#that was actually my first proper space adventure!

[catskets]

From Desires to Demo: How to Write a Good Demo for your Visual Novel

I'm deciding I want to expand on some topics in longer, fuller-length posts based on points I made in this general VN development post.

There is a problem that players have expressed to me about visual novel demos, especially in horror/romance/yandere circles these days: they are not demos at all. Rather, they feel like introductions to the characters and the setting, and nothing happens at all. No one wants to have to go find out everything good about your game by going to your Tumblr and going through 10+ months of asks to get themselves hyped up for your game. Most people are not going to do that. They will instead play your demo and go "this isn't enough for me to come back to" and never think about it again.

How, then, do you get people playing your demo and being excited for the full game? This is my personal guide on how to make a compelling visual novel demo.

In case you've never heard of me, I'm Kat, also known as catsket. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Game Design. I've been making games for nearly 5 years, and I've been doing visual novels more "professionally" for 2. You may know me for Art Without Blood, 10:16, God is in the Radio, or Fatal Focus. I'm here to help you make your first visual novel, or, perhaps, improve on what you've already made.

What is the purpose of a demo?

A demo is short or a demonstration. Your job is to demonstrate a portion of your game to players. In more "traditional" games, a demo typically takes place in a very tightly-constricted space that is meant to show off how the game feels. Maybe this is the first few levels of a platformer that showcases the general atmosphere and gameplay of the game.

We aren't making action and adventure games in explorable spaces. We are making visual novels. Most visual novel demos just showcase a small portion of the game, maybe the first few scenes.

What your demo should have is this:

A general vibe for your game. You're writing a psychological horror game. Give me a taste of that! Show me a bit of the gore, a bit of the horror.

A sense of urgency. A lot of demos I've played and discarded have been discarded because the game itself does not give me a motivation

An established plot. What is going to happen in the future? Why am I in this world?

In general, think of your game as the back cover of a book. That's where the hook that draws you in to read it. Just give me a proper taste of your game!

There are cases in traditional games where things are hidden from the player in demos (let's all remember MGS2) and where things are changed in from the demo to the final product. That's perfectly okay! You are not obligated to update your demo unless you find gamebreaking bugs and other issues. If things change from the demo to the final product, let your players be surprised and intrigued by these changes!

I can make this a list of do's and don'ts:

Before writing your demo...

Do: Outline, plan, and everything else.

Unless you're blessed by Mnemosyne herself, you need to outline where your story is going to go.

When starting a project, I write a 1-2 page document that has this information:

Name of the game

The target audience

The genre and moods

A paragraph summary of the game

1-2 sentences describing main characters and their roles

Write a short scene that captures the essence of the game

Write a basic outline. You don't need to fit everything in and outline it all, but give yourself an idea. A beginning, a middle, a climax, and an end. Some people just write the start and the finish, and then the middle gets all muddled and convoluted.

While writing your demo....

Do: Make it clear how the choices will impact the game

Visual novels are a medium where player choices affect the game. Make sure those choices actually matter. They don't all have to, of course. They might matter later in the game, but you should at least try to write an example of how a choice may matter.

For example, in Art Without Blood's new demo, certain choices mean you meet the characters in a different order and experience different sides of them.

Having a certain amount of a sanity stat will cause characters to give you some flavor text.

Here's a very simple idea: if you're running your game on a "love points" or other points system, you can make it so if player gets 10 points with love interest, get a different scene. It shows that your choices are impactful. Just let players have a taste of the consequences of their actions.

Don't: Character dump.

Many demos I have played were just character dumps. This means using the demo just to introduce to us the characters but not giving them room to truly show their personalities or their attachments to the problem.

For example, I played a game recently that had the player complaining about their living situation, showing us the characters in the same living complex, showed off the yandere, and then had the player deal with an annoying, evil boss. That sounds like lots of games, right? And that doesn't sound very fun, does it?

Do: Ground the player in the world

Try to immerse your player character in your world. I want to read like I'm part of it. What is our purpose? If we are a stranger, how can you immerse us in a world so far removed from ours?

Do it slowly, and do it with necessity. You don't necessarily want an exposition dump either.

Establish the world, establish the conflict, establish why they got into this conflict, and leave us off with a reason to come back.

Don't: Make your players have to visit other sites to get important information

Your ask blogs or other social medias should contain supplemental material that keeps players engaged, but it should not be a place where you should go "well, actually, in the demo, x y and z should have happened but it didn't."

Try not to spoil your game on your socials. What's the point of playing if I can just read it all on your blog?

I should learn about the plot and the characters from the game itself. I should not have to get a sense from your blog about a character because they were so dry in the demo.

Obviously, this isn't to say you need to include everything about a character in your demo. But we need to get a sense of personality. I shouldn't have to go to Tumblr to find that personality.

Do: Ask for help

Making a game on your own, especially for the first time, is scary. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to get people to help you out with parts you aren't so familiar with. It doesn't make you any less of a developer. A lot of people need some degree of help. There is nothing wrong with that.

Don't: Start your marketing until you know you can finish the demo

I've seen lots of demos that have been in the works for years. It can be disappointing for fans and demotivating for the developer to have an idea, tell the world, and then not see a demo for a long time. This is especially the case when money is involved, but it's still irresponsible to promise a product and never deliver it. Be honest about the status of projects and your life.

Do: Outline content warnings properly

It is up to the player to decide if they think they're capable and ready to play your game. Make sure to outline your content warnings. Cover the basics, and feel free to leave an extended warnings list in your game or on your game page for specifics.

Content warnings are usually things like blood/violence, profanity, sexual content, etc. Trigger warnings typically get into specific things, like suicide, dentists, or religious trauma. Think of content warnings like the ERSB.

Put a splash screen before the game starts that showcase the content warnings and a place to find trigger warnings.

Don't: Pull back punches with what your characters are capable of

It's fiction. It doesn't necessarily mean you support your characters being crazy stalkers. Know the audience you want to write for, and don't feel a need to cower. Let them be filthy. Let them get their hands deep into someone's chest cavity and rip a body apart.

What I'm trying to say is you really shouldn't tone down what you think your characters are capable of because you're afraid of making fans sad or upset because pookie isn't acting the way they thought pookie acted in their head. It's your character. You're commanding the story. You are choosing where it goes, not fans. Just because you have an audience doesn't mean you need to tone it down to be more palpable to others.

Once your demo is released...

Do: Keep a balance

Making games is very, very hard. And the world is very, very harsh. It is okay to let your fans know about delays or potential cancellations, such as through the devlogs on itch.io for your game, in your community spaces, or on your blog. Please be honest. If you do not think that, after a demo's release, you can continue on the project, make it clear that it has been cancelled or on hiatus.

People will be understanding. The world sucks, and it sucks the life out of us. People are more forgiving if you are honest with the status of your game, rather than leaving it in a perpetual limbo.

Don't: Think that the popularity of your demo constitutes how "good" your game is.

Your demo may not do well. That could be a number of factors. Maybe your marketing didn't hit where you think it should have. Maybe you posted it at the same time as another game. Not your fault. The full release may do better. Don't let the numbers be the reason you give up.

Do: Network!

Get to know fellow developers in the space so you can learn from one another and get more ideas for improving your own games.

Don't: Use developers.

Use a developer's resources. You should not be making friends with other devs if your desire is to try and become friends with big people. That's a parasocial relationship, buddy!

Do: Tell your fans the course of action

Do you have a development timeline set up? Writing multiple days? Give fans a general outline that you planned before writing your demo. It's okay to miss things as long as you're honest. But a timeline will help you hold accountability for yourself.

Don't: Charge for it.

I've seen at least 3 games take the "I'm going to charge for a demo" route in an effort to sway children from playing the game. This is going to sway everyone. Especially if players have not seen a complete + finished product from you, they will not be buying an unfinished game. There are other ways to hide your games from children, such as using itch.io's adult content filters and applying them to your projects.

