#so they gotta try to appeal to newcomers

[the-boy-branithar]

kinda hate that we all stuck around on this shitty site all these years BECAUSE it wasnt like any other site and now that new people are apparently coming here its like “time to make it like tiktok and twitter!!!!!!”

[shuttershocky]

The more I think about it the more I realize an actual Fate hack and slash game (as opposed to a musou) just isn't feasible. Samurai Remnant's combat is the closest we're ever going to get, and it's just a musou with extra bells and whistles.

The issue is scale. Fate games are all about the servants, you gotta put as many of them as you can fit into a title and make as many of them playable as possible because they're the stars. But that isn't feasible for an action game in the vein of DMC or Bayonetta (which would also have bigger budgets than a Type-Moon game), because you need each playable character to have elaborate movesets with multi-layered depth and incredible precision, and you need to balance them all against each other.

This is impossible for a Fate game with many playable servants at once. Samurai Remnant does its best to give Iori depth by giving him 5 styles (that don't really have much depth to each tbh), but the servants themselves have a limit of 5 normal attacks with a different finisher for each of them, 3 specials, and a screen clear noble phantasm (which all work the exact same way but just have different animations). It's the most they can manage. Sometimes servants have gimmicks like Rogue Berserker having super armor and grabs or Rogue Caster having debuffs to try to differentiate them, but we don't get to play them for long to hide that they still have very limited (if powerful) movesets.

Making a more complex action game with that many characters would be impossible. Just look at DMC4, which had a rushed development time. Even with the DMC team's mastery of designing combat, the game had an obvious flaw: Dante's sections weren't properly balanced. Even if Dante's moveset was great as usual, the enemies were clearly designed around being fought by newcomer Nero, and players had less fun fighting them as Dante even if he was still literally Dante, just because of the incompatibility.

A LOT more work went into balancing DMC5 because of it and its 3 (and then 4) playable characters so that they could fight any enemy and still be fun, but you could STILL somewhat tell when some enemies were designed for specific characters. For example, try fighting Cavaliere Angelo as Nero and seeing that the boss moves like it's expecting Dante with his teleports, so Nero has to do a lot of running around that breaks the pace of the bossfight.

As fun as it sounds to play a servant and then juggle the enemy for 50 hits, it's just too wide a scope. The only feasible way would be to limit the amount of playable characters and keep most servants as NPCs.

Personally I wouldn't mind it. I'd prefer it even. My ideal version of Samurai Remnant would be only Iori as a playable character and switching control to Saber as the devil trigger (Saber Trigger lol) where Iori would have a real moveset within his 5 styles and be able to fight in the air so jumping isn't just to dodge groundslams. The Rogue Servants would all act like Rogue Rider: a summon that either does a special move (like the special spells Rogue Berserker, Rogue Saber, and Rogue Lancer give) or gives buffs to Iori. The servants will mainly serve to be bossfights (which were already actually quite good in FSR).

But I know that wouldn't be a Fate game at all, just a hack and slash set inside a Fate setting. It admittedly wouldn't appeal to anybody except me.

And that's why a hack and slash game by Type-Moon ought to be set in Kara No Kyoukai instead.

Give me Shiki with Raiden's cut anything and everything Blade Mode from MGR. Or make the sword combat be like Sekiro. It would be so cool.

[sammywolfgirl]

Actually no let’s dissect this new layout as someone who has used Twitter for a bit @staff listen up @wip @changes

I used Twitter for about a year because a lot of my mutuals at the time did, and you know what?

I hated the layout.

I didn’t like how I had to keep tabs on my friends because the algorithm would show me shitty stuff I wouldn’t want to see and was so hard to curate a feed

I’m fairly certain I ended up blocking a lot of people because they kept liking pictures of boobs and I didn’t want to see that shit and Twitter never let you turn that off

I ended up blocking people who kept getting recommended because their art made me sick and I didn’t want to see untagged nsfw on my feed

And the side bar sucked, it took me a while to figure out how to post in the first place

And don’t get me started about having a trending tab always right there and how it would set off my anxiety because every day it was just “here’s a new thing to make you want to jump off a cliff!”

Twitter and the way it works is designed to get hate clicks and engage on outrage, is that the method you want to follow?

Especially for a website who’s users are very loudly against that and also like privacy and will literally use outside resources to fix the ‘improvements’ you made because you didn’t think a toggle feature was worth it

Also putting the stuff on the left or right does not draw the eye, why? Because that’s where your hands are. Blocking the features you want to engage with. My eye is drawn up so putting your stuff there works best! It gets attention. Not to the right where my big ass hand is blocking the post button. (This is also why you should put the mobile post bubble back in the bar where it belongs but that’s a topic for another day)

I understand tumblr is in debt hell, but users have stated many times that if you just ask for donations like ao3 they’d be happy to donate

Hell, crab day was thrown around to be just like that.

Listen to your users or they will all leave for the websites you’re poorly emulating.

Tumblr is surviving because it offers an experience NO OTHER WEBSITE DOES

Taking that away just means tumblr is not unique, and users would rather try their luck with a website that’s doing this better.

Like Twitter, or tic tok, or Instagram.

Lean into your uniqueness and just ask for donations like an adult, just a little add that shows up in the add rotation that’s like “like what you see? Why not throw a dollar in the tip jar?” Like frame it like giving money to an artist so they can keep doing what you love, it’ll be charming!

Tumblr will not find success or even break even if you try and appeal to newcomers, every new social media is confusing to newbies, but you know what they do? They learn, and they adapt. And changing everything is going to make you loose legacy users who again, would LOVE TO DONATE MONEY TO KEEP THIS HELLSIGHT STANDING AS IS.

Or do you just not care about the users? The users who have the money you need.

I don’t want to watch tumblr die a slow and painful death like Twitter is.

And you know there’s something oddly poetic about tumblr, the quirky kid, tearing itself apart just to fit in with the popular kids which won’t work out and only lead to hollow friendships that can turn on a dime when you could have found meaningful relationships with the other weirdos who like your quirks and flaws and would have been ride or die for you.

But no we gotta be like Twitter so let’s chop off our arms and legs becsuse that’s what they’re doing

Tkdr listen to your users and open an donations sight so you can keep being tumblr and get money for it okay? Okay. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk

[midnight-in-town]

Shonen no Abyss (Boy's Abyss) by Minenami Ryo

(I usually don’t make rec posts for emotionally dark stories, but I’ve been unable to stop reading until I finally caught up in 24 hours, even though I’m in harsh exam week and I really have other things to do, so here goes nothing :))

Before we begin, I should warn: even though the art style initially appealed to me, as I was reading the first few chapters I just thought it was going to be yet another random, plot hole filled, badly written story that’s just ranting about how shitty life can be. How emo.

Well, how wrong I was!

In a little town filled with nothing extraordinary, 17 year old Kurose Reiji spends his life going to school, hanging out with a few friends and mostly helping his mom at home, with a bed-ridden senile grandma and a shut-in brother to take care of. Even though he wonders about maybe going to the university after high school, his family needs him to work as soon as possible, so he’ll probably never be able to leave his hometown. 

As he goes on with his life, one evening he randomly meets Aoe Nagi, a recently retired Tokyo idol he’s a huge fan of. As he shows the newcomer around town, Nagi suddenly mentions to Reiji that there is a hidden place in this town called “the lovers’ abyss” where two people go when they want to die together. Meeting Nagi leads to Reiji realizing that he’s got nothing he wishes to live for in his current life and he seeks a way to attempt suicide along with her.

(At this point, I gotta be honest, I was here like

._.)

I know what y’all are wondering. How and why the sudden arrival of a retired idol in this little town suddenly instilled the wish to die in Reiji? Is it fate...? Or is it a curse from the past? 

Follow Reiji, Nagi, Gen, Chako and Kazu (because on this blog, we #ProtectTheChildren) as they evolve through a carefully weaved web by emotionally manipulating adults and find out !

Who tells lies and who speaks the truth? Who can help and who will destroy? Who’s the dead teenager in star author Esemori’s “Spring’s coffin” book who also committed suicide in the town’s river around 30 years ago?

Who’s the evil demon who instigated despair in their lives? 

Watch out ~ the culprit(s) may not be who you initially think they are... :D

(Rapidly, I ended up like...

:))

Before anyone starts reading though, very heavy warning that it’s a pretty dark and emotionally unsettling story, with a lot of suicide mention but also dark twists about emotional abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, manipulation, blackmail, anorexia, etc.  Also some female nudity from time to time (mostly in the beginning), but far from the most distressing part of this manga. 

No my poor boy, it’s not on you. 

The last thing I can say is that if you enjoyed Oyasumi Punpun, this is a title you might want to try! While in no way a masterpiece, it shares similar themes with it. Also while the beginning seems, as you may have understood, incredibly cliché, it’s a far more mysterious and deeper story if you give time for the plot to kick in. 

About 120 chapters up as of now. Let me know if you beat me by reading them all faster than in 24 hours. xD Going back to my exam week now! Hope the start of the year was kind to y’all!! :D

[talenlee]

Horny vs Spite

Horny vs Spite

When explaining creativity to newcomers, I express the idea that everyone who makes something makes it out of one of two possible motivating factors, when viewed broadly enough. The line is:

Everyone who ever made anything made it out of one of two possible motivators; horny, or spite.

This maxim serves to get the conversation started. You either wanted the thing to exist that didn’t exist yet, or they were mad at the thing for not existing the way they wanted it to. These two driving could also be seen both in terms of just ‘wants’ – but I think that when you simplify it that far, you leave the listener without a valuable handle, a way to grapple with the idea.

Part of being ‘horny’ for things though, it’s not just sexual. It’s a deliberately sexual way to describe it, because that tends to disarm things, and it creates a nice, thematic counterpart to spite. When you think in terms of being horny for things, it describes an almost consumptive desire, you want the thing because you want to have it, or experience it, or yes, use it in that kind of way. I think I first encountered horny in this way as Griffin McElroy describing himself as ‘horny for responsibility,’ or something. The idea that you are trying to represent a want, but a want that’s deeper, more permanent, more whole.

And importantly, you’re horny for something because you want it. It’s got to be personal.

But maybe you’re not horny for the thing you want to make, you’re horny for the results of the thing you want to make. You may want to make crochet doilies of the main character of Bofuri because you think you can sell them and the money, the instrumental result of the thing you make, that’s what you want. You gotta then think about how much you want for what you’re doing. Measure the thing you want versus the thing you gotta do to get it. And that usually means yes, artists, you are under-charging for your work.

When you contemplate if you’re doing something for horny reasons, that’s going to bring with it assumptions; unstated, unconsidered things that you’re doing because they appeal to you that way. Interrogating the ways that things appeal to you is important. It can be easy to just go ‘oh, I like things this way because I do.’ That’s true! That’s just generally true, after all. But you can often find things when you dig into what you like about things, what you find engaging and satisfying.

Consider these game elements:

When you can fill in all the squares of a game board with exactly the right number of tiles

When you defeat overwhelming odds in a combat scenario

When your level of mastery of a game lets you treat an enormous threat like it’s nothing

When a thrown object bounces off something unexpectedly and creates an impossible situation you weren’t expecting

Each of these situations appeals in a different way. They each scratch different itches, they appeal to different game impulses, and they’re satisfying to different types of players. Understanding what it is you find appealing and engaging about a game experience teaches you how and where you want to focus on making those experiences yourself.

But what of spite?

Spite is the drive that speaks to not the joy of consuming but frustration and rage. Spite is the anger that the thing you want does not already exist, or frustration with the way the thing exists as it is. If you’ve ever played a game or used an application and found yourself angry at the interface and the way it behaves, but think it’d be improved with just a thing, then you’re probably seeing that spite element. There are so many people making Pokemon fan-games, who are starting from a position of spite, wanting to address a problem they see with a game for four year olds that is as much a problem with the game not being built with their interests in mind as any kind of inherent problem with the game.

Spite is when you want to take something away from something. How dare this game engine that’s beautiful and fluid be used to make another game about colonialism. How dare this excellent level design be put to use in a game with such tedious weapons. How dare this idea at the heart of this story be used once again to tell a story about sad Gen-X and early millenial dads.

Spite is powerful. Spite drives us to exceed something; it means that we can look at something we’re unhappy with and know that there’s a way we want it to be that’s better. This can be true of small things but of big things too. There’s a lot of distaste for spite in our stories and our communities. It’s always seen as if trying to do a better job than someone who failed you is a poisoned motivation. I used to buy into that, though, I have more and more come to realise that that’s a position that’s used by people who are doing a bad job who don’t want you to think that you can do a better job.

Spite can be so powerful and so useful when you’re looking at making things where you’re keenly aware of problems. It can be refined, and improved so much by just interrogating that impulse, that this is wrong, and it can be better push. It’s easy to go ‘this is bad’ and ‘this makes me unhappy’ but coming to terms what about it is bad, and what you can do to address it is important. It also means you get to consider what fixing bad things really looks like.

It’s one thing to want to be kind to people because people were unkind to you. That’s reasonable. But it’s not enough to perform kindness. That’s not really doing the thing you want, that’s not really doing a better job. It’s performing an element of it, but understanding what it means to be kind is part of it. Do even better. Do more. Extend out beyond the performance of it, and start looking at what it means to do a better job.

That’s the secret of all of this game design talk. A lot of making games – good games or not! – is about understanding how people think and feel about experiences presented to them. It’s about understanding your own feelings and preferences and then using a system of cardboard and coins to construct that experience in someone else’s mind.

So share your love of something, or share your drive to do better.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Games #Making

[kirieshhhka003]

Pairing: La Squadra x GN! Reader

Warnings: language

La Squadra harem

Risotto Nero

Risotto, as a leader of the hitman squad, immediately notices the change of atmosphere among La Squadra once Y/n appears. Albino, to his huge dismay, understands that he’s not the only one who’s developed feelings for Y/n. Albino knows every member’s habits and usual behavior, capo is the first one of all hitmen who figures out that everyone is his rival now (but only when it comes to Y/n, he’s still their leader and he respects every member equally)

Risotto is more of a father figure to Y/n. He warms up to you shortly, pampering you with his attention and genuine care, always being there for you. You’re hungry? The two of you are going to the nearest cafe for you to have a proper meal and Capo won’t take “no” as an answer. You’re stressed and something messes with your pretty head? What a poor thing, come here, Risotto is always ready to listen. Others immediately catch on the change of Capo’s treatment, every day it becomes even more obvious that he has a huge soft spot for Y/n

Least favorite rival: Melone. Risotto hates how smooth purple-haired is around you, how he is open with his flirting, how sincere all of his words sound. Nero wishes he had at least half of sans gêne Melone has. He’s a Capo and he has a reputation to uphold, but behind closed doors Risotto has tried flirting with Y/n and it was so so clumsy and awkward, it’s just… not his style

Prosciutto

The second father figure for Y/n, but if Risotto is more of a sugar daddy, indulging you with expensive gifts and foods, Prosciutto mostly acts like a real father would, scolding you for going outside at winter without your hat on (tho he never wears a hat himself) or for petting stray animals on the streets

Even despite all of his parental sternness, Prosciutto is really caring and attentive towards Y/n, even more that Risotto is. You got scratched accidentally because of your clumsiness? We gotta clean the wound up and patch it, don’t even try to protest; it may be a simple graze but what if some dirt got in it? Your shoulders ache after a long tiring day? Come hither, your dear Prosci will rub all the pain away

Least favorite rival: Risotto. Prosciutto doesn’t hate or despise albino, no. Risotto is a capo, and he got this status for several reasons, so blonde man still respects his boss, but both man have pretty familiar tactics of charming Y/n, and that definitely annoys Prosciutto

Formaggio

Formaggio is one of the most oblivious of all La Squadra men, he doesn’t realize that he’s not the only one having interest in Y/n and even when other guys flirt openly with Y/n in front of him red-haired just thinks that his teammates just try to be friendly towards a newcomer

He’s definitely that type of macho from all the cheesy movies - attractive, excellent smooth talker with constant flirtings. Formaggio is not opposed of using all possible cringy lines what annoy everyone in La Squadra, even Risotto has hard times restraining the urge to roll his eyes at all those shitty teasings. But Maggi is an easygoing guy, it’s so easy being around him and even all his pick up lines don’t repel you from him

Least favorite rival: doesn’t have one. As I said, this man doesn’t notice that other guys try to get Y/n to themselves, the thought of having possible rivals doesn’t even cross his mind

Illuso

It’s not a secret to anyone that Illuso is a little nasty bitch with a huge god complex and all his wooing is no better. “You wanna spend time with me? Shit, you’re such a pain in my ass! Okay, I guess I will indulge you this time, but that’s only because of your cute face” - doesn’t sound so appealing, does it? And that’s exactly the way brunette flirts with Y/n (well, at least he tries to)

Illuso wants to make you crawl to him, to make you crave for his presence and his touch, you make you fall in love hard. Brunette wears his best outfits, uses the best of his perfumes make up stuff just to show you that he’s better than all of his teammates. Surprisingly, even his behavior changes slightly when Y/n is around - he’s not that unbearably churlish towards you, on the good days he may even compliment you - “Your hair… looks good today, I like it”

Least favorite rival: he hates all of La Squadra equally. Illuso is certain that he’s the only one who truly deserves Y/n’s attention, he’s the best partner for you and only he can treat you properly. Doesn’t even try to hide his hostility towards teammates - why would you want spending time with such a trash?

