#just. god. the sheer beauty of this game both literally and in terms of its story

[pangurbanthewhite]

Honestly, I think Nald’thal is one of the best boss fights FFXIV has come out with in a while. Hits that perfect balance between complexity and fun, imo.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the boss fights in this game are generally pretty good, but sometimes - especially with alliance raids - the sheer number of mechanics can stack up to the point of feeling just needlessly dickish. Especially during your first time through, or your first few times through!

Nald’thal really only has a couple of gimmicks, both of which are decently easy to pick up on just by watching your alliance-mates - figuring out which markers are true and which are false at any given point, and of course, The Scales.

And if 24 people successfully coordinate to balance The Scales, then you’d better fucking believe their souls are worthy. And at that point, you’re rewarded by basically getting to do a victory lap. It’s neat! It’s triumphant! A fight does not need to be nightmarishly hard and complicated to be fun!

(Yes I’m still bitter about YorHA: Dark Apocalypse.)

Though of course, in terms of what makes the fight fun, all due credit must be given to the music. You’re fighting a literal god but it’s such a joyous song, with lyrics that sound like they could be something sung by Nald’thal’s actual worshippers. A song that’s about taking joy in the beauty of life before going gladly to the scales when it is your time. It makes the fight feel like a devotional dance, more than FFXIV’s songs usually do.

(Those who are more familiar with the lore of Eorzea than me have also pointed out that Nald’thal is also kind of a based god - the lore of the heavens and hells, combined with the lyrics of the song, paint a picture that the ruling class of Ul’dah have really lost the plot. That in the eyes of Nald’thal, wealth is for the sake of providing for necessities and bringing beauty to the world, not for hoarding for its own sake. And that those who hoard it for its own sake are absolutely not bound for the heaven of flame.

So y’know, that’s a detail I enjoyed.)

[crazysnor1ax]

God, I forgot how much of an absolute masterpiece Breath of the Wild is

[mokutone]

yo i would love to hear some of ur trans yam headcanons :) (also ps ur art is breathtaking and whenever i see it reblogged on my dash i always come here anyway to read ur tags bc they r so! good!)

thank u 🥺🥺🥺 god im sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for a couple days ksdjghsdkjgh not only have i got a LOT of thoughts to put here (this is only a selection of the bigger thoughts skdjghsdkjhg) i was also super busy the past few days!!!! ty for ur patience, ur compliments, and for inviting me to ramble abt my favorite guy!

maybe the one constant in all trans people is just like. our decision to intentionally and purposefully create ourselves, to forced into an identity by outside forces and to turn away from it in search of something else, and that’s ultimately what makes captain yamato read as a trans character to me! He goes through so many identities, and they are meaningful to him, but you can also clearly tell that he’s searching for something that really fits him.

I don’t really have a lot of firm thoughts on what his specific identity would be, I’ve seen some great nonbinary yams, some lovely genderfluid yams, trans guy yams, there’s a great variety and i delight in them all! 

I tend to imagine him as transmasculine and nonbinary but male aligned (which means he’d feel at least a partial connection to or comfort with masculinity) and while there are a bunch of labels for this experience of gender (demiboy, bigender, etc etc) i don’t see him as somebody who would use any specific labels, I feel like he’d keep his own experience of his gender fairly private! He’d prefer and be fine with masculine-coded terms of address, and happy enough passing as a guy.

AHH and on names...

I think Kinoe is the only name that I really see as like. a genuine deadname. It’s a name that means “The First” to my understanding, and so like, probably refers to him having the genetics of the first. Therefore, it’s kind of. literally a name referring to him as his biology...boy thats as deadname as it gets, huh? kill that shit and also danzō

Tenzō is also a name thats given to him, but to my understanding (all I know about the anbu arc is picked up thru osmosis lol) it’s a name that’s given to him twice, with affection. Once from Yukimi, who sees him as her brother (not a vessel for the first hokage’s powers, probably for the first time ever—even if it’s still another person’s name) He takes the name, gladly! Unfortunately danzō. anyway,

Later, when he starts to introduce himself to the non-root Anbu as Kinoe, Kakashi cuts him off and names him to the anbu as Tenzō. To my understanding: it’s a name at rest, not a name for one singular mission, but a name for his entire time in Anbu. It’s the name he keeps the longest. Again, it’s a name that’s given to him to him by somebody else, but it’s one that is given with the intention to free him of Kinoe, and all that Kinoe had to be. 

(A note on him getting annoyed with Kakashi for calling him Tenzō in main-plot:

Most of this is of course based off of personal experience, but I find it hard to believe that he would actively dislike Tenzō as a name since it was given with such sweet intentions—most of my names have been gifts, and the only one I’ve actively taken out of rotation has been bc i cannot stand the person who used it, and the way it was used, and while Anbu was certainly bad for Yamato...I don’t think it was quite that bad. I think him telling Kakashi to stop calling him Tenzō has more to do with the use of it where it doesn’t belong—for example, while it’s not exactly a name, I am happy to be called “mokutone” here, and you may notice my friends calling me by another name, but if any of those friends called me mokutone in DMs, I would be bothered by that.)

Yamato starts off as an empty codename, given to him for the purposes of his team 7 mission by the Hokage, but I think it gets such a loving and warm association from just...using out in the sunlight, with these kids that he comes to think so fondly of (he’s such a dad. god. he’s such a fucking dad) and with the friends he makes going out drinking and actually having time to socialize—and that means a lot! I think Yamato is probably the name which becomes most meaningful and like a home to him by the end of the series. This is the active name, the name where he is most himself. It’s vital for him to have that space to grow into! 

But that said, I personally feel like, if he were to continue beyond the edges of the story, this would not be the final name he bears. He’s probably well aware that a single name cannot contain who he is, or who he wants to be, and while being Given a name can be a beautiful thing (like i said, most of my names are gifts! i treasure them.) I think that, for his character arc, I would like him to name himself at some point. Even if it’s a name that only exists for private spaces, I want him to complete that self determination, to at least try it out, even if ultimately Yamato is the name everyone else will know him by.

Physical Transition Stuff

i will confess i hurt to imagine these shinobi binding 😭😭 even if an individual is binding safely (well made binder, no more than 8 hours, AND No Physically Intense Activity) they stand to risk hurting themself! In real life we gotta balance out the physical pain and the pain of dysphoria, but this is naruto and I’m Gonna Play Some Headcanon Games!

If chakra is both a kind of spiritual energy as well as directly connected to the body (as we learned in the hyūga fight) then it stands to reason that by manipulating ones own chakra, they can manipulate the body, or at least the way the body changes (such as naruto’s healing factor) 

This probably is not the safest thing to do unless you’re a mednin or following the directions of one, LMAO

The second the hell of puberty started up for Tenzō he tried to hold it back by sheer force of willpower + chakra manipulation alone 

but, manually controlling one’s chakra is like trying to prevent a stream from flowing with your hands alone, which is to say: an exhausting uphill battle.

 He’d probably only be doing it on his down time and not on a mission, but even still the most I bet he could make it doing that without getting figured out is two months.

Luckily blockers are readily available, Tenzō just had no idea and, gender being a private experience for him, was trying to handle the whole thing entirely on his own. Soon after attempting to self-regulate hormones him-fucking-self like a very valid but desperate fool, he gets an appointment, gets a prescription, and can chill out and not have to be as hellishly aware of his body constantly.

 Konoha mednin will say trans rights even if the village itself is garbage, this series is so god damn weird already, nobody can tell me a ninja taking hormones is somehow weirder than a ninja taking his dead best friends genetic superpower eye.

TWO WEEKS, THREE SPARS, AND ONE VERY EMOTIONALLY DRAINING CONVERSATION LATER:

u might think kakashi is passing him a water bottle and they both look so exhausted bc its post spar but no. physically theyre fine, but the emotional toll of having to talk about something either of them care at all about? miracle they survived.

[lovenliterature]

evermore thoughts

willow

I wasn’t sold on this on first listen but I really liked it on second listen with more attention to lyrics

video is also really lovely, big fan of that

really really like the difference in melody for the diff appearances of “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”

favourite lyric: “I come back stronger than a 90s trend” - the look she does at the camera cemented this as my fave line even more

champagne problems

down as one of my faves from the start

love love love the narrative

proper late night with cider, melancholy vibe

kind of like a grown up/worse feeling august in terms of vibes?? as in like the experience described feels like a more intense heartbreaking august in a way

really like the conclusion too

favourite lyric: I really struggled to pick here but: “you booked the night train for a reason/so you could sit there in this hurt” for sheer visceral emotion, “dom perignon you brought it” for the way its sung, “How evergreen, our group of friends/Don't think we'll say that word again” and “she’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred” for lyricism

gold rush

again, one i wasn’t super sold on the first listen, music and the vibe didn’t really interest me

first notes made me think of epiphany

but then i listened to it watching the lyric video and holy shit

now v appreciative of the melody and bass and the pace of the lyrics

really really like her embracing talking about jealousy

love love love the ending and beginning being the same holy shit

favourite lyrics: “at dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit” and the way she sings “with your hair falling into place like dominoes”

‘tis the damn season

again preferred on second listen, wasn’t on the list of early faves

the best xmas late night walks vibe, walking through frosty streets at home between houses, embracing the only time you get to think, losing yourself in music and nighttime with freezing hands and cloudy breath

would’ve fit my 2019 xmas vibe too

melancholy and nostalgia

favourite lyrics: “sleep in half the day/just for old time’s sake” and “and the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own”

tolerate it

god girl you deserve better

kinda like a sad last great american dynasty in terms of searching for approval

naive innocence taken advantage of

drunk in my garden walking round to try and forget my life kinda vibe

favourite lyrics: “i know my love should be celebrated/but you tolerate it” and “now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life” 

no body no crime

holy shit did i sleep on this at first but oh my god its so good

start gives me show of hands vibes which is great

her husbands acting different and it smells like infidelity - just the way she sings this is so so fucking good

this is the easiest song to listen to and holy shit its just great

favourite lyric: “she said “that ain’t my merlot on his mouth/that ain’t my jewellery on our joint account”

happiness

“all the years I’ve given/is just shit we’re dividin’ up” - v v true, you have to rebuild your life after every relationship and taking it all apart is so much more sudden than building it up

like an alternative to the 1 which I LOVE

but also some parallels to this is me trying: “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool..... sorry I didn’t mean that” vs “my words shoot to kill when I’m mad”

the whole bridge is iconic - “I can’t make it go away by making you a villain” - in the short term, anger at an ex can help, but eventually you have to move on, and its easier to accept that there was good in the relationship after a while, and it makes looking back on it better

“no one teaches you what to do/when a good man hurts you/and you know you hurt him too” - blame on both sides is much harder to take and grieve and its hard to know how to cope with that. it also makes advice more complicated because there isn’t much you can say to help

favourite lyric: “both of these things can be true” - always love duality and nuance in literature and its nice to hear it acknowledged in a climate of binary oppositions and no shades of grey

dorothea

nostalgia for the future

now prob my most listened, gets stuck in my head and one of the few i do listen to in isolation - like august

Reminds me so much of Ella - each other’s history, not each other’s whole future but in there somewhere

again sapphic vibes, real strong esp because of the ella vibes its the whole in between romantic and platonic affection

“hey dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me” - that’s the way I think of people I love esp ella and people from that era of my life, and anyone where its kinda open ended or just grown apart

favourite lyric: “and damn dorothea, they all wanna be ya”

coney island

instant fave - marked down from first listen and probably still one i actively look forward to 

much like with exile, the male vocals GOT me

“did I shatter you” that line broke my goddamn heart

favourite lyrics: both for the sheer feelings of the vocals and the lyricism “were you standing in the hallway/with a big cake, happy birthday/did I paint your skies the darkest grey” and “and when I got into the accident/the sight that flashed before me was your face”

ivy

the way she sings goddamn could be the whole fucking song its so beautiful

“my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand/taking mine, but it’s promised to another” - the passive here is great

“he wants what’s only yours”

the trilogy of these lyrics “what would he do if he found us out?”, “he’s gonna burn this house to the ground”, “and drink my husband’s wine”, the recklessness, the drinking his wine like a secret defiance

“my house of stone/your ivy grows/and now i’m covered in you” - fucking hell this is the best imagery - even with the strongest walls and foundations, the love crept through and grew inside her til she was covered in it

favourite lyric: quite literally just the words “oh, goddamn”

cowboy like me

“dancin’ is a dangerous game” - hell yeah I get so many feelings from this, it just reminds me of the intimacy of dancing and the feeling of swaying in someone’s arms

“and the skeletons in both our closets/plotted hard to fuck this up” - both like active interference of exes or just simply trauma, unresolved issues

“forever is the sweetest con” - believing hurts and everything ends but its worth it for the time you have

favourite lyrics: “now you hang from my lips/like the gardens of Babylon”

long story short

first notes make me think of between the saltmarsh and the sea even though its SO different but also a bit like august idk why

“if the shoe fits walk in it/til your high heels break” - i just love the imagery of this line

“fell down the rabbit hole” - living for this line and the wonderland vibe

“but if someone comes at us, this time i’m ready” - the vibe of like not looking for a fight but defending what you love

favourite lyric: “past me/I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things” - YES BITCH also the energy I give to past me and future me gives to me now or “long story short I survived”

marjorie

another song I come back to on its own

this is the exact wistful vibe i look for in calm ish songs, can be sad, can be happy depending on a mood and this is perfect

the video is incredible and marjorie providing the backing vocals made me cry also it being in the same place on the record as epiphany was on folklore

“never be so polite/you forget your power/never wield such power/you forget to be polite” - love the use of wield, it also feels like the medium women try to find between being a “bad bitch” and being ladylike, but not a medium society will accept bc fuck that, the exact way THEY wanna do it instead

really the song i needed after the year of so much grief, and i know it’s gonna bring me comfort when grandma goes, especially the line “what died didn’t stay dead”

favourite lyric: “watched as you signed your name: marjorie” - the way this is sung will literally stay with me forever, its like a legacy in one line

closure

again, instant fave

the vibe of you don’t owe someone shit just bc they feel guilty is so good

“yes I got your letter/yes I’m doing better” “I know that it’s over” - I’ve moved on and I don’t need your permission for that or your well wishes thanks

Moving on doesn’t mean forgiveness

I just love the melody so much and its such a good song agh

favourite lyric: “I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life/staying friends would iron it out so nice”

evermore

“grey november/I’ve been down since July” - most explicit pandemicy vibes i get, I was home and it was almost possible to just regard it as a normalish summer, looking after the dog and living at home and now its coming up to Christmas and I’m living away from home, our family is split across 5 homes in 4 cities and its fucking hard (not even sure if its that type of down but that’s how it made me feel)

“writing letters/addressed to the fire” - literally just picked up on this lyric and has kinda a dual meaning for me. 1 -feeling shit about things you create, putting in effort, just to throw it away. 2 - tactic for tackling anxiety, just getting rid of thoughts and releasing them from my brain

“Cannot think of all the cost/And the things that will be lost/Oh, can we just get a pause?” - again, v pandemicy and so relevant to the fam’s 2018-2019, we just needed a pause, we had to keep going and not process what we’d lost or we’d never carry on

such a good depression song

favourite lyric: “staring out an open window/catching my death”

[cyanoscarlet]

20/20 vision ☀️🎁 "He’s being saved again, comes the rueful thought. How many times does that make it, now?" The sheer *clenches fist* BACKGROUND in this line, how DARE you dani. This is the line that spawned my train of thought, I hope you're happy. Reducing me to angstful tears as I think about backstories and the potential in a hospital.

