#neither is branding or at least implementing the branding | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

unmaskedagain · 5 years

Text

Teenage Rebellion

I wanted to do something completely different. And I realized I had never really used Adrien’s character that much. Apart from the standard salt. So I decided to give him a better voice. Test my skills with a new character.

Adrien didn’t know what happened. What snapped inside of him? But he just knew that, one day, while his father was giving him a lecture and laying out demands, a funny little word popped in to his head; no. Then he started to wonder if he could say no. Then he heard Marinette her new internship only allowed her to work so many hours because she was only a kid. Then he heard something magical; child labor laws. He looked them up and was amazed. He wanted to know more; wanted to know what his options were. So he went to Marinette and Nino. Then explained that he had rights. When he mentioned about getting taken out of school, they gave him options of how to retaliate.

Nevertheless, it would be weeks before he decided to implement his new idea; not daring to yet. When he finally struck, he knew exactly what the final straw had bene.

“You’ll be taking Miss Rossi to the gala next weekend,” Gabriel told his son.

Adrien blinked, “No.”

The room went silent. Nathalie and gorilla looked stunned. Gabriel glanced at his son, “What do you mean no. This is not up for debate.”

Nothing ever was, Adrien thought, and that was problem.

“You’re right,” Adrien nodded. “Which is why my answer is still no.”

Gabriel assessed his usually obeying son. “I’m not asking.”

“And yet my answer is no.”

“And if you could no longer attend that school of yours?” Gabriel threatened. It always worked.

Adrien shrugged. “Then I will no longer model.”

More stunned silence.

“Adrien,” Gabriel pinched his nose but was cut off.

Adrien crossed his arms, “You can’t make me model.” He looked around at his three caretakers. “And if you try, I’ll scream loud enough for every reporter in Paris to hear me. And while we’re on the subject; I read something about child labor laws. You’re breaking them. I’ll scream that too. If that doesn’t stop, if I don’t start working normal kid hours and eating a healthy amount of food,” He threw the last part at Nathalie. She had been instructed to keep him on a strict diet. “I’ll go to the police. CPS. The news.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to speak again but again was cut off.

“Even if you try to keep me in here,” Adrien added. “It will just look worse. People will question where I am. The Brand will hurt. My friends will look for me. They’ll ask questions. They’ll spread what it’s really like for me. How unhappy I am. My fans will riot. Even more when I finally do get out of here and go straight to the police, a reporter; maybe do a tell-all on Alya’s blog. Oh wait, I already left several copies of that already previously recorded interview that will be released if I don’t show up for class for a few days.”

The three adults stood with opened mouths. Nathalie was the first to recover, “Adrien, we can discuss this…”

“No!” Adrien glared. “I’m done. You worked me to the bone, starved me, neglected me,” He threw that viciously at Gabriel who flinched, “Attempted again and again to isolate me from my friends. All of which is called child abuse. And now you want to control my romantic interests; tell that shrew Rossi to stay the hell away from me. I will never work with her again. Let me make this very clear. I have evidence of the child labor laws broken. I have video proof the various meals I’ve been served that never once met my nutritional intake. Recordings of various times you threatened me with my removal from school if I didn’t meet various demands and achievement. I have witness testimony from other models, my friends, current and former Agreste fashion employees of my treatment. I have no trouble releasing every last bit of information.”

Adrien took a breath after his rant. “This is my life. I will live it my way. From now on, one third of every paycheck I earn, and I do know the amounts, will be deposited into my personal bank account. The rest of into the saving account mother set up for me. In fact, I want the last six months of checks deposited the same. I want freedom. And if I have to destroy you to get it, I will. Push me, and I’ll push back.” With that, he spun around and left the room. Gorilla followed after him dutifully.

“What do we do?” Nathalie asked. “About Adrien, sir?”

Gabriel glared harshly at where his son at stood, “What can we do?” As much as it killed him to admit it, his son had them on the edge of cliff and looked rather happy at the idea of pushing them off. “I don’t look good in prison orange.” He sighed. “We’ll get him back under control soon enough.”

Nathalie nodded. Neither did she. “I’ll call Rossi and tell her plans have changed.” Everything had changed.

Later that day, Nathalie presented him with his bank card that she taken at Gabriel’s demand and gave him a stiff nod. He turned with a beaming smile to Gorilla, “We’re getting McDonalds!”

Nathalie let out a cry of protest but was ignored.

That day Adrien had his first big mac and fries. It was the biggest meal he’d eaten in months, so his stomach hurt a little, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

He got a call from his father when he was finished. When his dad immediately began to yell at him about not following his diet; Adrian hung up on him. The blond shook his head. He had warned his father; push and Adrien would push back.

He looked around and spotted some punk skaters skating down the street. Adrien smirked. Oh, he had an idea.

Marinette had been thrilled when he called to see if she was free to go shopping with him. Less thrilled, when they wound up at Hot topic.

“Why?” The bluenette whined. “Just why? I have so many ideas.”

Over the last two years, the two had become really good friends. They got even close when Chat Noir and Ladybug revealed their identities to each other. Mostly because they lost their crushes on each other. Marinette on Adrien. And Adrien on Ladybug. It was just too weird for either of them.

“This is what I want!” Adrien smiled as he looked through the band Ts and a lot of nightmare before Christmas merchandise.

“But sunshine!” Marinette pleaded. She started to pull out shirts and accessories that look like they would fit Adrien’s build. “Happiness?”

Adrien laughed, “Storm cloud. Make my father miserable.”

Marinette paused. “Happiness.” She nodded. She had wanted to stick it to Gabriel Agreste for years; the rotten bastard.

The girl ended up approving seven potential outfits from Hot Topic. Adrien bought them all. Then Marinette dragged the boy to other various stores. If Adrien was going to punk rock; then it would be a fashion and, dare she say it, chic punk rock look. Though she did have to drag Adrien away from the piercing salon.

When Adrien got home, Gabriel attempted to discipline him again but was met with stony silence. Adrien pulled out his phone and played a recording of Gabriel chastising Adrien not being thin enough and that his diet would be limited to 1000 calories a day.

The blond boy raised an eyebrow, “I can have this trending within the hour. Your move.”

Gabriel growled and stomped off. He had honestly thought his son had been jesting about the recordings, about evidence, or at very least could be cowed not use any of it. He was wrong, apparently; very wrong.

When Adrien left for school the next mornings, he caused his father to have a panic attack. Gone was the preppy, sunshine child the world was used to. The fifteen-year-old Adrien wore dark green ripped jeans; a studded leather jacket over a black My Chemical Romance shirt. He wore combat boots and eyeliner. “You were warned,” Adrien told his father on his way out of the door. “Keep pushing though.”

“Oh my god, he’s dead,” Nino said to Adrien when he got to class. “Gabriel Agreste.” He started to pretend to tear up. “You want something for so long. And when it finally happens. You wonder what to do.” He suddenly straightened. “I know let’s throw a party. It will end will a conga line over the SOB’s grave.”

“My father’s not dead,” Adrien rolled his eyes as he took his seat in the back. When Marinette had been moved there, he had follow much to the complaints of Lila. “Though it was a pretty close call this morning.”

Most people hadn’t recognized him as he walked through the halls of the school. It was a relief to just be normal.

When the other students arrived, he had gotten double glances. The first was when they said hello, then quickly looked again when they realized something was very, very wrong.

“Holy shit,” Juleka said loudly. The loudest anyone had ever heard her speak. She blushed. “Sorry. You look rocking, Adrien.”

Rose just kept blinking at him. “But, but, team sunshine?” She whispered. Adrien cooed. The two had been dubbed that by the class after a bad storm came in and all the class got soaked but the two kept smiling and trying to cheer people up.

“Team positive?” He offered.

A squeak let him know, Marinette had arrived. She looked over him, “What did I do?” She sat went to her desk. “What did I do?”

“Not enough,” Nino stated. “A little bit more. And we could’ve been doing the Cha slide over Gabriel’s grave right now. Step your game up, dudette. Cause you’re slacking.”

Marinette just closed her eyes and prayed for patience; having boys as her best friends wasn’t easy. Adrien and Nino had become her closest friends, after Lila came and tried to tear everyone away from her. She sort of succeeded. Alya was no longer her friend. Neither was Mylene, Sabrina, Ivan, or Kim. Everyone else in chose to believe the girl they’d known forever over the some chick they just met. Unfortunately, this cause Alya and Nino to break up. Nino was fine with remaining a neutral about whether Lila was a liar, though he thought she was, to keep the peace with his girlfriend. But Alya hadn’t budged and kept harping on the situation; about Nino being friend with Marinette. Nino had no choice but to end things which just cause the girl to get even angrier.

“Group selfie?” Adrien asked. “Juleka, you too. Come on, Rose.”

The five grouped together, and snapped a picture of Adrien’s phone, “Hashtag: new Look, new me. Hashtag: Smells like Teen Spirit.”

More gasps were heard as Lila and Alya, their posse, arrived. “What happened?” Lila frowned.

“Got a new look,” Adrien grinned.

Lila glared. She had been warned that Adrien had gotten out of Gabriel’s control but hadn’t believed it. “You won’t wear that on our date to the gala, right?”

“We’re not dating,” Adrien said bluntly. “I’m not going to the gala with you.” He shook his head. “I’ve told you too many times already, Lila. I will never date you. I don’t like you. I have never liked you. I’m sorry.”

Lila huffed, “Your father!” She started.

Adrien cut her off, “Can my ass!” He yelled. “I don’t care. Call it teenage rebellion or whatever. But It’s my life. Get over it.”

No, Lila thought, this couldn’t be happening. Adrien was her ticket in. At the gala she’d be on his arm and get attention from all sorts of celebrities.

Alya bristled on behalf of her friend, “You don’t have to be so mean.”

Nino glared back, “He wouldn’t have to be if she could take a hint. No means no.”

“He could give her chance,” Alya continued. “How will he know if he really likes or not if he doesn’t.”

“Because he said he doesn’t,” This time it was Rose who spoke. “Adrien, and everyone else, is allowed to decide that they don’t like someone; that they don’t want to date them. You should respect that.”

Lila started crying, big fake tears rolled down her cheeks, “I like you so much,” She pleaded. “I know you’d like me too if you got to know.”

Adrien scoffed, “I know exactly who you are, Lila. And that’s the root of why I don’t like you.”

At this Lila had to force herself not to glare. Fine, she thought, if he wanted to be like that, then she had another card to play. “Marinette put you up to this, didn’t she? She’s been bullying me. And got inside your heard with all her mean words; that’s why you don’t like me.”

Everyone on Lila’s side turned fierce looks toward the Asian girl, accusation on their tongue.

“How could you?” Mylene asked. “You’ve changed, Marinette.”

“Not cool, Bro,” Kim added. He had been crushing on Lila for months and followed her around like a puppy.

“You’re as bad as Chloe ever was,” Alya shook her head. “I can’t believe you’d hurt Lila over your jealously!”

Adrien wasn’t having it, “I. Don’t. Like. You!” He yelled at Lila. “I didn’t like you the moment you first came to this class. It has nothing to do with Marinette. It’s you. You’re the problem. Get it? Got it? Good.” He looked at Lila’s friends. “Marinette is not a bully. She is one of my best friends; my sister, even. And unlike you, she actually listens to me; what I want. Not pant after Lila’s every word.”

The class blinked, stunned because they never really heard Adrien tell anyone off before.

“Well, who are you taking to gala,” Lila asked snidely, and gave a quick mean look at Marinette.

“His boyfriend!” Nino suddenly blurted. “Ouch!” He hissed.

Marinette had kicked the glasses-wearing boy’s chair as hard as she could.

Adrien just went with it. He had come out to most of the class the year before and never made his sexuality a secret; he liked guys, or at least preferred them. His desire for Ladybug had come from his love had for the freedom he got whenever he was Chat Noir. He was happiest as Chat Noir, and seeing as Ladybug had always been present; he thought he’d be happiest with Ladybug. He was only a little right.

“He’s looking forward to it,” Adrien smiled, or at least, whatever guy he could convince to go with him, hopefully would be.

“What were you thinking,” Marinette hissed at Nino as soon as the bell rang ending first period, and they were in the halls.

“What?” Nino asked. “You’re the only who can make an attempt on Gabriel Agreste? Nope. Don’t think so. First best friend gets dips.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Adrien whispered.

“So, borrow Marinette’s,” Nino shrugged.

Marinette gasped, “I’m not sharing my boyfriend with Blond Wonder over here.”

“What? Can’t take the competition?” Nino asked.

“I’ll end you, Lahiffe!”

“That’s not a no.”

Adrien laughed.

Juleka brushed by him, “I can ask Luka if he’s free,” She asked with a whisper. “If you want.”

The three paused. It was a good suggestion. “Aurore would come for blood,” Their newest friend had the biggest crush on the guitarist.

The rest of the school had been interesting. Adrien’s photo was trending; though nearly everyone in school had tried to get look at him.

When Adrien got home from school that day, it was to Gabriel and Nathalie’s angry looks. They had tried to do damage control. But for everything they released, Adrien had been quick to either deny their claims via tweets. Or lease video on Instagram about his new fashion direction.

“This is enough, Adrien,” Gabriel stated calmly. “You’ve gone too far. You will be escorting Miss Rossi to the gala, and this look will never be seen again. Am I understood?”

Adrien pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and put it on speak, “Hey man, do you still have that video of my dad pulling me out of school, during an important, test to go to a photoshoot?”

“Sure do.” Nino replied smugly.

“What about all the videos I sent you from overnight shoots?” He asked. “Where I worked like all night. Videos that clearly depicts that child labor laws were broken.”

“Saved on several different clouds.” Nino answered. “I can have them online in five minutes. And sent to the police and CPS in ten.”

“Thanks, talk later.” Adrien disconnected the call. “You were saying?” He asked his father. Silence was all he got. “Thought so. I’m taking my boyfriend to the gala.” He turned around. “I’m going out.”

Gabriel pinched his nose, “He’ll ruin us.”

“No sir,” Nathalie said. “He’ll destroy us.”

Adrien showed up at Marinette’s room an hour later, with a pleading look on his face and a box of hair dye.

Marinette took it with a sigh, “Are you sure it’s not me you’re trying to hurt.”

“It’s not permanent?” He offered weakly. “Should last a week, maybe less. I wash my hair a lot.”

When Adrien came to school sporting bright blue locks, three girls fainted.

“Awesome,” Nino high-fived the former blond. “How’s your dad?”

“Collapsed and fell down the stairs.” Adrien gave a small smirk. At the sight of Adrien’s hair, Gabriel had clutched his arms and just fell. “He was near the bottom so he was hurt too much.”

“Righteous,” Nino said and turned to look at Marinette in her seat, “What part of bestie gets dibs do you not understand?”

Marinette crossed her arms and sniffed, “Maybe I’m not the one needs to step their game up.”

“What?” Nino gasped. “Oh it’s on!”

Nino would later met Adrien and Marinette for ice cream, he’d come on the back of some guy’s motorcycle. “Hey,” Nino waved. The dude he was with gave them a stiff nod and a cocky smirk. He was blond with a cool haircut, tattoos, and two different colored eyes. “This is Jace. I know him through my cousin Simon. He’s seventeen. He has tattoos, drives a motorcycle, dress primarily in black and leather, and he’s been to jail. He agreed to be your date to the gala.”

Marinette and Adrien just stared. Adrien blinked too hard to shake the shock away, “Wow you really want my dad dead.”

He blushed red. Jace was rather attractive. He was the type who knew just how hot he was too.

“Hi I’m Marinette,” Marinette waved to Jace. “You’re freakishly hot. And if you manage to take out Nathalie too, I’ll be your best friend.”

Jace chuckled. This could be fun. Maybe Simon hadn’t steered him wrong when he told him to hang out with his cousin if he had the time. He had research Nino and his friends to the last detail, just in case. “Hi Marinette. I’ll do my best to try. My sister Isabelle and my best friend Clary love your MDC designs. They’d kill for them. Won’t even make it look like an accident.”

Marinette blushed, “Pull this off and I’ll design the dresses of their dreams for free.”

Jace fought the urge to wince. Failure was no longer an option. Clary and Izzy would hunt him down if he failed. So would Magnus for that matter. He’d been wanting to meet the young designer since he saw Jagged Stone’s latest red carpet look. And then Alec wouldn’t be happy about his sulky husband… even if he turned Jace into a toad.

Jace nodded and put an arm around the pink hair boy, “Let’s make it count.” The smaller boy blushed. Jace gave him a wolfish grin. “This is going to be fun.”

The rest of week had Adrien dodging a whining Lila and her attempts at getting her hooks into him in time for the Gala. She had been Akumatized three times over it. A fourth when Adrien had enough and got her mother to come to school and where truths were revealed.

Alya still refused to budge on the matter. Lila was Ladybug’s best friend after all. She couldn’t be lying, or so she said. Which caused most the class to groan. Marinette didn’t understand. After Ladybug had disavowed the Ladyblog for too many lies, asked Alya to take down Lila’s stories, and even went as far as getting a new fox hero (Juleka); she thought Alya would’ve wised up now.

Sabrina who had been converted back to light side after Lila’s mom had confirmed they had only ever lived in Italy other than France, said that Alya was probably just stubborn. She would have to admit that she struggled that she turned her back on her best friend, ruined her relationship with her boyfriend, and been a bad friend to most of the class for nothing. It was a hard pill to swallow.

Outside of school, his dad and Nathalie’s attempts to get him back under their thumb had gotten desperate. The first time they took his phone and his laptop. He had already gotten a prepaid one hidden in his room, once he got back to his room, he texted Marinette and Nino. Second later, a video of Gabriel ranting at his son for failing to be perfect during a photoshoot and threatening to remove him from school had surfaced. It took the media by storm.

Less than an hour later, someone knocked on his door.

“Come in,” He called from his bed.

Nathalie stared at him for a moment. “You posted the video.” She sounded like she still couldn’t believe it. “We didn’t think you would.”

“Now you know better.” Adrien stated. “My things.”

“This will hurt the brand,” Nathalie said as she place his phone and laptop on the bed. “Hurt the business. Stock prices will from the bad press.”

Adrien put down the book he’d been reading and leaned forward, “Then maybe you and dad will finally learn this is a game you won’t win,” He said. “I’ll see Gabriel Agreste’s entire legacy burned to ashes before I give in.”

“…Your mother would’ve done the same,” Nathalie whispered and was gone from the room before Adrien could say anything else; door closed behind her.

The day of the Gala, Saturday, Adrien had go to Marinette’s first thing in the morning. He left suit his father had laid out for him the day before in the fireplace. It wasn’t lit but he knew his dad would get the message.

Marinette had designed him and Nino suits for the dance. Adrien had made sure to add his two best friends to the Gala’s invite list months ago. The host of the Gala’s daughter was a big fan of the blond; it took an autograph or two to get two more invites. Normally, Adrien would wear a classic black suit of his father’s design.

Adrien wanted something different, something to make everyone talk, something to go with his pink hair. When he told Marinette this, she got a spark in her eyes, and he knew he’d get exactly what he wanted. And he did.

The pink-haired boy arrived to the Gala on the back of a motorcycle to the stunned faces of the Paparazzi. The valet who took the keys from Jace had looked excited at parking the bike though.

Adrien wore a slim fitted glittery sliver suit, that under the right light reflected a rainbow look, with a black tie and shoes. Jace wore ripped jeans, tight sleeveless undershirt, and his leather jacket. His tattoos on his neck was plain to see and he had on a eyebrow ring he didn’t before. Jace wrapped his arm around Adrien and escorted him inside. Just as the paparazzi suddenly got their senses back.

The pair found Marinette and Nino by the refreshments. They walked right by an angry Lila who looked ready to kill. She’d come with Alya, and how his father managed to swing that on such short notice, Adrien didn’t know. Nino wore a black and green suit. Marinette wore a sparkly midnight blue pixie dress. Marinette’s boyfriend Connor had arrived not after. Connor brought his friend Cassandra who seemed interested in Nino.