Ghiaccio

Ghiaccio is a tsundere, do I even need to explain why? Is obvious to everyone in La Squadra that he’s head over heels for Y/n, but he still aggressively denies everything if someone points that out. He’s also very protective of you, if Formaggio or Melone or Sorbet try to flirt with you in front of Ghiaccio - they’ll get their nose bleeding soon (blue-haired gets scolded for that by Risotto often)

Blue-haired tries his best to hold all his outbursts in front of you. Even when you ask the stupidest questions, Ghiaccio would clench his fists til his knuckles turn white, grit his teeth, try doing breathing exercises - everything just to remain calm and not to get tantrum in front of you. And you guess that means really a lot

Least favorite rival: Sorbet and Gelato. Those guys (gays, lmao im sorry) don’t even try to hide their interest in Y/n, pinning for you, prying your attention only to themselves. They flirt so openly with you, some of their lines and allusions make even Melone feel slightly uncomfortable, so Ghiaccio sees those almost as if two husbands were shamelessly molesting Y/n

Melone

Melone knows that at times he may be a little bit… too much, so he turns it down for as much as he can so his “strange” tendencies won’t scare Y/n off. For the first few months purple-haired is nothing but sweet and caring, looking pretty normal, just like an average man that doesn’t think of breeding and all possible kinks every two minutes of his time

Even though, he acts like a gentleman with Y/n. Carrying heavy bags for you, giving you a hand when you get up, and if you’re studying medicine he’s up to help you if you have problems with understanding something. Melone had been studying for almost four years at medical uni but got kicked out for having sex with his cogrouper right in the uni. So he may be pretty helpful if you don’t get something or if you’re just interested in medicine

Least favorite rival: I can’t say that he cares much about other guys from La Squadra, but if he had to pick out one it’d be Illuso. It’s not about the way brunette tries to charm Y/n, purple-haired from every beginning didn’t like this guy. All of his conceit and arrogant behavior - it all just pisses Melone off

Pesci

Pesci is so so timid with Y/n, every time you walk by him, saying hi or just smiling at him, poor boy’s heart twists into tight knots. How are you so sweet? How are you so perfect?

Despite all your friendliness green-haired is still incredibly bashful, he is simply afraid of approaching Y/n. It doesn’t matter how much he likes you, Pesci just can’t force himself to try and initiate a chat. Sometimes Prosciutto helps him out with that a little (even though he doesn’t realize that he helps), but blonde is still careful with his actions, not letting even his precious Pesci get too close to Y/n

Least favorite rival: Formaggio. This guy is so noisy and vigorous, every time Pesci finally pulls himself together and finds the courage to approach Y/n this guy seems to appear from fucking nowhere, hogging your attention all to himself and leaving green-haired an angry blushing mess

Sorbet and Gelato

At the very beginning it feels more like you are Sorbet’s and Gelato’s child and they’re your parents fretting over you. They often take you with them on some trips, Gelato helps you with your school (if it’s something he knows about), Sorbet picks you up from work/school and drives you home etc

Sorbet is more of a tease, playing around with you, shamelessly flirting with Y/n, littering with not so pure compliments and comments. His touches are a little bit too long, his gazes are slightly too intense, even stupidest one would notice brunette’s longing for Y/n. Gelato is way less intense than his husband, blonde is way easier with his words, charming you with his sweet talking and constant doting. He’s more of a pillow that eases the expression Sorbet gives you

Sorbet’s least favorite rival: Risotto. Brunette hates how calm and well-composed Capo is, what if Y/n thinks that albino is cooler than he is? But Sorbet immediately makes a new plan in his head: if Risotto is more of a dad to Y/n, always doting on you and being so kind, Sorbet’s going to become your daddy, making you fall for him and Gelato, make you hungry for their attention

Gelato’s least favorite rival: blonde is pretty acknowledged that everyone in La Squadra tryies to get Y/n to themselves, he sees everyone (except Sorbet ofc) as his rival. Man dislikes everyone, seeing them as his opponents, but he doesn’t have a least favorite one. Yes, other members are hella pain in the ass, but blonde is pretty sure that Y/n will end up in his and Gelato’s arms anyways, so there’s no need to jangle his nerves

Masterlist | Smut Masterlist

[twilightmalachite]

Twin Peaks - factorization 2

Author: Akira

Characters: Hinata, Hiiro

Translator: Mika Enstars

Proofers: 310mc & meteorgreen

"I heard you guys have been street performers since you were kids. If that’s the case, then you would have been newcomers back then, right?"

Season: Autumn

Location: Starmony Hall Dorm Room (Hinata, Hiiro, Niki's Room)

A couple days later

Hiiro: I've returned! What a pleasant morning it is!

Hinata: GyaAAH! Come on! What do you mean "this will be a great opportunity for you two," isn't this literally just bullying!?

Hiiro: ? What opportunity?

Hinata: Whoa! Hiiro-kun, could you please not appear behind me out of nowhere?!

Hiiro: Mhm, hiding my presence only to creep up behind a fellow housemate would be quite discourteous, wouldn’t it? Since it would mean I don’t trust the other party.

Hinata: Uh, y-yeah.

Hiiro: I end up doing it anyway out of habit, though, but you would always sense it and notice me anyway.

However, this time, you did not. In other words, you're facing something that's causing you to lose your composure, right? It's unusual for you to speak so loudly to yourself...

If there's anything causing you trouble, I will gladly lend you an ear. I know you'd do the same for me.

Hinata: R-right... Thanks. Then, can you hear me out real quick, Hiiro-kun?

Hiiro: Yes, I shall!

But before that, may I change my clothes first? I just got back from running my routine morning patrol around the building, so I'm sweaty.

Hinata: Why do you do patrols, actually? I'm pretty sure the Starmony Dorms have security.

Hiiro: Mhm, well, think of it like a cat sharpening its claws. If it can't keep its claws sharp, then it won't be able to relax, right?

Hinata: How noble! I also feel I gotta maintain my quality as an idol, so I try to keep a skincare routine and stuff.

Hiiro: You do? But aren't you always staying up all night with Shiina-senpai, eating sweets and playing games...?

Hinata: Huh? Ohh~, did that happen...? You sure remember things well, huh, Hiiro-kun!

Hiiro: Of course—I do have a good memory, after all.

Hinata: Even though one wouldn’t guess it from looking at you, Hiiro-kun...

Anyways, can you listen while you're changing? I want to elaborate on things a bit, too.

Hiiro: Okay. ...Just don't look over here too much, I don't really like showing my skin around others.

Hinata: Hmm? Perfect, perfect, that’s one of the basics of being an idol! ♪ You can't be selling it at a bargain, am I right~?

Hiiro: Yep! Somehow, the customs back at my hometown have been surprisingly beneficial to my idol experience.

I wonder if that is also why idols appealed so much to my brother back then.

Perhaps that's why he felt that becoming an idol wasn't just some daydream, but instead a "cherished aspiration" within his reach.

Hinata: Umm... I get that you really love your older brother, but could you listen to me now?

Hiiro: Okay!

Hinata: So, y’see, a few days ago, I was called over by our Vice Prez. And he told me about our next job.

Hiiro: Mhm. You're getting one job after another, huh. 2wink seems to be in great shape, it's enviable.

Hinata: You think so? But ALKALOID seems to be chuggin' along too—other than Crazy:B, aren't you guys the hottest rookies of the year?

Hiiro: Chuggin' along...?

Hinata: I feel like we were in the same position as yours 'til this summer, though... The "promising rookie group" stage.

Hiiro: ? But doesn't 2wink have a pretty lengthy history in performing arts? I heard you guys have been street performers since you were kids. If that’s the case, then you would have been newcomers back then, right?

Street performers weren’t a thing in my hometown, so it's difficult to imagine what that way of living must be like, but—

If you were performing for money—Doesn’t that mean you’ve been idols since you were kids?

Hinata: It was nothing special, really. Either way, that's why right now you guys are shining enviably to us.

Hiiro: Thank you. As underachievers who started from the bottom up, just being able to stand besides all of you brilliant idols at last brings us hope.

But we can't let our guards down yet. We must stay diligent!

Hinata: Yes, good boy, good boy. It's honestly somewhat appalling just how good you ALKALOID boys are, y'know... You’re sorta like Ra*bits, in a way?

Hiiro: Mhm, they're one of our inspirations, actually. We're not quite aiming for the "cute" image—rather, what we admire is how they achieved their goals.

Hinata: Huuh? You don't admire us 2wink, Hiiro-kun?

Hiiro: Haha, we certainly look up to you guys too, but, needless to say, we can't become "twins" no matter how hard we try.

Perhaps I just feel this way because I'm new to this, but aren't you guys a pretty unique existence? You have a rare individuality that nobody else can replicate.

Hinata: Nn~... But that's also our burden—we have no one else to look up to. Referring to the textbook doesn't do us any good.

← prev | story directory | next →

[x0401x]

Have you watched Tsurune, by an chance? If yes, what do you think about it?

Finally managed to write down a reply for this! (Told y’all I was gonna do it and I did not give up, lmao.)

So this ask caught me off-guard for two reasons: one is that I never see it coming when people send me Tsurune asks now that the anime is long over and the fandom is inactive, and the other is that nobody has ever asked me this question so straightforwardly. Whenever I got asks about Tsurune, people would question me about the differences between anime and novel, the anime versions versus the canon versions of the characters, fanservice and ship tease, alterations in character relationships and my opinions on specific episodes, chapters or scenes. As far as I remember, no one has ever asked me what I think of the anime (or the novel) in general.

I won’t go into the novel since this ask is just about the anime (I can do that in another one if you like), but I’ll end up mentioning it every now and then because it’s pretty impossible to discuss about an adaptation without talking about its source material. Still, I promise this review won’t be centered on that.

This is actually a very condensed version of my thoughts, because the real thing would be a bible. It’s still a lot, though. Here comes a long-ass ride.

I guess I should start by making clear that I usually follow the history of KyoAni’s productions very closely as I’m a big fan of the studio. This includes reading the novels and mangas they adapt into anime as well. I had read volume 1 by the time the Tsurune anime came out, so I already knew what the canon was like. I must add that I was also familiar with Japanese archery to some degree and I was reading Zen in the Art of Archery when the anime was airing (it’s referenced early in the novel, so I decided to give it a try).

With all of this being said, when it was announced that Tsurune would get an anime, my first reaction was to worry. This surprised even me, because I usually have high hopes for any KyoAni adaptation, even the ones I end up not liking. I mean, it’s a studio filled with brilliant stars and holds the golden standards of the whole industry, so even when the content isn’t good, the quality of the animation itself is enough to make their shows worth anyone’s time. But the choice of director had me very concerned.

Now, this is Kyoto Animation that we’re talking about. In no moment did I fear for the animation’s quality. Most of Tsurune’s staff members, if not all, already had previous experience working on Violet Evergarden. And we all know that even newcomers freshly graduated from KyoAni’s preparatory school can make a stunning visual masterpiece. Yes, I am talking about Kyoukai no Kanata. And yes, I said visual masterpiece, because we also know that what these productions normally lack is the most essential part: the content.

In those cases, the one who actually makes a difference is the director. I’m a firm believer that the more inexperienced the staff is, the more competent a director they should be placed under. If not a senior animator, at least let it be a rising talent with the best prospects possible. But the schedules usually don’t help with that, so these hatchlings ended up under Yamamura Takuya’s wings.

To elaborate a bit further on why I think brighter animators should be the ones leading new packs (no, it’s not discrimination against the less accomplished, because you gotta start from somewhere), it’s because they usually have this knack for bringing the most out of the stories they’re working on. When the story is great by itself, that’s a different thing, but when it doesn’t quite reach its full potential with just the text, then the one to give it life has to be a person with more vision.

Am I saying that Tsurune is one of those stories? Absolutely. Tsurune is about archery, which is an art that is best appreciated when observed. You can’t get everything out of it just with words, and there are many things in it that people who don’t know much or know nothing about Japanese archery wouldn’t understand without actually seeing them, so the series obviously needed an anime in order to reach its full potential. But other than that, I’ll be honest: I love the Tsurune novel for its cultural baggage, the handling of its characters and its fairly innovative views in the repetitive and boring scene that sports animanga are nowadays, but I don’t consider it a well-written novel. Because it isn’t.

This might seem controvesial coming from someone who defends the canon with claws and teeth, but I’m aware of its flaws. I think Ayano Kotoko has a lot of room for improvement, and she’s evolved remarkably from volume 1 to volume 2. But volume 1 is what the anime was based off, so there was a deep need for a clinical eye in that production. One that could measure the original work’s strengths and weaknesses and balance them out by powering one up and overcoming the other. And also a certain level of knowledge about Japanese archery. Sadly, Yamamura Takuya didn’t have any of it.

As much as I admire Yamamura as a key animator and in-betweener, I believe he has a long way to go before he can be considered a good director, and I certainly don’t think he was ready for his debut when he was put in charge of Tsurune. I would rather, and I mean this in a good way, have seen him work as anything else for the rest of his career. Being a series director was too much for him. I say this taking into consideration not only the fiasco that the Tsurune anime was in sales but also Yamamura’s history in the studio before becoming a director.

This might sound funny, but Yamamura had no idea how big Animation Do and KyoAni were before he decided to join. He also was never very skilled. His in-betweening was actually not approved at first when he was trying to enter the company. He even once admitted that his knowledge of animation was extremely limited at the time, and what a time that was, because the studio was busy up to the neck with the making of Lucky Star back then. He didn’t know left and right, basically, and he recalled in an interview from last year that he is still surprised the studio actually hired him.

Despite all of this, Yamamura joined the company with the intention of becoming a director. While he did manage the feat in the end, it took him +10 years and a few frustrated attempts. Animators usually start out at in-betweening and earn other positions through passing exams. Yamamura failed his first exam to be key animator, only managing to pass half a year later. He also failed his first exam to become a director. At his second attempt, one of their colleagues even suggested that maybe he should stay a bit longer as a key animator, and I couldn’t agree more. While he did pass the test, I can only bring myself to think that he did so with an average score.

Now, I did say that this info came from a 2019 interview, when the Tsurune anime was already over. But they weren’t really what shaped my opinion on Yamamura regarding his direction. It was the anime itself. But this interview served to confirm something I had already noticed from his tragectory to series direction: with him being in the studio for so long and having worked on so many titles, it was weird to me that he was rarely an episode director in comparison to key animation and in-betweening. Episode direction is a step that I consider crucial for one to become either series director, animation supervisor or series composer. I do know that quite a few directors take just as long as he did or even longer to debut and actually do thrive in the end, but observing Yamamura’s work always gave me the impression that he was better off following decisions made by someone else rather than making his own.