...... Aiyah...... (breaks into nervous sweats)

I’ll preface this with the fact that 20/20 vision, too, was a product of post-duty chaotic-brain-ing while on a coffee high, so thank you again! THANK YOU so much. Forever over the moon over this! <3

List of fic asks here!

He’s being saved again, comes the rueful thought. How many times does that make it, now?

20/20 vision, bungou stray dogs

(In which Chuuya is an ophthalmologist, Dazai is his optometrist, and they slowly fall in love.)

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☀️ -  Was there any symbolism/motifs you worked in? 

Apart from the obvious references to eyes, some of the other passages used in this story are, indeed, metaphors for certain aspects of Dazai and Chuuya’s relationship, as well as Chuuya’s developing feelings for Dazai— many of them I’ve only derived from rereading this fic again and again just now, you’ll note!

Just a few major ones among the many:

The business proposition - Dazai does mean it literally, but yeah, he’s also taken interest in Chuuya himself, and wants them to be in a relationship. Chuuya himself is at first tolerant, then accepting of it, which runs parallel to his growing thoughts and feelings for Dazai. The way he keeps track of how many times Dazai has said this now is indicative of that. He is still hesitant, of course— be it due to confusion or to career-related reasons, but Dazai is and will always be willing to wait for Chuuya, hence the gentle, persistent reminder every time he visits.

Also, yes, the ending part in which Chuuya calls back to this is totally him saying ‘yes’ to Dazai— tantamount to a love confession, if you will. The essence of that whole last conversation, in light of everything that has happened before it, makes the story come full circle in its own way. There is always something sweet about saying ‘I love you’ without actually saying it, and the symbolism of the business proposition works really well for this whole purpose.

The spare glasses - It reflects both Dazai’s long-term familiarity with (everything about) Chuuya at this point, and the fact that no matter what, Chuuya will always have a safe space (home) with Dazai himself, eye problems and friendship and everything in between. You have Chuuya ruminating on his pride and principles and admitting his own faults, and he can just be all of that— that is, himself, when he is with Dazai. And Dazai knows this, too: “You didn’t have to ask, you know.”

The coffee and prescriptions - In the more literal sense, it’s Dazai being his disaster himself + creating trouble (coffee), and Chuuya having to take care of him (prescriptions), albeit a bit more hilariously unwilling on his part. Subconsciously, Dazai is always wanting to keep Chuuya’s attention on him, hence the repeat offenses, but Chuuya is always willing to forgive him those anyway / shower the attention that Dazai wants. Similarly, the wine / coffee discussions represent their individual differences, and what Chuuya thinks of them. They do try their best to meet in the middle, though, coming to an understanding / compromise of sorts— you see this in the ending, too, when they go out drinking.

A note on Kunikida, and his relationship/s with Dazai and with Chuuya - Kunikida, in this story, is Dazai’s old classmate from college, and is currently Chuuya’s colleague in a different department. Although it may appear that Dazai and Kunikida seem a bit more dismissive of each other, they do have a good relationship founded on common ground (science / statistical analysis), which Chuuya does not share with Dazai (literature / writing). You are right in that this makes Chuuya and Kunikida good foils of each other, yet they, too, have a good relationship / understanding despite their differences, both as individuals (Chuuya in Ophthalmology and Kunikida in Internal Medicine) and within their respective relationships with Dazai (Chuuya being more tolerant / forgiving as the newer friend, and Kunikida being more strict / stern, as the older friend).

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On the more headcanon-y stuff (which I really don’t think I’ll be able to write at this point because my brain is already decidedly chaotic as fuck hahaaahah), a couple of lines I’ve picked up that can be expanded on are:

1. Chuuya and 20/20 vision - As you may have probably sensed from his character (and it totally fits him in canon), he never really wanted to be a doctor. He even had a rebellious streak in college for it. He still ends up in med school, though, but he doesn’t have a direct goal / direction in life at this point. This is represented by his worsening visual acuity, which, yes, was directly caused by constantly burning the midnight oil while studying. He’s stuck in a field he doesn’t want, yet tries his best, way too much, that he just gets lost. It is at this low point in his life that he meets Dazai, and his life changes. He gets glasses, tries to make sense of his life (regain 20/20 vision), and where to go from there. And Dazai, god bless him, is always there, always has his back for the whole ride: He’s being saved again, comes the rueful thought. How many times does that make it, now? They fall in love along the way, and it takes very long for them to reach the endgame, but they do, and it is beautiful. Chuuya’s 20/20 vision is his contentment with his life now, and a forever with Dazai. It’s the best view he could ever wish for, and he is very happy with it.

2. Chuuya, Mori-sensei and Promises - A very different version of Chuuya learning from (and in turn, being influenced by) Mori from Fifteen (Pre-canon) Arc. I don’t have a solid one for this tbh, but let’s just say an encounter with Mori greatly changes Chuuya’s outlook and makes him choose Ophthalmology as his specialty, the way he comes to swear loyalty to Mori and the Port Mafia in canon. No real solid connection with Dazai, in this case, but feel free to make of it what you will! I’m not quite imaginative enough for this hahaha.

... Okay, that was long. (sweatdrops)

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🎁 -  Any writing advice for people who want to write something like this? 

First of all, do not drink brewed coffee at lunch time and end up with nearing 48 hours of palpitations later. Also, do not be like Dazai and drink 18 cups of coffee in one sitting, holy crap. I don’t think even Kunikida can save you from that if you do end up going over that literal and proverbial edge.

All that crap aside (which I do mean in earnest!), this idea totally came from a simple desire headcanon of Chuuya in prescription glasses. This, in turn, was influenced by downtime chats with my triage partner for that day, my classmate from med school now doing Ophthalmology residency. There were also other small things that happened to me IRL, like the way the lenses of my false glasses quickly yellowed within days of purchase, and the unexpected offer of free brewed coffee. Bottom line, take cues from real life; it’s a fun goldmine of tales tall and short, and you’ll have fun telling those because they are first and foremost yours. 

Similar to this, take note of the small things around you— pay attention to the way the leaves are swept by the wind, the way she crosses the street, the taste of the coffee you drink. Then describe those in your head— what I find works best for me is both immersing myself in the scenario and staying outside of it, like controlling a video game character / avatar, in a way. That way, I can develop my sentences in a vivid manner yet stay objective. (This is a bit harder to explain, actually.)

Most of all, write what works best for you, no matter what style you use. One quote I remember from English writing class (yet another gen-ed pre-req subject boohoo) states: “Write in white heat; revise in cold blood.” When you are struck by the idea, write it down. Let the ideas take over your fingers and let yourself get carried away. I admit that I really didn’t think through the plot of this very fic myself; I just let myself go until I was done a few hours later. This heat-of-the-moment writing high rarely happens to me (I wish it happened more often!), but I find that what I do come up with when I don’t think things through ends up a final product I quite like, other people’s feedback aside. The editing later is another story; don’t be afraid to critique your own work and adjust accordingly, if you feel that it will make the story better. (This part I have a decidedly much harder time with, but it’s still good advice, so I’m putting that down here, as well.)

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Okay, that got reeeeeaaaaallyyyyyy long, now. Aegis really be pushing me to my limits every time we talk, and it’s making me grow and learn more about writing and about myself. I’m really, really grateful for this ask. I hope you all enjoyed reading this, too!

List of fic asks here!

[kittenfemme27]

Genshin Impact

Breath of the Wild was a game I wanted to love. I love the Zelda games, always have, and I eat up open world games like candy. Yet, BoTW has sat on my digital shelf collecting digital dust for ages. Why is that? Well, to put it simply, I don't want to play as Link. BoTW has a beautiful world, rich combat and game play puzzles, tons to see and do and experience, it's a sandbox for the ages. But it's hampered so heavily for me by the fact that I have to play this very boring and to be honest kind of forgettable boy named Link during the game play. That may sound petty, but if I'm in an open world game I want to fully immerse myself into that and video games are where we all go to escape anyway. If I wanted to be misgendered, I'd simply forget to shave and go outside.

I don't mind playing other Zelda games because in those, Link is a self contained character in the world and they're relatively short and self contained games. But BoTW is a sandbox. And for a large majority of it, you're not going to be doing the story or being addressed as link. The size of the world and the sheer amount of hours you're going to put into it mean that for almost all intents and purposes, Link isn't Link, he's a faceless avatar that you're supposed to put yourself into. The game offers so much freedom in so many avenues and yet, in your choice of how to explore the world as someone you'd actually like to be, you're not allowed. You have to be a skinny blonde twink.

So, in late 2019, in comes a trailer for Genshin Impact. It's making its rounds on the Internet as a "PC Free to Play Gacha Breath of the Wild Clone" which, while a mouthful, was something I initially wrote off. Didn't see a point in checking it out, as I really don't like Gacha games very much. But in late September 2020, MiHoYo the developers released the public 1.0 build of the game to everyone. Multi-platform, too. iOS/Android, PC, PS4, and even a switch release down the line. And maybe its the pandemic, or maybe the Internet was simply too lured in by the cute anime girls, but it took the many by storm. It took me personally over 12+ hours to download the 11 gigs of the game because the servers were so swamped with people.

Now I do want to be clear: Genshin Impact borrows many things from BoTW, but it isn't a clone. It's not a sandbox in the same way BoTW is and aside from some general game play things such as gliders, stamina/wall climbing system, and general aesthetic, the games are massively different. Still, though, playing it has highlighted to me why I never felt quite right playing BoTW, and its that lack of freedom. That lack of ability to play the game on my own terms and explore the beautiful handcrafted world the way I want to. 

Despite appearances, Genshin Impact is a lot more like a single player MMO than it is anything else. Requiring tons of farming and grinding to create high level powerful characters in a world that gets increasingly more powerful and hostile as you do. The core game play loop of Genshin Impact is pretty phenomenal, essentially giving you a massive world to explore with literally thousands upon thousands of chests and rewards to find. Either by clearing out enemies, doing random in world puzzles, or even just sitting around. Being inside of and exploring the world of Teyvat is as rewarding as it is beautiful. The art and animation design of the game are stellar and do a lot to make you forget how much time has passed since you booted up the game in the first place. There's tons of different lore books to find, NPC's to talk to, quests to complete, the world is chock-full of lore and world building even down to simple weapon and material descriptions. Teyvat is a wonderful place to be and the developers MiHoYo deserve a pat on the back for how good the world of Genshin Impact is. The other side of game play is a simple system of Character Progression where you farm materials to make your characters/weapons/abilities better so that you can farm even more materials from harder enemies, much like an MMO, and you also acquire gear called Artifacts with randomly rolled stats much like an ARPG. In that regard, Genshin Impact is highly addictive. There are a myriad of weapons, talents, artifacts, and characters all to level up and build up over the course of your play, and every character can be made viable very very easily. The game also lets you keep a party of 4 characters that you can swap between at any point, as well as each character being attuned to a specific Elemental Type that reacts to other Elements. This causes the end-game to be centered around doing some of the hardest dungeons the game has to offer by theory crafting incredibly powerful teams that work off of each other and cause Elemental Reactions in enemies. It’s some of the most fun i’ve had in a game in ages.

All of that is fantastic but unfortunately its all also held back by one simple, huge problem: Original Resin. The game uses a currency called Original Resin that you use to challenge the harder content in the game. Dungeons, World Bosses, Elite Weekly Bosses, you name it and if its end-game content, it likely costs Resin. And not in insignificant amounts either. Dungeons are 20, Bosses are 40, and Weekly Bosses are 60. So, how do you obtain this material? Time. You start with, and are capped, at 120(Later 160 in patch 1.1). 1 resin takes 8 minutes to get back. If you spend it all, it takes 16 hours to get back. Given the rates you spend it, you can go from 120 to 0 in roughly 10-15 minutes. With no way to increase the resin cap, and the incredibly slow acquisition rate, that frequently means you only have about that much playtime a day of the game in the endgame. And that's, needless to say, incredibly frustrating. Thankfully its not an entire stamina system that means you can't play the game at all when you're out of resin, but it does mean that character progression itself is gated as all upgrade/progression materials are locked behind these dungeons and bosses that you must use Original Resin to face. Effecitvely, this means single characters will become weeks and weeks of work, with weapons and artifacts being only slightly less time consuming. I can only hope MiHoYo is looking to change this system in a way that isn't just increasing the cap as the feedback they've received has been very negative regarding it, but only time will tell.

Unfortunately, this isn't the games only problem with its players either. The game is a Gacha, there is no getting around that, but despite the fact that pretty much any character can become massively overpowered and viable in the endgame, people are going to want the rarest characters that exist. This is by design and unfortunately is more or less a glorified gambling system. And while the game is quite nice with its premium currency and how often it gives it, what isn't nice is that the rarest “5-star”characters cost a minimum of 200$ to get through money. With no guarantee you're getting the one you want.