Main takeaway: Be honest.

I say this a lot throughout this post, but it's because it pushes on a particular trend I see in beginner visual novel developers. There's this desire to create, but there is also the desire for fandom centered around what characters and world spawn from your creations. To maintain that fandom, you need to create. You need to be consistent. It may be harsh, but it's the reality.

Life is hard, and a large majority of us are NOT doing this for a living. Life will get in the way. It always has, it always will.

That's why it's good to practice integrity. Know yourself and your limits. Take steps back and be willing to be open + honest.

Fans won't be happy if you keep saying a game is delayed and show little to no work. Posting unrelated artwork and spending months answering Tumblr asks instead of making a game will eventually run you in the mud without anyone to enjoy what you have the potential to create.

Live up to your promises, and if you can't, be honest. Your community will support you as long as you're open.

[saltydkdan]

Salty i wanna get into Baki which one do you recommend,the manga or the anime?

Oh you just woke up the fucking beast (I'm so sorry).

I LOVE this question, and as a recent Baki fan myself, I can tell you that getting into the series as a Western consumer can be rough if you don’t have a basic guide to know what you’re getting into…. so that’s what I’m gonna make this post (TEEHEE).

This series has gotta be one of the most insane shonen- actually no- one of the most INSANE PIECES OF FICTION I've ever experienced, and I NEED more people to check it out. Like, LOOK AT THIS SHIT DUDE.

Baki out of context somehow even puts Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to shame. The way I usually pitch it to people is that Baki is as insane as people THINK Jojo is before they read it. Shit is just... MAN LMAO. OBAMA IS FUCKING IN THIS.

Unlike more popular stuff like Dragon Ball and Hunter x Hunter, a lot of this series has just never been officially localized, so knowing where to start, and even how to support the series, is a hard task if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Thankfully THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE ME FOR. This Tumblr post is gonna be your one stop shop for how to get into Baki as an English speaker (and it’ll give me some space to ramble about one of my latest favorite series).

But uh before we get into the nitty gritty, wanna put some trigger warnings for the series for those who may want to know. Listen, I know how some of these are gonna look to the average person, but this series just be like that sometimes, if you can’t take stuff like this trust me it’s insanely valid. You’ll understand if you choose to take the plunge.

SERIES TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Animated Blood/Violence, some animated gory imagery, Incest (???), Nudity, Urine stuff, Bigfoot/Animal Violence, Death, Uncomfortable looking muscles, and one instance of sexual violence (offscreen)

If you are comfortable with all that (and again, valid as fuck if you aren’t) then let’s talk BAKI!

First off, Manga or Anime?

You would think that either would be fine, but my personal recommendation for Baki as a beginner, is to watch the anime over reading the manga. Simply put: The anime is a lot more widely available and accessible in English speaking territories, and is fairly easy to support officially with its current iteration.

For whatever reason, the manga just never really took off in the West when compared to other series, so it was only ever officially released in English a handful of times, and they only ended up publishing the first few volumes. Theoretically, you can read the first few books to start, but the entire series all together is legit longer than One Piece at a whopping 1,203 chapters, so you are gonna run out of material real quick. The fraction of officially available manga barely scratches the surface of the series.

Even if you’re stubborn about reading the manga and want to try reading fan translations, they come with their own separate batch of issues. Plenty of fan scans you can find online range from wildly outdated, to generally being poor quality at best. There’s even some fan translations that just straight up make shit up and don’t even properly translate the original script. Adding in extra dialogue and slurs randomly to make the text seem way edgier than it actually is.

Full disclosure, I wanna cut through my bias here and say that there are indeed some great scans available on the internet if you look hard enough, especially for the more recent content! But they aren’t super easy to track down with how the series is formatted, and you may accidentally find yourself reading the story out of its proper order.

The watch/read order of Baki is a bit of a toughie for new people, but is actually pretty simple once it’s explained. The story of Baki is split up into multiple different series, kind of similar in format to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Though instead of “Parts”, Baki is split up into completely different manga and TV series. This is why many fans get confused initially, especially with the watch order, because it isn’t laid out in an easy to understand way at first glance.

The most well known series are currently streaming on Netflix, but those aren’t the ones you wanna start with. Nope, the story of the Baki anime actually starts way back in 2001, in a TV show that isn’t streaming officially online. Now if you want to watch out of order, I’m not gonna stop you. You can do whatever you want, by all means, but you’re gonna be missing some VERY important story context, and some characters just won’t hold the same weight.

So if you DO want to watch in order, come with me my friend. Let me show you-

BAKI’S SUPER COOL AND NOT AT ALL CONFUSING WATCH ORDER:

Baki the Grappler (2001) (24 episodes)

This is the original 2001 anime adaptation, the very start of serialized Baki anime. You’re gonna wanna start here trust me.

This series isn’t streaming anywhere officially online, but you can find it… places. Seek it out, trust me, because otherwise you’re gonna pay way too much for out of print DVDs on Ebay. Thankfully though you have options! The series is both subbed and dubbed (as well as every series I discuss from this point forward.

This show is the very start of serialized Baki anime, the very beginning of Baki Hanma’s story. Although it’s not in the way you may think. Despite this being the earliest point in the Baki timeline, it’s actually an adaptation of a later story arc from the manga.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t you just say this is where I should start? Why is it adapting something from later in the story?”, and yeah it’s valid to be confused. While yes this is the first ever Baki anime, for some reason the staff behind it made the decision to move this later arc up a bit from the original manga. In my honest opinion, I feel like this is actually a great decision.

As you will see as you watch, this honestly FEELS like this should be where the story begins. The escalation of power and storytelling from this point onward feels very natural, and you won’t miss out on anything or spoil yourself whatsoever on later events.

This is the de facto best starting point.

Grappler Baki Maximum Tournament (2001) (24 episodes)

This is effectively the second season of Baki the Grappler. For whatever reason they decided to title it something else, and while this is the norm for the series later on, this name change is weird because it adapts an arc from the original manga just like the first season of anime I just talked about.

Whatever lol.

Anyway this series, much like the previous, isn’t officially available as of now. So your best option is to SEARCH for it. SEARCH on the INTERNET. Or y’know. The good ol’ expensive out of print DVD on Ebay route.

In my opinion, compared to the first season, this one feels a bit slower paced and a bit of a slog at points but HOLD STRONG TRUE BELIEVER. This season is the introduction to a lot of mainstay characters in the series. Many of which you will come to love, even if you don’t know it yet.

BAKI (2018) (39 episodes) (NETFLIX)

This is the modern adaptation of Baki. After the last series ended in 2001, the anime went on hiatus for 17 years before it was announced that it would be coming back with a modern coat of paint.

Contrary to what you may think, this isn’t a ground up reboot. It’s a continuation of the exact point they left off years ago, right after the Maximum tournament. The only thing that kind of sucks about this is that, at least for the English dub, they replaced most of the voice cast. Most of the new VAs do a great job, however you may need to get used to Yujiro Hanma having Shadow the Hedgehog’s modern VA from the games haha.

Thankfully, you can officially support this series easily via Netflix. Normally I’m pretty eh on Netflix as of late, but this being the only way you can support the show officially in the west, I personally recommend it.

Baki Hanma (2023) (39 episodes) (NETFLIX)

This is the most recent anime! It’s also on Netflix.

Me and my friends just got to this on our watchthrough together.

Anyway, this is my list! If after you catch up you wanna hop into the manga and read the fan scans, I’ve heard that you can start on Baki Hanma/Baki Son of Ogre (chapter 183).

Hope you enjoy the funny man punching show! Feel free to report back and tell me how you feel about it (positive OR negative)!

Like I said, I've been watching the series with friends on Discord every night or so when we're free and MAN. Baki is fucking AMAZING WITH FRIENDS. It just never slows down after a certain point, and it just gets stranger and crazier.

