became obsolete and I'm definitely not bitter, and it has that classic rogue-lite replay value to give you some bang for your buck. There was that one review plagiarism scandal. I guess.

1. Monster Hunter World: If you really want to know what I think of this game my previous piece on it is a good place to start. In addition to everything said there, MHW is just a fun game. The loop is satisfying and, later on, quite challenging. The combat system takes some genuine getting used to and some monsters like Nergigante actually literally cheat but for the most part the game's unique fighting style, spread across several unique weapon types, is rewarding to learn because it demands some effort be put into it and the dividends of fighting well are very cool, like just knocking a flying monster on its ass with a single mighty swing of the hammer. When a game is hard in any capacity games journalists get dollar signs in their eyes and start drooling uncontrollably because they can immediately declare that Farm Sim 2020 is the next Bloodborne because they somehow managed to roll their tractor into a ditch, but MHW is actually quite similar in style and execution to deliberate Souls combat, but the comparison is made in reverse. Dark Souls is quite similar to Monster Hunter, the first game of which was popular and a couple of years old before Demon's Souls was even a twinkle in Miyazaki's eye. There's a lot of parallels between fighting a big ol' rathalos in monhun and going for the toes against a dragon in Dark Souls, but I think MHW actually does that kind of fight better.  There are a lot of modern conveniences present in MHW that are a godsend to newer players, making the game pretty easy to get into if you're willing to try. It was my favorite game of the year that actually came out in 2018. I kind of wanted to put Warframe in this list but it's been out of early access for years now. I guess.

There were a lot of games this year that I wanted to play, but couldn't. I don't think 2018 was a weak year for video games. It wasn't as strong as 2017 but it had some hits, I just couldn't afford to play them all. Maybe next year I'll be able to give a better list. I think that the whole industry is in for some hard choices and major restructuring of how things get done and how they look at the end result. Stocks continue to trend downward - not just for Bethesda but for most mainstream, prominent AAA developers like EA and Take2. Given the well documented volatility of "The Shareholders", I imagine that they would be most displeased by downward trends even if they were still making a modest profit.

The situation has been likened to an economic bubble ripe for bursting. Games as a cultural institution have come a long way since the catastrophic days of Atari's warehouses of unsold copies of E.T., and I don't believe that we're in any danger of a complete collapse of the institution, but the fact absolutely remains That Something's Gotta Give. The increasingly predatory practices that game developers put in place as they pathologically attempt to Make Every Money Ever are intrinsically unsustainable. People are willing to forgive and overlook the now ubiquitous microtransaction if a game is good enough to overlook it, or if it's the game's only real way of actually making money. Warframe's microtransactions, for instance, are reasonably priced, platinum is often heavily discounted as a login bonus, and you can make large amounts of it without ever spending money thanks to the game's surprisingly robust trading economy. So. Yeah. They get a pass. Warframe is also good on its own merits, despite being free to play. They also listen to their community about pricing. Go check out Warframe. It's free. It's free!!! Warframe is my unofficial top spot.

Sorry I got a little bit distracted. So there's only really two instances where people will tolerate microtransactions and lootboxes in the contemporary sense: either a game is good enough and polished enough and the lootboxes are unobtrusive enough that you can just sort of shrug your shoulders and say "it sucks but what are you gonna do" or it genuinely relies on those microtransactions to support itself. When these tenets are violated, people WILL get mad. People raised absolute hell about Battlefront 2's scummy monetization schemes, enough to get EA to back off. Fallout 76 is getting lambasted in no small part due to its utterly overpriced "cosmetic" shop where you pay ten real dollars to get your power armor to look blue. You can buy fullfeatured, critically acclaimed games for half that price and you already dumped $60 on this lemon of a game. Destiny 2 got into hot water for being cagey about how its exp values were calculated and how the previously free and user-friendly shaders became one-time use items you could only get from rolling the dice. The public is getting positively irate about all of this nonsense, and if Fallout 76 (and evidently battlefield V?) is any indication, we are fast approaching a breaking point where shareholder demand for profit will outpace the consumer's ability to provide it and the developer's ability to skinner box it out of us.