Yamamura also loses points with me in that he’s backed up within the company by Kawanami Eisaku, another director who doesn’t get rave reviews on his works. He’s the one who replaced Utsumi Hiroko after she migrated to Mappa, and ever since he took over the Free! franchise, its sales decreased to less than 1/3 of each of the first two seasons separately. I personally don’t like that he seems to look down on Utsumi despite his lack of success in inheriting her legacy, but leaving this aside and focusing only on his skills, I’m not fond of directors who opt for simplistic approaches in general. I think animation is a medium that should be used to amplify the appeal of the source material, not water it down. It also feels like these kinds of directors are always trying to play safe, which (they don’t seem to realize) goes against the audience’s expectations and kills the hype. It strikes me as cowardly, to be frank. I also don’t like when they ignore what the characters had been building up and simply retool them to their own tastes. I was praying that Yamamura would be different from this bad example, but turns out he was actually worse.

I got a really bad feeling when the anime PVs of Tsurune were released. My very first impression was that Yamamura was still too much of a beginner and he wouldn’t be able to make Tsurune into a successful anime. I know this might seem like an exaggeration, but here’s the thing: ever since KyoAni started making its own titles, I’d never seen lack of hype for their upcoming works. Ever.

Until Tsurune.

Every time a PV of a KyoAni show comes out, people go crazy. It’s not always a frenzy like it was with Free! in its heyday or Violet Evergarden when the novel commercials were the only pieces of animation we had of it, but there’s usually lots of debate and speculations going on. With Tsurune, almost no one cared. You’d see next to nobody talking about it save from a few people on Reddit. And honestly, why should they bother? It didn’t seem promising at all. Didn’t show much of the characters or the story’s premise, didn’t highlight any particularly interest aspect of the plot and didn’t leave any impression animation-wise. It was very bland, to say the least. Unfortunately, so was the anime series.

It might be blunt of me, but my overall evaluation of Tsurune is that it was a really boring show. Nearly all elements that made the story and characters interesting were either taken out or squeezed into a cookie cutter mold, cliche version of what they looked like they were going to be at first but turned out not to be in the novel. And I say this because one of the things that make Tsurune a good novel is how it turns stereotypes upside-down. It introduces the readers into what seems like is going to be a typical sports shounen and starts out describing the character archetypes in the most common ways possible and puts them in the most common situations possible, then it reverses them all. That’s what’s most charismatic about the books. It’s what incites actual character development and gives us different sides of each relationship, yet the anime makes no use of it.

The anime also hardly makes any use of all the mystic, Zen and lowkey folklore-ish veils of the novel, which are supposed to add up to the archery elements. The Zen part is actually essential since Japanese archery is fundamentally a Zen form of art. Yes, art. Japanese archery is, in fact, not a sport. This is one of the aspects that elevate Tsurune above other works of the sports genre: it’s only categorized as such because it can’t fit anywhere else, but it’s not really a sports novel. That could have elevated the anime to the same status too, if only the studio hadn’t treated it like a sports one. But they made that mistake.

Still, I think the biggest sin in this adaptation was to try to cling to tropes that are considered successful and ignoring the characters’ personalities, which didn’t match these tropes at all, resulting in both characters and bonds being utterly destroyed and the flow of the story slowing down to a slug pace. By the second half of the anime, literally either nothing interesting happens or the things that were supposed to be interesting don’t hold the audience’s attention enough, which the animators attempt to cover up with queerbait. Everything is so tediously predictable that I’ve seen countless comments from the Japanese side of the fandom about how similar the Tsurune anime was to Free! and how “KyoAni only ever makes male characters like that, don’t they”. They were referring to Seiya and his weird jealousy, by the way. Even first-timers could tell that the characterization was a disaster.

The sad thing is, they were right. The Tsurune anime really did feel highkey like a Free! copycat in the characterization department. The main character is always getting swung about by everyone around him. The best friend is very clearly co-dependent. The deuteragonist is revealed to be bitter because of a deceased relative and is an asshole to the rest of the main cast for a good portion of the series. The rival from the other school is rude as hell for no reason and he’s got annoying groupies on his team who don’t exist outside of idolizing him. There are only four female characters and they have almost no screen time. And the list goes on.

As for the animation itself, I would like to say that it was perfect, but what really rang the alarm in my head was the many beginner mistakes so evident here and there, such as missing frames, the opening theme starting out of nowhere, the colors of the background often being too bland, lack of movement or scenes where the characters are too static, etc. I shit you not that when I saw the title splashing onto the screen all of a sudden in the initial ten seconds of episode one, the first thing I thought was, “This won’t sell well”. Sure enough, it didn’t.

So there you have it. I didn’t like the show. The only things I enjoyed were the archery scenes and the soundtrack. The rest simply didn’t do justice to the original work. I hope this summary has explained why, but if you want more info on it, maybe visit my Tsurune tag. You’ll find me elaborating more on particular topics in response to similar asks. Or you can send me other questions if you feel like.

That’s it!

[anonymorshu]

I’m Back!

Yeah, that’s right. I live! Happy New Year!

It seems that Tumblr’s guidelines update a couple years ago annexed all the pornbots, so to my followers that are still here, I have missed you all and will be making some changes for the better that I'll get into later.

Firstly, the reason for my hiatus:

From what feels like since I started using Tumblr, I had tried to check it every night at 11 PM before bed alongside the first two pages each of a couple subreddits I follow. Eventually, I had followed too many blogs to the point that I took a break around July 2018, and slowly tried to recuperate where I left off, going into the 500+ range of Dashboard pages. Eventually, I tried skipping a few hundred pages to try and get closer to the end, but that wasn’t enough. I started setting aside the Reddit pages to get to later so I could put more time into this, and that lead into the series of events that unfolded in this Reddit post I made back in October.

So with that being said, a lot has happened since I made my leave. In particular:

Literally all of Deltarune is amazing. Especially best boy Rouxls Kaard.

Upon release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate took up a good portion of my time as it would anyone; I main most of the newcomers. Love it to bits, especially playing Terry as of late. I got Piranha Plant later than I would’ve liked; February 3rd. I also beat the World of Light story mode on Hard from start to finish February 20th at 2:19 AM.

I watched Cowboy Bebop from March 9th to June 13th, 6:55 PM. Bit of a bittersweet ending, but it certainly went out with a bang.

I made a Twitch channel on March 31st. Don’t expect streams anytime soon.

I watched JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind over the course of its run, as did my parents following the previous parts in 2018. They love everything there is to do with JoJo and I couldn’t be happier.

Come June 11th, I got Final Fantasy VII on Switch on sale and completely get now why it’s heralded in such high regard by the gaming community. I’m certainly anticipating the Remake.

Not long after that, my brother picked me up Axiom Verge as part of a BOGOF deal. One of the best games I’ve ever played.

While I wasn’t really interested from the first episode alone and put it off, I picked Code Geass back up and binged it over the course of October to November 4th. Not the best ending, but given all that happened prior, it was for the best. Still gotta see Akito the Exiled, though.

From November 22nd to now, I’ve been really enjoying Re:Zero as well.

In anticipation of Persona 5: Royal’s release, from November 30th to now I’ve been playing Persona 3 FES and loving it. I plan on playing Persona 4 afterward.

This past month or so, I’ve been watching a fair amount of My Hero Academia. Pretty cool. I’m on the second season thus far.

As I never got to truly post about it, back in late May 2018 I broke 100 Subscribers on my YouTube channel, but didn’t wind up finishing work on the special for it until September. That video can be found here:

Heck, just recently I broke 300 Subs, but my next special’s at 500.

But back to the subject of Tumblr:

Despite how many (admittedly unnecessary) r/DDLC and spicy anime art link posts I’ve made in the past, the Tumblr NSFW ban barely affected me, thank goodness. I only got 3 posts taken down under the new guidelines, them being this, this, and this. The first one, not too explicit, the third one, completely understandable. But the second one? It’s a completely clean DDLC comic about Sayori comforting a sad Yuri. It blows my mind that that of all things would get detected and taken down. But I digress since I was able to appeal them all and get them back up safe and sound.

Additionally, I was quite upset when I reblogged all those posts from the @memories​ April Fool’s account due to my lack of getting caught up with Tumblr prior. But I was worried I wouldn’t get the chance to participate come April 2nd, so I had to bite the bullet and reblogged ‘em anyway.

Even now, I couldn’t get caught up if I wanted to since Tumblr’s Dashboard is completely broken. If I click the “Next” button to Page 2 of the Dashboard, it’ll display the second page, but when I go to Page 3 or further, and then click the “Previous” button to go back to Page 2, despite the URL, it takes me to Page 1. Absurd.

And now, what changes I’ll be making:

For my sake, I’m gonna limit how much Reddit and Tumblr I intake so as to prevent another downward spiral. Henceforth, I’m only going to check the first page of each subreddit alone rather than the first two of each, and only the first two pages of my Dashboard when I do my daily check-in before bed.

I’m gonna be removing the “Original Content” tag to my non-reblog posts, and instead, add a “Reblog” tag to my reblogs. This way it’ll be much easier to manage, and it’ll be a much more accurate tag than “Original Content”. Those who don’t want to see my reblogs can filter the tag.

From here on, I may limit how many tags I use on posts, in particular, only putting the franchise/series name(s) only instead of listing every character featured.

I’ll also try to put a heavier focus on my videos, ergo discussing behind-the-scenes things about my videos as mentioned in the update video I made back in November. 2019 was a very slow year for me in terms of channel content, so I’m gonna try and fix that going into 2020.

And that should be everything.

If you have any questions regarding the things mentioned, I may be able to answer them via the askbox. You can even choose to stay anonymous should you so choose.

In closing, I’m sorry if it seems like I left you all in the dark for too long, I hope you understand my reasoning for my absence, and I hope to do better.

Thanks for reading.

[thesportssoundoff]

“The BMF in MSG on pseudo PPV” UFC 244 Preview

Joey

October 28th, 2019

The UFC's first two showcases in MSG were based entirely around putting on insane title fights that flexed the UFC's superior depth as an organization. Conor/Alvarez in a battle of champions with two title fights and a host of big names (Edgar, Stephens, Romero, Tate, Weidman) underneath it followed up by GSP/Bisping with Dillashaw/Garbrandt and Rose Najamunas/Joanna underneath it. 2018 signified a change as big fight after big fight fell through and the UFC was left just aiming to put on a crazy deep card with high levels of violent potential on it. It succeeded on that but the card felt a step behind the other shows. This one feels more like a return to old with hints of the more modern formula sprinkled in. There's no Conor and no Khabib, there's no big title fight, there's no real fight of divisional significance either. What there is a big main event pitting two big stars against one another with a fake belt on the line (but aren't they all really if we're being honest) with an undercard that doesn't showcase the UFC's depth and isn't loaded with big superstars but has a litany of really fun action fights on tap. Nate Diaz vs Jorge Masvidal for the BMF title feels like the UFC doing the rare thing; giving the fans what they want while also giving themselves what they need. Under that you have just a rush of really freaking good action fights that maybe won't matter in a year from now but combine to create a very appealing way to spend a Saturday night, Let's talk about it.

Fights: 12

Debuts:

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 2 (Colby Covington vs Kamaru Usman CANCELLED/Krzysztof Jotko OUT, Brad Tavares IN vs Edmen Shahbazyan)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 11 (Jorge Masvidal, Nate Diaz, Stephen Thompson, Kelvin Gastelum, Darren Till, Blagoy Ivanov, Derrick Lewis, Kevin Lee, Corey Anderson, Brad Tavares, Andrei Arlovski)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC:  4 (Stephen Thompson, Derrick Lewis, Kevin Lee, Darren Till)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 14 (Jorge Masvidal, Jair Rozenstruik, Vicente Luque, Corey Anderson, Johnny Walker, Blagoy Ivanov, Johnny Walker, Jennifer Maia, Chance Rencountre, Hakeem Dawodu,Edmen Shahbazyan, Shane Burgos, Mawkan Amirkhani, Gregor Gillespie)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 31-17

Nate Diaz- 1-0 Jorge Masvidal- 3-2 Darren Till- 4-2 Kelvin Gastelum- 2-2-1 Stephen Thompson- 1-3 Vicente Luque- 6-1 Derrick Lewis- 4-3 Blagoy Ivanov- 2-1 Kevin Lee- 3-3 Gregor Gillespie- 5-0

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Welterweight-  3 (67) Heavyweight- 2 (36) Middleweight- 2 (42) Featherweight- 2 (55) Light Heavyweight- 1 (40) Lightweight- 1 (70) Women’s Flyweight- 1 (32)

Women’s Strawweight- (28) Bantamweight- (53) Flyweight-  (15) Women’s Featherweight- (8) Women’s Bantamweight-  (18)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (38-59-1)-

Short Notice Fighters (29-36)- Brad Tavares

Second Fight (56-35)-

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (22-38-1)-

Undefeated Fighters (40-37-2)- Gregor Gillespie, Edmen Shahbazyan

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (12-9)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (29-23)- Darren Till, Kevin Lee

Twelve Precious Ponderings

1- Anyone else we still had buyrates to pour over for this one? Imagine being able to comp this to the Conor/Nate fights or Conor/Khabib or the bigger Jones fights to see where these two really rank in terms of buyrates.

2- So what's the end result when this is over? Are we going to pretend the BMF thing is real? Are we going to retire it? Is this like when the WBC has some new title made for Floyd's next big fight then he just keeps it in his attic in his 50 room mansion? I'm just perplexed what the long term plan is for this title that allegedly costs thousands to make.

3- One of the more interesting things about this fight is that Masvidal;s pretty much changed how he fights going up in weight. I don't know if it was just more confidence in himself without nixing off 15 lbs or if he made a concession that he needed to change to adapt to his weight class but he went from not having a stoppage via strikes at LW for six years to stopping 5 of his 6 WW wins. Nate Diaz is notoriously durable but he's also been hurt in the past at 170 lbs and I think Masvidal's pop is legitimate up at WW. Conversely we've seen Masvidal dropped by guys like Till and Larkin only to rise up and get right back to doing what he does. I'm curious if Masvidal will come out fighting Nate like he has every other welterweight or if this turns into a cautiously fun fight where nobody really gets a serious edge and it's a respect filled slodge down the stretch.

4- How does Conor wiggle himself into the main event conversation before all's said and done.

5- What could Darren Till and his camp possibly see in Kelvin Gastelum that this is the fight they wanted for his debut?

6- Derrick Lewis is undefeated against big Eastern European dudes. Just want to keep that in the conversation.

7- Speaking of weird matchups that don't make any sense on paper, Kevin Lee opted to drop back down to 155 lbs and his first fight is Gregor Gillespie. This after we just saw two straight fights where Lee struggled to get off the fence against grapplers with more strength and a better understanding of control than he does. Now to his credit, Lee beat Michael Chiesa who is similar but I'd argue Chiesa is more of a big slug muk type LW whereas Gillespie is a fluid mover with quick enough pop in his hands to survive fights at range if need be. I don't know if Lee made the right call here unless he's  got a secret escape route vs Gillespie. It is fair to point out that Gregor Gillespie has never faced a guy with Kevin Lee's overall skillset but if this turns into a battle of wills and cardio, I gotta bet on Gillespie.

8- They're not the sexiest of names on a card like this but both of these featherweight fights are great fun. Hakeem Dawodu vs Julio Arce is a great striking contest where you have two hittable featherweights sort of trying to scrap their way out of the bottom half of the ranks going at it. Arce has the better resume but Dawodu has crazy upside and promise. Arce tends to fight his opponent's fight so chances are this is going to be a pretty fun back and forth all kickboxing affair. Makwan Amirkhani vs Shane Burgos should be a hilarious striker vs grappler fight as Burgos is one of the best featherweights at controlling range and pace while Amirkhani probably beats every featherweight who he can get to the ground (minus Arnold Allen who JUST edged out a decision). Amirkhani's hands haven't taken the next step the way a lot of folks expected but beyond that, he's a lot of fun. Burgos is one of the many dudes who adopted Conor McGregor's stalk and strike style and I'd imagine it's going to be pretty tense in the latter rounds to see Burgos chasing with this being a takedown vs knockdown style chess match. Good fights on the prelims.