[radiofreederry]

Dorothy's Top 5 Games of 2023

2023 was a remarkable year for gaming. The number of major, high-quality releases was truly astonishing, both in the AAA and indie scenes.

2023 was also the year I started leaning more into gaming as a hobby, beginning to do Twitch streams in April. Because of this, I thought I'd go through a few of the best games I played this year, and talk a bit about what made them so enjoyable. Consider this my "games of the year" list, like I know so many people are going to be doing this year.

My list is reflective of my own preferences and tastes; I tend to play a lot of RPGs, action-adventure games, and platformers, so you won't find a lot of fighting games or shooters in contention here. Feel free to comment or reblog with your own list - you don't have to write little essays about everything like I did, but it'd be fun if you did!

Honorable Mentions:

Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment): Released in November 2022, but didn't play until this year. One of the most gripping and original RPGs I've ever played.

Persona 5 Royal (P-Studio): Released in October 2022 for Xbox, but I've been streaming it and having a lot of fun with @lakemojave and others.

Katamari Damacy Reroll (Namco): Released in 2018 for Switch, but played it for the first time this year and had a blast.

And now, the list proper.

Fifth Place: Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks)

There was a sort of game prevalent in the sixth generation of consoles which doesn't exist much anymore outside of the indie space. These were bold, bright, games which were unapologetically "video gamey," and wore their medium on their sleeve. Playing Hi-Fi Rush, I felt as if I was Anton Ego eating the titular dish in Ratatouille, and being transported back to that forgotten era of gaming. Hi-Fi Rush is stylish, hilarious, and deliriously fun, mixing the rhythm and action genres to create an experience unlike anything else currently on offer in gaming.

With addicting timing-based combat, a killer soundtrack featuring a suite of certified bangers (such as a cover of "Free Radicals" by the Flaming Lips, one of my favorite bands), and a delightful cast of colorful characters, Hi-Fi Rush carries the off-beat spirit of games like Jet Set Radio and Viewtiful Joe in its DNA, and had it been made 20 years ago, I do not doubt that it would have an animated adaptation airing on Kids WB.

By evoking the spirit of a bygone era while remaining utterly unique, and by virtue of its slick presentation and impossible-to-put-down gameplay, Hi-Fi Rush manages to punch far above its own weight and snag fifth place on my list.

Fourth Place: A Highland Song (Inkle)

A Highland Song came out of nowhere at the tail-end of the year and forced me to completely reevalute my game rankings. It is one of the most delightful and charming games I've ever had the chance to play, and has managed to do what I thought was impossible: create a roguelike experience that I actually want to see through to completion.

A Highland Song does this through its emotive embrace of the Scottish Highlands as a setting, with those ancient hills acting as both the main antagonist and a stalwart companion in main character Moira's journey to cross the mountains and reach her uncle's lighthouse by the First of May.

The Highlands are your dear friend. They will provide you food, shelter, and the tools you need to complete your journey. The Highlands are your worst enemy. They will deny you a safe haven when you're exhausted, out of energy, and being soaked through by torrential, bitterly-cold rain; they will give you tools long after you've passed the point where they would have been useful. The hills will preserve you. The hills will kill you.

It is in these contrasts that A Highland Song shines. It is a game about finding yourself, and pushing forward in the face of impossible adversity. There is an indescribable joy to spending days in-game exploring a section of the Highlands, trying to find the way forward, and finally running through one of the game's rhythm-based sections, triumphant Celtic folk music blaring in your ears as you finally find your way. All the while, Uncle Hamish's warm, fond recollections of Celtic folklore and Moira's descriptions of her family life make you want to push on, to learn more about this magical place and the people who inhabit it.

You will not make it to the sea in time in your first run through A Highland Song, nor likely your second or third. Yet each time Moira passes through the mountains, you learn more about them, become more familiar with the slopes and pathways that carve through these lands that are older than time. You will stumble, you will fall, and then, eventually, you will make it to the sea by Beltane.

Third Place: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD)

How do you follow up one of the most important and well-regarded games of the 2010s, improve almost everything about it, and even correct its flaws? Tears of the Kingdom manages that and then some. The direct sequel to 2017's Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom follows that game's version of series lead Link through a melancholy journey through a world ravaged by unnatural weather, blight, and time. Link is himself nearly torn apart by the corrupting influence of returning series antagonist Ganondorf (voiced in this installment in fine fashion by Matt Mercer), and the hastily replaced arm granted to him by the sage Rauru grants him new abilities, which replace and improve upon the ones he possessed in the last game.

With these new powers, the game becomes a truly open sandbox. Link is able to build almost anything with his Ultrahand ability, and the Fuse ability not only virtually eliminates the previous game's major flaw, its weapon durability system, by allowing the player to turn virtually any weapon top-tier by properly leveraging fusion materials, it also creates a resource management loop that discourages being stingy with strong resources - since they can be used to create very powerful weapons. Meanwhile, the Ascend and Recall abilities open new avenues in traversal and speed up exploration through Tear's of the Kingdom's massive map, which not only uses the previous game's world map as a base - with lots of altered and added locations to signify the passage of time, including a host of explorable caves - but more than doubles it by also adding floating islands in the sky and a dark, hostile undergound below.

The intense focus on exploration, not to mention some of the best dungeons and bosses in Zelda history, make this a game I had genuine trouble putting down at times as I sunk hundreds of hours into it, as I always felt like there was something new to find around the next corner, or some new treasure to find deep in the underground. Tears of the KIngdom is a masterclass in crafting an open world experience, and easily secures a spot in my top five. It only places so low on this list as a consequence of some blemishes on an otherwise extremely polished and technically impressive product - specifically its story and progression, which feels too much like retreading the structure of Breath of the Wild and not enough like it's blazing its own trail.

Second Place: Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red)

Let's get this out of the way first: Cyberpunk 2077 originally released, infamously, in late 2020 in what was essenitally an unfinished state. However, with its 2.0 update that fundamentally restructures how the game is played, as well as the massive Phantom Liberty expansion dropping this year, I feel comfortable regarding this game as a 2023 release.

I didn't expect to have Cyberpunk 2077 on this list. I certainly didn't expect to see it so high on this list. And yet, here it is. I went in with almost no expectations, and came out with one of my favorite games of the year, and one of the most thoughtful RPGs of the decade. Cyberpunk 2077's great strengths lie in its richly detailed game world and its extremely strong writing, both of which impressed me beyond any preconceptions I may have had, especially given how the game originally launched as a broken, buggy mess.

Cyberpunk 2077's Night City is as fully realized a game world as I've ever seen, brimming with detail and things to both see and do. It is incredibly immersive, and I often found myself forgoing the game's fast travel system in order to simply cruise the moody, neon-soaked streets on my motorcycle as I sped from one gig to the next, taking in little details like the ethnic enclaves in different districts, or how infrastructure differed in poor areas compared to rich ones.

Cyberpunk 2077 tells a story about struggling against impossible odds, and finding hope and beauty in a hopeless and ugly world. In a future where capitalism's atomization and hyperindividualization rend the flesh of society at-large, the life of protagonist V is enriched through the human connections they are able to make as they race against time to save themselves from the biochip in their head eating away at their existence - a piece of technology stolen and then impulsively inserted during their first big job, a job taken in pursuit of the ephemeral and ambiguous glory that comes with being a legend of Night City. Their deteriorating condition throughout the game, and the ever-present acidic commentary of rockerboy Johnny Silverhand, serve as constant reminders of the folly of chasing such impermanent glory.