Worse still, outside of a guaranteed 5-star drop at 90 rolls on the gacha wheel, the chance for a 5-star weapon or character is 0.6%. Not even a whole rounded up 1%. This is frankly ridiculous, as is the cost of real money to premium currency. For reference, most other popular Gacha’s doing well offer their rarest characters at anywhere between a 1-6% rate. In general, gacha's aren't known to be kind in their rates. That’s the point, they want you to gamble with real money. Genshin Impact, however, is so unkind and unfair that even other regular players of gacha gamers are very, very vocally upset. If it wasn't for the game play loop and the world, I'm not sure this would fly. And its certainly not flying in the west with the crowd that doesn't play Gacha's nearly as much. Neither is the resin system, as gamers in the west typically want to play for hours and hours at a time.

I’d be remiss if i didn’t bring up the story in Genshin Impact, as it’s genuinely fantastic. As previously stated, the world has a metric tonne of hidden lore in books, weapon/item/artifact descriptions, character stories you unlock as you use a playable character, etc. But the main story you can currently play from start to finish in the 1.0 release is the prologue.

This prologue stars very simply: Your character, the “Traveler” is an alien from another world. Not much is known about them so far, other than that the Traveler and their sibling were people with the ability to hop between worlds at will. In the opening moments of the game this power, along with your sibling, are stolen from you by an unnamed assailant. Thus trapping you in Teyvat and leaving you to begin a journey to find the Seven Gods of Teyvat, simply known as “The Seven” and seek their power and wisdom to find your sibling and potentially leave. This journey is how you meet Venti, one of the Seven in disguise as a simple human bard, and his best friend Dvalin. The events that follow have you help this strange bard, as well as the people of Mondstat, defeat the dragon Dvalin. Previously, he protected the lands of Mondstat for hundreds of years. However, as you meet both Dvalin and Venti, he has had his mind corrupted and been lied to by an order of evil mages known as the Abyss Order, and its caused him to go on the offensive against Mondstat and her people.

It's a fair bit emotional, humorous at times thanks to Venti, and overall very engaging. Mondstat is a city built on freedom, to the point that its own god Barbatos(Venti) refuses to rule over it and allows himself to be the weakest of the seven gods, as that would take away some of the cities freedom. Within this prologue, there is a huge focus on Mondstat being a city of Freedom, the prologue quite literally ends with Venti telling Dvalin after you have saved him from the corruption that even though he is "meant" to be the protector of Mondstat, he hopes Dvalin chooses whatever life he wants, even if that's not Mondstats protector, and that Venti simply wants him to be happy. Venti's own personal story quest goes further in depth about the foundation of Mondstat and its origins as a rebel city founded after the citizens overthrew the oppressive rule of an awful tyrant God and killed him. In a very pretty hand drawn "cathedral window" style cutscene, you get to see the end of this war and why Barbatos chose the form he currently inhabits and took up being a bard, which was to honor a dead friend from this very same war. This explains why Mondstat and Barbatos value its freedom so highly. I cried at this moment both times I played it.

For a free game, the storytelling here is off the charts. As i said before, Venti and many other characters have personal stories that both introduce you to a trial version of the playable character, thus letting you see how they work and play, and also giving you either more info on the world or an introduction to the character in question, or both. They're fantastic little stories and are up there with the main story in quality. One of my favorite parts of the game and something that will only be expanded with time. Each one takes you on a journey of discovery or even simple fun with a character and it all feels very personal and touching, as all of the main stories and character quests are very well voice acted.

The prologue being so focused on freedom makes it all the more awkward, then, that MiHoYo is a game developer based out of China, and as such has to follow China's censorship rules. Taiwan and Hong Kong both are censored in-game chat and if you're reported for saying them, you'll be banned for daring to speak the words. These aren't the only censorship decisions in the game, but they're by far the ones that struck me the most. I understand that the company is based out of China and thus has to follow the censorship rules, as they are the actual law of the land and they could be fined or even shut down if they refused. But the disconnect of knowing there are actual human rights atrocities being committed in China with the Uygher Genocide and Re-Education camps, the human rights violations in Hong Kong, the breakdown of democracy and the treatment of Taiwan, while this game that comes out of China boasts on and on about Freedom and the Human right to self actualize and choose their future is... troubling. It's one that I don't really know how to reconcile, if it can be reconciled at all. I'd like to believe that the developers really believe in their own story and secretly oppose those sorts of atrocities. But at the same time, banning players who mention Hong Kong or Taiwan isn't in the law. That’s a decision MiHoYo is making. Right now, China doesn’t have the freedom that Venti and Mondstat and Genshin Impact try to instill in you so hard as important and a human right. And knowing that and knowing the censorship is in the game make it very difficult to get a read on what the game actually wants you to feel.

Overall,i think Genshin Impact is a fantastic game. Its updates plan to bring in not only more story, as there are meant to be 7 Acts and currently the game features the Prologue and half of Act 1, but in those acts it plans to explain the playable areas and bring in new Events, Characters, Weapons, etc. And that makes me excited for the future of Genshin Impact! It’s a beautiful game of genuinely Triple AAA quality completely for free. But. Its also a Gacha game and by far one of the least rewarding Gachas you could play right now. Maybe that will change with time. I certainly hope it does. But it feels hard to recommend something that, once you beat it, disrespects your time so much and so badly. I hope Genshin Impact has a bright future, I really do, and I’m definitely going to continue playing it. But right now, I can’t say for certain that I feel confident in the developers to make it the game it clearly wants to be if it wasn’t shackled down by its Gacha.

[natsunoomoi]

Still thinking about that ending

It’s been weeks and I am shocked by how much it weighs on my mind. I’ve literally rewatched scenes several times, played things over, Googled other people’s interpretations, read Through His Eyes twice, done image searches, and a bunch of things. I just keep thinking about his story and also relating it to other villains in the franchise and even apocalyptic doomsday plot lines in other series.

I’ve just found Emet-Selch/Hades to be extremely compelling. I still don’t agree with his perspective in thinking shard people are lesser, but I can understand how he got to that conclusion. I don’t agree with his solution, but I can understand how he came to choose it and how he can continue to stick to it. I can empathize greatly with his outburst against Alphinaud questioning how he can view their two positions as equal as its also flat out a normal response to grief and loss.

There’s just a number of things....But like, he isn’t wrong about the frailty and weaknesses of people. We see that everyday in how our species can be so involved in greed and vice and hedonism for the sake of selfishness. That stuff is true and not wrong, and sometimes those things make me wonder whether or not the death of us all due to not being able to stop climate change is deserving. But at the same time, thinking only of those things also ignores all of the beautiful things our species is able to create. Our fragility and ephemeral natures are what make our life special and urge us to create beautiful art and appreciate life. We also have an incredible capacity to care for others and to surpass expectations with sheer will if we want to, but as they say in Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility and it is unfortunate that some people wield what power they have irresponsibly to the point that the rest of us can’t have nice things.

And like that point he makes is also expressed in X/1999 as well through the Dragons of Earth. That’s another influential work on me and I actually totally root for the Dragons of Heaven, but I also like a number of the members of the Dragons of Earth and I don’t find them to be wrong either. The earth in that story will either way be reborn, but the point of contention is whether or not humans will be included in it. The Dragons of Earth fight for a rebirth without humans entirely while the Dragons of Heaven fight so that humans can be given a second chance to take better care of their home. The ironic thing is that the Dragons of Earth also include essentially a lab experiment created through genetic and bio-engineering science that was once a little girl that was terminally ill, and the other a technopath that can talk with machines. Both things represent the innovations of mankind, but also mankinds step into taboo territory of science where they do science for science’s sake with moral ambiguity and don’t stop to think if they should do something. They are examples of humans playing god and the lines between what is a life and what isn’t becoming blurry. To that end, Satsuki the technopath, asks one question of Yuzuriha about the position of the Dragons of Heaven about why humans are deserving to be included in the rebirth. It’s so poignant because the Dragons of Earth are themselves humans and her powers as well as Nataku’s exist because of human innovation. Yuzuriha isn’t able to answer at all though and so Satsuki kills her guardian dog. But Satsuki isn’t really being evil, she just wanted Yuzuriha to think and answer and there’s all kinds of answers and she really just wanted to know why it’s okay to prioritize human life above all others. It’s a fair question giving what they are fighting for but not one she really cared for an answer to. She just wanted Yuzuriha to actually think about her position rather than just take for granted that her side is saving people. But I think it’s true too because why is it okay to kill animals, but not people? I’m not a vegetarian, but even outside the food industry often our businesses and way of life displace animals in favor of space for us. I admit I do so too in terms of how I kill spiders and bugs that enter my home, but they are just doing them. Plus when a lot of Westerners think of solar panels they only think of “empty space” as in no humans live there, but actually there’s no space on the planet that is truly actually unoccupied as there may be a local ecosystem there that you just don’t see. But if people make that comment, they obviously are only considering people and not the animals. And oil companies go to places for oil because human life requires the use of oil and it is in demand because of how we live, but oil rigs even in the ocean cause a risk to marine life not just from spills but from the mere presence of a foreign object sitting in the middle of the damn ocean. On the daily we prioritize human convenience and life over the lives of the plants and animals around us. I realize this at the same time knowing I am guilty of it too just as everyone else living in a city. I wouldn’t give up doing it either because I find this way of living in an apartment with electricity comfortable, but if I have to think overall for the good of the planet if I deserve to live this way more than the plants and animals that had to sacrifice to give me this space, I have doubts. While I do this to not live like a total hermit recluse and my comforts and entertainment and way of life are fundamentally unnatural, I know somewhere along the line there is a cost. I am unable to compel myself to give it up completely and I suspect most humans would too, so I wonder sincerely if it would be better if humans didn’t exist.

And to be fair, the Dragons of Earth would also question whether or not the Ascians even deserved to exist either. If we’re applying their logic to XIV as well. It’s not like they would take Emet-Selch’s side. I would like to be optimistic about Amaurotine life and think they are better than us without malice, but I can’t be sure. He’s also tempered so you can’t really tell how much truth he told. But I really think the Dragons would wonder if any humans even godlike humans like them even deserved to have so much creation power if it could go haywire in a moment of anxiety, and if they viewed themselves with a superiority complex. The idea for the Dragons is that humans are incapable of coexisting just as the Ascians seem to be incapable of coexisting with the shard planets.

I also just can’t imagine his burden. Like the Scions we play us chose to take up the mantle and fight for the betterment of their lives and other people. They self-started themselves into their situation. Emet-Selch was elected. He was chosen by his people to be a leader and to save them. He was bestowed the responsibility as a representative of them. While I don’t agree with his methods and I can’t imagine that if he did resurrect his people and home that all of them would be all that happy about what he did to do it, I can imagine that is an immense pressure to have to bear and the feeling of failure of being unable to do it or even if he was the one who designed the plan and it failed spectacularly or didn’t go how he expected on top of any possible manipulation he may be experiencing from Zodiark itself. I think perhaps at the time panicked citizens gathered outside the meeting place of the Convocation and clamored for salvation and express their faith in them to please save them. He was respected as one of the most brilliant of them and it seemed their faith in him was quite strong for them to elect him. Imagining the perspective of someone in the position of leader while all hell is breaking loose, I can imagine how that scene can compel a person to fulfill a promise at all costs even if it starts to become murder-y and crazy. Like he probably has imprinted on his mind all of the people down to the smallest child looking up at him and depending on him to help them to continue to live. And it’s just, I don’t know how you forget that even if they all die. It probably haunts you in your sleep, and forces you to re-promise every night to save them. And bear in mind, I still think he’s wrong because the dead are dead. The gone and sacrificed are just gone, but those memories must be there and could be just enough to keep him sticking to his plan. Plus in his grief he recreated his home. He had a point in doing it too, but he did it in such incredible detail. It’s likely there’s bias in it, and I find it amazing that there is an operable store that will actually sell you goods (from a game development perspective it totally makes sense to have something there for the player to get supplies, but seriously from a narrative perspective having an operable store in a town of shades where no one will actually buy anything is depressing af), it’s depressing to know his level of grief to know that he chose to hang out there.

There’s just so many layers too it, I just sit in awe thinking about it.

And then of course, there’s just that he tried. He built up two fascist empires in Allag and Garlemalde for sure, but along the way he had moments where he tried. The Through His Eyes story is just heartbreaking at the end where he talks about his son and where he had hope that maybe the shard people would be okay, but then had all of his hopes dashed when his son died prematurely. Like I can imagine everything going fine with him and he’s going through the motions and doing his plan, but he actually gets emotionally struck by this little baby and watched him grow into a young man. But despite all of his advantages and privilege he dies to an illness reminding him that shard people aren’t all that hearty. He must have experienced similar time and time again as he chose to live among the people. Like the story even talks about how he had concerns of political enemies and even allies that eventually stabbed him in the back as he rose to power as Solus, and I can understand how that can make someone a bit jaded in general, and I mean anyone can get jaded if the people around them that helped to give them their support are all douchebags waiting for their time. Part of it is who you surround yourself with, but I mean, in a political arena where you rise to power to run a country like that, you have a lot of people vying for the same thing so you run into a lot of characters like that. Often, the nice people who don’t pull that shit don’t even bother to take positions like that. Power corrupts absolutely, and let’s even say that outside of him trying to do the Rejoining thing so that he can have his home back he also tried and dabbled in being a decent person as he rose up. Possible considering he funded a theatre troupe and sponsored the arts. He could have tried to be a decent ruler at the same time as trying to bring the end of the world, and maybe in those times where he was trying to be decent he thought about maybe not following through only to have a trusted aid or someone stab him in the back with some kind of political intrigue. It’s possible there was some actual goal-post shifting in his desire to search for hope among the people, but also it’s hard to not be horribly disappointed by people when they do that to you. Like I’m melodramatic sometimes and when something goes wrong, I just say “Ugh, I hate everyone,” but if he experienced that for real, there’s a reasonable amount of expectation that he might feel like shard humans are a waste of space.