9- Andrei Arlovski vs Jair Rozenstruik is going to be a happenin'. There's a good chance Rozenstruik is going to be racing Ciryl Gane for most impressive UFC newcomer down the stretch.

10- Corey Anderson is the guy the UFC doesn't ever want to give a title shot to because nobody would possibly care about Anderson vs Jones. Johnny Walker is in a small circle of fun LHWs who the UFC believes will be big pieces of their puzzle once Shogun, Glover and company clear out the middle of the division. This is a very strange yet kinda appealing risky fight from the UFC.

11- Brad Tavares grinded and scrapped his way up the UFC rankings to get one main event slot and now he's back on the prelims testing prospects. Life is tough in UFC land. They also clearly think he's cooked because they're handing him over to the Ronda promoted prospect who has two first round finishes in three UFC fights.

12-  Is the winner of Jennifer Maia vs Kaitlyn Chookagian the #1 contender?

[destiny-smasher]

Always Gotta Don’t Stop (speculating about Smash)

So with Byleth incoming in just a few days, we also got other noteworth announcements that got me pretty excited about the possibilities for what could come to Smash Bros. Ultimate over the next two years. I felt like having some fun and came up with multiple lists using this template by Matthew Lovenzka, and I tried to find a balance between various factors -- perceived popularity (not just with Western Smash fans but that’s part of it), moveset potential (they CAN make a moveset out of anything but Sakurai specifically focuses lately on bringing new mechanics), and also a twist of marketing (since that IS part of it, as Byleth demonstrates).

Long post is LONG, I’m goin’ ham.

First up, just some general predictions for Fighters Pass Volume 2:

Now, I don’t believe we will get Sora AND Geno, but it DOES feel likely we will get another Square character, and those two feel like the most popular picks with people from Square. I could Nintendo trying to get Sora in first and foremost, but if legal complications (or Square just being fussy) got in the way, they might compromise on Geno. I feel like with how big Activision/Blizzard is, they’d want a character in, and if Nintendo likewise WANTED to parley with that, and go for another western-themed pick, Bandicoot makes the most sense. Crash didn’t get into Playstation All-Stars but everyone still inherently associates Crash with the Playstation One, so it’d be a great pick and feel similar to Banjo-Kazooie in a lot of ways. I could see moveset being a little standard but they could probably come up with some fun elements. Given how much emphasis the Crash franchise has put on Coco more recently (made her fully playable in the Crash Trilogy, given her lots of attention in CTR Nitro-Fueled), it would feel in-character and also just be neat if she was added as an alt costume. Capcom: I feel like we’re all expecting a new Capcom rep, and that by no means entails we will get a new Capcom rep, buuut it feels pretty likely. Capcom is on good terms with Nintendo, Ultimate already has plenty of content from them, they even pitched in plenty of new music tracks to Ultimate. The real question is, who would Nintendo want from Capcom, and who would Capcom give their approval on? I would’ve thought Resident Evil a couple months ago, but since we just got RE spirits added, I’m starting to think that if a new Capcom rep got chosen, it must’ve been from somewhere else. (Maybe RE was considered first and they did spirits and all that but then it got cancelled or switched, I dunno). There’s plenty of possibilities, including multiple desired characters who have already been in Marvel vs Capcom. Personally, my money is on a Monster Hunter rep just because the game is so huge in Japan, and recently finally broke through to worldwide popularity. Next, a Bandai/Namco rep. Given that the company works on the series, it’s actually strange to me that B/N costumes from Smash 4 were removed, and we have yet to get anyone new added in. Pac-Man is still the only Bandai-Namco fighter in the game. As for who they’d add, most of the obvious picks might feel redundant (Tekken? Soul Calibur?) but if they went with something like Dark Souls, they could incorporate a stamina managing mechanic, as well as that grim-dark aesthetic (I feel like ONE of these six newcomers will be from a grim-dark game.

A year ago, you wanna know who EVERYONE was expecting to get into Smash? When it was revealed that NINTENDO was deciding the DLC, not Sakurai? Wanna know who everyone expected? ‘The new Fire Emblem protag.’ Which is...exactly what we got. I would say that at this point, we can’t really expect anyone or anything from Smash, but the exception to that rule is to expect a first party, corporate overlords pick. Could be a Gen 8 rep, could be Travis Touchdown to promo NMH3, could be a new Zelda rep to promo BotW2, I dunno, could be a new Splatoon character to promo that series (and whatever is coming next from it) but I feel it in my bones that one of these six will be first party, from a more recent game, basically to just be Nintendo flexing their own brands.

But something we learned over the past year is that they are actively trying to add more franchises and characters via Mii Costumes. So here’s some theories as to what we might get from 1st/3rd party Mii costumes in the couple years to come. It feels like we’ll prolly get more Nintendo themed Mii costumes, and tbh I just feel like with more Pokemon DLC coming, they will want to push that here. Especially if we get a new Pokemon fighter/stage, it would feel natural for them to throw in a trainer-oriented costume.

If we get a new Square rep, which feels likely because Square is just THAT big, then I would suspect we’d get one or two more Square costumes, but I’d expect them to be underwhelming. So, like, bring back the Chocobo hat. Bare minimum, that’s been Square’s creed when it comes to Smash.

While Resident Evil feels like it didn’t make the cut, I could totally see them adding in one or two RE themed costumes as kind of a peace offering for the franchise. Leon/Claire would make sense with the RE2 remake being such a hit, and Leon’s history with Nintendo hardware.

TBH it feels kind of criminal that Chun-Li isn’t in the game in some way outside of a spirit and a music track. At least give that lady a costume, for Din’s sake.

2B is also technically Square, but her creator has been very open about being interested in just...selling her likeness all around. I feel like 2B could be a fighter, of course, like she already is in Soul Calibur 6, but I also feel like if Nintendo was going to aim for a Square character, they’d have their sights set on bigger fish. She would please plenty by appearing as a costume, at least.

OK, so, I have played a Minecraft or two over the years. Hell, I played it WAY back before it was even officially finished/released. I can definitely see the appeal of Minecraft coming to Smash, though more as a stage than as a fighter. I could easily see a Minecraft SOMETHING making its way in, and it is very possible to show up as a fighter, but a Mii Fighter skin feels more likely imo.

So something else that hasn’t officially become a pattern yet but has definitely set up an anticipation is indie games getting their dues with ‘premium’ Mii costumes. So here’s my picks for those. I think three of these are actually still quite possible to be fighters, if IF IF Nintendo is willing to truly throw an indie a bone. But it feels more plausible that that bone would be much smaller, and we’d get popular indie reps in the form of these premium skins with music tracks. I feel like I don’t even need to really explain most of these, but VA11 HALLA is here more because I personally like it a lot, it’s a popular enough visual novel internationally, and it has a banging OST. But tbh if I could decide on a Stardew Valley skin that would’ve gone there instead, just because of how prominent the game is. You could likewise replace Cave Story with Stardew, except I feel like Cave Story was THE indie game that kind of kickstarted this whole ‘indie revolution.’ Tricky part there is the complicated and unfortunate nature of the series’ ownership (essentially taken away from its creator).

The other four, though, I could easily see them as fighters with their own unique gimmicks/mechanics and stages with cool music and aesthetics. The only other indie game/character I could envision more than them is coming up. I feel like if this indie trend continues, one of these is bound to show up.

So Sakurai made a weirdly big deal about the concept of ‘echo fighters’ only to like...add three and call it a day? There’s so much more you could get out of the concept, and as many have discussed, doing an ‘Echo Fighter pass’ (or just piecemeal adding in Echo Fighters) over the course of the next two years would make extra bank, please lots of folks, and not actually take up more resources. The trick is they’d all have to be first party characters from already establishes franchises in Smash, otherwise I just don’t see them happening. To be a proper echo fighter, they would need to be slightly different than another fighter, but different in some way. This usually entails at least one special move being totally different, but it also often entails changing the characters’ properties in some way. To be clear: Tetra - Toon Link, Medusa - Palutena, Octoling - Inkling, Gooigi - Luigi, Impa- Sheik, Dixie - Diddy.

Personally, I think Impa would make the most sense of these to be her own fighter, and she has many forms she could take (pictured above is the Hyrule Warriors version), which tbh could just mean an entirely original, new adaptation, like they’ve already done with Sheik and, arguably, Zelda. But she could totally get away with being a Sheik echo, as well. You can probably imagine differences on your own, but if we were to get more echo fighters added, these are some of the more popular and perhaps plausible picks that might possibly please the higher proportion of people.

So I don’t think any of these feel specifically likely outside of a Monster Hunter rep, and even then, I feel like Byleth essentially got the ‘gimmick’ you’d give to a Hunter fighter (like they got in MvCI), so you could swap the Hunter for a Palico or even a Monster or something, I dunno. I want someone from Monster Hunter, and I want a Monster Hunter stage/music. But I do feel like at this point, anyone feels possible for Smash, so these are picks I would personally DIE OVER, like I did with Mega Man, Lucina, Banjo-Kazooie, and Joker before them. Ones that I personally have great affection for and would main regardless of play style, but which also feel prominent enough and appropriate enough where you imagine them in Smash, imagine many people knowing who they are, etc etc.

ARMS was such a lovingly made game that just didn’t have mechanics deep enough to hold people’s attention in the long run. Which is a shame, because the characters, the world, the aesthetic, it’s all so well done and I adore it. I do feel like we’re bound to get at least one more Ninty rep (probably two or even three depending on how much Nintendo wants to dabble with third parties this go-around), and I feel like ARMS is a franchise worth inspiring interest in. The game did well, it just didn’t do SPLATOON well, and I don’t want Nintendo to abandon it. Give us the four most prominent characters from the game as different skins, use colors to reference the ones who are shaped differently from them, give them a unique mechanic with their arms and the swapping-fists element.

I do think we may very well get an Activision/Blizzard rep, and while I ain’t happy with that company right now, I do think they’re one of the biggest western companies who’s not in the game (Bethesda being another one, who I am also not happy with atm but who has much less defined characters). Tracer would tick many boxes in terms of what I want from a newcomer in Smash. She has lots of personality, she’s a woman (a thing sorely lacking in new Smash characters lately), she has what could be a VERY unique gimmick, and she would help advertise Overwatch 2 and other Blizzard games that have been coming to Switch. Make it so she doesn’t have a Final Smash but has an Ultimate that charges over time (and the Smash Ball just insta-fills it), but make it not as powerful AS a normal Final Smash. Give her Blinks and a Rewind but no traditional recovery, so you have a real intriguing balance between managing her cooldowns to either maximize offense at great risk, or grant very safe recovery but then lack ways to overcome neutral. Tracer’s kit could encapsulate just about everything interesting about competetive Smash gameplay. The only real downside is that Overwatch doesn’t have much in the way of music -- so incorporate other Blizzard stuff to make up the difference. Overwatch already crosses other Blizzard content into it, anyway.

Undertale may have gotten a nod in Smash already, and arguably in the form of one of the most desired characters/tracks added, but I also think the game is big enough of a deal that a full-on fighter/stage as the first indie properly added would feel...I dunno, fulfilling. Appropriate. Not to mention the moveset potential. Whereas Sans is already repped well enough tbh (even the nature of him being a costume FITS his too-lazy-to-actually-show-up-in-person mood), a concept for the actual player character of Undertale has way more potential imo. Not to mention that Sakurai/Nintendo seem much more keen on adding the primary/player character to rep a game before anyone else. Frisk could be played in a dual style: either a hyper defensive passive style that relies on turning the opponent’s strength against them, OR a hyper aggressive rush-down style that is fast and fierce but easily punishable if you make mistakes. The key to creating a truly fitting Undertale rep for Smash would be finding that balance of player choice between peace and violence and working it directly into the character’s kit. HOW you would implement it would be tricky -- ideally, you’d want to reward players for actually committing to ‘Frisk’ style or ‘Chara’ style, and punish them for middling between the two. Not only this, but an Undertale stage would bring with it one of the decade’s most beloved gaming OSTs, and you could probably get people in the gaming world who’d be JUMPING to arrange those tracks for Smash. The stage itself could take many forms but I think one that plays with the various characters and their attack styles would maximize the creativity of the team. If I had to pick one single character/stage to get added to Smash, I’d vouch for this one, probably, and I’d make it either the first of this pass, or the last; it’d have the biggest impact on either end but would be a big deal regardless.

Kat from Gravity Rush is, arguably THE least likely out of everyone here to show up in Smash, mainly because she is a Sony character. Unlike Joker or Crash, she isn’t a third party character who is associated with Sony, she is a Sony-owned character, to my knowledge. But out of every first party Sony character, she makes the most sense to me as a Smash character. She’s cute, cartoony, she has a primary gimmick that a PLATFORMING fighter could take full advantage of (imagine managing a gravity charge to go sideways or underneath the stage for kills, BUT dooming yourself if you mess up), and she would be a real “oh whoa wtf” moment in terms of bringing Sony into the fold. Main problem is, if Sony was to let of their characters in, it would probably be someone else, just because it seems they’ve lost sight of value in this series, unfortunately. Though, tbh, I’d be pretty damn down for Aloy, as well, I just think the stage/moveset wouldn’t be nearly as exciting or new.

Lastly, I want more Splatoon. We all want more Splatoon. I don’t know if the series has gone into hibernation until the next Nintendo hardware, or if a spinoff is coming sooner than we think, or what. But Nintendo knows how big Splatoon is. And the series FEELS big enough over the past decade to warrant more representation. I feel like we’re getting a new Ninty rep or two, anyway, and I’d much rather it be Splatoon than more Pokemon or Fire Emblem or JRPG etc. (nothing against those things, we just HAVE plenty of them). The pop idols of Splatoon have won the hearts of many, and you could definitely come up with a new moveset for them in many ways. It could be a tag-team moveset where the player swaps between them (maybe even on time intervals like a musical performance), it could be music-themed instead of ink-themed, it could be Ice Climbers -esque, I dunno, there’s a lot of possibilities. A Splatfest themed stage with multiple variations could keep things tied to the actual gameplay of Splatoon, as well (or they could do a Salmon Run based one, that mode is INSANE). It would drive up appeal in the brand even further, it would capitalize on the fanservice angle, it would highlight just how much the series has accomplished these past ten years -- for fuck’s sake, there are PHYSICAL CONCERTS YOU CAN GO TO to watch these characters perform. Who the hell else in Nintendo history can you say that for? And these characters are still pretty recent! That speaks a lot. If I had to rally for any first party add, it would be this, honestly. And yet, we already have Splatoon, but I think the brand is fresh enough and fun enough to warrant a whole new fighter.

So that’s my hopes, some predictions, and some shots in the dark.

The past year has been a WILD ride. The next two years will hopefully follow suit.

[themurphyzone]

Part 1

My idea for NegaGosalyn in the DT17verse.

Rosie King-Fisher was named for her distinctive red hair, as it was the first thing her parents saw when she hatched out of her egg. 

They lived in a mansion in one of the nicest parts of St. Canard. 

Rosie’s parents were rich and they loved Rosie a lot. When she was five, her parents went out for a date night and they entrusted her care to the household staff for the evening. Rosie’s a sweetheart, but she knows how to up the cute factor to coerce the staff into letting her stay up past her normal bedtime.

Even so, a maid puts her foot down when it reaches 11:00 pm and tells Rosie that she needs to go bed. Rosie refuses, and the two get into an argument, and Rosie’s throwing the typical don’t-wanna-go-to-bed tantrum.

The phone rings, and a butler walks past the quarreling parties to answer it.

The maid and Rosie argue even as the butler motions for them to quiet down so he can hear the other end.