Whether it's Johnny's former bandmate Kerry, whose insecurities lead him to ostentatious acts of violence and destruction, or Judy, who has suffered loss after loss and desperately tries to find a situation she can control and someone who won't use or leave her, my journey as V centered around finding these connections, and using them not only to save V's life, but preserve her humanity. These themes carried through with the Phantom Liberty expansion, which explores such topics as freedom, survivor's guilt, and governmental corruption and exploitation, and features a delightful turn by Idris Elba as a weary government agent burdened by regret. There are plenty of bombastic setpieces, cleverly-written quests, and moments of intense action, but the things I think I'll always remember are quiet, intimate, human moments, from sitting with and comforting a girl whose girlfriend just killed herself, or meditating with a monk who has no ulterior motive but to bring V a rest in the midst of a grueling situation.

All that to say that while I had a lot of fun with the gameplay, the game world and the writing were what made me fall in love with Cyberpunk 2077, what will likely keep me coming back to the game on replay, and what landed it at number two on the list. The only reason it didn't end up at number one was because there's just one game I played this year which impressed me just that much more - and even then, it’s a thin margin.

First Place: Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian Studios)

Here I must confess not only have I never played the original Baldur's Gate games - early works by BioWare, a company whose work I generally respect - I had until this year never touched Dungeons and Dragons or any ancillary media. Total blind spot! Never even saw the movie this year! I'd played plenty of tabletop, but never any DnD.

What a treat, then, to be introduced to the world and mechanics of DnD through such a game as Baldur's Gate 3. This game glistens with careful and thoughtful design, and proves the vibrancy and potential that still remains in the classic CRPG style. Baldur's Gate 3's great strengths shine in two major areas, which I will go in more detail about now.

Firstly, the game offers a truly remarkable amount of freedom to the player in allowing them to resolve a situation in a myriad of ways, emulating the flexible nature of tabletop storytelling to an extent I've rarely seen in the video game medium. Want to defeat a boss that's giving you grief by running up to him and shoving him off a cliff? Sure, that works! Want to stealthily surround an enemy camp with explosive barrels and then cast fireball? Ok, go for it!

The other side of this coin is that the game permits a lot of flexibility in permitting the player to truly fuck up royally, while keeping the narrative going and not forcing them into a game over because they "played wrong." Took too long to save some gnomes from a cave-in? Too bad, they suffocated to death! Allowed an important NPC, whose spell was protecting a community from a curse, to be defeated in battle and captured? Tough luck, all those people have died a horrible, agonizing death! It's your fault! Now keep moving. In Baldur's Gate 3, all of your decisions, good or bad, have consequences, and you have to live with them.

Baldur's Gate 3's other great strength lies in its character writing. Every major character, and many minor characters, are written with such depth and nuance, with varied motivations, backstories, and moral alignments, which the player can both influence and be influenced by. Notable standouts include Astarion, the cynical vampire whose acid tongue is a defense mechanism to not let anyone get too close and who delights in thumbing his nose at others and seeking power for himself, but who can be guided towards a more empathetic and caring place; and Shadowheart, the cleric of the dark goddess Shar who finds herself torn between what she sees as her duty to her goddess and what she knows deep down to be the right thing to do.

Every character in Baldur's Gate 3 has a story to tell, and they're all good ones. That alone would land it on this list, but combined with the astonishing freedom it allows players and its infinite replayability rocket it to the top spot. Baldur's Gate 3 is my game of the year.

[cyber-corp]

wow. WOW.

This one was a nutter. Here are some of my favourite moments from the final Doctor Who special, The Giggle

SPOILERS AHEAD

First of all, I underestimated Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker. He is absolutely terrifying and absolutely hilarious all in the scenes he’s in.

The Toymaker was the perfect villain for this special. A unstoppable, petrifying entity that hasn’t been seen since William Hartnell is a very good choice for an anniversary special

The puppets of the past companions were a nice touch, and the Doctor correcting the Toymaker on what actually happened is funny

Furthermore, the Toymaker entering to Spice Up Your Life. RTD saw what Chibnall did with Rasputin and went “OH NO CHIBBIE. DON’T TRY AND OUT-CHEESE ME”

The less-than-subtle political and social allegory through the Toymaker “making everyone’s thoughts superior”, which kind of shook me a little bit with how accurate it was.

Mel!!!! Melmelmelmelmelmel!!!!! Never really knew her in the Classic Series, but she is absolutely wonderful in this episode 🥕

Donna utilising her typing skills as Best Temp in Chiswick

Fourteen’s last words were probably going to be “Allons-y” which is the complete opposite of “I don’t want to go”. Please ignore me while I go cry in a corner

Bi-regeneration? Okay???

NCUTIIIIIII GATWA IS HEEEERE EVERYBODY!!!! HIS SMILE COULD CURE SO MANY DISEASES!!!!!! AND HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY PANTS OOOOOOON

Three guys play with balls

Fifteen giving Fourteen/Ten a hug was my all-time favourite moment from these specials. Someone finally tells the Doctor “Hey man. Slow down.” and that the only person that could tell him is him

The Doctor finally talks about the planet where you communicate with your eyebrows, as mentioned 53 years ago in Spearhead in Space

The Fourteenth/Tenth Doctor finally settles down with people he loves. A satisfying ending to a once tortured character.

Meanwhile the Fifteenth Doctor goes off on his own adventure, ready for a new era of this show.

This was absolutely fantastic, and it also made me cry the most out of all the specials (unsurprisingly). Everything in this episode felt right, and it feels like RTD has been planning something like this for quite some time. A proper end to David Tennant as the Doctor.

Fifteen’s era is going to be amazing!!!!

[soleminisanction]

So. What actually happened between Secret and Spoiler?

The meat of this story goes down in Young Justice (1998) #30.

Taking place sometime shortly after the YJ crew returns from their adventures in space with Doiby Dickles, the story proper opens with a scene of Steph trying to follow Tim home to find out his identity and getting caught to establish that tension in their current dynamic for anyone who wasn't also reading Robin at the time.

As a refresher, when they decided to date (which was a couple of publishing years back at this point, during the events leading up to No Man's Land) Tim had tried to talk Steph out of it because he couldn't tell her his secret identity and he didn't think that was fair. Steph had responded with, quote, "I don't care about any of that, Robin. I just want to be with you." But she'd recently decided she wasn't happy with that arrangement after all and had been sneaking around trying to learn his identity behind his back.

This issue is very cathartic to me because it's one of the only times she's called out for violating her boyfriend's privacy, which starts here:

Couple of things to make note of here: Greta's not attacking Steph. We'd previously seen what it looks like when she uses her billowing clouds of angry smoke to attack (against Harm and the Pointmen, for example), and that's not what's happening here, she's just really pissed off. Steph is the one who escalates the whole thing to violence with that kick.

And while there is an element of jealousy here -- Secret did follow Robin home to get a look at his girlfriend -- the thing that's set her off isn't seeing Steph with Robin, it's learning of and seeing her self-centered justifications for her plans to continue trying to violate his boundaries. Which, it should also be noted, is something that Secret could do much more easily, but chooses not to. So it probably just pisses her off even more to learn that her crush is dating someone who'd disrespect him like that.

So they take it outside.

Where Greta, despite her anger, is almost certainly holding back because... yeah, let's face it, Steph doesn't actually stand a chance in this match-up. She has no powers, she hasn't even trained with Cass at this point; I don't know where she got that grenade but she's otherwise working with like a red belt in strip mall aikido and a bunch of gear she probably bought out of the back of a magazine. Secret is a sentient hellportal, a conduit between the realms of the living and the dead. She's pissed off, but she's still mostly focused on calling Steph out with her words rather than physically harming her.

Which Steph responds to with, again, a grenade and... this:

Why yes, that sword does come out of nowhere for a single panel and then vanishes into the ether, never to be explained or mentioned again. I find that hilarious. I suspect the script just said "Spoiler cuts the power lines" and left Todd Nauck to figure out how that worked.

But uh, speaking of how that worked -- in Greta's defense for how she'll behave later on in this post, Steph just clearly tried to kill her first. Like. I assume that any grenade a Bat is carrying around isn't so high-powered that it's actually going to hurt somebody if thrown at them directly so for all my joking I'll give her a pass for that, but the power lines?