And well, his grief. Like he gets really upset when Alphinaud tries to point out that their goals are essentially the same where they are trying to save their respective people and treat the situations like they are equal and he gets upset and says that they are not. He doubles down on the shard people being lesser because they are fragments, which I think is wrong, but I think also Alphinaud is wrong for thinking he can completely understand how Emet-Selch feels. This here is a lesson in grief in general. When you lose something, particularly people you care about, there’s bereavement. You feel like there’s a hole inside you. I felt this when my Dad died. It hurts so much and it’s completely unforgettable. It gets easier to live with because after awhile you just get tired of crying and wallowing in depression and it gets easier to cope with, but the mistake a lot of people make when something bad happens to others is they can say the words, “I know how you feel” when they are trying to give sympathy. I understand it’s the thought that counts and they are trying to say that they understand that you are sad, but sometimes people get angry when they hear that because actually there is no possible way for any other human being on the planet to actually *know* how you feel. Other people may have been able to experience loss and understand loss because they have loss too or have people they also want to protect as is in the case in this game, but every person’s experience is also different. Like I loved and still love my Dad, but part of the horror after his death was finding out from all of his friends and our extended family that he was a different person to everyone. It makes sense that he is because we all had different interactions with him, but when he died I felt like I didn’t know who he was because I learned so many things about him after he died from different people that I just felt lost and felt like I didn’t really know him even though I was his daughter. I had so many questions left and a part of myself and my dreams died with him. As an aside, this is probably especially moving for me at this time of year as the last Christmas he was alive I opted to stay in LA because I had to work and it would be difficult for me to go home for the holidays because I couldn’t get enough time off. Then between Christmas and New Year’s he had a heart attack and was in the hospital for a month and eventually died at the start of February the next year. And like, other people have experienced their father dying, but no one else had to experience the regret of choosing not to go home for what would turn out to be his last Christmas. That was my choice and my experience of his death. No one else made that choice. No one else had to experience coming as soon as I could for New Year’s to visit him in the hospital and just think he was going to be okay only for him to not be able to recover and then die after a surgery. My other family members were there and watched it happen for sure, but they experienced it in their own ways that was separate from mine as I had to go back to work. My sister was even still in school and didn’t talk to the doctors directly while I did, so I fundamentally have different memories and experiences of that time, and even feel slightly different about the whole thing because of that and because of my specific relationship with my Dad. So my grief is incomparable to literally anyone else in the world. I try not to be a dick to people who mean well and try to sympathize or even empathize with me with their own experience, but I totally understand the position of people who do when it happens to them because there is literally no possible way any other person in the world could possibly get it and understand how you feel. I am crushed and heartbroken over that still even though I’ve since healthily moved on with my life, but it still makes me sad and it’s nothing in comparison to losing way more people who may be more or less precious than that, your entire home, and having the weight of the responsibility of being the one person that was in charge of that. I wasn’t really in charge of my Dad’s affairs. My Uncle took the lead on that so I fortunately didn’t have to worry about a lot or do any daily check-ins with the doctors, but my sister and I both had the privilege to decide when we wanted to take him off life support. So I dunno, I can kind of imagine the weight of responsibility, but also completely understand that my situation is nothing in comparison to the weight this character must have felt. It’s not only not quite comparable on the in-game kind of racist basis of shard people vs full Amaurotines, but not comparable in terms of the actual grief or responsibility.

For me especially, knowing all that, there’s so much compelling about the character and so much I want to say to him that the game won’t let me. Even to kind of scold Alphinaud a little too for being a bit to presumptuous.

Grief though is....a terrible partner. It can linger with you for some time, and there’s so many clues to it in Emet-Selch’s behavior. A lot of people point to his slouching, and I noticed the peculiar shape of his eyebrows. No matter what his visage or expression his eyebrows are in perma-grief/sorrow position. That furrowed look a person has when they are sad. But even more than that, in re-watching his scenes I noticed how much he likes talking about sleeping and taking naps and how fond he is of passing the time that way. It didn’t hit me until I re-watched them and a lot of the fandom writes it off as laziness, but no, that is grief. That is depression and mourning. That was how I spent a good chunk of the first year. Sure I went to work and went through the motions of life, but I enjoyed sleep so much. It passed the time and meant less time and opportunity for my brain to think about how my Dad was gone. In my dreams and sleep too I would dream of him. Like I’d dream of being in the passenger seat of his car and we’re just driving somewhere. In real life sometimes it was nowhere in particular. Like a couple of times he’d just take us cruising and go somewhere and like his 2nd or 3rd car he had that I remember before he totaled it, there was a turbo in the car and he’d make us laugh by using it on off-ramp turns when we’re getting off the freeway. And when I sat in the front seat, I’d have my hand to my side and at the lights and times when he didn’t need his hand on the stick, he’d hold my hand and rub the back. When he died I escaped my reality by dwelling a lot of my free time in sleep and naps so I wouldn’t have to face the reality that he was actually gone. There’s no time limit though on grief and bereavement, and I had it so bad for one person that I was particularly close to for quite a long time. I can’t imagine how I would be myself to lose everything. The first year for me was the worst, but I think I was severely affected for at least 3-5 years. I slept so much. I never erased his number from my phone’s SIM card either. I was scared to. His number was surely given away to another person, but I had to get my phone stolen before I finally lost it. After the funeral, I didn’t even unpack my bag from the trip. My duffel just sat there in the middle of the room for at least a month because I didn’t want to open it and have to face that I went to a funeral.

On top of that, I have anxiety from trauma and different childhood stuff and other kinds of insecurities, and more recently PTSD from the trauma of harassment, but I’m in a healthier place now. I’m a lot more balanced and happy and I’m okay. When I wasn’t though I wasn’t a good person. I still tried to be a good person, but there were a lot of times where I was selfish or crazy now that I look back on it, and it’s just when you are grieving or even in the middle of your mental health battles it is so hard to keep everything straight and to not be awful. It doesn’t excuse my behavior, and it doesn’t excuse Emet-Selch’s either, but I can also see he’s being a dick because he’s suffering and probably not entirely in his right mind from grief on top of being tempered to Zodiark. Grief makes you fucking crazy. I just can’t even begin to imagine the little neurotic things that he must have started doing to cope even though I know all the little stupid things I did to try to get through it. I cried every time I saw a reminder of my Dad too, but like he can also see souls and sees reminders all the time. You get numb to it after awhile, but I can just imagine that is some kind of hell.

So just all of that together, after all those end-game scenes I just came to love the character so much. I just can’t hate him.

And then I was like looking up character rankings and other people’s interpretations and love for him. He’s not included yet in any official rankings, but a number of people who have played several FFs have found him to be one of their favorites of the entire franchise. Man, I think he deserves it though.

A lot of people compare him to Ardyn though, and I understand Ardyn’s story too and I see him as sympathetic, but XV wasn’t really executed well so I wasn’t able to really experience sympathy for him as I should have. Like logically I understand, but I don’t really feel it and I found him so much more annoying during the time I did see him that I just can’t really feel for him. It’s more an execution level problem.

Then I was reading a bunch of people commenting on Kuja from IX and I understand Kuja too, but at the same time still don’t feel it. Like I can’t connect why having a shorter life or anything would still compel someone to be murder-y. Like I feel bad for him still, but I also think like he could have just as well rebelled by being a complete foil and saving everyone instead of doing his intended mission of destruction. Plus like IX wasn’t as good as I hoped.

And then like, to this day I still don’t really understand Kefka’s appeal. Like a lot of people like him because he’s crazy? So people like him because he’s like the Joker, but I find even the Joker to be more interesting than Kefka and Kefka gives me the creeps because I hate clowns. For some reason I’m okay with the Joker, but I hate all other clowns. I played through all of VI and I just don’t get why people think he’s good because he’s just evil for evil’s sake and weird.

Sephiroth I like, but also partly my sister is a Sephiroth worshipper, but I have sympathy for him too. Like a lot of criticism of him is that he want on a tantrum, and yeah that wasn’t the shining moment, but of all of the franchise’s villains Sephiroth is the only one who I would consider letting him win. The reason for that relates to the aforementioned Dragons of Earth philosophy because he was created through humans meddling with science they shouldn’t have been screwing with and human experimentation. I know not all humans committed the crime against him and did that to him, but I don’t really have an argument for why a species with asshole scientists shouldn’t die either. I understand regular people weren’t responsible for that and ShinRa is a garbage company that is slightly better now under Rufus and everyone working together against Sephiroth, but like from Sephiroth’s perspective he is actually different and not human. Humans lab created him and fucked him over and he didn’t ask to be created or their experiment, and I don’t know. I don’t really think I’d know how I’d react if I found out my entire existence was a lie and found out I was being used. There’s no way anyone else could imagine that because all of us have the safety of knowing our own reality and identity. He was definitely mistaken for thinking himself a Cetra and there is some question as to whether he is in control or if Jenova is in control of his mind, but I don’t have a defense-able excuse for what happened to him either. So I can kind of understand what he wants to do, and I’m okay with it same as how I’d be okay if all of us died from global warming because of what our species has collectively done to the planet. Like I can do my part and maybe I’m a good person and worthy of living and I might do my best with what limited power I can, but collectively as humans we are a trash species that is selfish. The same as how I can’t excuse the greedy CEOs and stuff that had an actual hand in leading us to possible doom even though I didn’t directly cause it as a normal person I think it’s okay if all of us humans didn’t survive, I am okay with Sephiroth killing all the people on his planet because of the stuff the jerk scientists did to him. It’s kind of like Good Place logic where it’s actually impossible to be a good person because there’s unknown side effects to industries where a company cuts corners somewhere and ends up exploiting some other person or destroying something else. It’s just impossible. 

I still think real life humans should be responsible with nature as much as they can, but there’s something about our species’ innate laziness where we stick to the latest fad solution without thinking about how actually energy solutions are complicated and won’t work for every situation but there’s some meme on Facebook talking about how this one latest thing is the best thing since sliced bread and we should all switch to it immediately. Like, no. There isn’t one magical solution. The annoying thing for me isn’t that people are trying. It’s good that they are trying to be better and to find alternate solutions, but it really pisses me off when I see the latest meme conservation or eco-friendly thing that suggests a 100% switch to this thing or that is the answer to all of our woes. It’s not. Like one thing I saw was a thing that suggested we switch to all hemp fabric because of the cost of water that raising cotton. Like fair, cotton uses a lot of water, but like if you think that everyone is going to be able to switch to hemp you are a fucking idiot. Cotton is popular for a reason because it is soft and comfortable whereas hemp is a more harsh material and is more prone to causing skin irritation and allergies in people which is why it’s less popular. Should some brands consider switching to hemp if it is not a huge deal for them to be that soft? Absolutely. Should we find ways for us to reduce our reliance and usage of cotton? Of course. But all switch to hemp instead of cotton completely? No. That’s ridiculous, stupid, and completely illogical. Plus it only causes new kinds of industries and opportunities for exploitation because remember these plants can’t just grow anywhere. Plants all have optimal locations for them to survive. Then like energy solutions like solar panels, geothermal plants, and windmills. Yeah, they are more eco-friendly and have less dangerous output to the environment, but you are also stupid to think that they don’t have a cost. Windmills and solar panels in particular have a spacial cost, and a lot of people think we have a lot of empty space except no space is empty because *animals* live there. There are habitats there even if humans aren’t there, asshole. And windmills are tall so they can interrupt bird flight paths and stuff too. What happens if you build a windmill in the habitat of an endangered bird? And geo-thermal plants aren’t suited for all locations. There has to be an optimal place that has access to a compatible spot and you have to drill to make the passageways for the energy to pass through and like, that’s drilling near places that have geo-thermal activity so presumably they are also active and maybe have earthquakes and volcanoes. Kind of like how fracking can cause earthquakes, imagine a badly positioned geo-thermal plant. Or like what if a place just doesn’t have the proper rock bed that can support a geo-thermal plant. Like Florida has a lot of sink holes. Does that sound safe to have a powerplant built over a place that could randomly develop a sinkhole? It’s like, I appreciate people are trying to find solutions, but it makes me fucking angry that people are so short-sighted that they tout every random thing as the next miracle solution when it isn’t. It’s just an alternative for the right location. I like people knowing about it, but it isn’t a thing that’s appropriate for every fucking place on the planet. Energy is complex and you have to survey the local area and find out what works for that location. This is a complex issue, and there’s so many people that are just averse to thinking complexly or wanting to do any actual thought into making a workable solution that I just can’t bring myself to really care that much about whether or not our species lives. Like if you’re going to put all of 20 seconds of thought into a complex energy solution that could severely fuck up nature, your neighbors, and all the animals then why even bother? Like the solution is even worse than the actual problems because no one actually wants to think about them. It’s still humans thinking selfishly and only of themselves. So even though I will do my best to do my part, I don’t really care at all if climate change kills us all because most humans out there only want to do half-assed measures or something that makes them look good in front of their friends.

And like, back to the actual topic of genocidal FF villains, seriously if their reasoning is relatively okay, I can’t really bring myself to dislike them if they want to kill everyone because humans are trash. Like, I understand.

[pandatryst]

The Demon (part three)

My heart, my heart was beating out of my chest. I could hear it inside my ears, I could feel it in my feet, my heart felt so big and heavy I couldn’t hardly take a breath. My eyes couldn’t focus, wouldn’t focus, out of fear that if they did the scene before me would disappear and fade into nothing. Her words stunned me, and it took several moments before I could form words, but even when I did they were soft words. “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up. I have some first aid stuff in the kitchen. Let me...” I pulled to stand up and her hands like cold iron talons dug into my arms and pulled me back down and she forced out eyes to meet. “Gabriel...I offered you what you want. You don’t think I noticed? You don’t think I saw the way you looked at me.”

Her words were just menacing as they were alluring. What had happened, how did she get here, why did she look a mess, who hurt her? I shook my head away from those thoughts. Those were problems for later. I gripped her now and pulled her up and reached and took out my key sliding it into the door. “Inside, we will clean you up.” If I had known what was to come, would I have still invited her inside? If I knew in perfect hindsight the pain it would cause us both, I might have been justified in leaving her in the rain. I pulled her into my apartment and closed the door locking it behind us. Her eyes immediately began wandering and she smiled, through all of this she smiled. “I’ve never been to your place before...It’s very...you...I love it.”