Then he drops the phone, and the maid and Rosie glance over to him, confused as to why he’s clutching the table.

“Send Rosie to bed and call an emergency staff meeting,” the butler tells the maid when she rushes over to check on him.

Rosie asks what’s going on, but the maid doesn’t reply. Rosie’s scared. She knows something’s not right as she watches the staff speak in hushed tones and hurry downstairs as fast as they could despite their sleepiness, but the maid leading her back to her room doesn’t offer an explanation. The maid hastily rushes Rosie through her bedtime routine, tucks her into bed, and leaves without giving Rosie the chance to demand a story or lullaby. 

Rosie gets out of bed, pressing her ear to the door. She doesn’t dare open it for fear of getting caught. 

“Money.” 

“Thief.” 

“Outside.” 

“Gone.” 

“Orphan.” 

The words are all jumbled and confusing and Rosie doesn’t understand how they all come together. She falls asleep on the soft carpet by her door, and that’s how the maid finds her in the morning. 

The funeral was held a few days later. The staff attended out of respect, but they would all pack their bags and find new employment eventually. None of them could take Rosie in, and she had no next of kin either. 

Rosie had to go into an orphanage. The staff put together several small photo albums that Rosie could take with her, along with a simple suitcase that contained a week’s worth of clothing and a single stuffed animal.

The adjustment was hard for Rosie, both due to the loss of her parents and because of the drastic change in lifestyle. Rosie wasn’t used to making her own bed and cleaning up after dinner. The staff always took care of those things. It was hard, and Rosie wound up pitching a fit many times in the first couple days.  

Many prospective parents came by and looked around. Sometimes they spoke to Rosie, sometimes they didn’t. But she was still reeling from her parents’ death, and often didn’t want to talk for long. They all moved on, interested in some other kid instead. 

After several disinterested parents, Rosie began watching the other kids to see how she could make herself more appealing for adoption. 

They liked politeness. They liked cuteness. They liked sweetness. 

Rosie’s fits decreased in number over the months. She began to wear pink dresses and snow white socks with the little laces on them, tying her bright red hair in pink ribbons. 

She began to ask for everything politely and sweetly, often to ridiculous extremes. The workers were slightly worried, but they were relieved they didn’t have to calm her down much anymore. 

Rosie presented herself to prospective parents, curtseying upon meeting them and answering questions politely. But it still wasn’t working. 

Then she notices all the other kids have some kind of talent. Soccer, hockey, playing doctor, doing miniature experiments with any objects they can scrounge up. 

Rosie figures she needs a talent to make herself appear even more noticeable, but it needs to be something cute. One day, the orphanage workers bring in a bunch of arts and crafts supplies along with many different socks, then allow the kids to make sock puppets. 

It’s fun for the first day, but most of the other kids lost interest in it after a while. But not Rosie. She loves covering the socks in glitter and making up voices for them. 

Soon she takes to making puppets out of spare fabric and materials, and she’s amassed a collection before long. 

Still, Rosie worries that making sock puppets talk in silly voices wouldn’t be considered cute by most prospective parents. 

Then an orphanage worker calls her into the main office one day and introduces her to a visitor. The man turns out to be a talent scout, and he’s searching for a child to provide a voice for a character in an animated movie. When he brought his idea to the orphanage staff, they immediately recommended Rosie since she spent a lot of her spare time making up stories for her puppets and acting them out. 

Rosie shows the scout her puppets, telling him their names, ages, occupation, stories she’s made up with them, etc. Impressed, the scout asks Rosie if she would like to voice act in an animated movie. 

Rosie says she’s never done that sort of thing before, but the scout shrugs it off, saying that this particular director didn’t mind if she hasn’t been trained in this sort of thing. Sure, they’ll acclimate her with the studio, give her a few lessons, but a child’s voice will bring out the raw emotion the director hopes to capture. 

Rosie slips back into Polite Mode, curtseying and saying ‘I accept your offer, sir.” 

But mostly, Rosie wants to see if there’s anyone at the studio who’ll adopt her. 

An agreement is settled on: Transportation will be provided for Rosie to bus her to and from the orphanage when she goes to the studio. As Rosie is a minor and has no relative to help her, the studio will appoint someone to manage the pay she’ll receive. 

On Rosie’s first day at the studio, she meets the director of the animated film, who introduces her to several more experienced voice actors who welcome her with open arms. It’s a little daunting, but Rosie shakes their hands anyway. She searches their faces, wondering if it was possible to get one of them to adopt her. 

The director decides to give her a grand tour of the studio to help acclimate her to the environment. They take her around in a golf cart, and Rosie thinks it’s cool, but she forces herself to remain in her seat and just smile instead of screaming about how awesome the ride was. 

If she wants one of them to adopt her, she has to be good. 

They tell her story after story, making her giggle, then there’s a sudden commotion at one of the lots. 

“CUT! WE GOTTA DIG HIM OUT!” someone shouts. 

“DON’T CUT!” a voice screams. “DARKWING DUCK ALWAYS POWERS THROUGH THE PAIN!” 

Everyone around Rosie groans and rolls their eyes. 

“Pay them no mind, Rosie,” the director says as he steers the cart toward the loud disagreement. “That’s where they film the TV show Darkwing Duck. They’re always having trouble on the set because their lead stupidly insists on doing every stunt himself. I guess we’d better help them out and make life a little easier for the saner people on their crew. You don’t mind if we make a small detour, right?” 

Rosie shakes her head, and the director brings them over to the lot. Several people are gathered around one of the actors, whose foot is pinned under a heavy appliance. 

Oddly, the actor seems more concerned about filming than getting his trapped foot out, and he’s yelling at everyone to stay out of the camera’s range. He’s dressed in a purple blazer, mask, and cape, and Rosie vaguely recalls seeing him on the only TV in the orphanage, but she’s never paid much attention to the show because liking violent TV shows wasn’t something a little girl would do (at least, some of the prospective parents she saw gave her that impression). 

The adults get out of the cart and go to assist the TV crew, telling Rosie to stay in her seat. The trapped actor scoffs at the newcomers. “Don’t you have some happy feel-good kiddy stuff to film?” he asks scathingly. 

The director rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s gonna watch you try to get yourself unstuck, Starling.” 

“Oh yes, they will,” Starling retorts. “I’m inspiring kids to get themselves out of sticky situations like this one.” He winces in pain, trying to pull his foot out, but grits his teeth and lies flat on his back, giving himself a quick breather before trying again.

Everyone rolls their eyes in frustration. 

Rosie knows she’s ignoring directions, but she gets out of the cart and cautiously approaches the adults. As she gets closer, she can tell that Starling’s foot is red and swollen, and he should probably get some medical attention because she’s pretty sure his bones are crushed too. 

Starling is the first one to spot her, and his beak scrunches up. “What is this? Another kid actor here to get ruined by some hotshot director’s grandiose dreams of the next blockbuster?” he snorts. 

“Hello, Mr. Starling, sir,” Rosie says. “My name’s Rosie King-Fisher, and this is my first day at this studio. The director and his crew have been really nice to me so far. How come you’re not letting them help you out?”

“Because Darkwing Duck doesn’t need help from anyone,” Starling scoffs. “He can get himself out of his own jams. So back off, kid.” 

“Is someone gonna have to cut off your foot?” Rosie asks. Her stomach churns at the very idea of it. “That’s what they did in this movie once. We didn’t get to see the ending because one of the orphanage workers turned it off, but a man tied a band around his leg and sawed through the entire thing to get free from the giant rock the bad guy dropped on him.”  

The adults around her make funny faces, some turning away and disguising barks of laughter as coughs. Starling didn’t seem to think it was funny though, and his face paled as his eyes flickered nervously between Rosie and his trapped foot. 

“I, uh, suppose it would be detrimental to Darkwing Duck’s duty to defeat despicable denizens,” Starling swallows. 

The appliance is finally moved off his foot, and sure enough the bones appear to be broken. Starling protests as he’s whisked off for medical attention, claiming he was still well enough to keep going. 

Meanwhile everyone else is half-amused, half-shocked that a little girl defeated Jim Starling. 

[daikini-san]

E3 2018 in a nutshell {Featuring Sephiroth}

I managed to watch most of the E3 2018 conferences/showcases in their entirety, except Devolver Digital and the PC Gaming Show.  I have a lot to say about this...E3.  I’m going in the order of the E3 2018 schedule.  Let us begin.

EA

What a sour start to the show.  It was so boring I couldn’t even stay awake! There’s only one word to describe this conference:  Disastrous.

MICROSOFT

I personally believe Microsoft should have kick started E3 this year.  Microsoft?!  No way!  They’re usually not that great.  However this year, they did good work.  Though, I’m a bit more on the neutral side as I don’t play XBox.  Kingdom Hearts 3 announced for XBox was a shock to me since that series has always been on Sony systems.  I gotta ask though: What’s with 80% of their new games coming out in 2019? 

BETHESDA

This wasn’t a bad conference, but I’m more so neutral here as I don’t normally play any of those sorts of games.  Though, the presentation was intriguing and Fallout 76 peaked my interest.  Not to mention, Starfield has got me asking questions.  All and all, pretty solid performance.

SQUARE ENIX

Oh boy...>>  This is harsh but, necessary.  I’m not upset that there’s no FF7:R news.  I theorized that because KH3 is coming out next year, Square didn’t want to overshadow the KH hype with anything FF7 Remake related.  I’m trying to give them the shout of the doubt, but omg that conference was just like...what?  To be honest, Square didn’t need their own conference.  Microsoft announced most of their games previously.  There’s a FFXIV x Monster Hunter cross over which is interesting I suppose.  The KH3 trailer is the same trailer that was presented at Microsoft but with a few seconds of additions.  They only announced two new games: Babylon’s Fall and The Quiet Man.  The rest of the shit was rehashed!  That’s what pisses me off.  It may have been a good thing that Square Enix’s conference was the shortest in this year’s E3.

UBISOFT

Initial reaction when the conference started:  What on Earth is going on here?!  Then I saw Just Dance 2019.  Okay.  The conference goes on and there’s so much talking and live music.  I’m like is any of this necessary?  To be honest, none of their games had me jumping out of my seat.  Transference left me scratching my head.  To be honest, the majority of Ubisoft’s conference had me confused.  I’m not sure what to think here.

SONY

Okay can I just say Sony went in right off the bat?  They got my attention right away with the Last of Us 2.  Though, the momentum was interrupted when they had to go into intermission not even a half an hour into the conference.  ...What?  That aside, they continued moving forward.  Crowd reactions from Resident Evil 2 trailer announcement was nice.  Another KH3 trailer for the win, but at least this time it’s different.  (What’s with the lack of sound effects?  All three of those KH3 trailers are suffering in the sound effects department).  The game that really got my attention is Ghost of Tsushima.  It is visually stunning and the storyline has potential as it’s set in feudal Japan during the Mongol Invasion in the late 1200s.  Sadly, no release date yet.  :(  Either way, Sony’s conference was pretty good!

NINTENDO

It seemed Nintendo was trying something new with their conference this year.  The amount of games coming to the Switch is incredible!  Especially DBZ Fighters.  It was nice seeing Reggie explaining the two Pokemon games and Mario Party.  Fire Emblem looked good too.  But of course the highlight is Smash Bros Ultimate, which has all the characters from all the previous Smash Bros games, including a couple newcomers.  Sephiroth for Smash!  This game is appealing and I would get a Switch for that alone.  However, they spent nearly a half an hour talking about the game as they went into detail about stages, character balancing, and more.  I have no problem with that but, the direct should be renamed Super Smash Bros Nintendo Direct.  Most of the time was dedicated to Smash Bros.  Oh well, it’s not as bad as EA or Square Enix.

There’s my opinion on this year’s E3.  Overall, it was meh.  There just wasn’t anything to scream with joy about.  The Square Enix conference was a blow beneath the belt.  Sony was solid.  Though, I was foolishly hoped to see something Sephiroth related sprinkled around between Square and Sony.  Ah well. “If not now, then next time.”

[mythicnoir]

Gatekeeper Session 1-3

Decided to share some recaps I wrote on the last few sessions of the current adventure in my campaign. The writing style is a bit more casual than I usually go for, but I think it sums up stuff well.

This’ll be under a readmore, because it gets long.

Session One:

It is the Waithdyd, the fourth day of Khelek, the month of Ice, in the year 1550 Anni Zylla. On the island of Ludum, a nation torn and divided, deep within Vindred Forest, three destinies slowly intersect. Two months since the adventuring family called Thunderclan lost one member to a life of piracy and another member to a life of performance, Equaarion Tarkus the druid and Rae the elf sought out answers within Simona Village. They've heard a call for help, a unique one that piqued their interest. From here, they will encounter new allies, new enemies, and new adventure.

For the uninitiated, Ludum is an island within my campaign setting of Yalda, and it's a nation in crisis. The royal family and their Hallow Knights vanished from the capital city of Hamlet mysteriously almost a year and a half ago, and since then, the nation has been in chaos. Brigands have run of the woods, evil creatures close in on unguarded villages, and a host of ambitious nobles seek a claim on the throne. Within this chaos comes Thunderclan, a group of mercenaries.

The group was originally Equaarion Tarkus, the human druid folk hero, played by my friend Cam... Rae, the elven ranger, played by my friend Michaela... the half-elf eldritch knight pirate Salty Martine, played by my friend Cal, and the human bard Sasha Sabotage, played by my friend Jacque. But Cal and Jacque had to go and study abroad in Prague, so a newcomer has joined our D&D group, and you'll find out who that is in a second.

The heroes are all about mid-level now, which means that they've been through the shit, they've made some friends, made some enemies, seen stuff that gives them new perspective, and they’re approaching infamous status, which is pretty much what every player wants, imo.

But on with the story.

Rae and Equaarion approach the gates of Simona Village. The rain has drenched them completely, and the guard is delaying opening the gate as he waits for a new figure to roll up.

The two heroes are eager to get inside the village walls, find warmth, and a place to sleep, but they turn to meet the figure joining them.

Standing three and a half feet tall, clad in a noblewoman's dress and walking with a long staff, ankle-deep in mud, comes the next part of their adventures. Freesia Flores is her name, and she is a halfling warlock of the archfey.

The heroes introduce themselves politely to their diminutive friend as the guard exits the gate to check them in. The players are anticipating a quick pat down and an interview, but that's not what they get.

Dunstan, the guard, needs to take a blood sample. The town has been plagued by demons and fairies in disguise in recent months, and local superstition holds that if you bleed red, you're the real deal.

The heroes are confused but comply, hoping to avoid making a big deal of it. Their blood is taken and their eyes are examined and they're asked their names and motivations. Dunstan shrugs, figures they're fine, and lets them in. Freesia immediately races off for the tavern while Rae and Equaarion help Dunstan get the gates shut through the mud and rain.

Within the Blue Vine Tavern, Rae examines the letter that summoned her and Equaarion to Simona Village in the first place. It's from a logger named Elsha, who nervously talks about the predicament the village is in. Bandits from the south calling themselves the Redhoods have set up camp outside the town. Word is they're looking for an artifact in an ancient Wengwith ruin called Tir Dyffryn. Elsha is afraid that with enough time, the Redhoods will get bored and just ransack the town, killing and stealing whatever they find.

On top of that, there's the demon problem. Demons have been spotted in the woods, upsetting the status quo of fairies and neutral beasts.

Freesia Flores, meanwhile, didn't come here for that. She came separately, she came with her own motivations. She's a warlock, she's on the search for knowledge and understanding her pact, and fairies in particular.

In time, Elsha meets up with Rae and Equaarion in the tavern, and Freesia Flores begins to sidle up, hearing word about fairies and the Black Thicket tribe, a group of druids that may know a thing or two.

As they discuss the bandit situation, Michaela, as Rae, asks, "Well, do you want us to just go into their camp and kill them all?"

But Elsha says no, they can't do that. "If you kill the Redhoods, their allies will hear of it, and take vengeance on the town, you'll only cause more problems."