Steph, of course, has no way of knowing that electricity is Greta's weakness, let alone that it's a trauma trigger for her. But she also has no way of knowing that Greta isn't an average metahuman teenager who would just, y'know, die from being hit with several hundred to several thousand volts of electricity. Which is part of a trend in Steph's characterization -- she's always had a tendency to make rash, dangerous decisions like this and only consider the ramifications after the consequences smack her in the face.

And once again, this is Steph's escalation; Greta only lets loose after Steph tries to low-key murder her. But I did say in my previous post that she was explicitly trying not to kill Steph here, right? That's because she's not:

"Oh," she says, directly to Steph's face. "I'm not going to kill you, but you're going to wish I had!"

The issue ends with Tim giving the girls a lecture about trust that... honestly, doesn't actually make much sense, but it's only there to set up the bullshit Bruce would soon pull in Robin to wrap up the whole Steph-and-Tim's-secret-identity subplot.

Instead, I'll just take this moment to point out that these two pages are the only part that anyone besides Steph and Greta themselves actually saw: Steph, overpowered and running like bugger all while a furious Greta hunted her down. Tim and Red Tornado don't have any other context for this encounter, and anyone else hearing about it would have even less.

We should also probably address the question of whether Greta was actually trying to hurt Steph here and: no, I don't think she was. Not physically, anyway. I think when she tells Reddy that she "just wanted to scare" Steph, she was telling the truth. Which, mind you, means she was going to dump her into a terrifying hell dimension and give her a repeated taste of her own mortality. But it wouldn't have hurt her; it didn't hurt the gang when they teleported through it in issue 19. And, frankly, between this issue and the shit Steph pulls over the course of the Robin issues around this subplot... I think she deserved it.

I never said I wasn't a hater.

Now, to be fair, Steph has no way to know this. She doesn't know Greta, and she doesn't have a reason to think kindly of her. And like I mentioned, it's an important part of Greta's storyarc that her powers and her connection to death makes her friends suspicious of her, and that suspicion sadly drives her to Darksied.

Which is why I'm inclined to think that their next encounters, brief as they are, are deliberately framed. First in issue 50:

And then in issue 54, during the storyline where Secret has allied herself with Darksied:

This leads into Greta basically eating Steph for reasons that don't actually have to do with their conflict -- she's already eaten the D.E.O., ie, the people who held her prisoner, and would continue to eat, it's implied, everyone on Earth except the members of Young Justice, saving them for last as we come to climax of the story. That probably counts as "trying to kill Steph" so technically speaking Greta has tried to kill Steph once, it just wasn't the time everybody thinks about or in a jealous rage. It wasn't personal at all, she was just part of a checklist.

The important bit I wanted to focus on was Steph and Tim's descriptions of their past encounter, and the fact that Greta calls it an exaggeration. With that context, I'm inclined to think that "almost killed me in a jealous rage" is the way that Steph framed their story to other people, not necessarily because she was trying to manipulate anybody, but because that's how she, Stephanie, internalized and interpreted the event.

Because Steph, demonstrably, doesn't think she was doing anything wrong. If she wants something, like her boyfriend's secret identity, or whatever, she will come up with excuses and justifications why she should get to have it ("He's testing me! He wants me to figure it out!" etc.) and no one can change her mind. So it's inconceivable to her that this person who clearly has a crush on her boyfriend would actually be mad at her for the reason they say they're mad at her; clearly, to her, Secret was jealous, and therefore Secret must have been the aggressor. Plus, she was big and scary and Steph (to be fair) had no way of knowing that Greta was mostly just having trouble keeping her emotions under control.

And because nobody else saw what went down between them, people were more inclined to believe Steph's story over Greta's, partially because Greta was clearly the overpowering victor when Red Tornado and Robin arrived on the scene, and partially because Greta's powers mean people, even her friends, tend to be suspicious of her, which is a key point in her personal, rather tragic storyarc.

---

So, to summarize, because I know this has gotten rambly: Greta followed Steph home to investigate her and was angered by her violating Robin's privacy. Steph escalated their dispute into violence, and then further into attacks that could be perceived as lethal until she bit off more than she could chew. Robin and Red Tornado, arriving at the tail end of the fight, only saw the much more powerful Secret overwhelming normal human Spoiler and were therefore more inclined to believe Steph's version of the story which, naturally, framed her as the victim and Greta as the aggressor, when it was in actuality a more even fight fueled by anger rather than jealousy.

[mushiemellows]

On Rivd and AI

So last night I made this post and said I'd elaborate more in the morning and when I had the time to do a bit of research. Upon doing said research, I realized that I had misunderstood the concerns being raised with the Rivd situation, but that isn't the case any more. However, some of my thoughts on ai still stand. Heads up, this is going to be a long post. Some actual proper blogging for once wow.

I'm going to discuss the Rivd phishing scam, what can be done for fic writers as ai begins to invade fan spaces, and my elaborated thoughts on Language Learning Models. Warning for transparency: I did utilize chat gpt for this post, NOT for the text itself but to provide examples of the current state of LLMs. Some articles I link to will also be ai generated, and their generated quality is part of what I'll be warning about. This is not a generated post and you can tell because I've got those nifty writing things called "voice" and "style."

ANYWAYS:

Okay so what was the Rivd situation? So two days ago this post was uploaded on tumblr, linking back to a twitter thread on the same topic. I saw it late last night because I was traveling. A reddit post was also uploaded 3 days ago. According to google trends, there was a slight uptick in search traffic the week of June 23rd, and a more severe uptick last week (June 30th-July 6th). That's all to say, this website did not exist until last week, caused a stir, and immediately was put down.

Rivd is not longer up. Enough people contacted its web hosting service Cloudflare and they took the site down. This happened yesterday, from the looks of it.

So, then, what was Rivd? And more importantly, what was the point of scraping a chunk of ao3 and re-uploading it? There seems to be 2 possible theories.

1) The more innocent of the two: they genuinely want to be an ao3 competitor. I can't look at the website any more, and very little positive results appear when googled, but I did find one ai-generated puff piece called "Exploring Rivd: The Premier Platform for Movie-Based Fanfiction" posted to Medium last week by one "Steffen Holzmann" (if that is your real name... x to doubt). This account appeared the same week that Rivd had that first little uptick in google queries, so it is undoubtedly made by the people running the website themselves to create an air of legitimacy. Medium appears to be a safe enough website that you can click that link if you really want to, but you shouldn't. It's a bad generated article, there's very little to glean from it. But it is a remnant source on what Rivd was claiming to be, before it was taken down. Here's the conclusion from the article, the only portion that gave any actual information (and it barely offers any):

Rivd is the ultimate platform for movie-based fanfiction, offering a diverse range of content, a supportive community, and robust interactive features. Whether you’re a writer looking to share your work or a reader seeking new adventures in your favorite movie universes, Rivd provides the perfect platform to engage with a passionate and creative community. Start your journey on Rivd today and immerse yourself in the world of fanfiction.

There's a second article by Holzmann titled "Mastering the Art of Fanfiction Writing in 2024" that's essentially similar ai bull, but trades explaining that fans can write Star Wars fic for explaining that you can make OC's and maybe get a beta (not that that's advice I've ever heeded. Beta? Not in this house we don't.) This was posted six days ago and similarly spends half the time jerking Rivd off. That's all to say, if they are to be believed at face value, this website wanted to just be a fic hosting site. Scraping Ao3 would have made it seem like there was already an active user base for anyone they were attempting to attract, like buying your first 50,000 instagram followers. Anyone actually looking to use this as a fic site would have quickly realized that there's no one on it and no actual fan engagement. There's already fan community spaces online. This website offers nothing ao3 or ffn or wattpad or livejournal or tumblr or reddit didn't already.