Adrien and Jace danced after speaking with the four a bit. As the two glided across the dance floor, Adrien found it hard to keep an eye out for his father when Jace kept looking at him so…

Well in a way that left him frazzled.

However Adrien’s first clue that his father had arrived was the sound of someone choking.

And then Nino shouted, “Yes, I did it!” Was his second clue.

“Gabriel’s fainted,” Nathalie yelled. “Call for an ambulance.”

“That’s one,” Jace whispered in his ear. “Care to make it Two for Two.”

Adrien looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding earnestly. A second later, Jace’s lips caught his own. Then they were making out on the dance floor.

“Nathalie’s down,” He heard Marinette cackle. “Poor thing. Must be the stress.”

The kiss broke. Jace smirked down at Adrien, “Not bad Agreste; might make this a permanent thing.”

Adrien hid his blushing face in his date’s chest; content to ignore the chaos erupting around them.

Freedom never felt so good.

#ml salt #ml fic #adrien agreste #adrien deserves better #Marienette Dupain Cheng #Marinette deserves better #nino lahiffe #alya salt #lila salt #jace lightwood

4K notes · View notes

ask-purpled-and-blued · 3 years

Text

Vigilante

Not once has Purpled ever called himself a hero.

He wants that on record, wants to say it up front. He’s never had any delusions about what he is and what he’s doing.

He doesn’t have the license for it, doesn’t have the morals for it. He’s not even saving that many people.

He’s just some kid running around in pro hero cosplay with his shoddy homemade support gear.

So riddle him this: why the fuck is his vigilante name trending on Twitter under #Swag_forHeroCon?

(—This one’s got a high-stress moment and the briefest panic attack known to man somewhere in the middle. Mind the post’s tags and reply if it needs more.—)

—

It started about a year ago. It’s sophomore year and he’s looking at his options for next year’s classes.

Of course he’s taking AP Calc and everything he thinks colleges wanna see. That’s a given and a no-brainer and he’s not gonna go into detail about that.

No, what matters is that his junior and senior year let him take career classes.

Hero-related career classes.

Because not only is this a private nerd school that he needs his scholarship to afford. It’s a private nerd school that has a dual-enrollment type thing with a nearby heroics school.

And one with a pretty good support course that is now available to him.

He’s always been interested in math and engineering. Support courses are just using both of those to make cool shit for heroes and make hella money while doing so.

He’s done his research. Support gear can cost anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to an arm and a leg and both your kidneys.

And it’s his dream to make that kinda money.

So he talks to his counselor about it, fills out the applications and waivers, takes the program’s entrance exam. And within a week he’s got his new schedule that’s got an extra two hours slapped onto the end of the day.

It’s gonna be so worth it.

—

And it really was.

The beginning of the year was covering what they should make support gear for, how to take the quirks and ideas of the heroes they’re working for and make them actually work.

But also the design process, how to research stuff, lab safety. How to make something look nice while not compromising its utility, costume design, branding. Different materials and their uses, different materials and how to work with them. How to deal with mistakes and set-backs. Avoiding burnout and getting literally burn.

The class was amazing. But his favorite part came later in the year.

The final project.

They were given a made up hero student’s profile and were told to create a support item for them. The file came with their name, measurements, hero name, quirk description, and several sketches of what the fake person looked like and of them using their quirk.

They were given a few deadlines and some profiles came with design requests, but for the most part they were allowed to go ham.

And go ham he did.

His assignment was a kid whose quirk was being able to float just himself. He got a couple sketches of what the kid’s costume already had and it looked like there was a bee theme going on.

So, naturally, he decided to give this kid a pneumatic nail gun.

...

Alright so maybe that wasn’t as intuitive as he thought it was. But the kid didn’t have any sort of weapon on him in any of the sketches!

And there wasn’t any sort of close combat abilities listed in the biography like some of his classmates’s people had, so the further this kid could be from the action while still packing a punch the better.

Hence the nail gun he was designing to look like a stinger.

He did his research. Looked up where the body’s vital organs are and read up on acupuncture. Looked up the damage that stab wounds can do and how fast a thing had to be going to go right through you.

Printed out some human outlines and wrote up a couple sheets that pointed out the “no-no spots.” And basically wrote a manual on how to use the thing and half an essay on why certain safety features were implemented to keep him and the fake kid from being sued.

And then halfway through actually building the thing he got the idea to add a paralytic substance.

And then he hated himself a little bit because he had to find a substance that would be non-lethal and would have the desired affect. And then he had to go to his teacher during his office hours to sit down and explain that yes he had this idea but he’s not entirely sure if it’s a good one.

And he wrote another almost-essay about what he chose as the paralytic substance and why he chose it and what the max amount the average person could take was so that he wouldn’t be liable if it was used improperly.

And then he recorded himself reading all of his paperwork both for extra credit and because apparently the kid’s bio said he was dyslexic and the teacher wanted them to do this as realistically as possible.

Probably would’ve been easier to just change the font but he’s come this far, might as well go the extra mile.

He paints the thing. Gathers up all his research and his concept sketches and his blueprints and his explanations and his recordings.

And he dumps them on the teacher’s desk and enjoys the lull in the class as the final projects get reviewed and graded.

They get to watch movies and Netflix with the TA while the teacher sits in the other room grading them.

He loved this class.

—

He still loves the class but it loses points for the fucking heart attack it just gave him.

Apparently the hero students they made shit for we’re real hero students. Actual, physical people who applied to the heroics department and got in. And may possibly one day be heroes if they didn’t fail.

And were going to come in and see the shit they made that passed inspections. And would be given said shit to use as part of their hero costumes.

In hindsight it should’ve been obvious, but Purpled cut himself some slack there.

At least his guy was nice. A little too excited at 4pm on a Thursday, but given the fact that Purpled just handed him a gun and said he could shoot people, it was understandable.

Purpled felt really good as he walked this Tubbo guy through the instructions again. Apparently he’d already been sent the paperwork and the audio before this. So all that was left to do was remind him about it the important stuff and then taking five wide steps back and letting him shoot at a practice dummy.

...

Well, Tubbo’s aim wasn’t his problem.

F to any villains and civilians in his way.

—

At this point, there’s probably some confusion.

“Purpled, why did you become a vigilante if your support gear inventing future looked bright?”

He’s getting to that!

He needs to talk about his junior year to give context for his senior year.

Which sucked absolute ass.

—

For one, Purpled’s quirk came in.

Now, normally that would be a pretty good thing. Somewhere around 80% of America’s population had quirks.

Four out of every five people had some sort of ability or abnormality that ranged from being able to detach your ear to having super strength. Getting one that wasn’t detrimental to your health, even at his age, was generally a positive thing.

Except Purpled’s actually sucked. Sucked so fucking bad.

Yeah, he was lucky in that he didn’t suddenly grow gills and need to live underwater for the rest of his life or something. But he honestly wished he could go back to a week ago when he didn’t have this quirk.

When he wasn’t constantly being forgotten by the people in his life because of a quirk he couldn’t turn off.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the quirk counselor’s quirk let them detect the use of quirks, he would’ve thought he’d lost it.

People forgetting his face, his name, his existence over the span of a week was hell. He had to show his mother his birth certificate and social security card and his baby pictures so that she’s remember she had another son. Let alone everyone else in his life that he only saw at school.

Oh god his fucking school.

The lengths he had to go to to keep his fucking scholarship was fucking nuts.

Classes were a nightmare with the teachers forgetting about him by the end of the period.

Things eventually got easier when he realized it was an area of effect thing and that he could shorten it to affect people within a few feet of him.

From that point on he just had to social distance from people like his life depended on it. Because his social and academic lives did depend on it.

He didn’t experiment with his quirk beyond that though. He hated it. He did everything in his power to keep it as tightly controlled as he could.

Until the one time he didn’t.

—

He was out to get another notebook because he’d severely underestimated how many notes he’d need to take for one of his classes. It was just supposed to be a quick stop on his way home.

He’d sat on the bus home with his quirk pulled in tightly around him, the force of it a buzzing weight on his skin that he refused to let go of.

He got off at a stop that wasn’t his but was closer to the dollar store he had in mind. He honestly didn’t expect to take more than ten minutes.

Then a guy walked in and loudly told the cashiers to hand over the money.

Purpled wasn’t that close to the front, but he peeked around the aisle and watched the robbery unfold.

The dude had what looked like leaves for hair and was holding the cashiers at gunpoint. There were two of them at adjacent checkouts, neither of them with any visible mutations. They actually might not have quirks.

Purpled has no idea what to do with this information.

His best bet was to wait for the heroes to arrive and stay quiet-

One of the cashiers was looking right at him. Robber guy noticed.

Turned around and pointed his gun at Purpled. Told him to get out from where he was hiding and to kneel on the ground in the open.

And Purpled was scared. He couldn’t move, he’d frozen.

The guy got loud and mad and he still had the gun pointed at him.

Purpled was panicking. His chest felt too tight and his quirk was freaking out. Buzzing harder than it ever has.

He couldn’t hold it. He let go.

...

For a moment, everything was still and everything was quiet.

Purpled felt light, he felt more at ease than he had in months.

Because his quirk was free and loose and everyone else in the room looked so fucking confused. Like they had no idea what was going on.

Like they just forgot what was going on.

And then the heroes arrived. How they knew to be here was anyone’s guess.

Purpled should probably give his statement.

Purpled was probably in shock though. So he forgave himself for shoplifting and not pulling his quirk back in. For just walking right out of the store and down the street.

Nobody shouted at him or called him back, so he assumed they forgot he was there.

He wished he could forget he was in the store for that moment too.

—

There’s a lot of other little things that lead up to Purpled being a vigilante, but those things don’t matter as much.

He drops out. It’s not hard to make people forget he even went to school.

He regularly breaks back into school to steal tools and materials for his projects and just wipes the people who walk in on him doing that shit.

Makes a costume but scraps it and decides to make several replicas of the top twenty’s costumes.

Because he’s realized that the wider he makes his range the less of an effect his quirk has on all those in range. Vice versa.

So the pro gamer move here is to make people forget what they saw the person in the pro hero costume doing instead of trying to make them forget they saw an unfamiliar figure doing shit.

Memory is reconstructive after all. Easily manipulated even without a quirk like his.

And he’s good at making his costumes and altering his appearance.

He probably won’t always do a good job wiping people’s memories though, so he lets it stick that there’s a vigilante that impersonates pro heroes. One that constantly shifts their appearance.

He even gets bold and makes a name for himself.

Swag_.

...

Listen he didn’t say it was a good name-

—

He doesn’t stop a lot of crime. And the people he does save often think they were saved by someone else.

But there’s always that one moment after he managed to save someone where they look at him. And they see him.

And that’s worth everything.

It’s not a selfless motive. It’s not a heroic motive.

But it’s enough of a motive for Purpled.

—

He doesn’t know how he got a following. Doesn’t know how he never noticed.

But he likes it. After the initial shock of seeing himself trending fades, he lets himself soak up all the positive attention.

And then he gets back to work.

#text post #lore post #ask purpled and blued #vigilante!purpled #purpled #purpled bedwars #superhero Au #gun mention #tw gun mention #ask to tag #long post #not proofreading this one

40 notes · View notes

fruitpixel · 3 years

Text

💜 Underdogs of Kpop Idol Challenge 💜

I love BTS and I got inspired to create a challenge based on how they got started! The BTS aspects are optional so that ARMYs can do them if they want, and others who just want to play a general kpop/idol challenge can skip them and still have fun. This challenge has many rules and guidelines, but they’re very flexible!

Here's a glimpse of the story:

You recently left your old company to start your own record label. In your early years, you were near bankruptcy. Now, you’re looking for some fresh faces to restart your company and keep your business afloat.

**Optional aspects marked with an asterisk* and bolded text.

**Requires Get Famous and City Living. Get Together would make it easier but it’s not necessary.

**I suggest reading through the challenge once before playing so you get a good idea of what’s expected of the challenge and you won’t be surprised by new aspects as they come up.

**Disclaimer: I use he/him pronouns when referring to the trainees because I’m thinking of the BTS members as I write this. However, there are no gender or life state requirements for this challenge!

If you decide to play, please tag me! I would love to see your gameplay :)

Also let me know if there’s anything I should add or change!

Have fun! 💜

To start the challenge, you will be playing as the CEO of your own entertainment company.

Purchase a lot no bigger than 30x20. You are starting off small, but you will need to have room for your studio and a place for your 7 trainees* to live and practice.

(You can have between 4-7 trainees, depending on how difficult you want it to be, and if you are playing a BTS based challenge. You can also use mods to increase your household size, but I wouldn’t recommend it as it will be hard to juggle more than 7, plus your CEO).

*BTS lived in dorms near their studio, so you could build a dorm on the same lot but separate from the main building. But you can do this however you want as long as their on the same lot.*

You may start off with as much money as you need to buy yourself the following items AND NOTHING MORE:

Mix Master Music Station

More Views Video Station

A drone (begin with the cheapest one and you may upgrade later)

Start with one of each, you may add more later.

Practice room big enough to fit all 8 sims

A studio for music production and practice

A small dorm with 2 bedrooms that MUST be able to fit all 7 trainees, kitchen, bathroom, etc. using the mediocre furniture and appliances. Think “tiny house for 8 sims challenge” lol.

You can upgrade appliances and furniture as you accumulate money, but try not to make major renovations to the building or dorms yet. Trainees can buy personal items like games, books, etc.

Your own living space - Remember when building, you're on the verge of bankruptcy!

After you’re done building, cheat your money down to 1,000. You are a brand spanking new CEO coming from humble beginnings, so you won’t have much money to begin with.

Next, you will need to recruit your first trainee:

*an underground rapper who although had a bright academic future, decided to pursue his passion in music. You invited this trainee to audition after hearing about him from your friend.

In order to recruit this trainee:

*LOGIC SKILL needs to be at least level 3

MEDIA PRODUCTION SKILL needs to be at least level 2

Get to know him! So you can add him to your household after completing the skill requirements. You may want to develop the CHARISMA skill to help with this

*TRAINEE 1 traits: genius, gloomy, music lover

TRAINEE 1 aspiration: world famous celebrity

He finally agreed to join your company!

Every time you recruit a new trainee, you should do this:

Take pictures of them to post on Simstagram and sell to publishers.

Idols as trainees are generally not allowed to have social media, so you will have to be in charge until they are prepared to manage their own online presence (after all 7 trainees are recruited).

Make sure to become good enough friends with each of your trainees to be able to add them to your household.

If you have Get Together, have him form a group and name it your group’s name (for example: BTS, BlackPink, etc.) He will have to invite each trainee to this group since you are not in the group. It’s a good idea to start gatherings as often as possible while skill building so you can have enough points to add more members.

While you only have this one trainee:

Produce 1 song and 1 “music video” for him.

To make a music video, just use a drone to record the trainee dancing or doing anything you want your music video to be about. You need some money, so don’t forget to edit and release them!

Also take this time to have him practice producing his own music. One day he will be an incredible producer and rapper, so make sure to hone his skills!

Before recruiting the next trainee, make sure he is at least level 2 of the MEDIA PRODUCTION skill.

It’s important to note at this point that each of your trainees should be exercising and eating healthily to prepare for their long days and nights of practicing, so you should work on your cooking skill and possibly your own fitness skill so you can provide them balanced meals and train them properly.

You may change their appearances during training if you want to, but remember they are coming from humble beginnings and won’t have much money to buy fancy clothes.

Also, no relationships until after debut! Trainees have to focus on making a strong debut and securing a loyal fanbase!

You will now hold your very first audition to recruit more trainees. To prepare for this:

Level up your MEDIA PRODUCTION SKILL to at least 3

CHARISMA SKILL to at least 4

While you’re at it, pick up any instrument you want and start working on those skills. You will need to be able to write songs for your trainees eventually.

To hold auditions, travel around your world, looking for sims you want to come to your audition. Make sure you have a high enough relationship with them so you can invite them to hang out with you. For rappers and singers, use the karaoke machines. For dancers, try having a dance battle or have sims dance to music.

You will hold an audition looking for another rapper. Choose the best auditionee.

*He was also an underground rapper who struggled to make his mark known. Thanks to you, he will have that opportunity!

*TRAINEE 2 traits: perfectionist, loner, music lover

TRAINEE 2 aspiration: world famous celebrity

Produce TWO SONGS and TWO MUSIC VIDEOS for each trainee

Make sure to keep honing their skills!

Both trainees:

MEDIA PRODUCTION level 3

Pick up an instrument each to be able to write songs and lyrics

*The second trainee should pick up the piano skill.

DANCING level 2

It’s audition time again! This time, you’re looking for a dancer.

If you have Get Together, find a way to get the auditionees to show you their moves. The sim with the best dance moves will be your next trainee! (If you don’t have Get Together, you can decide who your next trainee from the audition will be in any way you want).

*TRAINEE 3 traits: dance machine, cheerful, music lover

TRAINEE 3 aspiration: world famous celebrity

Produce TWO SONGS and TWO MUSIC VIDEOS for each of them.

Keep them honing those skills! Before recruiting new members:

Trainees 1&2:

DANCING level 2

MEDIA PRODUCTION level 4

Trainee 3:

DANCING level 3

MEDIA PRODUCTION level 3

Auditions season has passed, but you’re still short 4 members for your group!

Travel around your world and see if you can find any sims with that star potential.

Find someone that has star-worthy looks and convince him to join your company.

Before he can join your company:

MEDIA PRODUCTION level 4

CHARISMA level 6

*You may also want to work on your COMEDY skill along the way, but this is not required.

Make sure your INSTRUMENT SKILL is high enough to write music, and why don’t you get started on your SINGING SKILL too? You’ll need to be able to write lyrics for your singers!

He trusts you enough and has decided to join your company!

He had no skills prior to joining, however, so you will have to work with him on his singing and dancing skills a little more closely. *He’s also extremely handsome. But this is neither here nor there :)

Before moving on to the next round of auditions:

Trainee 4:

SINGING level 3

DANCING level 3.

*TRAINEE 4 traits: foodie, goofball, music lover

TRAINEE 4 aspiration: world famous celebrity

Remember to keep up their fitness skill and healthy diet!

This is where things start to get a little interesting:

Trainees 1-3:

Produce two songs each and release them

Trainee 3:

MEDIA PRODUCTION level 4

DANCING maxed out

As for you:

Produce TWO SONGS for each of your trainees

Produce TWO MUSIC VIDEOS TOTAL before you recruit more trainees.

While watching TV, you spot a young boy with so much potential that you just had to have him in your group. Go travel around your world and find him to be your next main vocalist.

Before recruiting him:

SINGING level 6

MEDIA PRODUCTION maxed out

CHARISMA level 8

Continue working on your instrument skill! A CEO should be good at every aspect if he wants to succeed.

Your 5th trainee has finally joined your company!

This trainee will be your Center, the Face of your group, your big money maker, if you will.

*This trainee and all trainees moving forward will still be teenagers and will need to go to school. Trainee 5 is the youngest member. You can implement this or not, up to you.

If you choose to implement this, make sure all the teenagers have an A grade in school before debut.

Before moving on to the next round of auditions

Trainee 5:

SINGING level 3

DANCING level 3

*TRAINEE 5 traits: dance machine, good (musical genius when he ages up)

TRAINEE 5 aspiration: world famous celebrity

Before the next audition:

Trainees 1-3:

Produce THREE SONGS each and release them.

All trainees:

Continue practicing DANCING and SINGING.

As for you:

Produce TWO SONGS for each of your trainees

Write TWO SONGS total on your instrument.

SINGING level 8

This is the second to last audition of the year! Hold auditions for another vocalist. The sim that sounds the best to you will be your next trainee!

Trainee 6:

SINGING level 3

DANCING level 3

*TRAINEE 6 traits: clumsy, music lover, (cheerful after aging up)

TRAINEE 6 aspiration: world famous celebrity

Trainees 1-3:

Produce 3 songs each and release them

If their INSTRUMENT skill is high enough, they can WRITE ONE SONG each; if not, continue having them practice until they can before the last audition.