The solution, Elsha posits, is for Thunderclan to go and search for the artifact themselves, stealing it from underneath the Redhood's noses.

This is appealing to Rae and Equaarion, because the artifact that's being discussed is a celestial artifact of tremendous power. This artifact alone is believed to be an egg that could transport people across dimensions.

Also, they’re playing Dungeons and Dragons and who doesn’t want to go looking for treasure?

This is appealing to Rae and Equaarion, because they're hot on the trail of Rae’s missing girlfriend. Her name was Emilia, and she was a Hallow Knight of Hamlet. After some scrying and investigation, they've realized that the Knights, including Emilia, have become trapped in another dimension.

So they are VERY interested in getting this artifact.

Meanwhile Freesia is interested because this is an opportunity for more knowledge, and the three of them are each aware that if they split up and adventure around these woods, they are most certainly dead.

So the heroes, having talked with Elsha, get the picture. There's a band of Redhoods, they gotta get away but we can't just kill them. There are demons and fairies in this neck of the woods, and our best bet for more information on the location of the artifact and the supernatural stuff going on is the Black Thicket Tribe of druids. Got it.

So the heroes thank Elsha, finish their drinks, eavesdrop a bit, and head out.

It’s a lot of information but who gives a shit, fairies and demons and bandit rings are all cool and it’s my personal philosophy when running a game that players should at least know what sort of stuff they can get up to.

The heroes exit the tavern and are about to look for the Black Thicket encampment when they see an old man in a hood and robe moving a wheelbarrow and calling out for help. Everyone in the street seems to ignore him, but the heroes approach regardless and start asking him for help because they’re oh-so-good people.

This conversation ended up being hilarious, because the man, who was Obviously evil, the halfling could see up his hood and see his pitch black eyes, kept on making absurd lies and speaking in a ridiculous old man voice. The heroes are rightfully super suspicious of this guy and as he reaches out for Rae's shoulder. She jumps back and discovers that he has black claws.

Eventually Freesia decides to use a warlock ability to make him Frightened of her, and he casts away his cloak, revealing horns and a little tail, as he sprints away. He manages to escape, but the heroes all suddenly aware of the shit the town could be in.

But from the shadows comes a voice. "You shouldn't do that in public."

This is Ragweed, the halfling elder of the Black Thicket tribe. He brings the heroes back to his encampment with the rest of his tribe and hears their concerns. Ragweed is essentially a short freckled mess of ginger hair and an eyepatch.

The Black Thicket tribe have agreed to help the Master of the Town in these trying times, defending them and serving as guardians, so they're definitely good guys, they have the interests of the villagers at heart, but they've got their own issues.

The heroes want to know more about Tir Dyffryn and this mysterious artifact. Ragweed tells them that they don't seem like they're going to run over the town and kill everyone, but he's the keeper of this secret as to where Tir Dyffryn is and he's not just going to give it up for free.

So Ragweed tells them, "My tribal brethren lost something very precious to her in a battle with demons. Maybe if you retrieve it with her, I'll trust you a little more."

This is a super classical fetch quest, it's a little gamey, but this session to me was just about simplicity and defining the new group dynamic, so I'm fine with some basic stuff.

The tribal brethren in question is Poppy, an earth genasi woman. She's friendly and sweet and has a little bit of a slow and nice friendly voice.

The heroes head out, but before they go, Rae uses her ranger abilities to sense the woods around her, and detect what kind of creatures are out there.

I describe the normal souls and presence of various civilized races, or kith, as they're called in my setting. But at the end of her abilities range I describe a pure unfathomable darkness and boiling hatred. I call it 'necrotic rot', which Michaela really hitched on to. I think she repeated it a couple times, it was pretty descriptive.

So they know they're gonna fight some demons. 

Sure enough, the heroes end up at Pwigra Pass, where Poppy tells them she lost her Codex Terragnosis, a sacred text detailing the beasts and fairies and interplanar travel of this setting.

And pretty much every single person in the party wants to see that book.

I could describe the fight that they had at Pwigra Pass in an attempt to retrieve the book, but overall it was pretty easy. They faced off against some demons. They were ram skulls with spider legs, but those spider legs could suck up into themselves and become bat wings. Freaky stuff,

Rae is a hardcore as fuck ranger that never misses and never does minimal damage.

Meanwhile Equaarion is a conjuring and shapeshifting druid. He recently got a hold of a figurine of wondrous power of a Griffon that he recently named Honeyduke, and in this fight, he detected the enemies, summoned the griffon, and jumped off of a 60-foot high bridge to be caught by the griffon. Which is fucking awesome.

Freesia Flores is the newcomer and is pretty much totally decked out with weird fairy warlock powers. So far she’s pretty much a generalist that can shore up all of the group’s weaknesses.

Anyway, they win the fight, grab this arcane book, and begin to head back to Simona Village. But more adventure awaits.

Session Two:

The characters returned to Simona Village to find that Ragweed had departed to meditate. The heroes chose to find Ragweed first before looking at the book.

The heroes visited Ragweed, in a meditation spot he fancied in an abandoned tower, and had an insightful conversation about Wildshape. It was really about Equaarion. Just about his aims, how he felt that adventuring was the natural choice for him. 

It’s the age old compulsion for adventure, the feeling that there’s nothing for you but the road and the desire to seek more.

Ragweed is a good man and while he's a bit eccentric, he really does love the world and wants to protect the life within it. So Ragweed shares with the heroes the location of Tir Dyffryn and the Angel Egg, this mysterious celestial artifact that may allow the heroes passage to the realm of Concord, where the heroes believe they will find Emilia. Ragweed warns them of the dangers, pointing out that the Wengwith heavily trapped and guarded their buildings with constructs. Instead, Ragweed asks them to stay in the village and help out. The elven ranger Rae knows, even as close as she is to Emilia, that she cannot abandon these people in their time of need, and solemnly nods.

Rae heard a voice call out in Wengwith, asking whether they were friendly. After a brief deliberation, Rae invited the voice up. The group discovered he was a tiefling clad in all sorts of trinkets and fine robes and jewelry, but as soon as the tiefling saw their map, Equaarion got antsy and said that they needed to kill him -- in Common, which Chem couldn't understand. Freesia says that's absurd and barbaric and they don't need to do that. I'm feeling like between Sasha and Freesia, the charismatic ladies are always going to be the voices of reason in Thunderclan.

Eventually the heroes had a weird conversation with Chem of Longquest about his travels, the dangers of the woods, and a strange obsidian idol Chem of Longquest had in the shape of a bat before they decided to head back, whereupon Equaarion heard a slithering liquid-like sound coming from outside of the tower. Rae moved to inspect the sound, bow drawn, and Chem of Longquest strokes the obsidian idol, tosses it to the center of the tower, and punches Rae in the head.

It's initiative, and already the heroes have problems. The black idol is in the center of the tower and it starts leaking out black gas that deals poison damage to the heroes. Chem of Longquest begins using his spider-climbing magic item to attach himself to the inside of the wall and get a good vantage point on the heroes.

They manage to deal some damage to him, but soon enough a shadow demon answering to Chem slithers in and the situation gets more complicated than the heroes would like. Equaarion orders Honeyduke, the griffon, to carry the idol out of the tower, but the poison cloud still lingers for two rounds. The heroes break out of the tower and into the open meadow, followed by the shadow demon.

The heroes struggle, and Rae goes down, but Honeyduke carries her to safety and Ragweed's healing word brings her back up. Freesia and Equaarion battle the shadow demon while Chem of Longquest hides out of sight, uncovering its many resistances and immunities before Rae puts the final nail in the coffin and kills the demon. Freesia charges back into the tower and with two swift eldritch blasts knocks Chem unconscious.

The interrogation of Chem begins. The heroes strip him down and tie him up, only to find that he is a demon worshipper and a bit of an edgy creep. He's forthcoming about information. He serves She-Who-Walks-Away-Alone, the Crimson Bat, a demon slain by Prince Laurence that now slumbers and regains her 'flame' beneath the Tomb of the Ancients -- the undead city of Necropolis. Chem also says, very plainly, that "my master answers to the one you call King."

The heroes look at one another. King Ezra? What's going on? Could these be the answers everyone is searching for? Chem states that Ezra abandoned his family to seek greater power with demons and dragonkind in order to further advance his own nation. Meanwhile, according to Chem, Queen Rosaria's hubris dragged the Hallow Knights of Hamlet into a harrowing nightmare (Knightmare), in a bid for her children to become more powerful.

This is big news, and it only makes sense for a demon worshipper to be clued into these sorts of things. But these answers are only revealing new questions. When did this schism happen? Where is Ezra? Who's the bad guy in this situation? We know more about what Ezra's up to and this is in line with what Agrippa or Rend said a long time ago, but all this news about Rosaria is very opinion-based and unclear. Was she trying to cure her son Ludwig's sickliness or ascend them to Godhood? What's going on?

In the end this is a huge moment for the heroes, but they still are wondering why Chem of Longquest is so forthright with all this information. And the answer is very simple. Chem of Longquest points out that this information is meaningless to him because in the end, the strong will rule, and he believes that his mistress, the Crimson Bat, is the most powerful. So these secrets are really meaningless to him. Meanwhile, why isn't he afraid of Rae holding a bow and arrow up to his head? Simple, he's in service to a demon queen. Death is also meaningless to him. He states very plainly, "Upon my death I will rejoin the Abyss, and I will be taken through the Wheel and reborn." Which is at least partly true. Freesia basically raises an eyebrow at this and correctly observes that while he's right about eventually being reincarnated... the rest seems like religious belief.

Rae says, "Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you."

And Chem replies, "Only your own weakness."

And the arrow is loosed, Chem of Longquest is killed.

The heroes and Ragweed agree to return to Simona Village to rest up and look at the book in the morning. The heroes are a little shaken by all this information, but rest will do them good. The heroes rest in separate rooms, Equaarion and Rae in one and Freesia in another, and in the morning they examine the Codex Terragnosis with Poppy.

The heroes learned all sorts of things about the other planes of existence, fairies and their origins, angels and their search for the true meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and a ton of beasts, including the Aguila Thunderbird, a legendary storm phoenix.

After geeking out over books, though it's mostly nerd warlock Freesia geeking, they decide, based on Poppy's advice, to tell the Master of the village, Pickford Pine, about them clearing Pwigra Pass. So they go, and they have a really pleasant conversation, mostly thanks to the heroes having a good reputation all around, but also definitely thanks to Freesia being super charismatic and very honest about everything. She didn't sugarcoat why she was in town, no pretenses to coming just to help with the struggle, which actually made Pickford Pine happy. He's a no-nonsense kind of guy, he's 34, married with two kids, he's a master of a small village and a proficient hunter, so he just says, "You adventurers have a good reputation in this forest, so as long as you're not making friends with the bandits, then I won't have you arrested and run out of town."

He offers them a gold ingot as a reward for clearing out the demons at Pwigra Pass and tells them that there's more where that came from if they manage to keep things peaceful in town and use that goodwill to improve relationships between the Black Thicket Tribe and the villagers. If that happens, and the village is unified and strong together, then Pine is less worried about the Redhoods ransacking the town, and Thunderclan will be good people in his eyes.

So the heroes decide to formulate a plan, a creative solution to the problems plaguing Simona Village, that doesn't involve bloodshed and drawing the attention of the Redhoods allies. And also hopefully doesn't get them run out of town.

Equaarion observes that he's both a druid and a civilian in many senses, and his reputation as a folk hero may allow him to serve as the bridge between those two peoples and to solidify that and maybe strengthen the town through peace and diplomacy.

Meanwhile, Freesia is wondering whether the Redhoods could be tricked into believing that Tir Dyffryn and the artifact isn't anywhere near Vindred, and get them to depart the village and give the townspeople time to prepare and defend themselves, or maybe just permanently mislead the Redhoods.

Rae, meanwhile, just wants to find her girlfriend, but her heart knows that sometimes what you want and the right thing is not always the same.

How will these plans be enacted? Will the heroes run into trouble? Will they uncover more secrets about the Royal Family soon? Will I ever remember to make a concentration check without being reminded? Probably not.

Little Moments from this Session:

Freesia being adorable just constantly with a little fear of animals and being super haughty and highbrow about everything, while still having this insatiable thirst for knowledge. But she's a warlock. So of course.

Equaarion saying some really deep shit about his character and his motivations for becoming an adventurer. Equaarion basically became a hero and learned to be at peace with nature not for any desire for power or because it was his tribal identity, but simply because it was the right thing for him, purely as an individual.

Rae reminding everyone that while she's absolutely a badass that will kill at a moment's notice, her character is fundamentally motivated by love.

Session Three:

Last session one of our players was forced to be late so we opened with just Freesia and Rae planning. Equaarion had gone off into the woods to 'meditate', which (comically) nobody believed.

The two of them rolled over possibilities in their minds for how to trick the Redhoods into leaving Simona Village alone. They poured over a number of possibilities and ended up deciding that the best solution was to forge a map that indicated Tir Dyffryn was elsewhere in the woods, leading the Redhoods astray just long enough for Thunderclan to scoop up the artifact and get out of dodge.

Wandering a bit, they found Elsha and talked details and specifics with her. Apparently Elsha isn't too popular around the town, what with her trying and failing to sneak up on the Redhoods and possibly drawing their ire even more. Thunderclan (or at least the two lesbians) did get some more pertinent information though: the trade route to the east that has been patrolled by bandits since the crown left.

...It's a strangely cold day outside.

They decided that it'd probably be best if they tried seeking out somebody who could actually help them with authentic mapping skills. The two of them don't have proficiency with cartographer's tools or anything of the sort, so they were just wandering back to Rae's room when Rae hears a noise on the other side of the door. Marble footsteps and ocean waves.

It's Chess.

Chess, the black and white dragonborn wizard and scientist, professor of the Brigmore Institute at the Academy up north. He's surprised to see Freesia, whom he's never met before. As she moves to shake his hand, his hand passes through hers. "I'm not actually here," he says. Project Image, a high level spell. Pretty useful.

This is one of those things that wizards just do in fantasy. They show up for weird reasons out of nowhere, have cryptic things to say, and disappear after sending their love.

Chess is here to check on Thunderclan, tell them that their old partner Salty Martine sends her regards, and fails at concealing a bit of secret information from Freesia: the immortal warlord Vander Coil has returned from the World Below to rejoin Chess and his husband Set on their mission to restore independence to Ludum.

Chess and Freesia basically stare each other down and pick apart everything the other says. So by the end of the conversation, these two genius scholars have pretty much totally figured the other out. Chess is a revolutionary and a bit of a prick, Freesia is a witch. The basics.

After Chess gives them some advice about Wengwith ruins and fails to conceal important information, he disappears without a goodbye.

The adventurers agree that Ragweed is the best bet for making a good convincing map, and they pawn it off to him as Equaarion arrives.

They notice a small druid boy, about a teenager, shivering neurotically. His name is Osvyn, he's mute, and a little asocial. Equaarion is kind enough to summon a black bear to keep him company in his discomfort, though.

Equaarion is prickly and stubborn, but these are the moments that endear him to everyone.

The temperature in town is steadily dropping.

The plan is formed: They're going to wait for the town to be occupied at a local temple tonight, then they'll sneak off and drop the map near the Redhood's camp. They do this by summoning a giant eagle and having it leave the map, like a fairy omen. Ludum, and anybody who's spend serious time in Vindred, is aware that fairies often do weird stuff like that, but it's pretty weird one way or the other. But the heroes don't want to leave it up to chance, so Equaarion turns into a cat and dashes toward the Redhood camp to see their reaction.

Ludens know that cats are supernatural creatures, and that hurting them is horrible luck, so they greet Cat-rion and allow him to dash around the camp, figuring him feral. He explores a bit and gets a good look at the leader of the Redhoods - a drow woman, but he doesn't get her name.

The group heads back to the town, where Osvyn is panicking outside the temple. After some debate, the heroes open the doors -- cold to the touch. The inside of the temple is freezing, all the visitors are shivering and yawning.