Similarly, it reeks of tech bro. Between the scraping and the ai articles, the alarms are already going off. According to that Reddit thread, they were based out of Panama, though that doesn't mean much other than an indicator that these are the type of people to generate puff articles and preemptively base their business off-shore. Holzmann, it should be mentioned, also only has 3 followers, which means my tiny ass blog already has more reach than him. Don't go following that guy. The two comments on the first article are also disparaging of Rivd. This plan didn't work and was seen right through immediately.

If fan communities, and those who write fic know anything, it's how to sniff out when someone isn't being genuine. People write fic for the love of the game, at least generally. It's a lot of work to do for free, and it's from a place of love. Ao3 is run on volunteers and donations. If this genuinely is meant to be a business bro website to out-compete ao3, then they will be sorely disappointed to learn that there's no money in this game. It would be short lived anyway. A website like this was never going to work, or if it was, it would need to ban all copyrighted and explicit materials. You know, the pillars of fic.

So then what was the point of all of this? Unless there was a more nefarious plan going on.

2) Rivd was a phishing scam. This is so so so much more likely. The mark for the scam isn't fic readers, it's fic writers. Here's how it works: they scrape a mass of ao3 accounts for their stories, you catch it, you enter a lengthy form with personal info like your full name and address etc. requesting they take your work down, they sell your data. Yes, a lot of personal info is required to take copyrighted materials down on other sites, too. That's what makes it a good scam. Fic already sits in a legal grey area (you have a copyright over your fic but none of the characters/settings/borrowed plot within it. You also CANNOT make money off of fic writing). So the site holds your works ransom, and you can't go to Marvel or Shueisha or fuck it the ghost of Ann Rice herself to deal with this on your behalf. Thankfully, enough people were able to submit valid DMCA's to Cloudflare to deal with the issue from the top.

Remember this resolution for the next time this situation arises (because of course there will be a next time). Go through higher means rather than the site itself. These scams are only getting more bold. Me personally? I'm not going to give that amount of personal info to a website that shady. Be aware of the warning signs for phishing attacks. Unfortunately, a lot of the resources online are still around text/email phishing. We live in a time where there's legal data harvesting and selling, and illegal data harvesting and selling, and the line in between the two is thin and blurry. Here's an FTC article on the signs of phishing scams, but again, it's more about emails.

I should note, I do not think that Rivd is connected to the ransomware virus of the same name that popped up two or three years ago [link is to Rivd page on PCrisk, a cypersecurity/anti-malware website]. It's probably just coincidence.... but even so. A new business priding itself on SEO and all that tech guy crap should know not to name itself the same thing as a literal virus meant to scam out out of a thousand dollars.

That's all to say, this was absolutely a scam meant to take personal info from ao3 writers. And that blows. To love art and writing and creation so much just to have your works held hostage over data feels really bad. Of course it does!

So, should you lock down your ao3 account?

That, to me, is a little trickier. You can do as you please, of course, and you should do what makes you feel safest. Me personally, though, I don't plan on it. I really, really like that guests can interact with my work from the outside. Ao3 still uses an invite system, so a lot of regular users still don't have accounts for any number of reasons. I read a lot of the time logged out anyways. I started writing again last year after all the info on the ao3 Language Learning Model training had already come out. Like I talked about in my last post, I set out to write things that a computer couldn't produce. (from here on out, I'm going to be using One Piece fic as an example, simply because that's what I write. It's also in a really prime position for a lot of ai discussion due to the size of the fandom and the size of the original work)

I'm going to be honest, I'm not all that afraid of my work being scraped for LLMs to train off of. Text generators have existed for a decade now, but they really popped off last year. LLM's are at a point, though, where the tech is sort of stagnating after the initial boom. The flaws of current ai chat bots are so baked into the flaws of ai itself that they won't be ironed out soon. They make up info, they're easily manipulated, they simply are not people. The flaw here is deep- you can trace it to the fact that we don't know enough about neuroscience itself, and even then neuroscientists don't make ai. Ai programers do. Complex info already has to make one synaptic jump without losing any understanding from person to person, and then it has to be perfectly abstracted for a machine to comprehend. It can't be done with the tools we currently have. I DO hate to admit it, but there are some decent uses for ai. if you are specifically a python programmer. The rest of us? Maybe not.

I don't like generated fic, I don't read it on principle. Checking on ao3, though, there's only 4 total generated op fics (3 in spanish, one in english, 3 xreader, 1 zosan but 2nd person zosan? and the author edited the framework the computer generated text. I still didn't enjoy the fic, tho.) But that breaks down to .005% of all op fics. I went into chat gpt and asked it to generate a drabble for me based on One Piece, and this is what it wrote:

[Image ID: A screenshot of chat GPT. The first line shows my prompt. It reads: You- write me a short 100 word fanfiction based on the manga One Piece. Next line, Chat GPT- "On the shores of an uncharted island, the Straw Hat Pirates stumbled upon a hidden treasure trove. Among the glittering gold and jewels, Luffy discovered an old, weathered journal. Inside, he found sketches and notes detailing the adventures of a legendary pirate who once roamed the Grand Line. Excited by the prospect of a new adventure, the crew set sail. following clues left in the journal. Along the way, they faced formidable foes and forged new alliances, unraveling the mysteries of the lost pirate's legacy. With each island they conquered, they grew closer to uncovering the ultimate treasure- a legacy that would shape their own journey." End ID]

Okay so like, this blows, yeah? 75,000 One Piece fics to train off of on ao3 and it still can't like, write a decent little story. This reads more like an episode summary or a book dust jacket blurb. Drabbles have an internal structure that make them interesting, much like a single sentence short story. You have to get very baby shoes never worn with them, yeah? Ai doesn't understand that, it just knows how many words it has to generate. It doesn't have any sense for creative language, metaphor, simile, poetry. I asked it to write me a poem and it wrote me the same poem with thesaurus replacements each time it re-generated one. A lot about dreams and stars and midnight and whispers, over and over again. The same rhyme scheme and cadence too.

It's also- vitally- so unhorny that it's almost a crime. For a test, I asked it to generate a story about a uhhhhh robot and an archeologist kissing. Just to see what it would give me. I ran 4 tests, a robot falling in love with an archeologist, a robot kissing an archeologist, an archeologist kissing a robot, and an archeologist falling in love with a robot. All 4 were incredibly chaste, quiet little drabbles about the innocence of discovery or whatever the fuck. Here's one of them:

[Image ID: A screenshot of chat GPT. The first line shows my prompt. It reads: You- write me a short 100 word story about an archeologist kissing a robot. Next line, Chat GPT- "Int he dimly lit chamber, Professor Evelyn Porter stared in awe at the ancient artifact- a remarkably lifelike robot buried for millennia. As she leaned closer to examine its intricacies, a surge of curiosity and admiration swept over her. In a moment of spontaneous fascination, she brushed her lips against the cool metal of its cheek, a gesture of reverence and connection across ages. The robot, dormant for eons, stirred faintly in response to the unexpected contact. It was fleeting, almost surreal exchange between past and future, bridging the gap between human exploration and technological marvels of ancient civilizations." End ID]

So like, some of these phrases gets to what's vaguely intriguing about this dynamic, sure. But at the end of the day it's still uhhhh chaste as hell. A reverent kiss??? Not what I want in my fic!!!! This is all to say, LLM's can scrape ao3 all they want, that doesn't mean they can USE what they're stealing. The training wheels have to stay on for corporate palatability. I'm stealing, I'm taking these dolls out of Shueisha's grubby hands and I'm making them sexy kiss for FREE.