If their SINGING skill is high enough, have them WRITE LYRICS on their instrument. If not, continue having them practice until they can before the last audition.

MEDIA PRODUCTION maxed out before the last audition

Trainee 3

DANCING maxed out before the last audition

All trainees

SINGING level 5 before the last audition

As for you:

Produce TWO SONGS for each of your trainees

Write TWO MORE SONGS on your instrument.

SINGING level 9, or you can max it out at this point if you wish. You yourself are not a singer, but you will be expected to write and compose songs for your trainees, so it’s important!

The time has come for the LAST SimHit audition of the year! Your goal is to find the last trainee for your rookie group; the last piece of the puzzle.

Have each auditionee sing and dance for you. The best sim will be your next and final trainee!

Make sure this trainee gets along well with the other trainees. In fact, make sure they all get along well. They’ll be working and living together every single day!

*TRAINEE 7 traits: dance machine, perfectionist, (music lover after aging up)

TRAINEE 7 aspiration: world famous celebrity

For the final phase of training:

Trainees 1-3:

Produce TWO SONGS each

Write TWO SONGS each

Write lyrics once each

All trainees except trainee 3:

DANCING level 4 (trainee 3 should be maxed out by this point)

Trainees 1-3 except trainee 2:

INSTRUMENT level 5

Trainee 2 should be maxed out in *piano at this point

Trainees 4-7:

Write ONE SONG each on the computer or their instrument

Write lyrics once each

All trainees:

SINGING level 8

As for you:

Produce ONE SONG for each trainee

MEDIA PRODUCTION, INSTRUMENT, and SINGING maxed out if not already

FINALLY! You finally have all your trainees ready to debut as a rookie group! Your trainees are ready to become established idols now. All there’s left to do is produce some pre-debut content...

Go busking 4 times, once at the beginning of each season. Take pictures to post!

You may buy busking equipment if you wish but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Take updated pictures of each member individually to sell and post to Simstagram.

At this point, your trainees can post to Simstagram and dive into their social media presence.

No sponsorships, no brand deals, no merchandise, etc. until after debut.

Try to take a group picture of all 7 members together to sell and post.

If not possible:

First 3 trainees together

Last 4 trainees together

Produce 3 songs, write 3 songs, and produce 3 music videos, one for each of these sub-units:

*Trainees 1, 2, and 4

*Trainees 3, 5, and 7

*Trainees 3, 5, 6, and 7

All trainees - SINGING and DANCING maxed out

Before the fan meeting, make sure your trainees are at least level 7 in the CHARISMA skill.

Host a fan meeting to announce your debut! Make a good impression on your fans, they’ll be with you guys through thick and thin.

This can be done by having one of the members hold a meet and greet but have all members attend.

Use fan meetings to increase your reputation; idols should always be good influences for their fans, and your idols are the best around!

At this point, you can update their looks in CAS to prepare them for their debut. Your trainees have been preparing for hours and hours, working on their singing, dancing, and music making so they can have a strong debut. They’re no longer your doe-eyed trainees. Now they will be the monster rookies that all the other idol groups are jealous of.

You may also renovate your building and the dorms with the money you have accumulated at this point.

You could have also done renovations as you accumulated money if you prefer it that way, but for the sake of the “underdog” storyline, renovate all at once at this point!

For the debut:

Have your idols busk from 12-8 and produce 2 music videos with all of them in it.

You should produce TWO SONGS.

Trainees 1-3 produce ONE SONG EACH

Hold a fan meet and greet (this will be the debut showcase).

Merch, sponsorships, brand deals, etc. can begin after the debut showcase.

Congratulations! You’ve created an idol group that will exceed everyone’s expectations!

*You can end this challenge after their debut, or you can choose to keep playing. The final end to this challenge will be when all your idols reach level 5 fame and the highest good reputation possible.

Should you choose to continue, you should follow this schedule for future comebacks and promotions:

Each season is a new comeback season. You need to schedule 4 things to do at the start of every season:

Have the whole group go busking from 12-8 in their home world (ex. if your lot is in Willowcreek, busk somewhere there).

Have the whole group travel (or vacation) in a different world and busk from 12-8 (ex. vacation in Mt. Komorebi and busk somewhere there). Give them a day or two to have fun and explore if possible!

For these, 5 new songs must be prepared and 2 music videos must be produced.

You may produce one for them if you want to, but trainees 1-3 should produce the rest.

Being an idol is definitely rewarding, but it is definitely not easy. Sims are lucky that they only need to do this once a week.

Host a meet and greet some time during the year, every year. This will be like the fan meetings.

Attend the Starlight Accolades whenever they come up, despite being nominated or not.

After doing 2-3 years with this schedule, you may renovate your building and dorms again. Or you can renovate as you go, like before.

After a few more years, you can move your idols into their own homes. Add yourself to the group to be able to start club gatherings everyday on your lot.

For those of you who are ARMYs, you can continue the challenge even after reaching the highest level of fame and reputation. You already know what each of their passions and interests are so you can change their traits and aspirations as you see fit (Namjoon would love the outdoors, Taehyung would be interested in art, etc.) and continue playing their story.

Enjoy!

#the sims 4 #ts4 #ts4 challenge #the sims 4 challenge #sims 4 challenge #kpop #bts #idk what else to tag hhghfj #mine #ts4 kpop #lol #ts4 gameplay

50 notes · View notes

bibliocratic · 4 years

Text

drunken nights

jonmartin, scottish safehouse, drinking wine and card games

fluff. just fluff.

His lips and teeth stained purplish, Jon finishes his drink with an extravagant flourish and beckons impatiently for the corkscrew.

Martin's put it down somewhere, so by the time he's uncovered it from down the side of the sofa, Jon's sourced a new bottle, digging into the soft flesh of the cork with the metal implement Martin's passed over.

Their second evening in the safe house has wound down grim and blustery, the creak of the cottage like a laden floorboard, and Martin is discovering Jon drinks exactly like a uni student.

“We should play a game,” Jon proposes grandly and decisively, holding up a finger like he wants to illustrate a particularly salient point in a lecture.

“Like what?” Martin says, content to let the words form and fall out of his mouth lazily, half-moulded like a cushion against the back of the sofa. Like some indolent Caesar, he holds his mug out, shaking it at Jon until he gets the message. Jon gives himself a triumphant and satisfied nod when he manages to top up both of their mugs – there was no glasses in the cupboards that they've yet found, and Jon seems content to fill the mismatched mugs up like he's pouring tea – without spillage.

“Let's do questions,” Jon says, passing back Martin's topped-up drink. He's gone blotchy around his throat, but he fixes on Martin with wine-bright eyes, bearing one of those smiles on his face that Martin never knew could come so easily.

“Don't you have.... y-your omniscient mind powers f'that?” Martin says, squinting as Jon, who had just sat down and sunk against him, in a resolute gear-change becomes a spiky thing with a mission, all elbows as he pushes himself back up to a wavering stand before lurching in the direction of the kitchen cabinets.

“I'm serious!” Jon replies, making a god-awful clattering racket as he pushes aside cutlery and tin opener and spatulas from their home in the top drawer that apparently holds everything, either kitchen-related or not.

Finally, with a little 'ah!', he brandishes like a dog-eared grail a grimy looking box of playing cards. “Daisy left these.”

“Makes a nice change from gaffer tape an' weirdly stained rope,” Martin burbles back, using the divinely-granted opportunity he's been bestowed to give Jon a shameless and fondly admiring once-over before Jon swivels around on the balls of his feet and Martin schools his expression mild and dopey. “Anyway, you want t' do questions, why don't we jus' play Never Have I Ever or summin'?”

Jon makes a face that is either currently remembering some beer-soaked student days or trying very hard to forget.

“My game's better,” he says, bee-lining back to his position squashed against Martin's stomach. He throws himself down heavily, and Martin gives a grunting, over-dramatic ooof as his favourite hedgehog-human elbows him while he reconfigures his seating. “'s fun.”

“You know the meaning of the word then?”

Jon sticks out his tongue. Martin tries to poke it with his finger, and Jon reels back with another one of those wine-laden expressions, earnest and open as a window.

“I want to know everything about you,” he says, struggling with finding the opening at the top of the pack, before he pauses, dutifully following up with a no-less sincere and concessionary: “But not if you don't want to.”

Martin takes the cards off him, not wanting to watch Jon martyr himself for hours trying to open something for the second time in as many days. (The raspberry jam was still unopened and apparently fused shut for later civilisations to one day come across. Martin had caught Jon trying to pop the seal with a knife and there had been words).

Jon sways and folds his limbs cross legged, body leaning towards Martin as he unpacks the cards into his palm.

“What questions then?”

Jon huffs.

“I'm not going to tell you, that's not the game.”

“What if you cheat though?”

“I won't!”

“'s what a cheater would say.”

“Martin...!”

“Tell y' what,” Martin grins, “Rules! You like those. Right – er – kay, if you use your ominous eye powers – ”

“I'm not going t – ”

“If. Then, then there's a penalty. 's fair, right?”

Jon grumbles another petulant 'not gonna' into his wine mug, the protestation echoing.

“I think...” Martin says slowly, blinking heavily, taking a big swig and sloshing it around his mouth. “...you should hafta take a drink.”

“I'm drinking anyway,” Jon replies impishly, with one of his own-brand smug expressions, and Martin shushes him with a shoulder-shove and a grinning 'another drink then!'

Jon takes the cards out of Martin's hands, almost folds the lines in his forehead in concentration as he tries to shuffle them, and then promptly fans them all over the sofa.

“A-and!” Martin says with a pleased smirk. “A-and I get another question!”

Jon makes the kind of sigh that implies he is possessed of saintly, near beatific patience for agreeing to such unreasonableness.

Martin leans forward and sloppily kisses Jon's hairline, and this seems to appease him. He tries to sit straighter up, fails and gives up up as a bad idea anyway.

The game is decided. It's simple and easy for their lubricated minds to parse – if a black card is turned over, Jon asks Martin a question. If a red, Martin asks Jon. Number cards are easier, more playful questions. Higher number cards and picture cards are more serious or personal questions. Any card can be refused at any time. Jon repeats this with an anxious frown until Martin nudges him with an elbow, sensing a spiral starting if he doesn't intervene, and demands the game be begun.

The rules go out of the window just as simply. Often they'll get tangled in the bramble-patch of some question, mouth full of reminiscences, clarifying or expanding questions batted back and forth like a casual and amenable round of some racquet sport. But, equally likely, debate will spring up over the numerical value of the question and that will cheerfully eat up the time as they spiritedly disagree on what sorts of information is worth what number.

“That's an eight at least, y' - you can't ask that until you've got at least an eight.”

“But I've not got an eight, I’ve a six.”

“Then tough, you better wait.”

“But you could tell me nooooww.”

Jon draws a nine of spades, and spends an over-long amount of time pondering the question.

“C'mon, hurry up.” Martin nudges him with a socked toe, and takes another gulp of his rapidly depleting wine.

“I'm thinking,” Jon pouts.

Martin stretches out, yawning, and then awkwardly manoeuvres himself so he's on his back, half lying on Jon's crossed legs, the rest of him stuck out over the arm of the sofa to dangle.

“You look silly upside down,” he says, following the line of Jon's jaw, his vision getting a little less concrete now but perfectly happy to float in his tipsy haze for a while.

Jon trails a hand through Martin's hair rhythmically while he ponders.

“I've got – yeh, yeh, I've got one,” he says finally. “Ok, here you go, right – when was your last relationship?”

“I had a three-week fling about five years ago with a guy called Manoj,” Martin replies, loose-lipped, riding the easy slide of the words slicking out of his mouth. “He's some high-flying investment banker now. Not good boyfriend material, you know, but we kept in touch, text sometimes if we wanted to hook up.”

The static in Martin's head fades enough for him to frown and shake himself free of the urge that just swept him along.

“Shit,” Jon swear. Martin doesn't like the blank expression of horror that's begun to creep like ivy rash, pushing aside his reddening inebriation. “Shit – Martin – I...”

“You're a cheat!” Martin declares quickly, efficiently sweeping all concerns about Jon's mild lapse from his mind in favour of smugly finger-pointing. “Cheat! That's – More wine! That's t'rules.”

“I – er.”

Martin's stumbling fingers reach down to the side of the sofa, and he sits up enough to fill Jon's mug again. It overflows a bit and drips on Jon's jeans and neither of them notice.

“You promised no mind powers,” he sing-songs, pushing the mug back at Jon.

Jon's expression seeps from heightened and horrified to a cautious mild embarrassment, and Martin feels a warm wash of a job accomplished.

“'was an accident,” he says as he sinks his face into the mug.

“Penalties are penalties.” Martin grins.

“You really have hook-ups with an investment banker?”

“Had. Past tense. Don't judge me.”

“I'm not – you can do what you like with your own body. Jus' they tend to be a bit...” Jon makes a most definitely judgy face.

“Stuck up?”

“I was going to try arrogant.”

“Maybe that's my type,” Martin says with a goofy wink, and Jon rolls his eyes. “And that was a sip, Jonathan, that's not a penalty.”

Jon drinks a little more. Martin bestows a graceless kiss against his cheek as a reward for his pains.

“And now my question,” Martin says.

Jon has the habit of drawing his eyebrows intensely together as he waits for each question, as though readying to give the enquiry the entirety of his attention.

“Alright. Go on.”

“Which one of my poems is your favourite?”

“I'm not answering that.”

“Why not?”

“Martin...”

“Fine. Another one. Non-morose answers only.” Martin bops Jon's nose. He's struggled through the reticence of his unruly limbs to sit up properly, and enjoys the fruits of his labours in that he can now more easily look at Jon while he's talking. “What do you wish you were better at?”

“Well, under such strict and unnecessary restrictions,” Jon says, who has taken advantage of Martin's more upright position to lean against him like a capsizing boat, his mug hugged against his breastbone. “Dunno. I've always quite liked the idea of – of getting into astronomy. There's all of the visually observable stuff, and it's fascinating, like it's – 't's really cool, the sorts of things you can see, even with reasonably cheap equipment, but then – then they've got this – this thing called radio astronomy, an' it's where you detect things like pulsars and stuff using radio waves, and it's really amazing, you know and – why're you smiling at me like that?”

“I'm dating such a nerd,” Martin laughs and fails to disguise how charmed he is, how wide his wine-stained lips are pulled. “That's adorable.”

“What about you then?” Jon says. He's going for affronted, but his hair is sprouting up fly-away, there's a strip of darkening skin over his nose and cheeks, and he has honest-to-god dimples that even his scruffy patch of beard doesn't mask when he smiles with his whole mouth. His happiness is a thoughtless, reckless thing and Martin thinks it's stunning. If he can figure out how to word it, he's definitely going to tell Jon, just blurt it out because Jon deserves to know, should be told how much his happiness means to Martin.

Jon swivels his body to drape his legs over Martin's knees, fidgets like a cat before he finally stills.

“Maybe baking?” Martin muses. He strokes the knobbly bone on the side of Jon's ankle, the skin fading smooth from the dark hair down his legs, and Jon twitches like he's ticklish. “I've never really...”

“Martin!” Jon says suddenly. Sitting up so fast in fact that he sloshes a blood-coloured stain onto his shirt.

“What?” Martin says, a buzz of threatened sobriety at whatever has broken their languid, lazy peace. Jon's putting his mug down and leaning forward.

“Martin,” he stresses again, and his face has filled up with a torch-bright light, dimples deepening. “There's flour in the kitchen. Martin, th-there's – I think there's... Eggs! We've eggs, 'n you got milk – let's make – let's make a cake!”

Martin blinks.

“What now?”

“Yeah, sure, now.”

Martin snorts.

“That oven's seen the Blitz, Jon! We'll need tetanus shots before we go near the thing.”

“N', n' it'll be fine, Daisy used it to make bread to disguise the smell of bleach.”

“God, that's not the ringing endorsement you think it is.”

“Hush, c'mon, let's go look,” Jon tries to stumble up and nearly drop-kicks his innocently placed mug. Martin breaks into a tipsy peal of laughter, squawks when Jon nearly collapses back onto him, almost headbutting him before he squashes his face with a petulant, slightly-off-the-mark kiss.

“Fine,” Martin half-slurs as Jon squirms, trying to separate them and drag Martin up from where he was entirety committed to being dug in for the evening. “F'ne, we'll look, kay, you pr'lly can't get rabies anyway with your mind powers.”

Jon staggers and nearly slips. Martin, feeling that it'll be better for all concerned if Jon is not allowed to do much walking for the moment, instead feels that now is a perfect moment to demonstrate every expression of chivalry he's always rather sappily wanted to shower a loved one with.

This firmly in mind, the idea growing better by the moment, Martin valiantly attempts to lift Jon in a wonky bridal carry.

Jon near shrieks with something that is both primal and delighted, but also rationally terrified: “Martin, your back!” Your back!”

“'s fine,” Martin grunts.

“You're going to do your back in!”

“If you keep squirming around, lemme get a good grip.”

“You're g-g-goin' to drop me, M-Martin!”

Tears are rolling down Jon's cheeks, his chest heaving in short-breathed gasping laughter that makes their small cramped living room seem bigger than it is. Martin does nearly drop him, but the sofa is still there for Martin to plant the hiccuping, giggling object of his devotions down upon safely. It takes a few minutes, but he convinces the leggy, laugh-shook drunkard he calls his own to clamber onto his back like a leggy koala, and this is more successful as Martin swayingly carries him into the kitchen.

(Their cakes are flat, lacking in sugar and near carbonated by the time they remember to take them out of the oven. Martin wakes up with Jon's hair in his mouth and a thundering pity-party of a headache made worse by Jon's snoring and he cannot for the life of him stop smiling).

#tma #the magnus archives #fic #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #fluff #i absolutely love that headcanon that jon and martin just spent one night at the safehouse just getting slaughtered and having fun #give them something happy #cw alcohol

244 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 4 years

Text

The small central European state of R-------- is notable for, among other things, having the second-longest post-Cold War tenure by any head of government (behind Belarus), albeit by very different from normal means. The Prime Minister of R, who so far as anyone can tell has never resorted to rigging and election or intimidating any opponents, has held office continually since the first democratic elections by, essentially, standing for nothing. Whichever way the wind blows, there the Prime Minister stands, as firmly as possible--being not merely fickle and unprincipled, but willing to commit with total vigor to the latest whim of R’s electorate. An example will serve to describe the trend:

In 1997, as the liberalization of R’s economy proceeded in the wake of the liberalization of its political system, polls consistently showed that the voters of R tended to look quite unfavorably on certain highly visible aspects of the new capitalist economy. It was not so much the end of socialism that upset them (R managed the transition better than most), but how ugly the new capitalist prosperity seemed. After all, R was a country that had, until the deposition of the last Prince in 1937, been nearly isolationist; even in the 60s it remained an agrarian backwater, its role in the Warsaw Pact being relegated mostly to supplying small amounts of garden vegetables and timber. Even though R had rapidly industrialized in the 70s and 80s, it retained a very nearly medieval aesthetic spirit, preferring simplicity and humility to ostentatious displays of plenty. Strong branding, marketing campaigns, advertising of any kind--all were anathema to the newly-minted Consumers of R, even if the products themselves were widely agreed to be superior to the old secondhand Soviet imports.

Rather than try to convince the consumers of R to change their tastes--the Prime Minister has never been a leader in that sense--the parliament simply proposed to pass a new law: all advertising of any kind in R would be banned. This was a wildly popular move; the government’s approval rating, already high, rose another five points overnight, before any of the details of the implementation were worked out. And these details proved tricky: what constituted “advertising”? What about merely designing your product to stand out on the shelf? What agency would enforce this?