Osvyn bursts through the doors to the temple and begins barking and panicking, trying to push people out of the door. There's a violent burst of snow and ice and a creature appears in the center of the temple.

It wheezes, "Deshperim..."

Freesia casts mage armor. Equaarion turns into a dinosaur. Rae is guiding the villagers out of the temple.

The villagers are screaming, crying. "The druids have brought the Abyss upon us all!"

Maybe the whole 'improving relationships' thing has a ways to go.

The battle is an uphill climb from the get-go. (But honestly, have I ever run a serious combat that’s been perfectly straightforward and not at all immediately harrowing?) The demon's weakness to fire is clear immediately, and the heroes are pumping tons of damage into it. But the snow and pure aura of despair the demon gives off makes all melee attacks at disadvantage. Equaarion has to drop his dinosaur form and switch to conjuring fire. Freesia casts Blink and begins phasing in and out of reality, popping off fire bolts whenever she can.

But the demon launches a lightning bolt into the crowd, and five villagers go down. The demon begins to fly away.

Oh fuck, right?

Equaarion immediately runs to the villagers, where Ragweed and Osvyn are trying to help them get up. Freesia follows the demon and sees the cellar door of the temple flung open, a trail of ice leading within.

Rae, recalling the cold of the Deep that struck her down months ago in the Bullroarer's Ritual Room, barely has the strength to go on.

Equaarion saves the lives of five villagers, a task they'll never forget, and chases after the rest of the party, who have descended into the cellar to find a rift in the stonework leading to inky blackness.

The two of them are transfixed by the rift. Freesia makes her save thanks to her Lucky feature as a halfling, but Rae, corrupted within by the Abyss, falls into the darkness.

Equaarion drops down. Freesia is panicking.

But Equaarion would never abandon his friends.

He summons Honeyduke, grabs Freesia off the ground, and they all dive into the rift.

They fall for minutes, and land in snow.

They are at the top of a tower, ruined, overlooking what appears to be thousands of structures all collapsed on top of one another. Below that, a black and endless sea. There is no light in this horrendously cold place.

In the distance, a giant red bat shrieks into the perpetual night, and flies through a portal. The party has followed the demon to its home... the entropy of the waking world, that which all shall fall to in time. The very base of the Abyss. The source of Rae's trauma.

Welcome to the Deep.

[mikebyler]

Title: The Star in His Eye Words: 2.9k Pairing: Stanley Uris x Bill Denbrough Warnings: Swearing Part: 2/?

“Stan, seriously?” Richie groaned, pounding his hands on the table. “You can’t pull out, I already told everyone that you’re coming!”

The two boys sat in a bustling diner the next morning, waiting for their friends to arrive.

Stan shrugged. “I just don’t want to go, I don’t feel comfortable.”

“Is this because of Bill?” Richie asked, eyeing Stan suspiciously.

Stan sat up straight. “N-no! Why would you think it would be because of him?”

Richie laughed, then leaned in, lowering his voice. “It is because of Bill. I knew it! You’ve got a crush on him!”

“Got a crush on who?” asked a voice, and Stan looked around to see Beverly Marsh approaching the table with her boyfriend, Ben Hanscom.

“No one,” Stan replied quickly.

Richie slid to the very end of the booth to make room for the newcomers. He beckoned Beverly to lean in closer then whispered to her.

“He’s totally got a thing for Bill Denbrough!”

“Awe, Stan, that’s cute!” Ben laughed.

“It’s not cute when he’s straight,” Stan mumbled, blushing. “Then it’s just annoying.”

Beverly huffed. “Who says he’s straight?”

“Says the fuckton of girls he’s kissed,” Richie inserted.

“Beep beep, Richie, you’re not helping.” Beverly said angrily.

Ben shrugged. “Bev has a point. He may not have said he’s gay, but I don’t think he’s said he’s straight, either.”

“Just forget about it, guys,” Stan said shortly. “I’m not gonna do anything about it. He’s way out of my league, straight or not.”

The bell on the door jangled, and the group looked over to see Mike Hanlon enter the diner. Richie stood and called to him.

“Mike! Over here!”

Mike glanced around to find the source of the voice, then smiled and waved.

“Does he have someone with him?” Beverly wondered aloud.

She was right. Tailing behind Mike was a short, stern looking boy with dark hair and brown eyes.

“I don’t know, but he’s cute!” Richie said excitedly.

“Don’t say anything that will scare him off, Richie,” Stan groaned. “In fact, don’t say anything at all.”

“Good luck getting him to do that,” Ben mumbled as Mike reached the table.

“Hey guys!” He said, giving a big smile. “How’s it going?”

Richie opened his mouth to ask about the boy, but Stan gave him a sharp kick under the table and a glare.

“Hey, Mike,” He said, glancing up at the taller boy. He and Stan had dated back in high school, and even though they’d broken it off, on good terms, of course, Stan still thought Mike was one of the most beautiful people he’d ever seen.

“Guys, this is Eddie Kaspbrak,” Mike said to the group, moving to the side so they could all see the boy he was with. “Hope you don’t mind I brought him along.”

“Of course not,” Beverly said, smiling at Eddie. “I’m Beverly. It’s nice to meet you!”

Eddie gave a small smile. “Nice to meet you, Beverly.”

The rest of the group went around and introduced themselves, and when they got to Richie, everyone watched with baited breath.

“I’m Richie,” The lanky boy said with a wink. “But you can call me tonight.”

Stan groaned, and Ben rolled his eyes. Beverly opened her mouth to scold him, but Eddie beat her to it.

“As much as that is…” Eddie wrinkled his nose at Richie. “Appealing, I’ve already got a long list of people much better than you waiting for me.”

Richie went silent, not used to having someone bite back.

“Would you mind if we kept you around?” Stan asked Eddie. “This silence in nice.”

Eddie flashed a smile and slid into the booth next to Stan, Mike following him.

“Before Richie can recover, are you gonna come to the party tonight too, Eddie?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, I think I will,” Eddie replied. “I have to go to one eventually, I guess.”

“Yeah, tell that to Stan.” Richie said grumpily.

Bev looked at Stan with a confused look on her face. “What’s he talking about, Stan?”

“I’m thinking about not going tonight,” Stan replied.

“Awe, come on Stan!” Mike exclaimed, leaning out over the table and looking at his friend. “You’ve gotta come, you’ll have a ton of fun!”

There was a lull in the conversation when a waitress came to take their orders, but the conversation about the party quickly picked up as soon as she left.

“Is this why we were talking about Bill?” Ben asked, earning him a glare from Stan as he gave a slight nod towards Eddie. Ben shut his mouth and sank back into his seat.

“It’s all good,” Mike says, waving a hand. “Eddie is chill with all that.”

“I’m gay,” Eddie added, to clear things up.

Ben let out a sigh of relief, and Richie gave a wide grin and stared at Eddie, who just glared back at him.

“I still don’t want to talk about the party.” Stan said, folding his arms.

“What if we just avoid Bill the whole night?” Beverly pleaded. “Please Stan, I was really looking forward to getting ready with you!”

Stan threw his head back a groaned. “Fine. I’ll go to the stupid party. But if any of you mention anything about Bill, I’ll kill you.”

Richie let out at cheer, earning some angry looks from some other guests, but he didn’t care. “Stan the Man, this party is going to be so lit!”

Eddie groaned. “Don’t say that. You sound like an idiot.”

“You’re gonna look great tonight, Stan.” Beverly smiled. “I gaurantee it.”

                                                            ~~

“You didn’t tell be ‘getting ready’ meant makeup!” Stan struggled against Beverly.

“Oh, honestly, Stan, you love wearing makeup. Besides, it’s not going to be anything noticeable, especially with the lighting at a party.” Beverly argued, trying to hold Stan still.

Stan still strained against Beverly, but eventually gave up, letting her apply some makeup here and there.

“We’re also gonna have to get you some different clothes. You can’t go to a party in khakis and a polo.”

Stan pouted. “I look fine like this.”

“I never said you didn’t,” Beverly replied, going to Stan’s closet. “I’m just saying you need to spice it up, especially if you’re going to impress anyone.”

Stan rolled his eyes. She didn’t use his name, but Stan knew Beverly was talking about Bill. Stan didn’t like it, but Bev was right. As much as he didn’t want to go to the party, he wanted to look at Bill, to interact with him. The more Stan thought about the tall, dreamy boy, the more his heart pounded at the thought of seeing him again, maybe even talking to him… A pair of pants hitting him in the head brought him back to reality. Bev was still rummaging through his closet, talking mostly to herself.

“This is so cute, how come you’ve never worn this before?” She asked, standing up and holding out a soft pink t-shirt.

Stan shrugged. “I feel like it’s too obvious if I wear that.”

Beverly pursed her lips and sat next to the boy on the bed. “Stan, you shouldn’t be scared of coming out. Everyone you’ve told has been nothing but supportive, and you know we’ll be there if anyone tries anything. We love you, and your parents love you.”

Stan smiled, placing his head on Beverly’s shoulder. “I know, I know. It was just all that stuff with Bowers all those years ago that just really scared me. They didn’t even know if any of us were gay, but they still treated us like that. I just imagine what people like him would do if they actually knew I was gay.”

Beverly nodded. “I get that. But now we’re big enough to knock people like that flat on their asses.” She stood and dropped the shirt on his head. “So put the damn thing on while I find a pair of shoes that aren’t loafers. Tonight is gonna be the best night of your life.”

Stan smiled and pulled off his shirt, dropping it to the floor and pulling the pink one over his head. He glanced at himself in the mirror and smiled when he saw that, yeah, he did look pretty good in that color. He looked at the jeans Beverly had thrown at him from the closet, and changed into them, too. Beverly emerged from his closet holding a pair of dirty white chucks, and let out a whistle.

“Your ass looks really, really good in those jeans.”

“You think?” Stan turned and looked at himself in the mirror. Yeah, it did look pretty good, didn’t it? He quickly pegged his jeans, then laced up the converse. It was a bit weird to dress so casually, but… Stan really liked it. He felt more relaxed, more free.

“You look amazing.” Beverly said, walking up to him and putting an arm around his shoulders.

“Only because you helped,” Stan replied. “Thanks, Bev. You’re one of a kind.”

“Awe, shut it, Stanley.” Beverly blushed and punched his shoulder. “Now let’s get wild.”

                                                                  ~

The group all rolled up to the address Bill had sent Richie in the trashmouth’s beat up old truck. As everyone piled out, Stan hesitated nervously in the backseat, looking at the house and listening to the faded beats coming from inside. Ben turned and smiled at him.

“Don’t be too nervous, Stan. You can stick around any of us until you feel comfortable enough to go off, or you can stick with us the whole time.”

Stan gave a weak smile. “Thanks, Ben.”

The two climbed out of the car joined the rest of the group, going up the walk towards the house.

“Ready, losers?” Richie said, knocking on the door with a grin. The door opened and there stood Bill Denbrough. Stan looked at his feet, moving slightly to hide behind Bev.

“Hey, guys,” Bill said, giving a drunken smile and moving to the side to let the group through.

“Big Bill, are you already drunk?” Richie leaned forward and gave a big sniff. “Yeah, he’s definitely drunk.” He said, turning back to his friends.

“Shut up and go inside, Richie,” Mike said, giving the curly haired boy a push. “I wanna get partying.”

“Fine, fine! I’m going!”

Stan walked closely behind Beverly as they walked through the door, keeping his eyes to the ground.

“Hey Stan!” Bill put a hand on Stan’s shoulder, causing the shorter boy to flinch. “It’s nice to see you! Can I get you a drink?”

Stan noticed Ben and Bev waiting nearby. He thanked them with a glance their way, and noticed Bev giving him an encouraging look. He looked back up at Bill, but found himself unable to meet the boy’s gaze, so instead he focused on the scar on his eyebrow.

“Um… Sure?” Stan said uncertainly, glancing at Bev again. She raised an eyebrow and mouthed, I’ll be close by. Stan nodded and followed Bill further into the house, where a red solo cup was put into his hands.

“So, Stan,” Bill said over the music. “Do you like to dance?”

Stan stared. “I, uh… not really?” Stan cursed inwardly. He wasn’t the biggest fan of dancing, but he could still have fun with it. Now Bill was going to think Stan was stuck up and boring and-

“That’s fine!” Bill laughed. “I’m not overly fond of dancing either, at least not until I get some booze in me.”

Stan was surprised. “Really? I thought you’d be all over dancing. Y’know, with girls and stuff.” Stupid, Stan. That was an unnecessary addition.

“I’m actually a pretty nervous person.” Bill shrugged. “I was bullied as a kid because of a stutter I had, so I kept to myself. It actually comes back when I get really shaken up.”

“You’re so popular though!” Stan said. “I can’t imagine you being anything but that!”

“Yeah, well, they only like me because I’m good at basketball.” Bill glanced out towards his friends, who were beckoning to him. “And apparently girls like to hang around me, so they can ‘scout out the babes’.”

Stan scrunched up his nose. “They sound kinda scummy.” His eyes popped open when he realized what he said. He took a step towards Bill, putting his hand on Bill’s arm in apology. “Shit, I’m so sorry! What a terrible thing to say!”

But Bill was just laughing.

“You’re so honest, I really like that. A lot of shit comes out of people’s mouths, but you’re just direct about stuff.”

Stan cracked a small smile and took a sip of his drink. “You’ve gotta be up front when you’re around Richie as much as I am.”

Bill laughed, and Stan couldn’t help but smile. He loved that laugh. It was so authentic, so full of life. Stan could listen to it all day.

“Listen man,” Bill said, throwing an arm around Stan’s shoulders. Stan shrank away a bit, slightly uncomfortable with the sudden closeness. “I know you said you’re not a huge fan of dancing, but we should totally go out there and go crazy.”

Stan looked out into the crowd of dancing people, seeing Mike dancing with a girl, Richie harassing Eddie to come into the mosh pit, while Eddie, quite frankly, looked disgusted. The only ones who weren’t dancing was him, Bev and Ben, who were still waiting nearby. Stan sighed.

“I guess. Let me go get Bev and Ben.”

Bill cheered as Stan quickly walked to his friends.

“How are things going?” Bev asked excitedly.

“Holy shit Bev, he’s so hot. And really drunk.” Stan glanced back at Bill, who was downing another drink from a solo cup. “He wants to go out on the dance floor. Can you guys come with?”

“Obviously,” Ben said. “I wanna get going.”

“Thank guys. This probably sucks.” Stan turned and led Bev and Ben to where Bill was. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Bill stomped towards the dance, with Stan trailing nervously behind.

“We’ll be right here!” Bev said, placing a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “Go have fun!”

Stan didn’t want to admit it, but he really did have fun. The more time spent dancing, the more he came out of his shell, and the more the talked freely to Bill. Still, there was that consistent thought in the back of his head.

Bill is straight. You shouldn’t be doing this, you’ll just end up getting hurt.

Stan clenched his teeth. Why was he like this? Quickly, he slid off the dance floor to find some more booze so he could stop thinking. After downing two more cups of whatever odd tasting stuff they had, then turned back towards the dance floor. Staring out at the mass of people for a moment, he made eye contact with Bill, who gave a mischievous grin and beckoned Stan to come back on the dance floor. Stan smiled, but decided then that he needed to stop. This wouldn’t work. He found Bev’s eyes, then turned and walked towards the door. He walked past Richie, who was sitting with Eddie, trying to coax him into coming to dance. Richie looked up as Stan strode past.

“Woah, Stan, where are you going?”

“This was a bad idea, Richie,” Stan said sadly. “I want to get to know Bill, I really do, but with the way I’m feeling now? If I stick around him it’s just gonna get worse. Shit, Rich, I’ve known him for not even two days and I’m so completely into him it’s embarrassing. So I’m leaving.”

“C’mon, Stan! Don’t bail! We can just avoid him!” Richie called out, following Stan to the door. Stan ignored Richie, simply going down the walk and blocking him out. After he heard a faint, “Shit, man!” he figured Richie had given up. Stan slowed down, kicking at pebbles on the sidewalk and sighing. It was for the best, though. Stan shouldn’t get involved with a straight kid, no matter how nice he was. Suddenly, he heard sharp footsteps coming from behind him. Stan groaned.