In my opinion, the easiest way to keep your work out of the hands of ai is to write something they cannot use. If the grey area of copyright lies in how much is transformed, then motherfucking TRANSFORM it. Write incomprehensible smut. Build surreal worlds. Write poems and metaphors and flush out ideas that a computer could never dream of. Find niches. Get funky with it. Take it too far. and then take it even farther. Be a little freaking weirdo, you're already writing fic so then why be normal about it, you know? Even if they rob you, they can't use it. Like fiber in the diet, undigestible. Make art, make magic.

Even so, I don't mind if the computer keeps a little bit of my art. If you've ever read one of my fics, and then thought about it when you're doing something else or listening to a song or reading a book, that means something I made has stuck with you just a little bit. That;'s really cool to me, I don't know you but I live in your brain. I've made you laugh or cry or c** from my living room on the other side of the world without knowing it. It's part of why I love to write. In all honesty, I don't mind if a computer "reads" my work and a little bit of what I created sticks with it. Even if it's more in a technical way.

Art, community, fandom- they're all part of this big conversation about the world as we experience it. The way to stop websites like Rivd is how we stopped it this week. By talking to each other, by leaning on fan communities, by sending a mass of DMCA's to web host daddy. Participation in fandom spaces keeps the game going, reblogging stuff you like and sending asks and having fun and making art is what will save us. Not to sound like a sappy fuck, but really caring about people and the way we all experience the same art but interpret it differently, that's the heart of the whole thing. It's why we do this. It's meant to be fun. Love and empathy and understanding is the foundation. Build from there. Be confident in the things you make, it's the key to having your own style. You'll find your people. You aren't alone, but you have to also be willing to toss the ball back and forth with others. It takes all of us to play, even if we look a little foolish.

[lifewithchronicpain]

Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM). (That explanation was probably not necessary for the majority of readers here, but just to be thorough.) The game has just celebrated its 50th anniversary, which was even commemorated by official US stamps.

The game certainly has a very different reputation today than it did in the 70s and 80s. Back then it was seen as the exclusive domain of extreme geeks and nerds, mostly males who needed a distraction from the fact that they had no chance of finding a girlfriend. This was never true, but that was the reputation. In the 80s things got even worse, with D&D being tied to the “satanic panic” of that decade. The game was blamed, mostly by fundamentalist religious groups, for demon worship, witchcraft, and resulting in suicides and murder. I still remember when the school board in our town had a debate about whether or not the game should be banned from school grounds. The adults having the conversation had literally no idea what they were talking about, and filled the gaps in their knowledge with their own vivid imaginations.

In reality D&D and similar roleplaying games are perfectly wholesome and have a lot of positive attributes. First, they are extremely social. They are especially good for people who may find social interactions challenging or at least very demanding. While roleplaying you are in a social safe-space, where you can let aspects of your personality out to play. The game is also mostly pure imagination. Other than a few aids, like dice for random outcome generation, maps and figures, the adventure takes place in the minds of the players, helped along by the GM. The game can therefore help people develop social connections and social skills, and to learn more about themselves and close friends. (Read more at link)

When I was a teen I didn’t have enough local friends to play D&D but it was the internet of the early aughts and so I joined a chat RP based on the Dragonlance world and learned to freelance RP. I did eventually do an actual proper campaign with a DM once but it was also a chat room so I’ve never had the table top experience. Anyone I met who played it IRL had a set group or lived too far away. :/ Eventually I left RPing behind for cosplay and conventions. Both groups teaming with my fellow autistics.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Alex Eagleston is insufferable:

literally causes the end of the world by being The Absolute Worst and has done so multiple times including his alternate selves. he technically has three (and a half) love interests (cause theyre the only characters he can/attempt to kiss or express any attraction to) and he treats them all poorly first three vella sammy and essentia 2000 are cause hes a misogynist but they all get different flavors of it sammy gets fridged for the plot of the game and is basically never relevant again outside of a secret(?) ending. shes also based off of a real life dead person for no fucking reason. vella is subjected to weird speculation about her age in her introduction scene with alex saying something along the lines of she cant be older than him cause shes too pretty (alex is like 24 and vella 27 from what i recall its been a few years since ive thought about yiik) and has a weird internal monologue about his feminist ex girlfriend prompted by vella just existing. theres a weird scene when alex asks her if shes korean n says she looks vaguely ethnic making her uncomfortable. One Of His Alternate Selves Literally Caused Her To Leave Her Home Dimension Cause Of How Poorly He Treated Her and the context behind that is that to leave the world/timeline/dimension/whatever you're originally from you basically have to be super suicidal and he pushed her to that point by ghosting her for a while and next time vella saw him he was hooking up with a girl noticably younger than her (<- remember this) and immediately after being told this he can attempt to kiss her which has no actual repercussions. essentia 2000 is like technically supposed to be evil i guess but her goal is supposed to be killing alex so i cant fault her on that. the in game day after they first meet alex has like a monologue about how special and attractive she is ""she was like water filling all my cracks"" or some shit. all three girls are alternates of eachother and are on a sliding scale of how objectified they are by alex with who got it the worst depending on which aspect you're focusing on. other sort of love interest is rory (diversity loss!) who alex can attempt to kiss after he confides in him about something when rory is like 18-19 (hes meant to be about the same age as michael whos recently graduated high school) and depending on how alex treats him can literally kill himself and alex's reaction to learning this is to only focus on how terrible he feels before moving on n rory's death never being mentioned again. the whole point of the game is that alex is a piece of shit who cant even buy groceries for his mom without throwing a hissy fit about it but it undermines itself constantly by having characters forgive or just stop being mad at alex on a dime after hes been exceedingly shitty towards them in various ways and any sort of charm or endearing traits he had quickly wearing off due to him never shutting the fuck up. near the end of the game all the other party members are killed off in quick succession leaving alex by himself and all he can do is sulk in self pity before going on a space adventure or whatever to stop an alternate him thats linked to an alternate essentia and enlisting the player as a different alternate him to help fight various superficial flaws of himself (which arent even like the actual things that make him insufferable n a bad person) n then finish the job for him. i need to punt him into the sun

He constantly goes on annoying monologues about things that nobody cares about. In game he is meant to be kind of an asshole, but they never give him the necessary character development to make him feel like a proper flawed protagonist, yet the narrative makes him out to be a character who is ""deep down a good guy"". Also he doesn't seem to care about any of his friends/party members.

"""YIIK"" is a poorly written, irony-poisoned RPG using a real life actual unsolved murder as the basis for an inciting event, altered so that what happened to the victim was some ~scary supernatural stuff~ and also Alex was there being vaguely misogynistic the whole time and monologuing to no-one in a way no real human person thinks uncritically.

The game intends to paint Alex as a bad person, but this is implemented in such a snide and uninteresting manner which has nothing to actually say about him being this way, nor is it at all fun or entertaining to experience.

He has no idea what's going on, blindly following the plot with the vague motivation of being suddenly stricken with affection for a girl he basically called a freak as soon as he met her five minutes ago. He is self-absorbed, lazy and overconfident, constantly bemoaning and ignoring the needs and feelings of others. He is the only character given enough breathing space to have something to him, and yet manages to not even feel any sort of dimensional.

Also his shirt is an ad for the dev's last game.

An incel who always screams about everything and yet is overly pretentious about everything.

Propaganda why Scott Pilgrim is insufferable:

He is not a good person. He doesn’t take other people’s feelings into consideration. He mooches off his one real friend. He’s dating a teenager as a grown ass man. Every girlfriend he’s ever had hates him for good reasons

Stupid idiot

dated a 17 yr old

kind of a cop-out answer since he's like deliberately made to be an annoying person but

[drunkenskunk]

One of these days, I'm going to actually learn how to play Dwarf Fortress.

I was never able to quite get into the "proper" version that you can play for free, and I've been very occasionally fucking around in the Steam version.

Specifically: there is a world I made in the first month of its release, the Realm of Enchanting. Every so often, I'll peruse the Legends mode, or use the embark screen to take billions of screenshots in an attempt to stitch together a massive fucking map of the world without ever actually creating a fortress.