In the end, after many, many committee meetings, a National Institute of Packaging Standards was established, and was given the authority to regulate standardized packaging for every conceivable kind of product sold in R, from frozen pizzas to industrial machinery. It decreed the placement on the packaging of the product name (any of the 23 Cyrillic letters normally used in R, capitals only, with single medial spaces permitted), the font, the color (invariably monochrome, from one of a list of sixty-four shades), even the materials used. Anything not covered by the regulations of the Institute simply could not be sold. The international companies attempting to expand into R howled in protest; many said they simply would not trade in R. R’s government looked with hesitation to the voters, who merely shrugged; so much the better, popular opinion seemed to think, for native industry. Domestic companies tried to evade the spirit of the law, while conforming to its letter; but after a company tried to name its appliance A A A A A MOST EXCELLENT MICROWAVE A A A A and was heavily sanctioned, most accepted that the standards authority was neither stupid, nor particularly indulgent of tomfoolery.

If anything, the 1997 law only strengthened a latent cultural antipathy toward anything that seemed to unduly demand the average citizen’s time or attention. This was a country where the telephone was not introduced until the 1940s, because of its obnoxious ring; where door-to-door solicitation was seen as only a little less of an outrage against common decency than murder. When the internet came in full force to R, a miniature version of the Great Firewall was built that acted as an adblocker for the entire country. Cold calls by telemarketers are still, in theory, punishable by jail time. If this resentment of some of modern capitalism’s most basic presence in life has stunted R’s economic growth, its people seem not to mind too much. R lurches onward into the 21st century, steered in whatever direction its people wish to go by its utterly unprincipled leader.

--Basil Twickham, A History of Europe’s Least Significant States, vol. XXIX (Oxford University Press, 2019)

#vols IV-XXIV of aHoLSS are all just about early modern microstates in the HRE

59 notes · View notes

restlessmaknae · 4 years

Text

still disastrous

Gu Dasom thought that nothing was more disastrous than going on a holiday with her best friend - Namjoon. She was wrong. Living with him - now best friend turned boyfriend - was way more disastrous.

♦ Characters: boyfriend!Namjoon x girlfriend!OC (Gu Dasom)

♦ Genre: comedy, fluff, slice of life, established relationship (it’s all sfw)

♦ Words: 4.5k

♦ Warning: -

♦ A/N: This is a sequel to my story called Disastrous which is about the first holiday Namjoon and Dasom spend together on their own (and it turns out to be disastrous, needless to say), but the two stories can be read separately, so don’t worry if you haven’t read it! 💖💖💖

Gu Dasom learned to appreciate the differences they shared with Namjoon, and actually, if she thought about it, there was some beauty about having so many unexpected events to happen in her life. Beside Namjoon, she could never get bored.

On the other hand, she always needed to be alert because from one moment to another, something could happen and Namjoon ended up breaking a bone or walking into a door frame or such mishaps. He was so (cutely) clumsy, but it resulted in her always worrying about him because she could never know when the next disaster would take place.

Growing up beside each other and spending enough time together as best friends had taught her a lot about him and about the ways one could handle such situations, but after they had officially become a couple, she had learned even more about him. Not to mention when they had moved together after graduating university and finding jobs for themselves because that had been when things had started going even more off track than usual.

The first little bits about living together came when she realized that they had a very different definition about placing things, and if she put something on the glass table in the living room, it would be somewhere on a shelf in their bedroom. Namjoon kept putting things in different places, and she needed to remind him so many times that the objects had certain places if they wanted to find them in a hurry, and even though it took some time, he actually listened to her, and took her words seriously.

Then, the next one was anything regarding grocery shopping and just running out of basic necessities such as toilet paper and not realizing that those were the last ones they were using, ending up in not only just one uncomfortable situation. Not to mention food and leftovers going bad because they didn’t remember when they had left them in the fridge in the first place or who had actually left it there. Or Namjoon not letting her know when he had used up something and didn’t buy another one instead.

So these were the first obvious difficulties they faced in the first few weeks, then came - of course - the things that neither of them could do or figure out on their own or with the help of articles online such as changing light bulbs. Maybe it wasn’t rocket science, but Namjoon almost fell off the chair while trying to reach the light bulb in question, and she couldn’t get it out of its frame either.

As talkative as she was, when a new neighbour moved in next door and they started chattering about life, the light bulb incident came up, and this was how their handsome brand new neighbour - Kim Seokjin - ended up in their living room, helping with the light bulb because he insisted that he would do so in exchange for the warm welcome (basically just the two of them introducing themselves with a box of cookies, nothing more).

However, there was one person who didn’t appreciate his presence as much as Dasom did so.

“I still don’t get why we couldn’t just call someone else,” Namjoon whispered into her ears as they were watching over Jin getting on the chair.

“Should I remind you that you weren’t willing to call someone else?” Dasom raised an eyebrow challengingly, exchanging a glance with her boyfriend who looked as defeated as one could be in such a situation. “Besides, he offered his help. It would have been rude if we declined him,” she pointed out, not getting why her boyfriend was so worked up. She might have been referring to Jin as the cute neighbour with an even cuter dog, but it was true, and he shouldn’t have been too hung up on it.

“Okay. I’ll show you how to do it, just watch!” Jin prompted them to walk closer to him as he carefully twisted the bulb counter clockwise because he explained that it was the safer way since the socket had a screw fitting. It seemed so easy when he did so, so Dasom asked about little tricks, and he was willing to answer her questions patiently and all with a kind smile.

Her whole face lit up when the new bulb was implemented and when they turned it on, the light indeed filled the room.

“Thank god! We’ll remember how to do it next time, thank you, really!” Dasom explained joyfully as she directed a beaming smile at their neighbour who just shrugged his shoulders, insisting that he didn’t do anything much, just what a good neighbour would do. Besides, he had had similar struggles in the past, so it was all good.

“Thanks, man. We really won’t keep you up any longer,” Namjoon added in a friendly manner, yet she could feel the impatient edge to his words, and even if she wanted to hide her disappointment, she merely gave her boyfriend a slight smack in the chest.

“Oh, you aren’t keeping me up.” Jin dismissed such assumptions, smiling from ear to ear which reassured Dasom that he didn’t detect or didn’t want to detect the jealousy behind her boyfriend’s words.

So she offered him a glass from the jug of tropical lemonade she had made beforehand, and the young man took it gladly, complimenting the taste for its balanced combination of sweet and savory.

“He doesn’t know when to go, I see,” Namjoon mumbled under his nose so that only she could hear it, but she heard it nevertheless, so she lightly stepped on his left foot, giving him a glare and turning back to Jin with a brighter version of her smile.

Their neighbour chuckled to himself, drinking the glass of lemonade gulp by gulp while keeping his eyes on the couple much to Namjoon’s dismay who impatiently tapped on his chin, a habit that he always displayed whenever he was nervous. Dasom had no idea what to do about his jealous boyfriend when he shouldn’t have been jealous in the first place, but it seemed like Jin caught on their little act, and excused himself to go back to his flat after drinking down the whole glass.

As soon as he left, she was quick to turn around and face her boyfriend.

“What was that about? Are you really going to keep on acting like this around Jin?” She furrowed her eyebrows, hands on her hips. She didn’t want to look intimidating, but she really didn’t know why Namjoon had made such a fuss over literally nothing.

“Well, he seems like a better boyfriend than I am, and yeah, I got a bit jealous, you know. He even has a dog!” Namjoon stated a bit ashamedly, but he also seemed a bit dramatic that usually didn’t work on her given his clumsy self, but she couldn’t help but pout hearing his words.

“Yah! You should never think that I would choose anyone over you! You are my boyfriend, and you have your own strengths and weaknesses, but you are Kim Namjoon, and that’s exactly why you are the perfect boyfriend to me!” Dasom confessed straightforwardly, a bit of frustration lacing her words.

Yet, at least her boyfriend seemed to realize that she was indeed being honest, and that she didn’t think that Jin was anything more than a cute neighbour.

“O-okay,” Namjoon stuttered a bit, his cheeks tinted burgundy by the nervousness that was going through him. He was clearly ashamed that he had ever thought about something else, but Dasom merely shook her head with a knowing smile and smacked him in the chest when she passed by him.

Gosh, what a way to see Namjoon jealous! Thank god communication worked well between the two of them.

Usually, household chores were divided up between the two of them, so that either of them could have their own responsibilities and duties, and the workload wouldn’t be unbalanced. That meant cooking for Dasom while washing the dishes for Namjoon (because he was usually a disaster in the kitchen, and she didn’t want him to cut his hands either with a knife or the edge of a mere can because he had already done so, and it hadn’t been a nice sight), cleaning the rooms including the bathroom and the toilet for her while taking out the rubbish, checking the mailbox and taking care of the recycling for Namjoon. Once he had been very eager to take on ironing the clothes, but after burning a hole into one of her favourite blouses, she had been quick to tell him to take up another task instead of ironing.

It was also her who did the washing up, and it had seemed to work just fine until she once asked her boyfriend to take care of laundry instead of her while she would be helping out her mother at her workplace.

Needless to say, when she got home and looked at the pile of clothes, she didn’t expect to see her plain white shirt in a stronger shade of pink.

“Oh my god, Namjoon! Have you washed all of the clothes together?” Dasom shrieked with her mouth slightly agape, her eyes widening the more clothes she looked at. Her grey sweatpants now tinted a bit blue, her black and white socks in yellow, her otherwise orange shirt in a burgundy shade… Everything but the black clothes had seemed to be reborn in whole new colours.

“Well…” Namjoon gulped, looking from one shirt to another, scratching the back of his neck. “You didn’t tell me to separate them, so I’ve thought that I could put them into the laundry machine together,” he reasoned, letting out a nervous laughter seeing her disapproving glance.

Dasom needed a moment to gather her patience, counting up to a few seconds before she was ready to ask him another question. He was right about not telling him beforehand, but it was because she had been sure that it was common sense to wash the lighter and darker colours with two different programmes. Not to mention the fact that they were always separated before doing the laundry, so all he had needed to do was to put the content of one basket into the machine, and then the other. One after another.

“Then why do you think we put our clothes into two different laundry baskets in the first place?” Dasom inquired with a raise of her eyebrows, eyeing the boy for his answer. He was usually a very intelligent and sensible guy, so she had assumed that he would be smart enough to figure it out. Or to ask or look things up on the internet if he hadn’t even seen his mother doing the laundry, not even once.

Namjoon looked back at her with a bit of an ‘oops’ leaving his ever so tender lips, then he let out a nervous chuckle.

“Actually, I have never thought about it. I’ve just thought it was a way to tell how many dark and light coloured clothes we wore during the week,” he admitted semi-guilty and hearing that, she felt like all her frustration was replaced by second-hand embarrassment.

“You really thought so?” Dasom asked back, amusement lacing her voice, and when he nodded, she bursted into laughter, giggling to herself for a solid minute while Namjoon tried to tell her that it wasn’t that funny, he really didn’t think that much of it, but she merely threw a now green-turned-pink shirt at him and continued laughing.

Gosh, what a way to make it seem like she had a whole new wardrobe of clothes!

Namjoon was really bad in the kitchen, and both of them knew that perfectly well. It had always been that way, and even his mother had tried to keep him away from the kitchen for obvious reasons.

However, he still made an attempt to cook for Dasom when their fourth anniversary as a couple arrived and the first one they could share in their new home, so he really wanted to try his best.

He followed the recipes as much as he could, though expressions like a pinch of salt or ‘add pepper to your liking’ and a handful of veggies confused the hell out of him because weren’t recipes supposed to apply to everyone? Then, why did they say such things? A handful was different for everyone, a pinch could be a bigger portion or a smaller one, so it really did confuse him a lot. Not to mention when he tossed the veggies into the pan, and the recipe called for caramelized ones by the end, but he couldn’t tell the difference between caramelized ones and burnt ones, so he ended up with either too raw or too burnt pieces.

The rice was thankfully edible and his mother’s homemade kimchi could save the day because it had been previously prepared, he only needed to put it into a bowl and present it, but even his attempt at a brownie turned into a stone-hard and dry mass of chocolate and flour, not properly mixed well. Though at least his homemade cocktail turned out to be good, or at least she said so.

“I mean, I really appreciate your efforts, you know,” Dasom spoke up after having a taste from the veggie stir fry, trying to keep her laughter to herself.

“I’ve really tried my best. The recipe said it was supposed to be quick and easy, but I already got stuck peeling the carrots,” Namjoon huffed as he looked at the mess on his plate. Even he had to admit that this wasn’t supposed to look like that. He couldn’t even call it a meal, how could she still put it into her mouth, munching on it still?

“I can see your efforts, really. Besides, it’s not that bad. There are parts that aren’t burnt, and raw veggies are just as good as cooked ones. They are actually said to be healthier than cooked ones,” she blurted out matter-of-factly, hoping that she could soothe her boyfriend’s nerves a bit, but he looked as under the weather as one could be after they had failed a big test or they had been told horrible news.

She pouted, her heart breaking at the sight of his expression, reaching out for his hands, holding it tight and squeezing it once and then twice, waiting for him to look her in the eye. When he did so, she gifted him with a soft smile, one that was genuine and bright, a ray of sunshine lightening up the meadow of hopelessness. He slowly - like the sunflower turning to the sun - reciprocated her smile, feeling her sincerity.

“Look, it’s already big enough of a gift to me that you are in my life. Not to mention the fact that you’ve really tried your best to step out of your comfort zone and do something for our anniversary that you normally wouldn’t do. So please, don’t feel bad! I really, really appreciate that you’ve decided to cook for me, and it’s really not as inedible as you think so,” she reasoned gently, pinching his cheeks with her free hand that wasn’t holding onto his much larger hands that still fitted to hers like a missing puzzle piece.

“What did I do to get a girlfriend like you?” he mused out loud with a much more reassured tone and a light chuckle.

“Well, you’ve been there for me ever since we were 6 years old, and technically, you needed to sprain your right wrist for me to get mad at you, so that you can shut me up with a kiss, and so that I would confess to you,” she responded with a playful glint in her eyes, though thinking back to their first holiday together - just the two of them, still as best friends - was pretty funny. Such a disastrous holiday, but they might not have been here today if it hadn’t been for that disastrous holiday.

“We can say so,” Namjoon agreed nostalgically, and placed a soft kiss on her forehead before turning back to his own plate of food. Well, if Dasom could eat it, he had to do so.

What people can do when it comes to love...

Luckily, both of them were quite healthy, so apart from runny noses or a few worse winter days, there weren’t a lot of times they needed to ask for a sick leave or pack up on medication to cure themselves from something. So when it came to Dasom’s first sickness that was more than a runny nose, Namjoon was all over the place as expected.

It started with her having a horrible night, tossing and turning in bed while having a stomach ache that she thought would signal the beginning of her period. However, that stomach ache didn’t go away in the morning either, and it was accompanied by diarrhea, cold shivers frequently going through her body and a very unpleasant fever later on. Needless to say, she didn’t have an appetite either even though she knew she would need the energy, but she didn’t feel like she could force down anything.

Namjoon was all panicky in the morning, checking her symptoms on the internet, his mind spinning with more and more horrible scenarios, the online articles referring to life-threatening diseases and serious conditions, making him wonder if something more could be behind her being sick.

Even when they were waiting outside of the GP’s ward, Namjoon couldn’t stop biting his lower lip, his legs shaking just as restlessly as his eyes were darting between the different parts of the room as if something could jump on them.

“Namjoon, don’t worry that much! It’s probably nothing serious,” Dasom tried to reassure him with a faint smile, hoping that her voice and words could bring him back to reality. He did look at her, breaking into a somewhat ashamed smile, but the seed of uncertainty had been planted in his jet-black orbs and it hadn’t yet left. It didn’t help either that she wasn’t feeling all too well, but she was far from being on her deathbed, that was for sure.

As empathetic as her boyfriend could be, he really looked like he was the one who was suffering, and he wouldn’t have let her go to the doctor alone either. He just felt like he needed to be there with her, no matter what they say, and even though Dasom had tried to talk him out of it, he wouldn’t budge. Him and his persistence… Just another reason she loved him so much.

“It’s because of all those articles online. I shouldn’t have searched for them in the first place,” he blurted out honestly, his regret evident in his slumped shoulders and hesitant expression.

“They always state the worst online,” Dasom pointed out knowing all too well that she had fallen into this trap a few times before. “The doctor will be able to say something more anyway,” she reasoned gently, exchanging a knowing glance with him. He must have known the same, but his worryful personality got the worst out of him.

Thankfully, there was really nothing serious going on with her, she had just come down with something, but Namjoon took it upon himself to watch over her for the rest of the day, making her the kind of soup the doctor had recommended, buying her some herbal tea that was also stated to help with her condition, making sure she took her medication and sitting by her side, looking at her as if she could break down in any minute.

“Don’t stare at me like that! I’m doing better,” Dasom called him out when they were watching a movie together, her sipping on her herbal tea and Namjoon glancing in her direction instead of focusing on the movie.

When her words reached him, he looked away, ashamed. He really felt like he had been caught even though he didn’t even realize what he was doing. It felt like an instinct to watch out for anything that might signal her condition worsening.

“I’m just worried,” he admitted, scratching his nape out of uneasiness.

“I can see that,” Dasom agreed with a knowing smile, taking another sip from her tea before continuing. “I would give you a kiss to reassure you, but that wouldn’t be ideal right now,” she added, letting out a giggle.

Even though she didn’t intend to make him laugh with such a statement, Namjoon’s shoulders immediately easened, and he let out a wholehearted laughter. It seemed like her remark helped him to let go of his anxiety a bit.

“I’ll take your word for it when you get better,” he warned playfully, but it didn’t really feel like a warning. If anything, it was the best kind of warning.

So she merely shrugged her shoulders, a lopsided smile hiding in the corner of her lips. She turned back to the laptop, Namjoon following her example, and finally, it seemed like he believed her. Though it couldn’t stop him from checking on her every 10 minutes once she drifted off to sleep and to ask her every now and then if she was really okay after she had recovered and went back to work. She had never doubted, but she could always see it for herself time and time again that Namjoon really did care for her and loved her despite everything.

Christmas had always been an interesting time together. Not to say that it hadn’t been fun. It had been just that… Interesting. Beside someone like Namjoon, things had sometimes gotten out of control, not to mention when they were spending this time with friends or family.

Namjoon’s friends were characteristic one by one and his family was lovely, but Dasom also had her best friend - Hyerim - who couldn’t shut up around anyone really, and she liked to have the time to herself to be as much of a storyteller as one could be. It usually meant that the time with her turned out to be an hour-long session of her reminiscing about funny and awkward stories about her high school and childhood days. They had already heard most of them, but it was almost impossible to make her stop while she was so enthusiastically talking about something, so they just let her be.

Of course, each one of their friends were amazing and supportive and understanding in their own ways, but when they got to meet all of them during Christmas and New Year, it seemed like some kind of a comedy skit. Not to mention the gifts they had usually received from them ranging from best boyfriend and best girlfriend mugs from Hyerim to handmade candles from Jungkook and pillows printed with each other’s faces from Taehyung. Their parents had usually gifted them with coupons for concerts or some kind of classes - needless to say, the pottery one hadn’t turned out to be very successful in the end and even though the Lotte World tickets had been used, to save themselves from further inconveniences, they had rather not sat on anything too scary or high or fast, so they had stuck with entertainment opportunities for little kids and live fairytale performances -, but at least they had chosen something that would mean that they could spend more time together.

This year, Christmas started with their brand new neighbour - Jin - coming over with the special festive season meals he had made (and he had made a lot even though he was living on his own) much to Namjoon’s dismay, but it was really kind of the young man to do so, and it was free food, so Namjoon didn’t want to protest either. Not to mention that the more he got to know their new neighbour, the less hostile he seemed, thus they actually got out of this time better than they would have expected.

Then, the time to themselves meant decorating the Christmas tree that looked like something out of a child’s drawing yet again, wrapping gifts that yet again resulted in Namjoon cutting his fingers with the scissors and having glue stuck on his hands, trying to wash it off fervently. Dasom made less fancy but still delicious treats for them and she even prepared the cake with colourful candles, but they almost managed to burn down the Christmas tree with its candles, so it was better to just eat them on their own without having to decorate the dessert even further.