“Richie, I told you I’m not-” Stan stopped talking as he turned and saw Bill. “O-oh. Hey, Bill.”

Bill stepped forward shakily. “Stan, is everything okay?”

Stan sighed. “Yeah, I’m fine, Bill. I’m just not having the best time, so I decided to go home.” Stan didn’t want to meet the eyes of the boy standing in front of him, scared that doing so might betray some feeling… but Stan glanced up anyway, just with his eyes. Bill was looking at Stan’s face, but not his eyes… What-

Stan’s thoughts came to a complete stop as Bill grabbed either side of the shorter boy’s face and pushed his lips onto Stan’s. Stan went stiff with shock, then pushed Bill off of him.

“What?” Stan panted. “What the hell?”

Bill looked confused. “Sorry, I thought you’d wanted that?”

Stan felt anger bubble up inside him. “You thought that because you can do that with any girl you want, you can just go ahead and do that with me?”

Bill took a step back. “No, that’s not what I meant!”

“Whatever, Bill. I think that’s exactly what you meant.” Stan hissed, turning on his heel and marching away.

“Stan, wait!” Bill said, taking a few steps forward.

“No, Bill!” Stan said pointing a finger at him, causing Bill to stop in his tracks. “You’re drunk. Go back to your stupid party and find someone else to make out with. I’m out of here.”

And with that, Stan marched off without a single backwards glance.

[this-book-has-been-loved]

A Gremlin In Glasses Swoops In To Save The Day

For @platonicvldweek​ Day 7: Alternate Reality

A Percy Jackson AU, cowritten by myself and @kabber​

Read it on Ao3 | Read it on FFN

“He’s on his phone again.”

Lance and Hunk sat in the back row of their classroom. Professor Montgomery was droning on an on about torque—whoever that was—and Lance was bored out of his skull.

Hunk, on the other hand, was intently paying attention, taking rigorous notes. “What?” he whispered.

“Marcus,” Lance hissed. “He’s on his phone again.”

The person in question was sitting a few rows in front of them, off to the right. He was a new student, having only transferred to their school about a week prior, but had already made teachers’ pet in nearly every class. Seemingly in opposition to that fact, Marcus was slouched in his seat, tapping away at the smartphone in his lap. Lance wasn’t sure how he was getting away with it. If he had pulled out his phone, the professor would be on him in an instant.

“He’s being so obvious about it!” Lance continued in a hushed tone. “How is no one noticing?”

Hunk shook his head. “It’s fine, man. Just focus. Don’t get too hung up on this.”

Professor Montgomery’s gaze fell on the two of them in the back, hardening in distaste, and Lance only hunched further in his seat.

Professor Montgomery resumed her lecture, and Lance resisted the urge to bang his forehead against his desk.

“I just don’t get it,” he continued. “I mean, who the fuck is torque?”

Hunk glanced at him in mild shock. “Lance, torque is a what, not a who. And we studied that weeks ago, we’re on the next chapter now.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Yes?” Lance’s attention shifted when the professor’s tone of voice changed. Montgomery was looking towards the far left end of the third row, a slightly pained smile on her face.

“Well, technically, centrifugal force isn’t actually a force.” The speaker was someone Lance recognized immediately—the precocious nerd kid who made most teachers’ lives a living hell. They were wearing an oversized green shirt that made them look even tinier than they were; and they were already pretty small to begin with, having skipped a few grades and being younger than everyone else in class. “It’s merely the reaction to the centripetal force on the object in question, resulting in the tendency of an object following a curved path to fly away from the center of curvature.”

Lance bit back a groan.

If it was possible, Professor Montgomery’s smile only tightened. “Yes, thank you, I was getting to that.”

“I hate this class,” Lance muttered, resting his chin on his desk. “I hate this.”

“Just a bit longer till the bell,” Hunk reassured him.

Marcus raised his hand, and Lance’s grip on himself got even more tenuous. “Though not a real force,” he said, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t actually been called on, “the centrifugal force is an inertial force. Newton described it as the pseudo-force directed away from the axis of rotation that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference.”

The know-it-all in the front rolled their eyes. “Well, yeah, everyone knows that. But it’s still just an effect of the inertia of motion, rather than its own force.”

Professor Montgomery opened her mouth to respond, but before she could say a word, the bell rang. The classroom full of students began to pack up, and Lance let out an audible sigh of relief as he grabbed his backpack off the floor. “And we’re out of here!” he said happily. “Weekend, here we come!” He turned back to Hunk, who was still putting away his notebook. “Ready to hit the town, my man?”

Hunk rolled his eyes in exasperated fondness. “Yeah, yeah. Just gotta stop at my locker first.”

“I swear,” Lance muttered, “sometimes I’m pretty sure that guy’s not human.” He was leaning against the wall of lockers, speaking energetically with his hands. Beside him, Hunk had his locker door open, digging through it.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Hunk agreed absently.

“Like. No one is that perfect!”

“I hear you, man.”

“Fucking Marcus.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Him and his stupid iPhones.”

“Yep.”

“Thinks he’s so much better than everyone else, just cuz he uses Apple products.” Lance pulled out his own phone—a perfectly serviceable Samsung Galaxy Note 7, thank you very much. “Shit. You almost good to go? I don’t wanna be late for the movie.”

“Yeah,” Hunk said, closing his locker door. “Ready.”

“Perfect.” Lance took off down the hallway as Hunk followed “Let’s cut through the gym,” he suggested. “That’ll take us out closer to 2nd street.”

When they got to the gym, they were shocked to see that it wasn’t as empty as they thought it would be, and Lance’s irritation returned full force when he saw it’s occupant. “Oh, it’s Marcus.”

“Hey guys,” Marcus replied, just as chipper as always, a bright smile on his face. “Just got the new iPhone XLV.”

Hunk narrowed his eyes. “Pretty sure that’s not a thing.”

“I get all the newest iPhones before they’re released to the public,” he said with a smile. “This is the newest one! So new you’ve never even heard of it, I’ll bet.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Whatever, dude. Get outta the way, I’ve got places to be.”

Marcus made no indication that he had heard him. “These phones keep getting more incredible every day! There’s so many cool new features that you humans could only dream of!”

“Us humans?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Like, look at this app I downloaded,” he continued, not taking his eyes off the screen. “It’s so useful. Really helped me out when tracking you two down!”

They looked at each other and simultaneously took a step back.

“Wait, tracking us?” Hunk asked.

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about,” he said flatly.

Marcus finally looked up at them, still smiling. “But I don’t need an app for what I’m going to do to you next!”

Right before their eyes, Marcus started to change. His arms and legs thickened to the size of logs, his shoulders widened dramatically as he began to grow taller and taller…

His face shifted, two eyes becoming one giant one in the middle of his forehead. His smile went from friendly and charming to a sneer full of crooked, darkened teeth.

The monster rose to his full height slowly, grinning widely down at them.

“Welp,” Hunk said. “We’re screwed.”

“Shut u—no, you’re right, we’re janked.”

The newly monsterized Marcus threw his head back and laughed, before raising his giant fist, the one not holding an iPhone, above his head, ready to pound them into tiny pancakes. The boys were frozen in place as he brought his fist down on top of them.

Right before they were crushed to smithereens, something small and green launched itself, screaming angrily, right at the cyclop’s massive one-eyed head.

The giant grunted in surprise, trying to get a glimpse of the thing currently riding on his neck. “Wha—Get off of me!”

“Wait a second…” Lance said, narrowing his eyes. “Isn't that the weird nerdy know-it-all kid in our physics class?”

“Oh, yeah, hold on.” He snapped his fingers a few times, his brow furrowing. “Shoot, what was their name…starts with a K, right?”

“Pidge,” the newcomer shouted down at them, hanging on for dear life. “I mean, yes, you’re right. But I prefer to go by Pidge.” They held on tighter as the cyclops tried to dislodge them. “Now get out of here!” They wielded a strange weapon- like a cross between a dagger and brass knuckles, which they were currently trying to slash across the monster’s neck.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Hunk said, already halfway to the door.

“Hunk, wait! We can’t just leave him!”

“What?! Are we looking at the same giant monster thing here?”

“I said,” Pidge growled through gritted teeth. “Get out of here, you stupid morta- Whoooa!”

The monster had finally gotten a hold of Pidge, ripping them away from his neck and halfway across the gym.

“Shiiiiit,” Pidge said as they landed with a loud crash on a pile of gym equipment.

The monster turned his steely gaze on the boys.

“Just for the record,” Hunk said matter-of-factly, “this is your fault.”

They turned and ran towards the door.

“It’s locked!” Lance shouted, pulling desperately at the door handle. Now they really did have no choice but to help. It was either that or cowering in the corner. The latter was starting to seem more appealing.

They didn’t get a chance to decide, because at that moment, Pidge emerged from the pile of old, smelly gym stuff.

“Catch!” they shouted. The two of them turned around just in time to catch two… hockey sticks?

“A hockey stick,” Lance muttered. He sent a glare towards his tiny classmate. “You couldn’t have thrown us something more useful?”

“We’re in the middle of our hockey unit, we don’t exactly have a whole lot of options here!” And with that, they whirled back on the giant, weird blade thing at the ready.

“I don’t know about this, bro,” Hunk muttered.

“Yeah, me neither. Let’s do this shit.” He rushed at the cyclops while yelling, waving his hockey stick wildly in front of him. Hunk followed behind him, also yelling, though it was definitely more out of fear than determination.

They whacked uselessly at the giant’s knees. The monster laughed. “You really think those cheap plastic things will do anything against me?”

“No, but this will!” Pidge pounced on the giant, swinging their arm like a street fighter suckerpunching his opponent. The blade in their hand sliced into the monster, sending the iPhone in his hand flying across the air and against the wall, showering them in a spectacular explosion of glass.

“No! That was my last backup phone!” Marcus roared.

“Oh, just wait three months for the new one to come out,” Pidge scoffed. They drew their blade across the back of the cyclop’s calves as they rushed past him, causing him to fall to his knees.

“You little shit!” He swiped at them, but they were too fast, dancing just out of his reach.

They ran up the monster’s arm as he pounded the ground just next to them. “Fuck you! And your overly-priced phones!”

The cyclops twisted his body trying to get rid of the unwanted pest.

“Looks like you need a new service provider,” they said intensely.

“Wow,” said Hunk. “That was kind of…”

“Really cool?” Lance suggested.

Pidge drew their knife across the cyclop’s throat, deep enough that his head hung off his shoulders for a moment, before exploding into dust, quite literally.

The force was enough to knock Lance and Hunk back several feet.

When the dust cleared, Pidge stood at the center of the room, covered in dust but looking quite satisfied with themself.

“Well,” Hunk started. “That was. That was a thing.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” Pidge muttered.

“So,” Lance said. “Pidge? Um, yeah, quick question. What the hell just happened?!”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Pidge replied cooly, wiping their strange dagger against their shirt. “Well. I’ll see you in class.”

“Hold up!” Lance cried, chasing after them and grabbing them by the shoulder. “You can’t just leave. What was that?!”

“Yeah, man,” Hunk agreed. “A giant cyclops or something just attacked us, and you’re trying to brush it off—”

“Wait.” Pidge paused, turning to glance at the two boys. “You…could see all of that?”

“Uh, yeah?” Lance replied, looking at Pidge in confusion. “What kind of a question is that? Of course we could see it!”

They were silent for a moment, looking between Hunk and Lance in shock. They took a step back, eyes falling to stare at the floor, their brow furrowing. “It must have sensed you,” Pidge murmured to themself. They looked up sharply, meeting the startled eyes of their companions. “What exactly were you doing before that thing attacked?”

Surprised at their vehemence, Lance stepped back. “Um. I dunno. We were just gonna cut through the gym to use the far exit.”

“He said something about tracking us?” Hunk offered. “Something on his phone.”

Pidge’s expression changed to one of annoyance. “Of course.” They raised an eyebrow, smirking at Lance. “Lemme guess. Too many selfies?”

“No!” Lance sputtered. “And even if that was it, there’s nothing wrong with selfies! They’re a great way to capture the moment—”

“Yeah, not for demigods,” Pidge interrupted.

Hunk frowned. “Demi what?”

Pidge bit their lip, looking around them anxiously. “We need to get out of here,” they decided. “Don’t wanna be here when the police show up.”

Hunk paled. “Police?!”

“Just follow me!” Pidge called, headed towards a side exit. “I’ll explain once we’ve reached a more secure location.”

‘A more secure location’, as it turned out, meant the alley a few blocks down the road. The three of them crouched behind a dumpster, Pidge periodically checking the street for any intruders.

“Alright, know-it-all,” Lance demanded. “We’re at your ‘secure location’. Now talk.”

Pidge sighed. “Okay. You saw that, right? You saw what Marcus turned into?”

“Y-yeah,” Hunk replied nervously.

“You’re lucky I was there to help.”

“That begs the question,” Lance began. “How exactly did you know to come to the gym just then?”

Pidge crossed their arms. “I’ve been tailing that guy for days,” they confessed. “Just waiting for him to reveal himself. I just didn’t expect him to go after you guys instead of me.”

“It looked like a cyclops…” Hunk added. “But that’s impossible.” He frowned. “Right?”

“Did it look impossible when you were whacking at it with plastic sticks?” Pidge asked.

“Uh…”

“But yes, to normal people, it would seem impossible. So impossible, in fact, they wouldn’t have been able to see it the way it really was. But obviously we’re not.”

“Normal people?”

“Yeah.” Pidge crossed their arms and tilted their head. “Well, I mean, some mortals can see through the Mist. But the odds of running into two at once—”

“Whoa, whoa, back up. Why did you say…normal people? Mortals? As if…as if we’re not?”

Pidge looked at them for a long time. “Yes,” they said after a while. “You’re not. And neither am I.”

Hunk’s eyes widened in horror. “If we’re not human,” he fretted, “then what are we?! Are we aliens?!?!”

“Relax, Hunk, none of us are aliens,” Lance said. “Aliens aren’t real.”

Hunk breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re still human,” Pidge assured him. “Or, half.”

Lanced narrowed his eyes. “…what’s the other half?”

Pidge crossed their arms. “You’re in my history class,” they stated matter-of-factly. “With Mr Harris, right? Do you remember what unit we were studying last month?”

“Um.” Lance blinked. “Maybe?”

“Ancient civilizations,” Pidge answered. “Egyptian, Norse, Roman….” They raised an eyebrow pointedly. “Greek.”

“Greek,” Lance repeated dumbly.

“Greek god, Lance. One of your parents was a Greek god.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Lance abruptly stood up, turning to walk away. “Okay. Good talk. Nice meeting you. I’m going back home, where things make sense.”

“Yeah, where the police are out looking for the kids who just trashed the school gym?”

“But—” Hunk protested, “we didn’t do that! That was Marcus!”

“Remember what I said about normal people not being able to see that kind of stuff?” Pidge asked, raising an eyebrow. “This falls under that category. I can guarantee that when they watch back that security footage, they’re just gonna see the three of us, tearing apart the gym. No Marcus to be seen.”

Lance had frozen a few feet away, mid step. He and Hunk were silent for a moment, processing.

Pidge sighed. “I’ve been here before,” they said softly. “I know how this is. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to transfer schools. My brother too.”

“So….” Hunk still looked completely freaked out, as though he didn’t know where to go or who to turn to. “What do we do now?”

“Listen,” Pidge told the two of them gently. “Now that you know, things are gonna start getting more dangerous for you.”

“I’m not a fan of the word ‘dangerous’,” Hunk said.

“I need to get you someplace safe.” They stood up, brushing the dirt off their cargo shorts. “Come on. I know a place we can go.”

“A place?” Lance echoed warily.

“Mm-hmm,” Pidge said, flashing them a sly grin. “You guys ever been to New York?”