My apartment was a small flat, which had a sitting room, bathroom, kitchen and dining area, and a bedroom. Almost spartan in its simplicity, but it looked well lived in. The couch and loveseat were the sight of many late nights with the other elites, talking, eating, studying, drinking, and playing games. The kitchen had suffered many of my cooking failures and more pleasantly Nikki’s successes with the trusty crock pot. My bedroom was the sight of many naps Nikki, we had that kind of brother and sister bond, that maybe at one point could have been more, but now has simply moved on from what it was to likely the deepest friendship I have.

My mind was snapped back to reality hearing Anna shuffle around the room, she had sat at her usual spot on the loveseat and had picked up a picture off the coffee table. It was our last meet as a unit, her senior year, we were all sporting medals and trophies. It was likely the happiest but most tired we had ever been in our lives. I moved into the kitchen and came back out with the first aid kit. I sat next to her and immediately felt something, almost an electricity between us, but I didn’t withdraw I only paused and looked to her. Those beautiful eyes looked so deep, as though they held all of the universe in them. I went to speak but it was her voice I heard. “Your eyes, I’ve never noticed the golden glow before.”

I took a deep breath, I had no idea what she was talking about, my eyes were a deep, dark brown, almost a black. I took in a slow breath. “Let me clean your lip, and then let’s get you in the shower and into something that isn’t ripped and if you want you can tell me what happened and we can go from there.” I began to carefully clean her lip but as I cleaned away the dried blood the cut really didn’t look as bad as it seemed. “That’s really weird.” As I set the cloth back down I stood to go and get her my old track sweats the change into. When I heard a clatter behind me.

I turned and looked to Anna, she had knocked the first aid kit into the floor. I stood there stunned a moment. What was she doing? I’m just trying to help. Her eyes still watching me she spoke softly. “One of Daniels friends tried to have his way with me. I took a few tumbles getting away, but you know how fast I am.” She stood and walked over to me closing that distance and pressing her body into mine. “I didn’t know why I was compelled to come here, but I think I do now. Gabe, you’ve been watching and dreaming for this moment, the chance to have me here with you.” He hands had been moving and pulled her torn top off, her bra followed soon after. Her skin was warm too warm, and I felt that electricity again, it gave me tingles all through my body. “Gabe, here I am. By my own free will. Take what you want. Open yourself up to me. Show me the devious thoughts you’ve stroked your cock too at night.”

It was as if sirens were going off in my head. Drowning out every bit of good sense I had, but I felt something growing. A hunger, a need, it was animalistic and it needed to be fed. I grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her hard and growled as I slammed her into the wall next to my tv, and it looked like that impact sent her into the same frenzy. My lips made contact with hers and kissed her fiercely, her fingers dig into my arms with a strength someone as dainty as her should have. But she kissed me back and molded her body perfectly to mine. It was like two parts of the same body had finally connected for the first time. That kiss was broken and I looked down to her and the depth of that universe within her eyes had become mesmerizing and she spoke to me, softly but a voice that commanded attention. “Show me who you are. Who you really are, Demon.” With that her grip on my arms tightening and she shoved me back hard, hard enough to send my flying back into my coffee table shattering it under me and sending swearing pain through my body.

My vision blurred for a long moment before it focused, she kicked her shoes off and her pants left her body only to crumple in a pile at her feet. He moved and mounted me, but before I could even put my hands up in defense she was ripping my shirt off of me and digging her nails into my chest scratching down my almost embarrassingly pale chest. The entire time her soaking wet pussy pushed over the bulge in my gym shorts and the smell of my own blood began to fill the room. It took all the strength I could muster to bring my arm up and impact the side of her face with the palm of my hand to unseat her. I pushed her off to the side and moved to crawl up onto her body and my hand lowered and grabbed her throat and began cutting off that precious air to her body. Time began to slow down. I could hear every movement, feel every sensation, and somehow I knew she could too because it surprised her, the look on her face was nothing but sheer desire and lust. Her hand lifted and brushed against my covered crotch reaching inside my shirt to grasp my cock and she began to firmly stroke the hardness she found inside. “Fuck me, Gabe. Open yourself up to me.”

There was that sweet warmth. The voice in the back of my head wanted to just give her what she wanted. But at the same time the animal inside me, wanted to repay her for the pain she had caused me. I lowered my hand and grabbed her stroking paw and pulled it from my cock. I stood picking her up and intentionally slamming her into the hallway wall as I took her back into my bedroom. Once inside I threw her on to her stomach on my bed, my knee making sure she didn’t travel. I reach for the headboard of my bed and pulled the leather belt that was draped across it. She put up a hell of a fight but I eventually got both of her hands tied behind her back and I growled down to her. “I will fuck you, and own you, but on my terms, Princess.”

Her fighting turned into mewling as she lifted her ass, a sign of submission or a trick? Either way I wasn’t going to let her out of this, my cock pushed into her pussy from behind and that warmth of her molten hot pussy nearly sent me over with the single touch. She groaned low. “I know it. I know it now. Yes my Alpha, fuck what belongs to you.” My hips began to drive down into her ruthlessly, without a care in the world for her comfort of pleasure, butnit was obvious she was enjoying every moment. The way she moved, the way she moaned, and god did she cum over and over again. The electricity in the room was overwhelming and time felt like it was at a standstill as thebtwo body joined in primal passionate sex. This wasn’t love making, this wasn’t a casual hookup, this was desire and lust thousands of centuries in the making. As if the entire exaistence of all time and space lead up to this moment.

I felt her free her hands, I didn’t see how, but she kicked back at me and it forced separation as I lowered my upper body as if to pounce right back into her. She smiled at me, and it made my entire body go numb. “My Alpha, fill me with your cum. Make me yours.” There was no resistance, no thinking about consequences, condoms were forgotten protection at this stage. I shot back onto the bed and pushed her legs up and nearly folded her as my cock pushed inside of her pussy again and I bgane slamming my thick throbbing cock into her once again. My hands behind her knees bending her in such a way most people would find it uncomfortable. But there was no indication of discomfort from her, just pure sweet bliss as I slammed myself into her over and over and over again. Until the moment came and her body went stiff and her pussy literally milked my climax from my body. No one could have stood against such a feeling and I came so hard inside of her and the feeling was different, it wasn’t merely a few moment of intensity. It felt like lifetimes of went by before I refined usesge of my higher functions and I lowered myself to lay next to her. She curled her body against mine, her foot moving to rub against my own feet. I spoke softly. “You are mine.” And then I passed out.

[haztory]

hurricane. (teenager!frank castle x reader)

A/N: okay so this was originally one of the dialogue prompts but i decided to make this a au one-shot if that’s alright with everybody. its a bit all over the place and messy but i’ll just say that that’s my writing style lololol. please send in requests if y’all would like.

request: hi! i love your writing! can you do “i said i love you” and “quit it or i’ll bite” with frank castle? thank you very much! 

(thanks for loving my writing sweetcheeks. makes me feel fuzzy inside, also sorry it took so long)

It was an unspoken rule between you and Frank to never disclose the details of your relationship to those who asked. There was never any specific reason for it—it’s not like you and Frank had anything to hide—it was just…an unspoken pact between you two.

When people came up to you two during lunch and asked the same old question of “Are you guys dating? Or just really good friends?”, they always received the same answer:

“Yes.”

It became a game after a while. How many people could you guys confuse today? Who’s the next one to ask?

You understood why everyone asked. You and Frank were way too close to just be considered best friends, and whether that is due to the sheer amount of years you and Frank have been friends or because there’s a chemistry you have with him that runs deeper than blood, you’re not entirely sure on.

The only thing anyone really knows, is that if you want (Y/N) (L/N), you won’t get her without her bodyguard Frank Castle, and if you want Frank Castle, you won’t get him without his life advisor (Y/N) (L/N).

You guys come in a pair. There’s no use in trying to separate the two of you.

You and Frank have been best friends since you were six when you moved into the house right next-door to him. You didn’t know anyone and he was a shy boy who didn’t have many friends.

“A match made in heaven.” proclaimed your mothers. (Your mothers already planned the wedding.)

There wasn’t a day you two didn’t spend together, whether riding your bikes to the stream near your houses to playing some sport in your front yards to watching his mother’s extensive collection of movies at his house to camping in his backyard. Even when you were sick, he was always there to sail the storm with you.

The majority of your youth days were spent together and as puberty hit, that bond only grew stronger. When your only other friends seemed to split apart from you and follow boys and Frank’s “no bullshit” mentality strengthened, it only made sense that the two of you would draw to each other like magnets.

That was when the rumors started. In junior high, when people began to notice how Frank would always wait for you at lunch and you would always take him home after school; When people began to notice that when they run into you outside of school, Frank was always by your side; When people began to notice that a majority of the stories you told only involved Frank.

So, yes, you understand why everyone asks, because in all honesty, you and Frank choose to not do anything to quell the rumors. In fact, you knowingly add more fuel to ever growing fire.

He was your date to junior prom (and is your current date to the senior one) and when you both showed up with matching outfits everyone literally “awed” at the sight of you; For your sixteenth birthday, he gave you a necklace with his name engraved on it that you have yet to take off; Your Instagram is filled with pictures of him with very cryptic captions that borderline romantic and to anyone not paying attention, would seem like you guys are an item.

There was even a time where everyone thought you were married. You and Frank had shown up to school one day with gold bands on your left hands and never said anything until someone pointed them out. People asked relentlessly, but you never confirmed nor denied.

That happened over a year ago, but you’re pretty sure some people still think you’re married. (I mean, you guys practically are. You argue like a married couple, you love like a married couple, so really it wouldn’t be a shocker.)

For god’s sake, even the teachers think you guys are a thing! It’s drawn the attention of the entire school for some reason without you and Frank having to move a muscle.

It gets annoying sometimes, but you’ve gotten used to it.

Besides, even you can admit it: You and Frank are a hella cute couple.

It’s Wednesday, meaning your school has an hour lunch block and you’re sitting at your usual round table with your usual friend group of Curtis Hoyle, Karen Page and David Lieberman.  

You sit with your right leg thrown over Frank’s lap, stealing a couple of stale fries from his lunch tray as he sits with his left arm thrown over the back of your chair and his right arm gently stroking your leg on his lap. There’s a large smile on your face from Curtis’ wild antics, and the sight of it puts a smile on Frank’s.

(It’s kind of hard for it not to. Everything you do puts a smile on Frank’s face.)

“I’m just sayin’ man!” Curtis laughs from his seat in front of you, throwing his hands up in mock surrender as everyone at the table watches, “She was ogling you the whole period! Natalie Rushman was makin’ goo-goo eyes at you during Fury’s lecture!”

Frank waves his hand in the air, scoffing and throwing his head to the side with a smile on his face, “Yeah, yeah. Whatever, man!”

Curtis points an accusing finger at Frank, slamming his elbow down on the table and staring at him with intense eyes, making everyone at your table laugh.

“I ain’t making this shit up! Listen, if you ain’t gettin’ on that, I will. Make your move now or I’m swooping in.”

Frank shakes his head at Curtis, moving his hand to his tray of fries and smacking yours away so he could grab three before plopping all of them into his mouth. His voice is muffled as he speaks, “Go ‘head.”

He rubs the crumbs on his hands on his jeans while looking down at you on his left and giving you a warm smile, “I already got what I need.”

Your three friends all groan at the comment, rolling their eyes and muttering to themselves. You give Frank a loving stare, gently pinching his cheek and giggling before feeding him another stale and cold fry.

Karen, who was seated between David and Curtis, places her forearms against the lunch table and stares at you and Frank, “When are you both going to come to terms with reality and realize that you are in love with each other?”

She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and you give her a faux innocent look, furrowing your eyebrows and tilting your head to the side.

“What do you mean? We’ve already picked out the names of our kids. There’s nothing we really have to come to terms with,” You put a fry in your mouth and chew contentedly.

Karen’s mouth drops slightly, the corners of her lips slightly pulling back as she darts her eyes from Frank’s satisfied smirk to your innocent one. She huffs out a laugh and runs her hand through her hair, slowly shaking her head, “I don’t know if that was a joke or not.”

David takes a sip from his carton of chocolate milk, raising one eyebrow up and glancing at Karen, “Who knows at this point?”

Frank places his hand on the back of your neck, gently dragging his fingertips across the skin there. You shy your body away from the touch, letting out a whine.

“Quit it or I’ll bite.” You try and give him a threatening stare which only makes him smirk in response.

(And it’s one of those lopsided ones that makes him look so charming and sexy and it’s no surprise that every girl that meets Frank has a crush on him.)

“Make me.”

“Y’know what Castle— “

“Alright, look.” Curtis draws the attention back to himself, “The sexual tension is too much. As your closest friends, we deserve a right to know—” his eyes dart from Frank to you, pausing for dramatic effect.

“—are you guys gonna fuck?”

Karen smacks her hand against Curtis’ shoulder while David laughs loudly, throwing his head back and releasing the sound to the ceiling. Even the loud chatter of the surrounding students couldn’t drown out the volume of his laughter. Curtis grips his arm in pain, rubbing it and staring at Karen with a hurt look.

Frank looks back at you, a smile on his face that mirrors your own. Frank enjoys watching people twist and turn to find out the details of your relationships and you are nothing but complacent in his pleasure. You don’t really care what people think or what they want to know, but whatever makes Frank happy.

You turn your head and look at Curtis’ expectant eyes, gracefully shrugging your shoulders, “That’s on a need to know basis.”

Curtis throws himself back into his seat in frustration, earning a giggle from Karen as he mutters to himself, “Yeah, yeah, and I don’t need to know. Pfft, I don’t even know why I ask.”

David suddenly puts down his carton of milk, looking at you with wide eyes, “Hey! Are we still on for that trip after graduation?”

The trip in question, was the annual camping trip you and your family take from New York to Connecticut after school ends. The drive only took a day or two with few pit stops at restaurants or to see some sights, but it would take you to a beach house your family owned during the summer. You would spend the two weeks at the house either going to the beach or driving to some other place near the coast.

The house was special to you. It was where you and your siblings grew up, and was where the extended family would get together for the summer to just enjoy each other’s company. It was where you and Frank had accidentally kissed, and was where your platonic relationship with Frank suddenly became more.

(Although, no one else knew that.)