“Gosh, it wouldn’t have been us if we hadn’t had such calamities,” Dasom mused out loud while she was digging into the chocolate sponge cake, smiling in a childish way, thinking back to all those Christmases they had spent together. Not only as a couple but also as best friends back in the days. With braces and questionable fashion choices. With wishes for their first very own laptop or a kpop album by a beloved boy band crush of theirs. With stuffing their mouths with food until they had gotten sick of the meals. With carefree laughter, eye smiles and bittersweet nostalgia.

Namjoon displayed the same kind of smile she did so, his eyes telling hundreds of tales of the past and sparkling with hopes for the future.

“At least, you can’t say that you are getting bored of me. Something always happens when we are together,” he pointed out with a lopsided grin, making her chuckle. Gosh, she really couldn’t disagree with him!

“If I were cheesy, I would say that I wouldn’t be able to get bored of you…”

“But?” Namjoon raised an expectant eyebrow in question, stopping the fork in his hands halfway between his plate and his mouth. Sometimes he was so innocently oblivious. As if she could ever doubt his love or care or regret the time they had spent together.

This time was no different, and Dasom didn’t have the heart to tease him when he looked at her with such wide puppy eyes.

“Even if I weren’t cheesy, I would say the same,” she admitted as she pinched his cheeks, earning a smile from him that was like the sun rising on the horizon; just as beaming, bright and hopeful.

She hoped that them and those precious smiles and exchanged glances would stay the same no matter how many more mishaps they would share and no matter how disastrous life would be beside the love of her life.

#bts scenarios #namjoon scenarios #kwritersworldnet #bts imagines #bts fluff #namjoon imagines #namjoon fluff #bts comedy #namjoon comedy #rm scenarios #rm imagines #rm fluff #rm comedy #my story #restlessmaknae

24 notes · View notes

adzapier · 3 years

Text

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) FAQs

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

What is CCPA?

The California Consumer Protection Act is a law meant to give Californians enhanced rights over the use and sale of their personal information. Once a company collects your personal data, you have these rights: - Access: you can access the data collected and ask how they will use the data. - Deletion: to request they delete your data, unless it is vital for security purposes, legal compliance, or providing an essential service. - Opt-out of “sales”: gives you the right to opt-out of having your data being “sold” to a third party.

When did CCPA go into effect?

January 1, 2020, but there was a six-month grace period on enforcement for brands up to July 1, 2020.

Who is impacted by CCPA?

Any brand categorized as “business,” “service provider,” or “third-party” doing business in California and sells, buys, or collects personal information from online consumers.

How do brands and publishers know their category?

- Business: is a for-profit entity conducting significant business in California collecting consumers’ personal information, with more than $25 million gross revenue annually; or buys, sells, shares, or receives personal information of more than 50,000 consumers, devices, or households for commercial purposes; or derives more than 50% of its annual revenue from personal information sales. - Service Provider: are entities that process information on behalf of other businesses for profit. - Third-Party: is neither a business nor service provider collecting consumers’ personal information.

What additional rights will California residents get under the CCPA?

If you are in California, you can request a business to disclose: - Categories and specific pieces of your personal information it has collected. - The commercial purpose for selling or collecting your personal information. - Third-parties the business shares your personal information. Additionally, you can request collected personal information be deleted, subject to certain exceptions. Alternatively, you can opt-out of selling your personal information. Businesses must provide an accessible and cost-free way of exercising these rights and respond to such requests within 45 days of receipt. The timings for deleting and ‘Do-Not-Sell’ requests are hazy.

Does it mean our company has to amend its online privacy policy?

Yes. The bare minimum is providing a California-specific form of privacy notice incorporating substantive elements linked to disclosures as provided by the CCPA. In short, online privacy policy or any California-specific notice must include information such as: - Description of consumers’ rights. - The categories of personal information sold or disclosed for business purposes in the preceding 12 months. - A description of any financial incentives for providing data.

What are the potential penalties for violations of the CCPA?

Each violation can attract up to $2,500 in civil penalties, while failure to make good a 30-day opportunity to cure and each intentional violation after notice may attract a $7,500 fine.

Will this negatively impact digital advertising efforts?

It’s more nuanced than that. Sure, businesses use this personal data collection to gauge consumers’ shopping habits. Without this data, businesses cannot offer targeted advertising, reducing their chances of engaging and converting. Ultimately, CCPA can improve the advertising ecosystem for both the consumer and business. Brands will know which consumers are open to personalized advertising or offers while enhancing transparency and rights in using and selling consumers’ personal information.

What can a business do/not do with a user’s personal information who has opted out of sales?

It means the company can still use the information to complete that transaction and pay the ad commission, but not beyond that transaction.

What are the impacts of non-compliance?

That will depend on the severity of the infraction: - Private enforcement: you can file a lawsuit in the event of a data breach to recover up to $750 per actual incident or damage, whichever is greater. - Governmental enforcement: The State’s AG can file a civil case, giving businesses up to 30 days to fix non-compliance or they will be liable for up to $7,500 in fines per violation.

What is required to fulfill the CCPA requirements?

Brands, publishers, and advertisers will need to provide explicit notice and an opportunity to opt-out to consumers before collecting and sharing consumer data.

What is required for publishers to fulfill the CCPA requirements?

Publishers must disclose privacy rights through a link on their site. Alternatively, businesses can block traffic via the IP addresses of Californians. Publishers should implement a Consent Management Platform that collects and passes consumer’ opt-out requests and consent information to partners. Publishers can include a ‘Your Privacy Rights’ link, leading users to a page disclosing what personal information the company may collect.

The effect of the CCPA on brands based outside the US?

Any brand that buys, sells, receives, or shares personal information of at least fifty thousand California residents annually, must comply with CCPA regardless of location.

Is there a chance of this privacy policy advancing to a federal level?

Many states and other countries worldwide have adopted similar privacy regulations, so there is a good chance it could go federal. Read the full article

#CCPACalifornia #CCPAFAQs #CCPAregulation #ConsentManagementPlatform

1 note · View note

taww · 3 years

Text

Review: Legacy i·V2 Class D Stereo Amplifier

Legacy iv2 stereo amplifier

The Audiophile Weekend Warrior (TAWW)

TAWW Rating: 5 / 5

Class D power going toe-to-toe with Class A refinement

PROS: Nonexistent noise and distortion; tube-like midrange purity; full tonal balance with stellar bass; effortless power delivery; top to bottom refinement.

CONS: Ever-so-slight reductions in top-end extension, low-level resolution and dynamic life; slight mechanical buzz; binding posts could be nicer.

Class D (a.k.a. switching) amps have been around for decades, but really started to hit the audiophile scene in the early 2000′s. My first experiences around that time were a mixed bag, to say the least. A PS Audio HCA-2 sent my way for review blew its output stage when I powered it up. (In retrospect, my subwoofer setup may have been the culprit.) I wrote a review of the original NuForce integrated amp which, despite some sonic promise, felt like an unfinished product. The $30, battery-powered Sonic Impact "Class T" amp became a budget sensation, beguiling even some SET tube lovers, but its magic quickly ran out if you demanded more than a few watts from it. (The magic also ran out for its chip manufacturer Tripath, which went bankrupt.) And then there was a first-generation Bang & OIufsen ICEPower module, packaged inside an integrated amp by a high-end marque. It sounded pretty bad - dry, grainy, lifeless. How much was due to the ICEPower module vs. the rest of the amp is impossible to say, but it wasn't an auspicious introduction to the technology. Given this checkered past, it's little wonder Class D has been battling a reputation for sonic mediocrity with audiophiles. But new technologies make progress quickly, and the increasing number of rave reviews for the latest and greatest from Hypex, Pascal, ICEPower and others had me wondering... has Class D finally "made it" sonically? My time so far with the ICEPower-based Legacy i·V2 (USD $4,785) has been a pretty convincing yes.

Description

I won’t get into all the history and technical details of ICEpower technology - for that, I recommend this excellent audioXpress article. Of note is that ICEPower, after starting off as an independent subsidiary of Bang & Olufsen, split off into its own entity in 2016. The ICEedge controller chip at the heart of the Legacy amp’s 1200AS modules had been under development for 7 years and represents the latest and greatest iteration of ICEpower’s proprietary technology. It can scale in power from 50 to as many as 7,000 watts, and unlike some of those earlier Class D amps I tried, it has an array of sophisticated control and protection features to ensure smooth, bulletproof operation. In many months with the amp I’ve experienced zero clicks, thumps, signs of oscillation or other hiccups.

A kilowatt of clean power from this one board!

The i·V2 implements the ICEdge 1200AS modules as-is without any bespoke customizations to the circuit. (Note that this is the higher-performance mono 1200AS module, not the less expensive 1200AS2 stereo module that’s much more common.) Some other brands add their own input stage, but Legacy chief Bill Dudleston has opted to keep things stock and simple. You might be wondering, why can't I buy these modules myself then, slap them in a Chinese enclosure from eBay, save thousands of dollars and call it a day? The simple answer is ICEPower only sells them to OEMs, and forbids direct sales to consumers. But Mr. Dudleston also mentioned grounding of the modules as an area of special care, saying they were able to achieve a few dB's of additional noise performance through careful experimentation. At this level of power and performance, the little things matter.

Speaking of enclosures, the i·V2 has an extremely solid all-aluminum chassis with rose gold accent trim and plenty of ventilation around the modules. It's reassuringly hefty at 30lbs/13.6kg, so you wouldn't immediately guess it's a class D amp were it not for the 610W continuous (1000W peak) power rating. There's zero flex anywhere and while I have no idea how sensitive the modules are to vibration, knocking on the chassis gives a satisfyingly dull thud - much superior to anything you'd get on eBay or from lower-priced ICEPower resellers. There's a meter on the front, however this is neither a power meter as on McIntosh, nor a bias meter as on Pass Labs, but a measurement of the available AC power line voltage. There's a small pot on the rear panel to center it, and once calibrated it stays motionless during operation. I'm not really sure of the purpose of it, perhaps to monitor if your power lines are sagging when pulling in excess of the 1200 watts that the i·V2 is capable of delivering. The overall look is nicely done though probably a matter of taste... my wife not-so-affectionately nicknamed the amp "JARVIS" [sic] because the triangular meter reminded her of the yellow mindstone on the forehead of Vision, JARVIS's superhero embodiment in the Avengers movies. In what seems to be the fashion these days, the power/standby switch is located under the front panel, and there's an additional power switch at the AC inlet. One set of very standard 5-way insulated binding posts is provided along with balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA inputs. At this price point, I would have liked nicer posts, e.g. Furutech or WBT Nextgen. Not that there's anything wrong with the provided ones, and perhaps these posts were necessary to meet the extremely high power spec, but they feel decidedly prosaic and less pleasant to turn vs. the now-ubiquitous WBT's. A 12v trigger input rounds out the package.

Can’t get enough of rose gold? The i·V2 has you covered.

Setup

I tested the amp in two very different systems: the main reference rig, consisting of PS Audio DirectStream DAC ($6k), Gryphon Essence preamp ($17k) and Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Aretté ($25k) speakers; and a second system with RME ADI-2 DAC ($1200), Pass Labs XP10 preamp ($5k) and Silverline Prelude Plus ($2k). As you can imagine, really critical listening was done with the reference rig, but the second setup helped feel out how l the Legacy worked in a less expensive system. Interconnects are my usual mix of Audience Au24 SX and DH Labs Air Matrix; speaker cables were Audience Au24 SX or Furutech DSS-4.1. With the big rig, the Furutech was an excellent match; in the smaller system I used the Audience. I used only the balanced XLR inputs of the amp, so if your results differ from mine and you're using unbalanced RCA, that may be a factor. My system has been fully balanced for several years now and there's been no looking back.

The i·V2 is somewhat sensitive to the choice of power cord. I say "somewhat" because it certainly won't sound wrong or bad with a given cord, the stock one included, but nuances of its presentation can change - bass response, hall perspective, top end extension and soundstage proportion were the most noticeable aspects. For most of the time I was admittedly lazy and used a trusty Audience powerChord SEi without further thought. One day I finally swapped one of @mgd-taww's proprietary cords and found it to make a nice difference, which warranted some further tinkering. I found the otherwise superlative Furutech DPS-4.1 to not be a great match - it delivered tons of detail and a huge soundstage, but sounded slightly hollow tonally and lost some of the i·V2's endearing smoothness. The Audience Forte F3 (currently $149) was the big surprise - I actually preferred it to the more expensive powerChord. Audience graciously provided me with a set of Forte F3 cords a few years back when they debuted, but I haven't spoken much about them as I hadn't gotten them to click in my system. With most gear, the Forte was lighter, airier, but lacking some substance and transparency vs. the big-brother powerChord SEi. But with the i·V2, the Forte was surprisingly even better balanced and focused than the powerChord, with a more present midrange, more mid-bass punch and a bit more attack and air on the top end. Some systems and ears may still prefer the more laid-back perspective and silkier top end of the powerChord, but I really liked what the Forte did. At such a reasonable price point, it's a no-brainer upgrade over stock.

Direct connection from the RME DAC worked, but a preamp was much preferable.

A quick word about preamps: you need one with this amp. The RME DAC didn't sound particularly good driving the i·V2 directly and greatly benefited from the Pass Labs XP10. Moving up to the Gryphon Essence preamp was even better, and the i·V2 was more than resolving enough to reveal the Gryphon's substantial advantage in musical resolution and extension at the frequency extremes over the Pass Labs. As mentioned, many purveyors of Class D amplifier modules add their own flavor to the sound with an extra input stage (e.g. PS Audio adds a tube input buffer to the Stellar M1200) and this is one interesting way to go, but my preference would probably be to stick with a vanilla but more neutral ICEdge module as in the i·V2, then tune the system with a proper preamp.

Another setup observation: yes, Class D runs extremely cool vs. traditional amps, but they do still generate some heat and I was a bit surprised that the i·V2 always ran slight warm to the touch, similar to the Bryston 4B Cubed. And sure enough, I measured around 58W of power draw at idle - virtually identical to the Class AB Bryston, or an Ayre AX7e integrated for that matter. The big difference is that the i·V2 will deliver the vast majority of its musical power thereafter into the speakers and not the heatsinks, and temperature rose very little even during some heavy listening sessions. It will never get burning hot, but please don't stick it in an enclosed cabinet - as always, ventilation is still required. If you plan to keep the amp in standby, rest assured it draws only around 0.3W, and sound is delivered almost immediately upon power-up. It does require a few minutes to start sounding its best, but certainly warms up much faster than Class A or AB amps that generally require an hour or more to get close to their full potential.

I do wish the binding posts were fancier...

Finally, while the amplifier is absolutely dead quiet through the 92.5dB-efficienty Audiovector speakers, I noticed a slight buzzing sound from the amplifier modules themselves. It wasn't really audible from the listening position, but you could definitely hear it by the equipment rack. It's comparable to the slight buzz from a toroidal transformer that's dealing with a little DC on the power line, but I'm unsure that is the cause here vs. some intrinsic noise from the ICEPower's switching supply. None of my other components are having this issue at the moment, though in fairness, the Gryphons' exceptional quality transformers that are fully potted and enclosed set a benchmark for mechanical quietness. Not a major issue, just mentioning for completeness.

The Sound

Looking back at my listening notes from the first couple hundred hours of the i·V2's time in my system, it was apparent that I really needed to give the amp more time to break in. I should have known better, as my experience with audio gear employing high-speed switching circuits like DACs and Class D amps is they take a very long time to settle in. The DirectStream DAC needed at least 500 hours to sound its best, and despite cranking the Legacy amp into a 4-ohm dummy load for dozens of hours at a time with my break-in playlist, it took a couple hundred more hours before the Legacy started to click in the reference system. The second system is more forgiving and sounded good earlier on, but I'd still make sure to give the amp many, many hours before passing judgement.

Once that was out of the way, listening impressions were consistent and roundly impressive. Among the Legacy's more enviable characteristics: super low distortion; dead-quiet silence; terrific bass response; seemingly endless power on tap; smooth tonality with no discernible coloration; a surprisingly silky treble and full mid-bass; and a relaxed, slightly laid-back perspective that's a bit less immediate than my Class A amps, but still resolving and involving. Let's delve in...

Head to head with the mighty Gryphon Essence

Tonally, the Legacy struck me as slightly mellower than my reference Gryphon Essence, at least with the Audiovector speakers. I hesitate to say the Legacy is "warmer," or the Gryphon is "brighter.” The Legacy, along with the Gryphon or the Bryston 4B Cubed have less overt tonal coloration compared to, say, the Pass XA30.5 (distinctly but not excessively warm), Valvet A4 Mk.II (more forward in the upper midrange) or Ayre AX7e (crisper and lighter). The upper frequencies were very slightly less prominent with the Legacy than the Gryphon, even though I’d never call the Gryphon bright or the Legacy rolled-off. There’s just a little less air in the soundstage, and instruments with strong HF energy like Donald Byrd’s trumpet in “Witchcraft” (Byrd in Hand, Qobuz 16/44) felt slightly curtailed vs. the ultra-open Gryphon. It might have more to do with the amps’ approach to harmonics than their inherent brightness, which I’ll get to later.

The midrange is smooth and balanced, with a purity that's a step above my aural memory of the Pass and Bryston. As with the treble, it has a sense of warmth and silkiness not for what it adds to the signal, but for what it doesn't. It’s so exceptionally free of any audible distortion that even the lovely Valvet sounded a tiny bit grainy and coarse by comparison. Given that I lauded the Valvet for its midrange purity relative to the Bryston 4B3, which in turn I also liked for its midrange quality, that’s saying something.

Class D amps typically have great bass, and the Legacy didn't disappoint. Earlier in the review period, it easily surpassed the Gryphon in weight and punch, making the Gryphon sound slightly anemic on tracks like Billie Eilish's “all the good girls go to hell” (Qobuz 24/44). It was also more neutral and controlled than the Pass while having even more punch. The Gryphon still has more texture, depth and musical resolution with my speakers, and more recently it has retaken the lead in overall bass response for reasons I'm still trying understand. Either the Gryphon has finally fully broken in its enormous bank of supply capacitors, or improvements to other aspects of the system (e.g. a 20A power line) have favored it. Given that many love the bass performance of Pass Labs and the Gryphon is considered world-class in that regard, the Legacy has to be considered superb, with both the power and refinement to satisfy music lovers across a wide spectrum of genres and tastes.

What really stands out about the i·V2 is how it can combine all of the above qualities with over 600 watts of continuous power, yielding a balanced presentation that's utterly composed regardless of volume level or material. The way it scales its refinement beyond ear-splitting levels makes most every traditional amp seem shouty, edgy or strained by comparison. While the Bryston 4B3 sounded better the louder I played it, it wasn't as smooth and detailed; the Pass XA30.5 got a bit lumpy and loose at the limit; the Valvet gets a little edgy and coarse at moderately high levels; and even the mighty Gryphon Essence can get subtly brighter as you ask more power of it. The Legacy is an effortlessly smooth operator, and I certainly didn't have a speaker on hand that could faze it in any way.

Tradeoffs

Resolution of fine detail is where the Class A stalwarts pull away from the Legacy. There’s a few aspects of reproduction where this exhibits: top-end extension, harmonic resolution, very low level detail and soundstaging, which I’ll attempt to detail...

The top-end is what I would call slightly soft. It's not rolled-off, nor did I find it "dark" as I've seen some people call it. It's more that a level of sparkle and sheen that is subtly omitted from the sound. Instruments like cymbals, triangles and trumpets still have realistic tonality, they just feel slightly softer around the edges. This also affects the feeling of harmonic completeness - the highest overtones of woodwinds are somewhat curtailed. This led my oboist wife to comment that the i·V2 made oboists she was personally familiar with sound even smoother and sweeter than real life, whereas the honesty of the Gryphon Essence gave a more realistic representation.

The Valvet A4 Mk.II and certainly the Gryhon Essence, and by aural recollection the Pass XA30.5, also capture a bit more of the ambient signature in a recording - the "hall" sound, the sense of performers in a space. It’s not that the Legacy is very lacking in this respect, but similar to early SACD players, it does still have a touch of the “velvet curtain” effect where below a certain threshold, subtle parts of the signal seem attenuated. This can also makes listening at very low levels a tiny bit muffled. Resolution is still excellent, at least on par with amps around the $5k price point, e.g. the Bryston 4B Cubed. A pair of Benchmark AHB2’s could be interesting competition, but I haven’t heard it, and it doesn’t have anywhere near the current capability of the Legacy.