Of course Nintendo continues to march on to the beat of its own drum seemingly unaffected by all of this garbage. Not out of any moral superiority, I imagine. More likely it's just a consequence of that company still being in the process of being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Maybe a few years down the line when everyboy else has abandoned microtransactions Nintendo will pick them up, put a cute Mario motif on it, and we'll be back to square one. Time will tell. We're in a volatile time for games and the timebomb keeps ticking. I just hope the explosion isn't too messy. I guess.

[horrible-monstrosity]

Just finished watching good old meguca, again, this time DVD version. Slight changes in animation, Mami has more junk in her apartment, whooo! I definitely wouldn't say it's without flaws but it's such a good god damned show, also Rebellioni is a pile of fucking bullshit that directly contradicts everything the show stood for and what it ended on and only idiots like it

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Man, when I tucked into those negative reviews of Nugurashi Shitsugou, I was expecting it to be absolutely Rebellioni quality but I wasn't expecting an actual ripoff of Rebellion's plot. Like, the Homura character (is there a term for the reverse version of an expy?) is the one being trapped and tormented by some vague yuribait love interest rather than the one doing it, but other than that it's just dude rebellioni lmao. The same dogshit "but AKTCHUALLY fri3endship and valuing people is BAD because look at this extreme retard bullshit I made them do!!!!!" where the characters act exactly opposite to how they were deeply established in the previous work but with just the right coat of intellectutard paint that everyone succeptible to this bullshit calls them so in-character, this is definitely exactly what these charcaters would do next after we last saw them! aaaaaauurgh And that's of course not getting into the bullshit time-wasting remake bait bait-and-switch whatever the fuck it was shit thing.

But the worst part is... this almost would have worked if they had actually made it a proper sequel and a new story rather than this bullshit remaquel/troo ending/"graduation" garbage. Like, after the events of the one repeated month, everyone has learned the lesson of friendship and all, and are ready to face the future again... but Rika also wants to see the world and starts by getting into a high-level private school somewhere relatively far away. That's understandable- she's been trapped in this small town getting pulped and watching others get pulped for over a human lifetime, once she's freed she's going to want to get a breath of fresh air, and since she has on some level the mental maturity level of an adult she'd be able to get along just fine at a high-level school like that. And of course she'd stay in contact with her old best friends, she's not just fucking abandoning them... but Satoko foolishly decides to follow her, can't take the pressure and, when she's offered an out by some unknown deity from the same race as Hanyuu, she snaps and takes it. That all actually follows from the original work- a situation where the bonds they forged in the original events are tested and, for completely reasonable reasons, just happen to fail. Because Rika's the only one who went through all those timelines; despite going through her own shit, Satoko is still a child and a brat and has her own damage, so it's understandable that she'd be able to get in over her head trying to keep up with Rika, and this new demon isn't as nice as Hanyuu and takes advantage of Satoko's anguish and pushes her to do something she kind of wanted to do but would never have actually done without some "encouragement". And thus another tragedy starts. but the nu show just had to go full fucking retard and push everything to the absolute limit, making Satoko a superdemon, having someone randomly go le ebin poggers L5 where the original series was very careful about which characters actually went even a little bit crazy because it was plot relevant how the brain bug spread (the main example being Shmion, where only one of them had the Sonozaki inherited brainbug and the wrong one was identified as the carrier, so the one who was expected to be the carrier never even going a little bit crazy while the two switched identities with each other had the greatest nerrative impact, whereas if they can both just go L5 like whatever every bit of it means a lot less). And then making all this not just its own new chapter in the series but the TROO OOLTIMATE GRADUATION PROPER ENDING THAT OVERWRITES ALL OTHER ENDINGS even though it means absolutely nothing to what came before it. They could have just had the series start a few months after, deep into Rika and Satoko's attempted education, when say the group meets up again over a vacation, things go fucking wrong and everyone dies... only for it to start up all over again. All new but just like old times. Or hell, have the first arc redone over for some reason, since it's so iconic, but once it ends with whatever nu elementary twist ending sotsugou added... you get the fuck out of there. Heck don't even wait til the next episode, just cut right to Satoko getting laughed at by Eula or EA Sports or whatever her name is for being unable to accomplish whatever it was she was trying to do, and Satoko saying fuck it, go again! and eula obliging. And then you get the fuck on with it.

Really, the only loose plot end that comes to mind is Satoshi's fate, which could have been the cornerstone for this, but apparently Satoko just blows him off, because this is nugurashi. Fuck this shit. Justice for Satoshi