The house was where you felt, for the first time in your life, truly beautiful, with Frank’s large hands exploring your body underneath the moon in the crashing waves of the beach. The house was where Frank placed his lips on yours and told you how special you were to him. The house was where Frank placed his head on top of your stomach in the sand while you ran your hand through his hair, and told you how he had never felt things the way he felt with you. The house was where you realized your feelings for Frank, were no longer one-sided. The house was where you realized that Frank was the only one for you, and will only ever be the one for you.

The house was more than just a house: it was a haven that you could escape to when things got rough; It was your sanctuary, your little bubble of good things. It was home.

You were excited to share your home with your closest friends, showing them—but never telling—why this place was so special to you, one last time.

You nod your head at David, giving him a wide smile, “Oh, yeah! We’ve already rented the campers and everything.”

“You got room for one more? Sarah and I were talking about it and she seems interested.”

“Sure. I’m pretty sure there is enough space.”

“You guys coming?” You point your finger over to Karen and Curtis, who both eagerly nod their heads, smiles playing out on their faces.

“When are we leaving?” Karen asks, dragging her fork across her empty Tupperware container.

“Three days after graduation. We’ll be gone for two weeks, I think? I have to double check. But Frank and I are taking one of the large campers, so you and Sarah could bunk with us.”

Your three friends’ faces drop, the smiles slowly disappearing at your statement. You furrow your eyebrows in confusion.

Did they all have something to do during that time? That’s going to pose a problem seeing as you and your parents have already placed down the deposit for the campers.

“What?” You ask them, looking from each of their faces and finding that Karen and David nervously looked from Frank to you while Curtis stared straight at him. You turn your head upwards, looking at Frank who stared at each of them with a hard look and a clench in his jaw.

He doesn’t even look at you.

A slight panic starts to creep into your soul, your gut feeling telling you that something is wrong, which is pretty obvious. Your stomach is slowly sinking to the bottom of your body and your breathing is starting to pick up. The loud volume of the lunchroom seems to drown out, your mind focusing in on only the people in front of you.

Curtis maintains strong eye contact with Frank, giving him an equally hard stare. His voice drops a couple of octaves, “You didn’t tell her?”

“Not now, Curtis,” Frank grits out, his eyes narrowing at his friend.

“Tell me what?” You hurriedly interject, removing your leg from Frank’s lap and sitting forward at the table. You look from Curtis’ sympathetic look to you, to Frank’s averting eyes.

No one says anything.

Karen and David fidget in their seat, clearing their throats and fiddling with themselves at the sudden awkwardness that encompassed the table. The panic is now in full motion and the desperation that accompanies it is disorienting. There is something not being said, and the fact that it involves Frank makes the situation that much worse.

You can handle Curtis or David hiding something from you, even Karen, but not Frank. Frank always tells you everything right away, no questions asked. If he’s hiding something, it means that it’s going to hurt. You start to mentally prepare yourself for whatever it is.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” You try to keep your voice steady as you address the table, but the crack in your voice betrays your efforts. Everyone can see and hear the desperation in your voice, and they can only look in sympathy.

It’s not their place to say it, but Frank’s silence is pushing them on.

He can barely look at you, keeping his eyes straight ahead. He knows if he looks at you then his resolve would come crashing down. He wanted to tell you at a better time. Not in a school lunchroom with everyone watching.

“Frank?” you plead, looking at the side of his face, watching him take a deep swallow that moves his Adam’s apple while softly shaking his head at Curtis.

You turn your head to Curtis. He slowly tears his eyes away from Frank, meeting your worried eyes.

“Curtis?” You gently ask.

Curtis has been friends with Frank for a long ass time, and the things shared between the two of them were meant to only stay between the two of them. But when you’re staring at him like the world depended on it, with every emotion clear on your face, Curtis was finding it hard to maintain the pact.

He takes a glance to his friends seated beside him, who gives him a questioning glance, wondering if he really was going to be the one to say it. He sees David give a small nod of his head. He turns his head over to Frank, and he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place again.

If there was desperation in your eyes, he doesn’t want to know what’s in Frank’s. Frank stares at him with a look of anger and need, despairingly pleading to not say what was on his mind.

Curtis sighs and drops his head. Frank’s gonna kill him.

“Frank enlisted for the Marines,” Curtis tells you, head down and his gaze trained on his folded hands, “He gets shipped out a week after graduation.”

Time seems to stop when Curtis utters those horrible words.

Enlisted? The Marines?

Frank never told you anything about the military. He never told you that he was planning to enlist, he’s never even told you he liked the military. But all of a sudden, he’s decided he wants to be involved when there is a literal fucking war happening?

Frank was smart to not have told you because there is no way in hell you would ever let him sign up. There is no way in hell you are going to let him go.

Your heart feels as though it’s been ripped out of your body and heavy weights have been placed onto your shoulders. You can barely breathe. There seems to be a hundred different thoughts running through your head, and yet none at the same time.

The room is spinning and you need something to grab onto, but your anchor feels a hundred yards away. Frank is sitting right next to you but you already feel like he’s been shipped out overseas and out of your reach, out of the safety of your arms.

You want to cry, you want to scream, you want to hit him, but your body is frozen.

You slowly lean back into the hard, plastic seat at your lunch table, unable to meet the eyes of everyone around you.

He’s going to war.

Nobody goes to war and comes back the same. You’ve taken AP Psychology; you know what happens to the brain during that kind of trauma.

He didn’t even tell you. He’s leaving in less than three weeks and he didn’t even tell you. He told everyone else, but you. You wonder who else knows.

Do his teachers know? Do other students in his classes know. Does Natalie Rushman know? Has everyone known this entire time and have just been hiding it from you, putting on fake smiles and laughs in front of you while they hide the dark, life-altering truth behind your back?

The dread that filled your body is slowly being replaced with a blinding rage that numbs you from head to toe. Your fingers are clenching into a fist so tight, that your nails are making crescent indents on your palms and your teeth are grinding too hard for it to be healthy.

The stares from your friends go unnoticed by you. They can see the change in your body and all they can do it glance at one another.

“(Y/N)?” Karen gently calls to you. Your head snaps up, your narrowed eyes meeting her gentle ones and you are suddenly brought back to reality. Your friends look at you with curiosity and you know you only have one option.

You grab the backpack by your feet and stand up from the table, leaving your plate behind alongside your friends, quickly making your way out of the lunchroom despite the thirty minutes still left of lunch.

You don’t know where you’re going, you just know you have to leave.

The table sits in silence, unsure of what to do with the residing feelings of anger at the table. Frank’s elbows are propped up on the table, his hands folding and unfolding methodically before their eyes. They can see the muscles in his forearms tense and un-tense with the occasional vein popping out. His blood is pulsing and he can feel a powerful headache coming on.

“Y’ever think that maybe–” Frank spits out, his voice deep and gritty as he stares to the side of the lunchroom, “—just maybe, I was waiting for the right time to tell her? Hmm?”

Curtis keeps a strong hold on his gaze, his eyes and voice unwavering at Frank’s threatening tone, “The right time to tell her was when you signed up, Frank.”

“That ain’t for you to decide.”

“Telling her a day before leave is a shitty move. She deserves better than that.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about— “

“Man, just shut the hell up and go find her. Tell her you love her before you lose her.”

Frank shuts up, his mouth closing and his retort dying in his throat. He looks over to Karen and David, who both give him a nod in agreement to Curtis’ statement.

Now, Frank doesn’t care much for David’s opinion, because as much as he might like the guy, David has had his own problems in relationships and whatnot. Frank is never eager to get David’s opinion on a situation, but either way he’ll find out what the guy thinks since the man is so adamant on sharing it whether anyone asked or not.

But, Karen is a different story. Frank trusts Karen with his life if necessary. She keeps her secrets and stays true to her words, guiding Frank in times when you couldn’t. She’s gentle and sweet and caring, only wanting the best for others. He values her opinion, always going to her first for help—not counting you, of course. She’s a close friend to him and an even closer one to you.

So, when Frank sees Karen nod her head at him, silently encouraging him to fix his error, he goes. He follows the direction you left in, not caring that he left his trash on the table or his backpack or anything necessary for his next class; He only cares about you.

You had no other place to go but the library.

You couldn’t leave campus and you weren’t about to go to a teacher’s class and have to explain the reason why tears were falling down your face.

The library is the only place where you could successfully hide and not be found.

Unless of course the person searching for you is Frank Castle, who is not only a master in the game of hide-and-seek, but also knows you too well. He finds you with your back against the shelf of Sci-Fi books and your body angled away from the entrance to the area, furiously wiping away the tears running down your face.

He can only stare.

He’s only ever seen you cry three times: Once when your dog died, another while watching ‘Marley and Me’ and then when his dog died. All three, dog related.

So, seeing you cry—no, sob—at his own doings, is heartbreaking. He wants to reach out and touch you, but he can’t bring himself to hurt you even more. He slowly sits himself down in front of you, leaning against the adjacent book shelf and watching you cry.

His presence only makes you cry harder.

He’s the only person you want to see, and yet he’s the last person you want to see. You want him to hold you and comfort you but he’s the reason for your pain. Funny how the world works.

You both sit in silence for a while, listening to your sobs slowly die down before you stare blankly at the wall, your bodies barely touching but the heat still transferring between you two.

Your legs are stretched out over the carpet, your dirty mint green converse almost touching his black boots. A sudden wave of tired washes over you, and you would love nothing more than a nap, until you realize that you still have the rest of the school day to get through.

A bell rings out throughout the school, signaling that lunch has fifteen minutes left.

You don’t know why, but you slowly bring your head to look over at the cause of your pain, who was already staring intently at you. His body seems to perk up at your acknowledgment of him, but slowly sinks down once he sees your red and swollen eyes.

(Frank feels awful for thinking it, but you’ve never looked more beautiful.)

You feel empty, like someone opened your body and stole every though and emotion from you. You have nothing else to give, other than your empty body. A piece of your happiness has been stolen, and you’re never going to get it back.

“You haven’t even left yet, and I already miss you.” The words his Frank like a train and despite the close proximity, he feels like you’re an ocean away. Your tone sounds deflated, and your voice raw and it’s then he realizes just how much he has damaged you within the span of fifteen minutes.

He didn’t realize he had that much power.

(He doesn’t want it.)

You let out a shaky breath and scratch your nose gently and sniffling, “’M not letting you go.”

He sighs, “(Y/N)—“

“No! ‘M not. I don’t care if-if that’s illegal or whatever, but you’re not going. Not over there—Not without me.” You violently shake your head at him, repeatedly licking your lips and stuttering, just trying to get your thoughts in order.

“You’re not going over there— “

“Then neither are you!”

“I have to— “

“No you don’t! You can stay—with me. Where it’s safe. We can-we can do what we always said, y’know? We can get an apartment in the city and-and live together and get some shitty ass jobs and— “

You didn’t realize Frank had gotten closer to you because suddenly he’s holding your face in his hands and you’re staring deep into his brown eyes and you can feel yourself getting lost in the stormy sea. The hurricane of tears is flooding your eyes again and you hold onto Frank’s wrists to try and anchor yourself down.

He places his forehead against yours, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths of your scent.

Vanilla and jasmine.

Always vanilla and jasmine.

Frank hears you mumble something, something that he hopes was real but was too clouded for him to actually decipher.

“What?” He asks you, his eyes opening to meet yours.

You take a deep breath, “I said I love you.”

Imaginary fireworks explode in Frank’s head and a warm feeling floods his body. He’s on cloud nine, and only acting on impulse, but he knows it was the right choice when he brings your lips to his.

Your lips work in sync, taking each other in and holding one another like it was the last time. You wrap your arms around Frank’s neck and he brings your body into his lap, his hands running up and down your figure before settling on your hips.

The kiss is needy and desperate, and if it were possible you were never separate from him. It wasn’t the first time you’ve ever kissed Frank, but this one was certainly the best.

You both separate reluctantly, your foreheads still touching and you both breathe out, your breaths mingling with one another.

In the eye of the hurricane, everything seems to come into perspective. All choices, all statements, all actions seem purposeful. It’s an incredibly humbling experience. It’s when you find that every insurmountable problem, has a solution; Every confusing detail, comes into focus; Every miniscule item, shows its massive weight.

It’s where Frank realizes he can’t live without you.

It’s where Frank realizes, you are the only one he needs.

In this whirlwind of emotions, Frank find his single moment of clarity and a decision presents itself. A decision he doesn’t regret, a decision that only made sense to him.

“Marry me.”

And in your moment, you realized that there was only one clear answer.

“Yes.”

He’s your eye of the hurricane. You’ll endure any storm if it means he’s there.

And you won’t regret a single moment.

tag list:

@imamotherfuckingstar-lord

[multi-fandomtrashtm]

Time to compare Big 3 and FT!Part 1

Now that FT has ended, I can do a full(er) evaluation of this. Yay. 

As you know, the big 3 are One Piece, Bleach and Naruto. 

FT is like..a rank or two below them in terms of popularity and sales except Bleach. Anyway, it’s still up there so time to compare and contrast. Characters, fights, story are all being judged. This post is all about characters.

Obvious spoilers for all series mentioned above. Because One Piece isn’t even close to being done yet, I’m only evaluating up until Dressrosa arc.

Character Basics Designwise:

I’d say that FT falls behind in this department, but isn’t last. In terms of design, One Piece wins by leaps and bounds in term of design diversity. Oda has made literally hundreds of characters and has interesting designs and personalities for each of them. He gives a lot of them good backstories and relationships with other characters. 

Bleach has some interesting characters as well. Most of them have interesting abilities and cool designs, but not to the degree of the sheer outlandishness of Oda’s designs. The hollows look very good, though.

The designs in Naruto are kind of plain even for the villains. It’s understandable for the less fantastical setting I suppose, but it really feels like the designs could be spiced up a little at times. However, most characters have some kind of depth to them and decent backstories. 

Fairy Tail has decent designs,kind of like Bleach in terms of creativity/complexity. It’s kind of odd at times because you’ll have human people wearing normal things then there’s just that one guy with the bizarre design. With such a fantastical setting, you’d think you’d see a lot more wild designs but nah. Unfortunately, FT has a bad streak of following basic tropes when it comes to villians. Later in the series, it’s the Psycho Lesbian(?), the battle enthusiast(s), that one cool intelligent guy and/or an Ice Guy/muscle dude. Earlier on, there was more variety in types. Backstories are alright. 