The last area where I found the Class A amps superior was dynamic contrasts. Despite the Legacy being the most power amplifier I have ever used by a long shot, it actually didn't sound more dynamic at typical volume than the 50 watt Gryphon, or the 55 watt Valvet monoblocks. Sure, it will play much louder than they can, but loudness isn't the same as dynamics. The Gryphon and Valvet both had a bit more life, a bit more contrast in colors... I hate to say it, but more “PRAT.” I'd put the Legacy somewhere between these amps and the Bryston 4B Cubed, which had a greater tendency to flatten dynamic nuances. (Note: my speakers are quite efficient and tame, so I’d imagine this could be a very different story into something significantly under 90dB/watt and/or presenting a tougher load.)

One more caveat to the above observations: it might be more speaker-dependent with the i·V2 than a typical linear amplifier. Interestingly, I found the i·V2 to kind of be the opposite in terms of speaker interactions and tonality to what I usually experience with my systems. The reference Audiovector speakers, with their ruthlessly revealing AMT tweeters and critically balanced tonality tend to be less forgiving of amplifiers than the much more affordable Silverlines with their soft-dome tweeter. However I actually found the i·V2 to bring out just a bit of upper midrange and lower treble prominence with the Silverline (not a bad thing per se), while sounding comparatively mellow with the Audiovectors. Load-dependent performance is a well-known challenge with the Class D topology, and while designers have found increasingly sophisticated means of mitigating it, it is probably still a factor here, albeit a much more nuanced one than in the past. I have to wonder if this variability is why one still hears of such wildly varying opinions of Class D amps... in any case, an audition with your preferred speakers is highly advisable.

Further Musings...

The Legacy i·V2's exceptional performance forced me to check my notions of fidelity. In terms of measured performance, it’s among the best I’ve experienced (along with the Bryston 4B Cubed), and my ears registered its sound as correspondingly pure and distortion-free. Could the Legacy's slightly smoother, less bright and less overtly dimensional perspective actually be more accurate than my other amps? It's been shown (by e.g. Nelson Pass) that some judicious 2nd order harmonic distortion can add a sense of dimensionality to a recording, which explains why tubes can sound so "holographic". In the tube case, I find this to be a euphonic (albeit lovely) deviation from the original recording. The Gryphon Essence is also a soundstaging beast, and while it’s far more neutral than any tube amp I’ve heard, could some of its dimensionality also be additive rather than accurate? Could something similar be said of the i·V2 slightly soft treble - is this actually the absence of distortion that exists in virtually all other systems, including the ones used to master recordings? Listening to a bright pop album, e.g. Dedicated by Carly Rae Jepsen (Qobuz 24/44), the i·V2 was certainly more listenable than the crisper and more sibilant Gryphon. On the other hand, the Gryphon has a bracing immediacy, a feeling of being pulled into the mix and enveloped by the music. The i·V2 by comparison is a little tame, a little reserved, perhaps even a tad muffled. Is that extra dynamic verve and contrast I hear from the Gryphon and other Class A amps real, or an artifact? Which is more accurate?

Because of the infinite number of variables in the recording and playback chain, there's likely no clear-cut answer. While no one buys a Gryphon or Pass Labs for the best specs, there’s no denying that the latest crop of Class D amps are on another level of measured performance from old-school Class A machinery. On the other hand, I do feel the i·V2 subtracts a few things from the signal. How much does that matter to your ears in your system? It's a close enough call that I can imagine circumstances of some preferring the Legacy to the Gryphon. For me personally, while I could happily live with the Legacy, I do inevitably find myself returning to the Gryphon for those extra nuances - the fineness of instrumental textures, the palpability of the soundstage, the dynamic inflections - the things that make hifi more evocative of the real thing.

I recently attended a lovely performance by The Cleveland Orchestra in their summer home, Blossom Music Festival. (Hurray for the return of live concerts!) When I returned home that evening, the Legacy was hooked up in the system. I put on a live recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra - not at all equivalent in venue or performance to what I had just heard, but bear with me - and it struck me that the tonality of the i·V2 was actually quite evocative of the real thing. Live orchestral performances have a ton of energy, and yet they sound so smooth and sweet compared to typical reproduced sound. The i·V2 captured that silkiness to a greater degree than I’ve heard in my system, but was lacking some of the edge and vitality. Switching to the Gryphon gave me more of the excitement of the live event, but tonally it wasn’t quite as spot on. At this point, we’re probably approaching the limits of conventional reproduced sound, so some tradeoff will be necessary. Which one is “better” may depend on your frame of reference. E.g. if you like the neutrality and balance of solid state amps, you'll likely find little missing from the Legacy's presentation; if you favor the tonal color, dynamic verve and larger-than-life presence of tubes, you may find the Legacy a little dull. The very fact that I'm having to finely parse these matters of fidelity and taste is a testament to the overall excellence and refinement of the i·V2. To accomplish that that with 610 watts on tap for under $5k is a significant milestone for Class D technology, and a remarkable feat of engineering.

I must mention the obvious ecological benefits of Class D over Class A - we are drawing literally hundreds fewer watts, we don't need to keep it running or warm it up for extended periods to sound good and we are generating far less waste heat. The electric bill and thus cost of ownership will also be appreciably less. On the flip side, the jury is still out on how long these amps will last, vs. a Gryphon or Pass Labs or Bryston that one can easily imagine humming along for 20+ years. As such, and as is often the case with newer and more commoditized tech, I'd expect resale value to be significantly lower than those marques. Just a couple extra things to consider when you're plunking down a not-inconsiderable amount of money on a piece of kit.

Conclusion

The Legacy i·V2, and Class D amplification more broadly, are emblematic of larger shifts in high-end audio technology. Just as solid state and digital audio took a while to hit their stride and gain legitimacy in the exalted (ok I'll say it, snobby) circles of the high-end, we've hit a point of maturity with Class D where technological sophistication and subjective fidelity can go hand in hand. The fact that I strained my ears comparing the i·V2 to a $24k Class A reference that is far and away the best amplifier I have ever heard in my system is all the proof I needed. For under $5k, the Legacy i·V2 delivers a balance of refinement and power that is unmatched by any conventional amplifier I'm aware of near its price point, and competitive in absolute terms with the better amplifiers under $10k and beyond, regardless of technology. It's a cut above what I heard from the Bryston 4B Cubed, and while I haven't had the Pass Labs XA.8 series in my own room, I would not hesitate to line it up against them. Many may still prefer the more overt musicality of the hot-running Pass behemoths, but my feeling is it'll be more a matter of personal taste or system matching, as opposed to one of absolute fidelity.

I have a few burning questions on my mind now. The first is how Legacy's implementation of the ICEdge 1200AS compares to other ones on the market - could you get similar or even better performance for less? The next one is how does the Legacy/ICEdge stack up against other Class D implementations from Hypex, Purifi, Pascal and others? And finally, I've also heard a lot of wonderful things about the Class H Benchmark AHB-2 from ears I trust. It too is compact, cool-running, superbly specified and relatively affordable, but utilizes a sophisticated implementation of traditional linear amplification technology. I would love to compare and contrast the Legacy with that amp.

In the meantime, I strongly endorse an audition of this amplifier without prejudice. It's a remarkable achievement in amplification - highly recommended!

#review #class d #amplifier #audio #audiophile #hifi #legacy #iv2

1 note · View note

flowerfan2 · 4 years

Text

Part of You Indefinitely - Ch. 3

Chapter 3 is up! Read it here or on A03.

Summary: An accident sends Patrick to the hospital and terrifies David. What follows changes their relationship in ways David and Patrick never imagined. A story of love and its challenges.

Chapter 3

When Alexis returns, she tries to make David get out of Patrick’s bed, but David won’t do it. It feels far too good to be sitting pressed up against Patrick, his body warm and alive against his side. They compromise by raising the head of the bed until they are mostly sitting up, Patrick leaning against David’s shoulder as David hand feeds him tiny bites of cinnamon roll.

Things are going well enough until a nurse comes in to look at Patrick’s head wound, and it turns out that Alexis is the only one besides the nurse who can face the thought of stitches in Patrick’s scalp without getting dizzy.

“It’s really not that bad, Patrick,” Alexis says lightly, shoving her compact mirror back in her bag after David screeches at her to put it away. “When your hair grows back, the scar will be completely hidden.”

“My hair?” Patrick asks. “What did they do to my hair?”

Alexis purses her lips at him. “I suppose you could keep that part short, David loves that 90’s asymmetric style-”

“There will be none of that,” David interrupts, propping a hip on Patrick’s bed and running his fingers gently through the untouched hair on the top of Patrick’s head. “It’s just a little trimmed patch above your ear. It’ll grow back in no time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me they shaved my head? It must look ridiculous.” Patrick looks at David, betrayed, and it’s all David can do not to laugh. For once it isn’t David being vain.

“It’s hardly your whole head. Your boy next door good looks are still intact.” David kisses Patrick’s frowning lips, which seems to satisfy him for the moment.

“Eww, David.”

“Shut it, Alexis. I’ll kiss my handsome husband whenever I like.”

Alexis tilts her head at them, and then leans down and smacks a quick kiss on Patrick’s cheek, making him blush. “He is pretty cute, even with a shaved head.” She stands up, grinning at them and tossing her own luscious waves – adding insult to injury, David thinks. If someone shaved Alexis’ head without her permission there’d be hell to pay. “I’m going to go find us some lunch. Try to keep it PG while I’m gone.”

****

Patrick’s mood sours as the afternoon wears on. When the physical therapist comes in to evaluate him, Patrick glares at David until David leaves the room. David splits the next hour between pacing the hallway and answering texts from his parents, who have already flown halfway home from Fiji and are in the airport in L.A., waiting for their flight to Toronto. He uses every trick he can think of to convince them not to come, including telling Moira that Schitt’s Creek has implemented a ban on wigs, but they board the flight anyway. David follows this up with a quick text exchange with Jocelyn, who promises to pick his parents up at the airport and keep them away from the hospital for as long as possible.

When David is finally allowed back into the room, Patrick is having his dinner. As David watches, Patrick fumbles with a fork, unable to get even one piece of the overcooked pasta from the bowl to his mouth. The orderly makes a noise of disapproval, taking the fork out of Patrick’s hand and trying to feed him, at which point Patrick squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head into the pillow.

“All right, that’s enough,” David says. “You, leave the food and clear out.”

“Patrick needs to eat-”

“And you need to go somewhere you’re wanted. Shoo.” David waves his hand at the orderly until he leaves, practically tsk-tsking as he goes.

David takes a deep breath and rests one hip against the bed, giving Patrick time to regain his composure.

“I don’t need to be fed like a child,” Patrick finally mumbles into the pillow.

“I know,” David says.

“It’s humiliating.”

“I’m sorry.”

David scoots a little closer to Patrick and Patrick slides his head from the pillow to David’s thigh. “I want to go home,” Patrick says, his voice tight.

“Tomorrow, right?”

“They’re not sure.” There’s a pause, and when Patrick continues, he’s clearly hating every word. “They said I have to be able to transfer from the bed to a chair, and do better with meals.”

“Why?”

Patrick rolls his head, his eyes blinking up at David. “Why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? So I can take care of myself,” Patrick says angrily.

“But I can take care of you,” David says, still not seeing the problem.

“You can’t,” Patrick replies. “You have the store, and you’ll have to work even longer hours since I won’t be able to help.”

“I’ll take time off. Patrick, come on, you really think I’m going to leave you at home alone when you’re like this?”

Unfortunately this doesn’t have the desired effect, apparently just emphasizing how helpless Patrick is right now.

“It doesn’t matter. They’re going to send me to a rehab facility.”

It’s starting to sink in that David has missed quite a lot of information, and while a few days of rehab doesn’t sound like the worst possible thing, it’s clear that Patrick is truly shaken.

“Let me talk to them. They can’t force you – you’re not in jail. I’ll just take you home.”

“David, you don’t want to be stuck with me like this,” Patrick says bitterly. “I can barely wipe my ass. There’s no fucking choice, I have to go.”

“Patrick,” David says, rapidly realizing that things are going downhill faster than he can catch up. If nothing else, Patrick’s use of profanity gives away how distraught he is. “You aren’t going anywhere you don’t want to go, do you understand me? I won’t let that happen.”

Patrick shakes his head and doesn’t answer. David slides down until his face is up against Patrick’s, or at least the half of his face that isn’t smushed into the pillow, and whispers softly to him.

“I know this is upsetting, more than upsetting, and you’re scared. But you’re not alone in this. You’re not alone in anything anymore, remember?” He puts his arm around Patrick and pulls him close. “Let me get all the information and see what our options are, okay?”

Patrick slides closer and buries his face in David’s neck, sniffling hard. “Okay.”

*****

Later, after David has coaxed Patrick into eating at least a few bites of the now cold and therefore even less appetizing pasta, Patrick dozes off while an old episode of a cooking show plays on his laptop. David goes out into the hallway and starts making calls.

He starts with Alexis, because next to his mother, she is the queen of making the impossible become possible – and while Moira seems to stumble into these situations by accident, Alexis makes things happen on her terms. It helps that Alexis has been so chummy with Patrick’s doctor, because twenty minutes later David’s on the phone with the man himself. They believe Patrick’s problems are caused by a head injury, not the electric shock. But given his promising test results, there’s no medical reason Patrick can’t go home. He’ll need some help at first – either from a family member or a home health care aide – but he can do PT on an outpatient basis if he doesn’t want to go to a residential rehab center, especially if there is someone (i.e., David) able to monitor Patrick’s condition.

David’s about to go back to Patrick’s room with the good news when he gets a text from his dad. <i>Call me</i>

It’s progress from a guy who used to send emails in all caps. At least this message is short. He hopes it’s not an emergency – he’s already got his hands full with his Patrick-emergency. His heart can only handle one at a time.

“Son, you don’t have to worry. I’ve got it covered,” his dad says when the line connects.

“Got what covered?”

“The store. Alexis told me about your dilemma, and you don’t need to worry about it. Stevie’s coming in tomorrow, and between the two of us and Jocelyn after school, you won’t have to lift a finger.”

David can’t help the wave of relief he feels, even as he protests. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but last I checked you and Stevie had full time jobs of your own.”

“I already took the month off to go to Fiji, so no one’s expecting me back for at least three more weeks. Stevie’s due some vacation time too. Plus we just promoted two new regional managers – it’ll be good for them to have some space to do their thing without us hanging over their shoulders.”

“You can’t spend your vacation time working at the Apothecary – and you can’t make Stevie do it either.”

“Fine, I’ll give her extra vacation time, as much as she wants. She never takes any time off anyway, no matter how much she saves up. This will be fun for her – she doesn’t say it, but I know she misses you guys.”

It’s really too good to be true. “Dad, are you sure? Because Patrick and I can make it work, we’ll be okay on our own.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to do this on your own, David.”

It’s oddly reminiscent of what David just said to Patrick a little while ago. They’re not alone in this, neither of them.

“All right, but I’m still supervising operations. Don’t go making any changes or ordering anything different without asking me. We have to stay on brand.”

“David, I would never.”

David lets out an embarrassing half-laugh/half-cry and presses his hand over his eyes. “Dad, I have to get back to Patrick.”

“Okay, son. I love you. And tell Patrick we love him too.”

David hangs up and goes into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. His dad has gifted them the perfect solution to this problem, even if he screws up and decorates the place with poison oak in ugly vases. He can’t wait to tell Patrick.

Unfortunately, Patrick is fast asleep when David gets back to his room. The nurse tells David that they gave Patrick a sedative to help him rest, and that he probably won’t wake up until morning. Glancing at his watch, he sees that it’s nearly eleven o’clock. No wonder he feels like he’s about to pass out. Except for a few hours of sleep crammed in the hospital bed with Patrick last night, David has been awake since the previous morning.

“Do you have someone who can take you home for the night?” the nurse asks. “If Patrick wakes up I’ll help him call you. You need to take care of yourself, so you can take care of him.”

“I’m pretty sure I told you that already,” Alexis trills at him.

David turns, and Alexis is there, smiling affectionately. “Come on, David, give your little button a kiss and let me take you home. I promise I’ll bring you back first thing.”

David really doesn’t want to leave, but he can barely keep his eyes open, and the thought of crawling into his own bed is irresistible. He sends Patrick a text, letting him know he’ll be back early.

“You promise you’ll have him call me if he wakes up?” David asks the nurse. “Even if it’s the middle of the night?”

“I will.” The nurse walks with them out of the room. “He’s going to be fine, your husband. He’s mostly just scared, but he’s going to be okay.”

“I thought medical professionals aren’t supposed to make promises like that,” David says, suddenly suspicious.

“I can tell he’s going to be okay, because he’s got you and your family on his side.”

Alexis turns and steps closer to the nurse, her eyes narrowing. “Wait, do we know you?”

The nurse laughs. “I’m Twyla’s second cousin, Marti. I came to singles week at Schitt’s Creek a few years ago.”

“Ugh, do you still promise to take care of Patrick?”

Marti laughs. “I do. Now go home already, just looking at you is making me tired.”

*****

Sleeping in his own bed isn’t quite as wonderful as David had hoped it would be; Patrick’s absence is like a physical pain. But David does feel more like himself in the morning.

As promised, Marti calls him around six when Patrick wakes up, and puts Patrick on the phone. He is still a little drowsy, so David just makes sure everything is more or less okay and asks him what kind of scone he wants for breakfast.

“Blueberry,” Patrick says, surprising no one.

They get to the hospital around eight, Alexis giving Patrick a quick kiss on the cheek and then skipping off on what she says is an important work-related errand, but what David thinks is probably a coffee date with Patrick’s doctor.

“He’s named Dr. Lee,” David says. “Do we think he’s related to someone in Schitt’s Creek too?”

“Ronnie’s last name is Lee,” Patrick says. “But there’s not exactly a family resemblance.”

Dr. Lee is tall, built, and most likely Korean. He reminds David of a younger, even more handsome Daniel Dae Kim. “No way to know, really. And I’m not about to ask him.”

Patrick nods in agreement. “I can’t believe that nurse is Twyla’s cousin. Marti seems so normal.”

“Very funny.”

“So, what was the good news?” Patrick looks cautiously optimistic, but still so nervous that David is compelled to sit down on the bed and pull him into his arms before he goes on.

“If you don’t want to go to that rehab place, you’re not going. You don’t need to be there to do your PT. You can come home, with me, and I will stay home and wait on you hand and foot until you get better.”

“David, you can’t leave the store-”

“My dad and Stevie are going to work the store. Don’t argue with me, that part wasn’t even my doing, and it’s already decided. Either you let me stay home with you, or I’ll wander the streets lonely and pining, but I’m not needed at the Apothecary.”

Patrick seems to be holding his breath, then asks, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Patrick’s eyes are shining, and he leans into David, sighing deeply. “David… thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. So far my mother hasn’t announced whether she’s part of this plan too, but I wouldn’t put it past her. We might wind up with a selection of all-natural handmade wigs for sale.”

“I don’t care,” Patrick murmurs into David’s sweater.

“No, me neither.”

They pull apart when David’s stomach grumbles, and he unpacks the food he brought in.

“This doesn’t look like it came from the café,” Patrick says, as David deposits a blueberry scone iced with lemon and sparkling sugar on a paper plate.

“Nope. We stopped at that place in Elm Falls, the one we looked at for wedding cakes? They have a new baker with a real flair for pastries. I’m thinking we should give them a call soon, see what it would take to set up a weekly delivery.”

David takes out his own breakfast – French toast stuffed with ricotta and strawberries, and cuts off a chunk, holding it out for Patrick to bite.

“Mmm, that’s good too.”

“Right?”

They eat in silence for a few minutes, David feeding Patrick bites of his French toast and Patrick breaking off pieces of his scone and slowly putting them into his mouth.