Main Characters:

Seeing as how they’re all following the Jump formula, let’s just get it out of the way. 

Orihime/Lucy/Nami/Sakura: Main-ish girl character who can technically fight but almost never does (if she does, she rarely wins).

Robin/Rukia?/Erza: Typically more mature mentor-like character who engages in some of the main group’s hyjinx anyway.

Uryuu/Zoro/Gray/Sasuke: Somewhat angsty/edgy main character’s best friend/rival (Zoro is the only exception to the angst/edge and rival). Typically smarter than the main character and more cool headed except when they’re not. 

Happy/Kon/Chopper: Cute animal sidekick for plushies.

Natsu/Luffy/Ichigo/Naruto: The main character who is basically a child in a teenager’s body with an insatiable hunger, no intelligence except in battle and little to no sex drive despite all of the beautiful (mostly half naked) women constantly around them. So basically Goku clones. Ichigo and Naruto thankfully dodged this or, in Naruto’s case, grew out of it. 

In terms of development of the main characters, I’d say Naruto absolutely wins this. Naruto and Sakura grew into great young adults and developed pleasantly along the way. Naruto stopped being so reckless and kind of a mess. We got some great looks into his psych with the whole Kuruma issue and dead parents thing.

Sakura eventually stopped being such a damsel and got the powers that she really needed. Although, I really did appreciate when she cut her hair and tries to protect her friends even though she was really weak. Listen, I don’t give a damn what you say, Sakura accomplished great things in Shippuden and does not deserve even half of the hate she gets from the fandom. Now I’m fully wiling to acknowledge that her persistent love for Sasuke got pretty ridiculous. But the same could be said for Naruto’s persistence, so I think that’s on the writer. I don’t think that it’s too much of a problem, though. 

Sasuke..is an odd case. I don’t think he really developed that much in Shippuden until near the end-ish. It was more like he had a breakdown in slow motion? Idk, the whole thing was really strange. Him being stoic or batshit crazy for most of it made it hard to tell. If anyone has some solid evidence of development I’ll take it, but his case is just really strange. 

Bleach is also an odd case. I’m certain that the main cast changed, I’m just not sure how. It was quite subtle. I suppose Orihime got a bit more confident in her abilities and Ichigo, Uryuu and Chad got stronger. Again, I’m open to some enlightenment on this. 

One of the most glaring problems is how the human characters tend to get sidelined quite a bit. Orihime is especially bad about this because of how she’s written. Her powers are the most game breaking ones in story-she’s basically a God and she does almost nothing when it comes to battles. At best, she’s defense and a medic. Her main ability is essentially to “reject” parts of reality i.e rather than healing someone’s arm, she just “rejects” that it got injured in the first place. There’s no known limit to her abilities except that if she doesn’t believe that can do it,then she can’t. It’s the worst restriction possible because she doesn’t have cripplingly low self esteem or anything. That kind of restriction is just begging for her to be hated. 

Chad just kind of faded into the background as time went on. It’d be really easy to forget who he is if you hadn’t read Bleach in a while.

In One Piece, I feel like the crew was pretty static outside of their individual character arcs except maybe Chopper. I’m very, very glad that Chopper is presented as more of a part of the group than a cute mascot. All of them got stronger after the timeskip and Sanji got a new gag. And I’m certain that Usopp got more competent and manly?/confident, too. Luffy definitely matured at least a little because of a certain incident with Ace. As sad as it was, it was kind of neat to see Luffy at his lowest point. 

But, because grouping (The Coward Trio, the Power Trio,etc.) Nami especially got shafted after the arc right after the timeskip. It’s like...she showed off her abilities then and it was cool, then she got moved to the backseat by just about everyone else on the crew and barely seems to use them anymore. Anyway, all of the crew have good backstories despite like half of them making me cry like a bitch. Brook’s backstory is both depressing and horrifying. 

I wish that the groups would be mixed up more often, though. 

Fairy Tail has the absolute minimum amount of character development for the main characters. Out of all of them, Wendy is the most developed. She grew more confident and powerful over time. Lucy has stayed just about the same over the entire series. Well, I guess she got less vain and more confident, I suppose. With Erza, it was a combo of character depths and development that got her to show her goofy self after the Tower of Heaven. After that, her characterization just got strange because of the romance subplot with Jellal. She just grew more and more into being just a love interest around him rather than being a character who happens to be in love.  

Gray did develop a bit, although its kind of hard to tell most of the time. By the time Tartaros hits, he’s learned his lesson about trying to whip out Iced Shell when things get tough. At least, that’s what I thought he learned until he decided that it’s better to kill yourself and erase your existence while trying to be a hero rather than just getting strong enough to have to drop to that point and wanting to live the very next big arc. 

Natsu has not changed at all. He is the exact same guy he was at chapter 545 and at chapter 1. Despite his dad dying, his very existence being a lie AND his family history being shoved in his face, he has not changed at all. 

Happy, for the most part, is a cute mascot character. He had his character depth/development in Edolas arc, but it vanished right after. He is occasionally shown to be Natsu’s support, but that’s about it. 

It’s a real problem when almost all of your main characters have barely changed outside of their respective character arcs. What’s equally irritating is that their character designs have not changed except for Lucy’s and Wendy’s. After two timeskips! Natsu, Gray and Erza all look exactly the same as when they started. Outfits don’t count with this series because the characters frequently change their attire anyway except Erza. Erza has had the same outfit for 500 chapters except the GMG. 

I think that’s it for this post. It’s gotten quite long. Next time I’ll do side characters and villains.

[invokingbees]

Top Games of the Decade

IT ME FAVOURITE GAMES OF THE LAST DECADE!!!!! OH SHIT!!!!!

Entirely predictable but here you go:

2010 - Demon's Souls

Fuck you! Came out in PAL territories, aka, me, in 2010, so it counts. I played the Souls series ass backwards, and played Demon's nearly last, but I completely and utterly fell in love with it. I've babbled like a fool about it before, but it boils down to its powerful atmosphere of horror and strange hostility, as well as its gameplay which holds up so well, it's still fluid and satisfying, the soundtrack is unique, its mechanics are baffling and weird and I just really, really honestly love it to bits. And you can get back online again with the fan server! Or emulate it if you have a powerbeast of a PC, but no online.

2011 - Dark Souls

I mean, I guess, I've played it four or five times now. It's actually my least favourite of the Souls games for gameplay, it's a step back from Demon's in terms of general movement and combat, but it can't be denied that its lore is so powerful. It sets up a fascinating mythological world of pseudo-materialist fantasy, it's full of implication and possibilities, full of holes and shit that makes no sense and we love it, it's perfect. It's enthralling. I might not enjoy actually playing it but I could talk about it for hours.

2012 - Dishonored

I was never one for stealth games, because I'm shit at them. But for some reason I checked this out and I'm REALLY glad I did. I found the gameplay really fun, the powers are super fun and the levels are great to explore. Also, time stop. But what I came out of the game with was a fascinating setting with a weird Victorian/Dieselpunk setting that goes HARD cosmic horror, but really subtly. Dishonored's world is incredibly well structured, the story of Corvo's revenge against the assassin who killed his girlfriend THE EMPRESS and kidnapped his daughter THE HEIR TO THE THRONE takes precedence, but throughout it all is a looming sense of a cold, hostile universe of weird alien horror. There's the ever-present implication that killing off the whales will make something horrible happen. There's the occult nature of the nameless Outsider and the people who worship it and try to contact it. There's a supercontinent across a monstrous ocean filled with who knows what horrible shit. The setting is so full of flavour and I love exploring it every playthrough.

2013 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen & MGR: Revengeance

This poor, poor fucking game. Gutted in production, whittled down, concepts stripped away, areas ripped out. The game isn't even half as big as it was in early production. And yet it is STILL amazing. A grand fantasy adventure with a rich, classic, mythological feel to it, with a fairly unique metaphysical component behind it all. Dragon's Dogma is the story of you, a no-name fucko whose comfy little village gets attacked by the best dragon in all of media, you're the only madman with the sheer balls to attack it, get slapped away, and then get your heart stolen and turned into a semi-immortal Arisen, who is goaded to go fight that fucking dragon. But there is a LOT going on behind the scenes, both in the Duchy of Gransys and the very universe. Dragon's Dogma is like the best loveletter to medieval European fantasy I've ever seen, its monsters have a gnarly medieval manuscript look to them, ripped right out of Classical mythology, folklore and traditional fantasy. There's court intrigue, dark secrets, much talk of destiny and epic quests. Everything about Dragon's Dogma is just pulsating with ADVENTURE. You get up to three other companions, your Pawns, inter-dimensional pseudo-humans whom only the Arisen can command. That's where it starts getting weird, the game has a whole theme about the power of will, cosmic cycles and shit. And that's not even mentioning the SICK FUCKING COMBAT. Directed by Hideaki Itsuno, he of Devil May Cry fame, the game has robust and really powerfully satisfying combat, even a DMC Stinger. You can climb on monsters to attack weak points, glide on harpies, your pawns mimic your strategies like re-lighting extinguished lanterns - there's so many little details you can discover for yourself in exploration and combat. Of course, the game also has the most visually impressive and satisfying magic of any videogame. You haven't felt powerful until you've played a Dragon's Dogma Sorcerer, calling down meteors, summoning spires of ice, point blank sniping drakes out of the fucking AIR, or piggy-backing on your Sorcrer pawn's in-progress spell to suddenly unleash a massive torrent of DAMAGE. Gransys is also a beautiful place to explore, and the main hub, Gran Soren, feels like a proper huge town, as well. The game has quirks, mainly in its slightly weird levelling system, as well as the delightful pawn chatter that reminds you at every turn how wolves hunt, or what goblins are weak to. But then there's Dark Arisen, a tragic tale set in a pocket dimension or possible 'outside' realm, pitting you against the rage of a former Arisen who spurned the cycle, a massive hard as shit megadungeon full of really great stuff. I just cannot recommend it enough, and it's on just about literally every fucking platform.

I have never played a Metal Gear game before. I'm a shitter and they're kind of hard to track down where I am. Just how it is. I'm also massively intimidated by them. But then I watched Super Best Friends (RIP) play this fucking nonsense and I knew I had to feel it for myself. What is there to say? It's fun, it's goofy, it's played totally straight and quite serious at times, it's an absolute meme engine, it's so full of character and flavour, it is undistilled HYPE jammed into a disc by divine spirits and doled out to humanity. I'm not a character action man, never been good at DMC games, and I will never be good at them, or this, but by GOD do I have fun whenever I play it. Zandatsu is just the shit, forever, every song is GREAT, the game so expertly drives and controls moments of exciement and tension, it's like a big blockbuster movie that actually cares and has something complex at the core of it. Yeah there's like political and cultural concepts and musings and that's great, but I'm an idiot who wants to cut things with my sword. Everything and everyone is charismatic, and most importantly, totally earnest. It never really winks at you or says 'hurr we're sooo cuh-razy amirite', it just does its thing and nothing ever feels out of place. We can be talking about destabilizing impoverished nations with corporation-led private armies one moment and chuckling at MEMES DNA OF THE SOUL the next and it feels fucking normal. I'm rambling but I just really love Revengeance and I have no idea how to handle it. What an entry point into such a convoluted series.

2014 - Dark Souls II

Ah yes, the black sheep of the family, the only one not directed (but kinda overseen) by Miyazaki, with a notoriously troubled production whose director was fired halfway through and replaced, then the game kind of scrambled together. But, like Dragon's Dogma, it kind of worked out well. DaS2 is recognizably Dark Souls. But what I like most about it is, like a lot games I love, the story, the world, the feeling. Dark Souls 1 and 3 are grand, they're about cycles and fates and illusions, but DaS2 has a really personal angle. You came to Drangleic to free yourself of the curse. You're not a Chosen Undead or anything, you're someone that by their own hand, went out to cure themselves of the undead curse. You got there, and found the kingdom in shambles, the king gone, something horrible having happened. So you find out that he probably has the answer, and you go track him down, only slightly unwittingly following in his own footsteps, doing what he did. Before you know it, you're fit to become the next monarch. And when you finally do find the king, hollowed and mindless, well you best pick up the pieces and do this monarch thing. And you do it...maybe. You take the throne, the most powerful being in the world. It's up to you what happens next. Or maybe you don't, and leave to find another way out of the curse. I love the feel of Drangleic, it feels wartorn, I love the details put into making you feel like you're traversing an old battlefield with the hollowed out soldiers still following their last orders, their last memories. The Giants, as characters, are fascinating, however little we get of them. Revealed to not be monsters, but a people King Vendrick attacked and stole something from, who struck back in violent retalation for a horrible wrongdoing. Dark Souls 2 is just far enough removed from Dark Souls 1 that it could be its own things that brings over a few core ideas. I would have liked to see that happen in Dark Souls 3, but alas. My love of Dark Souls 2 is almost all lore, world, flavour. Its gameplay is actually fine, I think, a lot of people think its bad but I think DaS1 combat is pretty bad. The game has issues, like the doubling down on difficulty but not really getting it well, but for all the problems it has, it does a ton of things very well. It introduced some great ideas we never saw again, like bonfire ascetics, powerstancing, a changed up NG+, full left-hand movesets, and so on.

2015 - Bloodborne

You don't even know, you can't even comprehend, I doubt you could even imagine my love for this thing. It was my first 'Souls' game (although I think it's different enough it shouldn't be lumped under that banner) and it is, to this day, and forever shall be, my favourite. It is, in my opinion, THE best piece of modern Lovecraftian media out there. Period. It handles everything just so right, despite being an action game, it never betrays what makes Lovecraftian, and wider cosmic horror work. I could go on a very, very long time about all of this and one day I might. Bloodborne is just basically perfect, tonally, thematically, it's so rich and weird and intricate and it is, all of it, balanced with masterful precision. Gameplay-wise, it's just so f u c k i n g o o d. Like, this here, this is the best it's ever been. DaS1 feels like glacial ass compared to this, awkward, stuttering, lacking in energy. DaS2 is fine, in fact I think it's the best speed for the Souls game, but man are like all of the movesets just really bizarre and unsatsifying. DaS3 is just turbomode seizure-souls with zero weight, and don't get me started on the bossfights. But Bloodborne? It is both fast and heavy, the ferocity of attacks has weight, everything hits with satisfaction, every weapon is tailor made to be unique and feel unique. The game is a labour of love made with tech more than capable of realizing it, and it shows. There's nary a thing in the game that doesn't feel polished, that doesn't feel out of place. We know from datamining Bloodborne got switched around and whittled down a lot, but these were clearly necessary changes by a director honing a concept into perfection. And just as a weird cosmic horror gothic action game, it's so strange in just general existence it deserves to stand out and be praised. And although shitters and fools will bandie around the word edgy, they're tasteless jackasses with no ounce of aesthetic nuance.

2016 - Dark Souls III and Far Cry: Primal

CAVEMAN SHIT IS COOL AND WE REALLY DON'T GET ENOUGH OF IT. Never played a Far Cry game apart from this one, never plan to! I just like me unga bungas! What can I say, the land of Oros is gorgeous, the light, the trees, the mountains, the marshes, the animal sounds and deep rumble of caves, the proto Indo-European language crafted especially for the game, it's a place I just like walking around. It's supremely comfy and dangerous and exciting. Gameplay is a complete template sure, regardless of having never touched another Far Cry game I can feel that, but it sure as shit works.

Dark Souls 3 is a very complex game, because while it's a total smorgasbord of top tier dark fantasy aesthetics, none of it really comes together very well, it's a game oozing with creativity, but also feels like a haphazard mishmash. It's a game Miyazaki didn't really want to make, but had to, after the reception of DaS2. But for all that it's just Bloodborne Souls, it's still a fantastic game full of memorable enemies, areas, bosses, a game with a really unique general tone of exhaustion in every little detail, of a world falling apart at the seams. And you don't save it, either. The good end of Dark Souls 3 is the end of fire, but it doesn't really accomplish anything other than letting nature take its long diverted course. The DLCs don't fix that either, everything ends up in the Dreg Heap, all of 'human enterprise' for naught, but there's a smidgen of hope in the new painted world whose pigment is Dark. As you can tell I like DaS3 far more for its atmosphere and flavour rather than its story (which actually makes no sense whatsoever and is the worst in the series due to being literally incomprehensible and unfinished) or gameplay, which is perfectly fine and fun at many points, but the bossfights mostly boil down to flailing around like a fucking lunatic with 15 hit combos. There's concepts like the Deep which are so fundamentally important to major players but vague and with little to no elaboration. I literally couldn't tell you what Pontiff Sulyvahn was about, and he's supposed to be the main villain? DaS3 suffered its internal change arounds in a way that it came out weaker, with many other concepts dashed aside. But that doesn't stop it all from being fascinating and being a nicely definitive, if massively obscure, ending to a landmark series. When your game ends at the literal end of all time, you're done. Good night.

2017 - 2019 fucking nothing I guess

Yeah not even joking here, gaming more or less ended in 2016 for me. Yes I've played games since then but nothing's left an impact for me the ways the others have, and I played all those past their prime. All but two of my favourites were Japanese games, too.

Honourable Mentions:

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim

Gotta mention it. Dumped literal years into this fucking thing. And that was on Xbox 360 with no mods! But it proved far too shallow in the end, and even with the Special Edition that allowed mods on consoles, it's just not good enough. Frankly, Dark Souls has ruined videogames for me and I pray Bethesda pull up the slack with TES6 and reintroduce the flavour that makes TES what it is, and gives us more than serviceable combat. But as for Skyrim, it's fucking boring and shallow, story is rail-roady as fuck, combat is just terrible aside from some magick, although Shouts will be forever iconic, and will be one the more fun and interesting videogame powers for me.

Death Stranding

I got to this a little late, and had I played it earlier and completed it, it would likely be 2019's best game for me. As I'm still barely into it, I can't say much more than its mechanics are fantastically fresh, no game has made just walking around so enthralling and the world is compelling and bizarre. Every BT encounter is tense and boy are they fuckin spooky. I'm dying to know where it'll go next.

God of War

I'm a fan of the old GoW games because they're really fun and super over the top. GoW2 is one of my favourite games, it's incredibly well made, great environments and combat and bosses. It's a big ol' blockbuster. Dad of Boy is a very different beast. Scaled way, way down, and given the Sony Cinematic treatment, though not necessarily to its detriment. The game has problems. I mean, yeah, Kratos snapping Baldr's neck and saying 'violence is bad' is kind of fucking stupid, but I guess I get what they were going for. Gameplay-wise, pretty good. The axe is satisfying, though the Blades of Chaos are more so, and actual hits do feel nice and heavy, though I bemoan the lack of blood. What's most suprising is how it felt like a God of War game just from a different angle, the exploration and puzzles were familiar in feel. In fact I have a lot of praise for the game in its characters and gameplay, even its story. But I'll probably never play it again. Once completed I felt absolutely no want to go back again, despite the NG+ introduction. I hope they follow it up.

Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order

I was very unsure about this but something took a hold of me and one trade in of Skyrim later, I was home playing Star Wars. And oh look, it's the best piece of Star Wars media since the buyout! Mandalorian aside, but there's very little that feels 'Star Wars' about that other than the paintjob. Anyway. Fallen Order takes place somewhere between episodes 3 and 4 in a newly risen Empire before Luke and all that shit happens. Ex-Padawan Cal Kestis is hiding out on some junkyard scrapper world and has to run when he saves a buddy with the Force. He teams up with an ex-Jedi, a space goblin, the best droid buddy ever and eventually a goth alien to find a Jedi Holocron containing info on young Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy before the Empire gets it. It has a wonderful sense of adventure to it, and that really holds it together. I actually think it feels like a remaster of an older gen game, to be honest, especially the platforming which just feels far too videogamey, but that doesn't stop it from being fun. The combat is almost ripped right out of Sekiro but I like this waaaaay more than Sekiro. Effortlessly deflecting blaster shots back at Stormtroopers and taking out whole groups is the good shit. Fighting melee guys is challening but never oppresively so, and bossfights against Inquisitors are fairly gruelling but rewarding. If you're a shitter with no reaction times like me, you can switch that up almost on the fly so you don't end up feeling like every encounter is a chore. Best of all is the lightsaber customization, a necessity for any Jedi-centric Star Wars game and now you can even remove Cere Junda's ligthsaber switch with the latest update! But you know what? Unless they release DLC, like God of War, I don't know if I'll ever play it again.

Ziggurat

Combining wizards, Quake and rogue-likes, Ziggurat has you playing a wizard shooting your way through a trial to be accepted into an order of magicians. That's it. You get your wand and can pick up a rapid fire staff weapon, mid-range spell weapon and slow but powerful alchemy weapon. There's a bunch of different ones for each type, some better or more satisfying than others. There's talismans that can grant special abilities but with long recharge times. Most importantly there's the level up system where you must choose one or two random perks each time. This is where the variety and replay value comes in, making the most of perks you get and potentially building absolute beasts of characters over five levels. Games are short but sweet. You unlock different characters too, based on things achieved in-game. Each character starts with a number of perks and some have unique handicaps like low starting health or levelling up slower. Honestly, not much to say other than I really enjoy it, it's super fun to pick up for half an hour and play.

[inb4vaughn]

The Soaring Golf Song Of Montana’s Spanish Peaks

Mountain golf is a genre all its own, but mountain golf of the caliber conjured by Tom Weiskopf at Spanish Peaks Mountain Club in Big Sky, Montana, is on a whole new level, literally and figuratively.

Not that it’s the highest track in elevation in America, in Montana or even in its neighborhood — the Yellowstone Club one ridge away grabs that distinction, and the Jack Nicklaus-authored course art Moonlight Basin a few miles to the north, on the other side of horizon-hogging Lone Mountain, comes close — but in terms of making the most of challenging terrain, and creating a hole-to-hole experience that immediately leaves you wanting more no matter what your score, Spanish Peaks reaches some rarefied air indeed.

And don’t let the fact that’s a private club deter you, at least in the short term. With several luxury rental cabins available to the public through the 2019 season, and the under-construction, high-end Montage Hotel set to offer guests course access come summer 2021, golfers who find their way to the soaring peaks of southwest Montana, about an hour’s drive south of Bozeman and not far from the West Gate to Yellowstone National Park, should plan to spend a day immersed in Weiskopf’s handiwork.

Spanish Peaks Clubhouse

At least four things will come to mind as you take the winding, rising road from the village at Big Sky to Spanish Peaks Mountain Club.

The 360-degree sweep of mountain beauty is truly and undeniably awe-inspiring

This place is hopping with home construction — though not one handsome structure interferes with the golf experience or ventures that overbearing, “hey, look at me” ethic found at more than a few private golf enclaves throughout America

Perched perfectly between the front nine below and back nine above, the clubhouse complex is as luxury-meets-rustic welcoming as any comparable structure in the modern American West.

There are smiling member faces everywhere, and they’re not all of a certain, uh, advanced age. This a family club and development through and through and multi-generational enjoyment is encouraged if not expected.

In fact, during a round you’re liable to see mom, dad, kids and a grandparent or two loaded into a couple carts and heading for one of Spanish Peaks’ coolest perks: A “Snack Cabin” loaded with refrigerated drinks, pint-sized hot dogs and snacks ranging from classic candy bars and chips to fresh fruit and health-conscious protein bars. There’s one on the front, one on the back, strategically placed to serve a half-dozen holes, so there’s no excuse for getting parched or letting hunger pangs interfere with even one swing.

The first hole at Spanish Peaks

Then again, hunger or thirst have a tough time competing with the sheer joy of just being there to follow Weiskopf’s muse, to let his best mountain course’s seductive song of “polished seclusion” carry you through every swing, good and bad, with gratitude.

“I like playing fast, but I would never object to being held up all day at Spanish Peaks,” said Mike Fish, a visitor from Syracuse, New York enjoying his first extended foray into the Montana wild — not only for golf, but for hikes around Big Sky and in Glacier National Park, several hours’ drive to the northwest. “I will treasure this round. It’s special.”

Special enough, indeed, to be rescued from a 2011 bankruptcy filing on the heels of the worldwide economic collapse, which laid many a fledgling golf club low. After closing for a couple seasons to round up partners with the cash, clout and foresight to keep this Weiskopf wonder from disappearing into the woods forever — including a collection of founding members; Michigan-based Boyne Resorts, which owns the entire Big Sky resort complex; and Montage Resorts, which now owns the course itself — Spanish Peaks returned in 2013. It’s been adding members and racking up raves ever since.

The 17th hole at Spanish Peaks

But what makes the course itself so special, other than its rugged, God-given setting?

For one thing, among modern architects, Weiskopf has always been known for giving his layouts a certain pacing and rhythm that draw the player in right away, asking for his or her best game until the last stroke and throwing in a few features that, in lesser hands, could sink into gimmickry.

At Spanish Peaks, for instance, he designed the 18th hole with alternate greens — it’s a par 4 to one, par 5 to the other. In either case you’ve got to keep your downhill, half-blind tee shot short of a broad ravine choked with greenery and tall grass — tricky at plus-6,000-feet above sea level — and clear it with your second shot. That could be a simple (maybe) flip wedge to the short green or a big decision to the long one, which hovers on a small cliff with the hotel rising in the distance behind it: hit a lay-up to a relatively flat lie or just go for it with a hybrid or fairway metal? It’s a common quandary on many a par 5, but ol’ Tom manages to give it a little extra pucker factor.

The course’s other three par 5s are just as tasty in their own way, including No, which boomerangs around a long, narrow lake to plateau green, and No, 11, which, at around 230 yards from the members’ tees, narrows to just a few yards between a bunker and piney outropping — negotiate that bottleneck and the green is there for the taking with a well-placed baby draw.

The second hole at Spanish Peaks

So where is the trademark Tommy W. drivable par 4? That would be No. 17, which tips out at 342 yards, translating to about 305 at elevation for a single-digit player. He puts one bunker right in landing zone, of course, but it’s also an apt aiming point. What the hell — if the wind is favorable, pull the dog and give ’er a go.

But it’s a par 3 that seizes “signature hole” honors. No. 15 is a heart-stopping, suitable-for-framing mountain tableau that just happens to have a broad, inviting green in the foreground. It plays downhill with a water feature left, trees right and behind and the soaring, serrated edge of the Spanish Peaks themselves soaring into the distant horizon.

Might want to take an extra deep breath before pulling the club back here, friends. And when driving down to the green, take a moment to appreciate the way Weiskopf mirrors the shape and line of those mountains on the course’s sculpted scapes. “You might call it peak, or peek, symmetry,” said Mike Fish. He’s right both ways.

In fact, playing this course is a lesson in that brand of man-in-nature symmetry all too few of us experience enough. Every step, swing and breath is a blessing.

Clearly Spanish Peaks has mastered the language of mountain golf, backed by a crack maintenance crew that can bring every hole back to midsummer form within a few days of a freak snowstorm, and even has the chops to erase, overnight, the dance-on-the-green tracks of resident elk.

Fish marveled at the conditioning, and what must be some impressive technology behind it. “I’m guessing there’s a subtle, world class drainage system that each spring prevents the winter snowpack from destroying the manufactured artwork blending in beautifully with Mother Nature’s sloping canvas,” he wrote in an e-mail several weeks after his round there. “How many miles of drainage pipes must be involved?”

And how many miles on the road or in the air is a trip to Spanish Peaks worth? As many as it takes.

•••

If you have time to add rounds at The Reserve at Moonlight Basin (also private but accessible via onsite lodging) and Arnold Palmer’s public Big Sky Golf Course while you’re up there, all the better. But start at Spanish Peaks Mountain Club, and do so while the sun is still high in the sky. By late September, Big Sky’s collective mind turns to winter sports (Big Sky boasts North America’s largest expanse of skiable terrain), and the snow may even be flying by then. By mid-October the golf courses bed down until May at the earliest. (Remember, the course will be closed to the publicly in 2020 only, then available when The Montage opens.)

Bozeman-Yellowstone International Airport is served by Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue and United Airlines, with direct flights from several large cities including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

Reservations/Information:

www.spanishpeaks.findyourbigsky.com

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