“Your arms seem steadier today -” David starts, and Patrick interrupts him.

“Don’t say it, I thought it too, but I don’t want to jinx anything.”

David grins at Patrick, and Patrick grins back, a little shy. “Okay, I won’t say anything.” He tries not to watch as Patrick picks up his iced coffee and sips from the straw, placing the plastic cup back down on the bed tray carefully but without any mishap.

“You’ll be stocking shelves in no time,” David says, and Patrick groans.

“Shut up, please.”

Patrick’s mood improves even more when David reveals what else he brought him.

“I have never been happier to see a pair of sweats,” Patrick says, as he reluctantly lets David help him get dressed.

“I figured that doing PT in a hospital gown probably didn’t improve the experience,” David says. “Wait, there’s one more thing.” He pulls out Patrick’s Café Tropicale baseball cap, which easily covers the shaved spot and the bandage on Patrick’s head. Patrick’s smile lights up the room.

“Babe, you are really the best.”

David blushes as Patrick pulls him in for a kiss. “I can definitely get you better hats, this is just temporary.”

“What, you mean you’re not a fan?”

David takes in his husband, smiling and laughing and thrilled to be wearing a worn green baseball cap while sitting in a hospital bed. “I am, in fact, your very biggest fan,” he says, sappy and proud. He kisses Patrick a few more times, for good measure, but all too soon a nurse comes in and they have to stop.

Even with his spirits lifted, Patrick still kicks David out during his physical therapy session. David thinks it’s kind of silly, since it’s likely that the therapist might be imparting information that would be useful for them both to know, and he’d rather hear anything that’s going to upset Patrick so he can try to help deal with it before he spirals. But he gets that Patrick is trying to hold on to some shred of privacy. This whole situation is hell for David in terms of secondhand embarrassment, and he knows it’s a hundred times worse for Patrick.

When Patrick’s finally done with PT, David comes back into the room to find Patrick curled up on his side, his eyes closed. David pulls his chair close to the bed and sets a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

“Tired.”

“Can I get you anything?”

Patrick just shakes his head, not opening his eyes.

David leans down and presses a kiss to Patrick’s forehead, then pulls out a magazine from his bag and starts flipping through it. He’s bored, though, and now that’s he’s actually gotten some decent sleep, full of restless energy. If he stays here, he’s just going to annoy Patrick with his fidgeting.

“Okay if I go for a walk?” he asks, whispering. “I won’t be gone long.”

“Do what you want,” Patrick mutters.

It stings. David tells himself that it’s understandable, Patrick is going through a rough time, it’s no surprise that he’s grumpy. But Patrick is usually so unflappable. The contrast is striking. David is supposed to be the dramatic one, while Patrick remains calm, the sober port in David’s passionate storm. An exaggeration, maybe, but on the nose more often than not.

Now Patrick needs him to step up and be calm and capable for both of them. David needs to set aside his own anxieties and be there for his husband, no matter how uncomfortable it might feel. He’s always said that he would do anything for Patrick, but it’s a lot easier to say when his husband is cheerful and healthy and really doesn’t need much except David’s fond attention. David is determined not to let Patrick down now, but based on his track record, he can’t help but think that the odds aren’t really in his favor.

#Schitt's Creek #Schitt's Creek fic #David Rose #Patrick Brewer #Alexis Rose

6 notes · View notes

rafespeaks · 5 years

Text

Pokémon Sword and Shield, From the Eyes of a Veteran (Critique)

I want to preface this by saying I have been playing Pokemon since before I can remember. It has been a staple of my childhood since day one and is an incredibly important franchise to me. I have nothing but love for it, and I wish the franchise success and a long life far into the future. That being said... I have some big issues with this latest generation. Big enough that I’m writing out my thoughts for everyone to see for the first time.

As a note, I am not a competitive player, nor do I think I ever will be. I don’t have the patience or technical mind to focus on all the finite mechanics and breed the statistical ‘very-best’ Pokemon out there. As such, I will not be focusing on those aspects (or at least not nearly as heavily as others might).

Now, let’s begin.

As a starting point, let’s start where Nintendo always does when introducing a new region and generation

The Pokémon

Every new generation of Pokemon comes with brand-new creatures for everyone to love. However, some generations just have... more than others. The original games had 151 Pokemon total to catch, collect, and love. And from there, more were added. Here’s the count:

Johto: 100 Hoenn: 135 Sinnoh: 107 Unova: 156 Kalos: 72 Alola: 88 Galar: 81

This is not accounting for the new Pokemon introduced in Galar’s DLC, as that has yet to come out, or old Pokemon that were given a Mega Evolution or regional variant. Kalos added 30 Mega Evolutions, plus an additional 20 from ORAS. Alola added 18 regional variants, and Galar added 13 of their own (not counting the DLC Slowpoke) plus 24 Gigantimax forms (25 if you count Flapple & Appletun as separate, and 26 with Melmetal).

Numbers-wise, Galar did... okay. Not great. But okay. It still passed up Kalos, at the very least, which was a huge point of contention among fans when gen 6 came out. However, if I had to sum up my feelings towards the new Pokemon I could do it easily with one phrase: they’re very ‘hit-or-miss’. And while new Pokemon that I don’t care for tend to grow on me over time, there’s just one problem with that. They can’t grow on me if I don’t ever see them.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with old Pokemon being in the new games. In fact that’s something I love! But when you want the players to connect with the new being introduced, you have to give them a chance to do so.

This was the first region in what felt like ages where I went in without a plan of what I wanted on my team. Typically, I go with a simple, easy-to-follow formula. Grass, Fire, and Water take up three slots. Add in a Flying-type, as Water and Flying were highly important for transportation in earlier games. And for coverage, the last two spots go to Electric and Ground or Rock. Anything else, I try to cover for with getting as many dual-types as possible. Simple. Effective. Tried and true.

However, after choosing Scorbunny as my starter, I encountered a problem. There are only two Grass-types to choose from, and neither are particularly good for my strategy. Eldegoss, which I ended up going with, is a pure Grass-type and can ONLY learn Grass-type damaging attacks, unless you want to track down the single Bug-type TR it can learn, or use one of the few compatible Normal-type TMs/TRs.

The second Grass-type is Applin. And while both evolutions have better type coverage, there are still problems. One, Applin on its own is pretty bad. The only moves it knows when caught fresh from the wild are Withdraw and Astonish. While that isn’t too horrible in and of itself, the fact that its evolutionary item can only be obtained near the end of the game makes it a horrible choice. Since I was about to take on Nessa and had no access to this item, I was forced to either choose Eldegoss or something from a previous generation. And since I was trying to use all-new Pokemon, Eldegoss it was. (Though on the upside, I realized it had plenty of potential to be a competitive wall.) Now, if you are intent on getting a Flapple or Appletun, you can persevere and evolve one. Now you have your grass dragon! Great! Except... its level-up moveset is pretty bad to begin with... You will have to dedicate a lot of time to training or hunting down TMs and TRs to make up for this seemingly MASSIVE oversight.

This is just one example, of course. And while coverage isn’t particularly BAD considering all the old Pokemon included, it could be much better.

Continuing on from this topic is another that has had a lot of fans, including me, up in arms.

The Pokédex

Dexit.

Nearly 900 Pokemon, cut SEVERELY down to 400. It’s unprecedented. It’s unfair to the fans of cut Pokemon, completionists, and old players waiting on transferring all their partners from previous games. Frankly, it sucks. And I think every Pokemon fan can agree, no matter the reason.

While some similar things to this have happened before, it has never been this bad. Unova did it right - the only Pokemon available to the player through the main story of Black and White were the newly introduced ones. After defeating the Elite Four, finishing the game, and the credits are done rolling however, all previous Pokemon were welcome in the region once more. Alola didn’t exclude any older Pokemon, but for the first time in any Pokemon game, we did not get a National ‘Dex. Even so, the Pokemon unavailable natively in Alola were still transferable and usable in the new generation. And while it was a bit disappointing not to get any new entries for some old favorites, it was understandable. Coming up with new world lore is hard work!

Nintendo said that all these Pokemon were cut due to time constraints and limitations with the memory. Unfortunately, these are issues that could be fixed easily, which just... weren’t. Sword and Shield could have gone the same route that Zelda: Breath of the Wild did and simply extended production time. As Shigeru Miyamoto once said, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” And it shows in Sword and Shield in so many ways.

The memory limitations is, honestly, just a bad lie in my personal opinion. This opinion is only proven to me by the DLC reintroducing over 200 Pokemon from prior games. It’s not that Nintendo couldn’t - it’s that they didn’t give themselves the time. I had hoped for free updates in the future to remedy this, and that’s what’s happening. But not in a good way. (They also cut a plethora of Pokemon moves, which was also heavily disappointing, but the loss there couldn’t be felt nearly as much as over half of the total Pokemon being straight-up unavailable. Every one of those is someone’s favorite!)

Even if the memory WAS an issue, there are so many things that were, ultimately, unnecessary to me that they could have done without. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Dexit aside, there’s another issue that needs to be addressed with the Pokedex that I’ve touched on already - distribution of Pokemon. There’s just... way too many, way too fast, and not enough of the new Galar Pokemon to go around. I am a Player who takes the famous tagline ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ fairly seriously. As I progress through the game, I am always compelled to search for every Pokemon on a route and catch, at the very least, the basic form of that Pokemon. While I haven’t managed to complete the Pokedex on my own or build a Living ‘Dex yet, those are both major goals I have.

However, shortly after first stepping into the Wild Area, I was overwhelmed. Too many Pokemon were coming my way, with too many variations in weather meaning it would take ages to catch all the Pokemon available to me in a route before moving forward in the story. While the Wild Area is a marvel, fun to explore, and an amazing way to experience Pokemon, it’s all just too much to throw at you in one huge chunk. Plus, there’s one very annoying, very artificial limitation that just feels completely out of place in a game that traditionally has had nothing quite like this. The Pokemon-catching level cap.

Now, level caps have been talked about among fans of the series, especially those that would like a sort of ‘hard mode’. This is not what they were talking about. Level caps have been used in previous games to prevent a player from transferring or trading overpowered Pokemon to the game and breezing through it as fast as possible. If you don’t have enough badges, the Pokemon will not listen to you, and you’ll be out of luck until you progress. Fans have suggested extending this level cap to all Pokemon, so that potentially even your starter will refuse to listen once it’s too strong. Personally, I wouldn’t enjoy such a change. But that’s why it’s only really suggested for a hard mode.

The way this level cap was implemented, however, was just... bad... I understand why it was done, but it can be put into practice SO much easier with one simple fix - utilizing Routes like previous generations did and closing off the higher-level areas to the player until they have progressed appropriately.

And that brings me to my next talking point.

Routes VS the Wild Area

Pokemon routes have always been included in every game, from the very beginning. They are the segue between towns, holding new Pokemon for you to battle and catch, the majority of free items to be found across the world, and a good few trainers to pit your team against once you’ve gotten past the first little chunk of story. To put it simply, routes are necessary. Without them, all the different towns would be one huge city, and specifically in Sword and Shield, there would be nowhere but the Wild Area to catch Pokemon.

That being said, the routes throughout Galar are... pretty tiny. I’d even say pitiful. What’s more, it seems that most of them have a short, straight path forward that discourages exploration and bettering yourself through battles with wild Pokemon and trainers. Sure, there’s the occasional arbitrary blockade that will force you to take the long way around, but once that’s done with, there’s nothing else to keep your interest. Glimwood Tangle in particular made me realize how far back they cut the routes. There was so much potential to make a sprawling forest out of it, and they just... didn’t. It was tiny. I wanted more, but they left it lacking in so much.

There’s an easy solution to this - making the Routes into mini Wild Areas. And, to accommodate all these huge routes, CUT BACK THE WILD AREA. Trust me - it needs to be smaller. This fixes the Pokemon distribution, the level cap issues, and the tiny routes all in one fell swoop. Instead of having one massive area with a bunch of sub-areas, have each route be bigger, with two to three sub-areas. The balance will make it much more impressive in the long run.

Speaking of balance, let’s talk about how this affected the pacing of the game. Even when I was taking my time, it felt like I was always rushing, rushing, rushing on to the next town. Not to mention, there are far too many options in the story to let you skip over backtracking through a route you’ve already been through. I’ve just finished taking on Milo. I blink. I’m standing in the Pokemon center the next town over, prepping for Nessa’s gym. I just defeated Bea. I blink. Now I’m about to take on Opal. The only time I got a little time to breathe was when I had to travel through the Wild Area to get to the next town. And then it was all just so expansive that I... didn’t want to go back to the story. There were items everywhere. There were Pokemon to catch. I wasn’t done here - I had to explore. I had to find everything. Do all I could. Because that’s what you do in a route, right? You explore and find all the goodies to help you on your journey. So what comes after...?

The Towns

While the towns are gorgeous and each have their own charm, they all feel... almost empty.

Compare to previous games, and it’s obvious to see. Many buildings don’t allow you to go inside and explore. There is a distinct lack of NPCs. And the ‘big’ cities are decidedly small as a result.

Just take a look at Castelia City and Lumiose City. Both are huge, compared to the rest of the locations in the games. They have many buildings, many NPCs to fill them... People needed a map to avoid getting lost in Lumiose! Even in cities that are smaller scale-wise, such as in Alola, they never feel empty. There are plenty of places to go, people to talk to, and things to explore or interact with. You find new things all the time.

Meanwhile in Galar, the only things that seem to give the towns any purpose are the Pokemon gyms. And that is a massive shame. Especially when in prior games, there have been places I will make my way to, just to sit there and take in every little detail of the location, or where I’ll talk to every NPC and soak up all the lore. I go back to murals and statues and unique buildings. I go back to puzzles and the homes of legendary Pokemon. I go back to enjoy the things I’ve seen in a new light and reminisce about my journey. But in Galar... there seems to be very little to reminisce about.

The Story

This is the biggest disappointment for me. If all the rest of the game were awful, as long as the story is good, I can overlook it. As long as the story is good, I can enjoy any game.

This story was not good.

As far as Pokemon stories go, they aren’t all complex, nuanced narratives. In the first games, you fight Team Rocket, who are just in it for the money. In Johto, it’s the same thing, with the addition of a rival that has a touching change of heart in the end. Things get a bit bigger in Hoenn, where the world-ending plots officially start in the form of weather crises caused by Team Aqua and Team Magma. In Sinnoh, the entire universe is threatened when Team Galactic aims to remake the world in their image. In Unova, the morals of you and the rest of the Pokemon world are called into question by PETA-- I mean Team Plasma. In Kalos... rich people want to kill the unworthy poor...? Yeah, I didn’t really get that story much either. And in Alola, you deal with alternate dimension aliens running amok. Safe to say things got quite a bit bigger as time went on.

Now we’re in Galar. Something’s going to happen. Something always happens. But when? How?

We get hints about the Darkest Day. Dynamaxing is still very new and not much is known about it. Sonia is looking into the legendary hero(s) that stopped the Darkest Day. But where’s the evil team? What’s their motivation? Where’s the action? The buildup?? Bede mentions he’s collecting Wishing Stars. Why??? We get to Hammerlocke and learn that the Wishing Stars are for the Chairman. But again, why? He mentions a problem has been bothering Rose concerning all Galar, but it’s such a brief moment that it’s easily dismissed. Where’s the action, or the stakes? Nothing has happened yet except we’re being pushed through the gym challenge as fast as possible.

Fourth gym. No sign of any real trouble yet. Except that jerk Bede just vandalized an ancient mural, just because... he wanted to? Yeah, he’s trying to find Wishing Stars, but literally NO ONE told him to make a spectacle of himself and ruin a piece of history in the process. We’re getting more hints about the past and Galar’s history, but nothing solid on what we’re supposed to be doing. Besides the gyms. EVERYTHING is about the gyms... Oh, and apparently Oleana is the one who asked Bede to collect Wishing Stars. Whatever. What does that have to do with anything?

Five gyms in now, and... Ka-BOOM!

FINALLY!!! Some ACTION!!! Something’s happening at the Power Plant, and Sonia’s detecting a Power Spot! Alright, let’s go! I’m finally going to be able to DO something! I’ll finally be able to see what’s going on and--

“You should leave the investigation on the quaking to the adults. Head to Circhester and get that Gym Badge!”

... What... No! No, I refuse! There must be something to see, even if it’s just Sonia, Leon, and the Chairman standing around after things have already been sorted out. I can talk to them and get a little dialogue on what’s going on! Except they aren’t anywhere to be found. No one around the gym, no one by the Power Plant door, nothing.

Sixth gym. More lore. Seventh gym. Heading out towards Raihan and BOOM! Trouble on Route 9! Leon’s here! NPC says I should go help! Heck yes, I will! It’s about time I got some action out here, it’s almost the end of the game!

Run outside, there’s Leon! And... he dismisses you. Again. Says ‘nope, I’ve got this, gym gym gym, see you!’

No way am I taking that laying down. I’m right on his heels - I should at least be able to see him battling or something, right? But no. In the seconds it takes to run after him, Leon has beaten the threat, he’s gone, and now Hop is waving a news article about the debacle in your face, complete with picture! How the hell did all that happen so fast?! It takes time to write something like that up, never mind the time it must have taken to battle the Dynamaxed Pokemon that Leon faced!

The game is almost over, and what little action you could have seen has been blocked from you because you are a child. And I understand, from a moral perspective, that this is what any sane adult would say to a child. But from a story perspective it is a horribly bad writing choice. It gives you a little taste of the story, a tiny hint at what’s going on, and yanks any real explanation away from you until the very end, where you’re floored by everything happening all at once. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Finally, Professor Magnolia mentions that the issue the Chairman is worried about is the future of Galar’s energy. But... why? We have seen no hints of a problem with that throughout the entire game. No mention of shortages. Nothing about global warming or sustainability. It seems there’s exactly zero reason for anyone to worry, much less turn this into a huge issue that needs to be addressed. It’s one thing if a crisis is there and people are ignoring it. It’s another matter entirely if there is no crisis whatsoever to be seen, even if you look for it. And even if there was any sort of issue, Leon once again tells you to do nothing. Nothing at all.

Eighth gym. On to the Championships. Blah blah, tiny snow route, nothing even remotely close to a Victory Road... In Wyndon now. Still bubcus about an evil team or anything that you can actually DO something about. The Semifinals happen. Leon goes missing.

Suddenly, you’re thrown into a situation you know nothing about to save this miserable dope. And when you get to him... he doesn’t even need any saving! He’s just having a pleasant chat with this jerk! Drag his butt out of there, then the Finals happen. Now you’re gearing up to face Leon himself. Only to be stopped by Rose SUMMONING ARMAGEDDON TO SOLVE A NONEXISTENT ENERGY CRISIS HE SEEMINGLY MADE UP.........

It makes no sense whatsoever. And unlike in Unova, where the interruption to your Elite Four challenge made sense, these TWO interruptions did not. Leon even promised to help Rose after he finished his Championship match against you! Why couldn’t Rose wait a single day? Or even a few hours? ... I digress.

Anyway, Rose awakens Eternatus, who is the source of Dynamax energy. (Necrozma & Totem Pokemon vibes much?) Leon goes up to capture it, just as Rose planned, and gets his butt kicked, not as planned. Meanwhile, the player and Hop made themselves useful for once, went to find the Sword and Shield from legend, and used them to call Zacian and Zamazenta. Together, all four of you defeat Eternatus! Yaaay for yooouuu!!!

...

Oh. And you finally have that Championship battle. Get that win squared away. Finally, but also way too soon, the credits role.

Perhaps I may have been a bit harsh about the story. But with very little to make up for it, I feel justified in everything I’ve said here. But I’m still not done. After all, a story can’t have no one helping the protagonist along. Or hindering them. Severely.

The Characters

Unfortunately, many of the characters were just as bad as the story. However, for the most part, it doesn’t entirely seem like their fault. There just wasn’t enough time spent on them, or the writers handled them poorly.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Hop

He’s a friendly rival. Okay, I can get behind that. But he’s also very self-absorbed throughout the entire story. Why are you even friends with him? He doesn’t once talk to you about anything other than how he’s going to be the next Champion. He cheers you on occasionally, but it’s always overshadowed by him harping on the same things over and over again - his brother is The Best and he will defeat him to become The New Best.

Many people say Hop is very much like Hau. I say that’s an insult to Hau. Hau is a laid-back free spirit who’s only goal starting out is to have fun with his Pokemon. He supports you and gives you items along the way because that’s just his nature. He’s a true friend. And when things get a bit tougher, he realizes he needs to step up and take things seriously if he wants to protect the ones he cares about. So he does.

In my opinion, Hop is more like Green in his approach to you, except a bit more friendly. In fact... I’d say he’s MOST like the Diamond/Pearl/Platinum rival, Barry. They’re both braggarts, self-absorbed, and constantly, casually putting you down even though you’re clearly better than them. Long story short, Hop is infinitely annoying like Barry is annoying. I was shocked at myself for how eager I was to beat Hop evey time, and how uncaring I was when Bede crushed his spirit. Hop’s mopiness and woe-is-me attitude felt very forced, especially since he was always smiling and still constantly talked about how he was going to beat you and Leon both.

Not to mention how his story ultimately ended... But I’ll get to that a little later.

Leon

For as annoying as Hop is, Leon is ten times worse. I can see where Hop got all those self-absorbed tendencies. He strikes a dumb pose every five seconds, goes on about how great and undefeated he is, constantly basks in the attention of his fans... Not an ounce of humility or humbleness in this man. Not to mention, he pretty much abandoned Sonia during their journey together. I couldn’t wait to ruin his whole career. But if there’s one positive thing I can say about him, it’s that his team is legitimately tough. Mostly that demon Charizard.

Sonia

She’s nice enough, and it’s pretty neat to see her on her journey to becoming a full-fledged Professor. But her progression to that ultimate payoff seems pretty rushed, probably because the rest of the story is rushed. Also, she consults with you about many of the legends she digs up, and the dialogue choices ultimately mean YOU are drawing the conclusions while SHE just agrees with them. By all rights, I should be the Professor in this game!

Marnie

Honestly, I don’t have a strong reaction about Marnie either way. She just seems a bit subdued, we don’t see her very much, and there’s no real character arc that we get to see her go through. She’s the same as when we first saw her, only now she knows she’s not going to be the Champion, because you are.

Bede

He’s a little jerk. And honestly? I love little jerks. But only if they’re done right.

Green was a jerk rival that was done right. He didn’t see the error of his ways throughout the entire game. However, come the Johto arc, he is now a gym leader, realizes he was treating his Pokemon poorly, and it’s implied he regrets his harshness towards Red.

Silver was another done right. He was a jerk from the very start, and a thief to boot. He hated you, and Team Rocket, and... all the world really. But as the game progressed, he came to realize that he needed to be kind. And by the end of the game, he has a Crobat. While his abrasive personality is still there, he respects you, and realizes you were right.

Bede, on the other hand, was pushed through the plot. First, he was working his hardest for the sake of the Chairman. Then when he was forsaken, hurt, and lost for a purpose... he wasn’t allowed to find his way himself. Instead, Opal snatched him away and demanded that he become the next Fairy-type gym leader. She even went so far as to force him to change his type preference! What happened to Gothorita and Duosion?! (Don’t get me wrong, I love Opal as a character. She’s probably my favorite out of everyone. But still...)

Bede should have come into his own by his own choice. And since he didn’t, the change seems like it... wasn’t a change at all. He’s still harsh towards you and others, and the respect he says he has for you seems insincere.

Piers

Unlike the rest of the gym leaders, Piers takes a slightly more active role in the plot once the ball FINALLY gets rolling. So I figured I’d talk about him, too. Piers seems... a lot like Nanu. Like A LOT. And that doesn’t really seem to fit with his rocker look or job. He just seems depressed and like he doesn’t want to be here. At least he’s a fairly responsible brother, always making sure Marnie is safe. I never did get past that hair though... Never liked it. But I seem to be in the minority there.

Oleana

She’s just... She seems like a Rose-obsessed Lusamine, instead of Ultra Beast-obsessed. Except her manipulation of children is more subtle. Honestly, I can see her being a formidable villain, and actually a much bigger threat than Rose. If only she was given the opportunity to actually DO more things through the game.

Chairman Rose

Rose is... Well, he doesn’t feel like a villain, if that makes any sense? He’s too placid. Mild. Calm. There’s no anger or any kind of intense emotion. Even when he’s disappointed in Bede, I don’t really... believe it. It’s like he ordered an ice cream and realized it doesn’t come with sprinkles. “Oh. That’s very slightly disappointing. But it’s still ice cream so it doesn’t really matter. It’s fine.” Even if you want to do a villain without strong emotions, there are other ways to do it.

Cyrus, jokingly referred to as having depression by the Pokemon fanbase, is a big example of this. He is very non-expressive, with a flat, almost scary look. He always talks analytically, and philosophically. He even openly scorns emotions. But when he does finally get a bit more heated and unhinged towards the end of the game, it’s a serious business. He feels dangerous.

Rose, on the other hand... doesn’t. He has all this supposed passion for Galar and its future. So much so that he’s willing to risk putting people and Pokemon in imminent danger to fix this energy crisis he seems to have made up... So then where is that passion? Where is his anger and frustration towards Leon? Where is his desperation?

It seems to me that the only energy deficit in Galar is in Rose’s behavior.

We’ve covered a lot now, but still not everything. My main gripes are over, but like every Pokemon game, there’s just a bit more.

The Post-Game

Now the main plot is over, and you’re free to do as you please all across the region. Train up your Pokemon and catch newly available ones, explore places you didn’t go deeper in during the story, get a little extra tidbit of story sometimes... And to its credit, this game did deliver a decent post-game story to follow.

You saved the region. You met the legendary Pokemon. Now you have the Master Ball and it’s implied you can go off and get your featured legendary doggo. Fantastic! But once you make your way into the Slumbering Weald... these guys show up. Oh, and Hop is there moping. And Sonia shows up too, for some reason.

But these guys... These guys were arrogant little jerks from the beginning. And it makes sense once you learn they’re a part of Galar’s royal family - the descendants of the people who supposedly stopped the Darkest Day from happening and saved the region. Of course, now everyone knows that’s not true, and they’re pissed about what this means for them. Their family isn’t anything special. They aren’t anything special. Their status and positions have been taken away and given to Pokemon! It’s insulting to them! (Though they still have a loyal following.)

So what do they do? Pumping Zacian & Zamazenta full of Dynamax energy and causing them to wreak havoc will absolutely turn the people of Galar against them! And the cost? Eh, they don’t much care. As long as the legendary Pokemon look bad and they’re able to retain their status.

Of course, their plan backfires, and in true benevolent legendary fashion, the one legendary they do manage to overload with power does its absolute best to avoid hurting anyone. It’s a touching little story to go on. And what’s more? It actually makes sense! In fact, I would have greatly preferred this story as the main one focused on, rather than the hot garbage we got with Chairman Rose! My only gripe regarding the new story is how ridiculous these two princes are... Really Gamefreak? Swordward and Shieldbert? And that hair?? Do you have no subtlety anymore?

But as for wrapping up the old story... things still fall a bit flat. After the legendaries are calm again and you have your version’s pup, you go after Hop. And he is accepted by the other legendary in the duo. Considering everything he went through to try and get the sword/shield back just now, as well as his concern for and efforts to calm down the legendary, it’s understandable. He’s proven himself in their eyes. But then... he goes and decides to become Sonia’s assistant and work towards being a professor.

How did that happen? Why did it happen? There was no buildup in the slightest before this decision, and it seems very out of character for someone like Hop. He’s not technically minded. While he takes a mild interest in the legends of his home region (who wouldn’t when they’re that fun?), he doesn’t seem interested in doing any actual research. And now that he actually owns a legendary Pokemon, you would expect him to double down on his rivalry with you or at least aspire to do something more... heroic? Exciting? Why would a legendary Pokemon want to hang around when you’re not going to be utilizing them at all?

This extra little story is over very fast. Not only that, but everything you do pertaining to the story is done without having to struggle through a route or many other additional challenges. (Hey, a lot like the main story. Lack of travel/drawn-out struggle leads to pacing issues.)

Additionally, there are no new places to explore after the main story. Which really, REALLY sucks. Every Pokemon game has had more to see afterwards. Kanto had Cerulean Cave. Johto had an entire additional region, plus Mt Silver. Hoenn had lots of legendary Pokemon homes open up to you, plus the Battle Frontier in Emerald. Sinnoh had the entire Battle Zone. Unova had several towns and routes blocked off. Kalos had it’s own last town as well as a couple places you could go for legendaries, like Mewtwo. And Alola had an entire half of Poni Island. Galar has... nothing... Everywhere you can go in Galar, you will have access to before the Championship battle with Leon is over. And that’s a crying shame. They seem to be trying to remedy this with the DLC coming out, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. I’ll get into that later. First, there still something else I want to talk about...

Dynamaxing and Gigantimaxing

I get why this exists. I really do. Every single region has something that shakes up the way battles are done. Whether it’s more technical, statistic-based changes or something much more obvious. Hold items, double battles, tag battles, triple and rotation battles, Mega Evolving, Z moves, blah blah blah. We all know about that stuff, right? Each of the newer regions has some gimmick to go along with it. This is the Galar version. But unfortunately... when they implemented this change, they decided to get rid of the much-beloved Mega Evolutions entirely.

Now I could understand why they would do this with Z-moves. Dynamaxing is essentially the same thing, with the addition of more HP and the flashy, massive size of Pokemon to go along with it. Though it is disappointing, it’s not really a net loss.

But Mega Evolutions on the other hand... Those were something special.

Mega Evolution could have, potentially, coexisted with Dynamaxing. All it is is making the Pokemon bigger after all, right? A bigger Mega Evolution is doable.

But then the Gigantimax Pokemon come in... and thing start to make less sense. Basically, they made more Mega Evolutions, but named them something different. Why couldn’t they simply be more Megas? People LOVE Mega Evolution Pokemon! No one would have been mad at this! Except the people who, rightfully, say Charizard gets far too much attention. Three Mega Evolutions is a bit much.

But even then, if you’re so insistent on Gigantimax Pokemon being a separate beast entirely, then there’s STILL a way you can make Mega Evolution work in tandem with the new system.

Simply make Gigantimaxed Pokemon a Dynamaxed form of a Mega Evolution.

Okay, I know that was a mouthful and possible hard to wrap your head around, but imagine with me: You’re in a battle. You Mega Evolve your Pokemon. It’s stronger now. But you’re also in the position where you can Dynamax. You do so, and... instead of getting a bigger Mega, your Pokemon changes form a second time. So for example, let’s say you have a Charizard. Mega Evolve it. It is now a Charizard X/Y. Now Dynamax it. It is now the unholy lava abomination you see when you battle Leon. If you had not Mega Evolved beforehand, then it would have grown into a normal, everyday Charizard, But Bigger.

This also takes away a completely arbitrary restriction - that not every Pokemon of a species can Gigantimax. I’m sure everyone knows by now, but let’s go over it again.

You have an Alcremie. You raised it from a Milcery, evolved it with your favorite Sweet, into your favorite flavor, whatever. Maybe it’s one of the strongest contributors to your team. But when you Dynamax it, it does nothing but get bigger. Then you see Opal’s Alcremie and wonder - how can I get my baby to do that? Is there a special item it needs to hold, or some other requirement?

Nope. Your Alcremie just isn’t good enough. It will never Gigantimax, because it was never capable of doing so in the first place.

With Mega Evolution, there is no limitation. You simply need to give your Pokemon the matching Mega Stone for its species and it can Mega Evolve, simple as that. you don’t need to find that certain special creature, when you already have a perfectly good teammate you’re attached to.

What’s more, Mega Evolution could be performed any time, anywhere, in any battle. Dynamaxing and Gigantimaxing is extremely limited to the Power Spots. Keeping Mega Evolution in would have lessened the disappointment of not being able to use the new mechanic casually. This was something that was heavily advertised when the game was first released, and to find out it’s so limited... I think it left a bad taste in a lot of fans’ mouths.

The DLC

Now... on to this... I’ve touched on this before, and I’m sure everyone can tell.

I am not happy.

First, the financial aspect. If you are going to charge $30 for a two-part expansion, make it apply to both game versions. This may not mean much to casual players, since they likely bought only one copy of the game. But to people who bought both, or share the two copies with family, this is a massive slap in the face. You would have to pay double, for the same content, so both versions are updated. That is a low, low blow.

Now, the Pokemon. I’m glad they are introducing new Pokemon (most of which seem to be Galarian forms or new Gigantimax forms), but there seems to be little reason why they held off releasing them in the first place. Legendaries, I understand. Others, not so much. And the over-two-hundred Pokemon that are being reintroduced isn’t something that should get a pat on the back. They’re fixing their own mistake. They shot themselves in the foot and now they’re trying to say “Oh look! We’re improving things! This bloody hole is going to be healed now! How great are we?” The only saving grace to this for me is that the Pokemon being reintroduced will be available to everyone (to transfer or trade over) via the free update mentioned before. And even then, there are still Pokemon missing!

The new areas now. While we have seen snippets by now, there has been nothing really definitive to go on. These new areas will be in the style of the Wild Area - that much has been made clear. But that makes me exceedingly nervous. Will they be empty, devoid of NPCs? What will there be to do? Just how big are these areas? If they are, in fact, exactly like the Wild Area... I am going to be deeply disappointed. Aside from battling/catching wild Pokemon and gathering items, there is very, very little to do in the existing Wild Area. But at the same time, if the area the DLC gives us is too small, everything will feel sparse and rushed, just like the story of the game.

Speaking of story, we aren’t really given anything meaningful about the DLC’s story, either. We were vaguely told that the two separate locations will be focused on the themes of ‘Growth’ and ‘Exploration’, and we were introduced to a small handful of characters that will be central to the story, but that’s about it. You’re training in the Isle of Armor, and you’ve been enlisted to explore the Crown Tundra. That’s all we know. Literally anything could happen. And that, again, makes me very nervous.

Gamefreak have said these DLC are supposed to take the place of the story changes a third game would make. But in this instance, I seriously believe Sword and Shield would have benefited from a second pass. Much like Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon had the “Good Ending” over Sun and Moon, I think a follow-up game could have amended a lot of the issues I’ve laid out. Though I couldn’t say if Gamefreak would have actually committed...

The biggest thing to me here is that... this is not necessary. At all. I feel as though these new locations, as well as the new stories, should have been included from the get-go in the base game. For free. Of course, if the scope of these stories is on par with the main storylines of Pokemon games, I can understand. But if it’s much smaller... I just can’t condone this.

It is a blatant cash grab. One that I can find no excuse for whatsoever. This game, and most everything that has come of it, has been such a dumpster fire that it has drained my love of Pokemon and left me with nothing but anger and a deep, dark disappointment. Gamefreak can do better. Nintendo can do better. I know they can. And I am willing to wait for good content.

They’re just not willing to give their fanbase the time to make that happen.

And speaking of blatant cash grabs...

Pokemon Home

Pokemon fans have been wanting a cloud-based Pokemon storage system for years. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. But compared to Pokemon Bank’s YEARLY fee of $4.99, Pokemon Home’s premium fee for the same amount of time is quite shocking at $15.99 a pop.

So what in the world went wrong here? Why is that price justified? While others have tried to explain it away by listing off all the different features, I say it’s not justified at all. And I’ll detail why below.

You see these graphs? Both of these contain all the points I need to make. And I’ll explain exactly why.

I’ll start from the top of the list and move down.

Transferring Pokemon is only available if you pay money for it. That means that if you want to get the additional Pokemon returning with the DLC releases, you either have to pay for the DLC or you have to pay for Pokemon Home. While transfer between games used to be free, that changed when Pokemon Bank was released. And while many people were understandably upset, the low price and additional storage space that Bank provided was enough for me to accept the change. Pokemon Home, on the other hand, doesn’t deliver enough for its price. It doubles the storage capacity Pokemon Bank had, and it introduces Room Trades. Which, honestly... don’t sound very appealing.

The number of Pokemon that can be deposited for free is... thirty. A single measly box worth. This may be enough for some people, but this, plus the box space in a copy of Sword/Shield, is not even enough to make a Living ‘Dex (if you want to include every different form of Pokemon. Otherwise it’s just barely enough). Not that you could make a Living ‘Dex anyway, with so many Pokemon still cut out. But back to the box capacity. For transferring only, this number might have been okay. But for storage purposes, this is only half a percent of the 6,000 potential Pokemon you could store if you paid up. Not even 1%. It’s 0.5%. It’s outrageous.

Wonder Trades, GTS trades, and Room Trades I’ll do together. For these features, I have little problem with the way they’re set up. The additional slots for trading are actually useful, and it makes sense to put them behind a paywall. This, I would be willing to pay for. Just not pay so much. Especially when this feature was taken out of the base game in the first place. Since the GTS was first introduced in Gen 4 (Sinnoh), it has been a staple of the game and a vital tool for completing the Pokedex, especially if you have no one to trade with in person. Many people were surprised and upset to find that the only trading function left in the base Sword & Shield games was the Surprise Trade, which is essentially Wonder Trade with a new name. However, while it is a little reassuring to have these features free to use, there is still a major limitation. It can only be done on the mobile phone version of Home.

This is something that has never existed before. You have never needed any device other than your gaming console. And to not have trades available in the Switch version as well is completely absurd. How do they expect children to use this? While tablets and smartphones have become more and more common, I doubt the vast majority of children have a device that is purely their own. They will have to nag their parents to download the app, and then further pester them each time they want to trade. Why not have that a part of the Switch version in the first place? It would be much more streamlined. I understand the practicality of having a Home app - I really do. It makes moving from Go to Home easier, I’m sure, and you now have added mobile usage when your Switch is out of range of an internet connection. But blocking features from the Switch makes no sense whatsoever.

Continuing on to the Judge function. Again, this was a feature that was removed from the main game. Not only that, but this time it is locked completely behind the paywall. When this feature came out just last generation, many competitive breeders were ecstatic. They no longer had to jump through hoops to determine that there was a Perfect IV baby in the hundreds, sometimes thousands of eggs they just hatched - they could see it right on the screen. And as a casual player, it was cool to see how many breedjects I ended up with. But it seems Gamefreak gave us a taste of a very good thing, then yanked it away, like candy from a baby.

On to the second chart. I already talked about the trading limitations, so I’ll skip over that. And it makes sense that moving Pokemon from the Switch games would be Switch Home exclusive, in addition to receiving Battle Points. There is nothing on your phone that can make use of BP. However, there are more phone restrictions that make no sense. Why can’t you receive Mystery Gifts or check Battle Data/News on the Switch? It’s certainly capable of it. Mystery Gifts in particular are another frustrating problem on par with the trading issue. The other two features I wouldn’t mind being mobile exclusive.

All in all, Pokemon Home is another hot mess for Gamefreak and Nintendo.

Conclusion

I know I’ve been rough on this new generation. Arceus knows I was pretty brutal, especially where the story was concerned. But that’s only because I know they can do better. Up until this point, we’ve been given some games that were downright masterpieces. I am highly disappointed in the creators, and I hope with all my heart they listen to their fans and do better going forward. Even if that means we have to wait a little longer.

What’s more, I seriously hope they don’t continue to financially extort their market. Charging this much for something so rushed and poorly executed is an insult. And if it continues... I’m afraid of where the Pokemon franchise may be headed.

That’s all. I’m sorry if I stepped on some toes here, but these are all my honest opinions. I hope that some of these things have validated others’ feelings, too, and perhaps that people look at some of these issues in a new light.

PS, I’m sorry for any abrupt tonal shift that might be seen between the “Characters” and “Post-Game” sections. I had to stop writing to go to bed, but then I didn’t get around to finishing until nearly a month later.

#Pokemon swsh #swsh critical #Pokemon Home #swsh #isle of armor #crown tundra #pokemon #pokemon critical

22 notes · View notes