I'm still trying to stitch together the zoomed in version, but I'm not sure I have the patience, attention span, or - let's be honest - disk space for a PNG that fucking enormous.

You may be asking yourself: why don't I just make a fortress in the world? Because the last time I tried to play the game "properly" I ended up wasting a literal year of game time because I forgot to hit pause while trying to figure out how farming works, barely making any progress mining into the mountain so all my dwarfs were in a barely functional communal living area, and all of the animals that came with the caravan died of exposure due to my incompetence.

All that took place in a different world save, and I'm terrified of screwing something up in this one. Like I said, I've been perusing the Legends mode, and I have become strangely invested in a lot of the characters I've been reading about.

Nevermind that the character that first caught my eye and got me going down this pseudo-wikiwalk rabbithole and which made me strangely invested in this particular world save was a necromancer, we'll just gloss over that.

I feel like I'll vibe more with Adventure Mode when it eventually comes to Steam. I'll only have one dwarf to wrangle there instead of Many, and that seems less panic attack inducing on my part.

And besides, if I understand what that game mode is actually like, Adventure Mode will let me explore the forts created by the NPCs, and that might help me figure out how to construct my own forts.

If I ever get around to figuring out how farms work.

[channel-eclair]

rating every major nintendo series on how well i think they'd work as an open world game

Super Mario - Bowser's Fury is an EXCELLENT showing of how this would work, and honestly I want a 3D Mario thats open world! I think it could work well! The only major challenge is having unique enviroments, as many open world games tend to have very standard enviroments. If you can make the world as unique and whimsical as Galaxy or Odyssey, we are absolutely set! Also maybe have like, Yoshis you can customize and ride for transporation. Also remember that Minecraft Mario pack that lets you see the Mario world all big and open? So good. - 9/10!

The Legend of Zelda - ....yeah. Even if you don't like BOTW/TOTK, open world really feels like what Zelda has always been building up to with Ocarina of Time's Hyrule Field and Wind Waker's Great Sea. It's perfect. - 10/10

Animal Crossing - uh...???? uhhhh... I mean like,.. I can imagine maybe, you have a portable camper home and you travel a huge world with every villager somewhere in the world.. but like.. no, no this isn't good. - 3/10

Splatoon - Actually I think more big open enviroments in Splatoon would be REALLY nice! I'd love to have fully inkable huge 3D areas! BUT I would prefer it more in the style of Super Mario 64/Odyssey where its just simple big sandboxes and not a full open world. I'd honestly LOVE a 3D platformer Splatoon spin off - 7/10!

Pokemon - This may be a hot take; but I think open world Pokemon is AMAZING. SV is the first time the games have ever felt like the anime to me honestly, a big open adventure with my dear Pokemon. Seeing a Pokemon Center in the horizon after a lot of battles, finally making it to the nearest town, camping anywhere... its AMAZING and I want more of it! (also while not open world Legends Arceus is a literal masterpiece) - 10/10!

Kirby - Forgotten Land is a masterpiece but lets stick to level by level! I just don't think this would compliment the series well at all tbh. - 5/10

Fire Emblem - Trying to picture this in my head... like... I could imagine Genealogy of the Holy War where the maps are HUGE. Maybe have proper walking around like 3H and SoV and you travel a huge map, and make camps, get into skirmishes, and one battle is literal several in game weeks. It would really capture a good war like feeling. Like some sorta mix between SoV's dungeon roaming and Genealogy's huge maps? I think it'd work great for a FE4 remake but really need specific circumstances elsewhere - 7/10

Pikmin - I actually remember people theorizing Pikmin 4 would be open world! Yknow, I think it could work well! Have spots to move your ship and various bases, and lots of different enviroments you gradually go to.. also, make it so you can get Pikmin types in any order depending on where you can go! I think it could be great, but I don't think I want it over what we have now. - 8/10

Metroid - Nope this would not work this game is supposed to be enclosed and mysterious - 1/10

Kid Icarus - Okay this isn't a major Nintendo series but I'm including it anyways because I think this could translate fun to open world! Like you have the on ground battle gameplay, but you can take flight whenever to explore the world... but if you fly around for 5 minutes, Pit proceeds to PLUMMET to the ground at full speed, leaving you stuck wherever you landed. I actually think it'd work a lot like say, a concept for open world Star Fox or any space game where you can fly around and get out of your ship, but without the stress of having to make tons of planets and instead making towns. I'd still prefer Uprising's style but I wanted to throw out ideas - 7/10!

[sixofravens-reads]

re: 2023 new releases. hope you're ready for a long message because there were a lot.

hot new releases/things that were relatively popular

He Who Drowned The World, Shelley Parker Chan (Chinese mythological historical, very gay, very stabby a la Baru Cormorant. Book 2 of 2. A particular favorite of mine from this year)

Witch King, Martha Wells (New fantasy book by author of murderbot fame. I didn't actually click with this one but I'd be remiss to leave it off)

House With Good Bones, T Kingfisher (Southern gothic rose horror by the very talented Ursula Vernon)

Translation State, Ann Leckie (high sf alien horror regency romance. Wheeeeee. I had a lot of fun reading this. You can read it as a standalone, but you get deeper context if you've read the ancillary justice series, also highly recommended)

Will of the Many, James Islington (futuristic roman empire aesthetic rigged murder school. Not precisely good but appallingly catchy, I read all six hundred pages in pretty much one sitting. If you liked red rising you'll like this, if you hated red rising you will Not)

OH YEAH THE ACTUAL NEW MURDEBOT NOVEL (System Collapse)

A Power Unbound, Freya Marske (book 3 of 3, magic alt edwardian romances with murder. This is more romance proper but it's about equal with the action plot and Marske is very good. I don't think you've read these so you'd have to start at book 1)

Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (The book that absolutely knocked my socks off, my pick for the best sff release of the year. I forget if I've already told you about this one)

Starling House, Alix Harrow (Southern gothic house drama. Similar feel to Ninth House or The Book of Night)

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty (Divorced lady pirate adventure-drama a la Arabian Nights.)

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (Charming, heavily fairy tale trope themed, vaguely reminiscent of the Lady Trent books)

more obscure new releases from this year that I thought were cool, but not in the Hot New Reads You Can't Miss Because Everyone's Read Them category

Under Fortunate Stars, Ren Hutchings (sf timey wimey space shenanigans with aliens. Immensely cool premise.)

Small Miracles, Olivia Atwater (fallen angel sent to tempt a too good mortal. Extremely charming)

The King Is Dead, Naomi Libicki (vaguely persian flavored fealty romance, very heavy to the fealty. Original, thorny, and intriguing)

The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei (What if we terribly traumatized everyone going on a generation ship by making them go to viciously competitive boarding school together and then act surprised when a murder mystery occurs. Heads up that it's more interested in the human drama than the SF worldbuilding)

The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (early modern fantasy world anti-imperialism fever dream narrated by a cult survivor. Brilliantly written, spectacularly original, one of the best books I read this year)

Things for 2024, content warning for being (obviously) things I haven't read and thus without quality control

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden

The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, P Djeli Clark

Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan

Goddess of the River, Vaishnavi Patel

The Woods All Black, Lee Mandelo

Exordia, Seth Dickinson

A Sorceress Comes To Call, T Kingfisher

Running Close To The Wind, Alexandra Rowland

Wow tumblr just lets me keep writing words. I didn't think they let me have this many in asks. Oh, and pro tip-- keep an eye out for tordotcom's most anticipated upcoming books for the first six months of 2024. They should be publishing it within the next week or so and I always add masses of books to my tbr from there.

oh holy crap, thanks!! I'll have to check these out!

thoughts on a few of em:

He Who Drowned The World - still have to read She Who Became the Sun lol but hopefully I'll get to em next year!

Witch King - Martha Wells has been recced by like All my sci-fi mutuals now lmao I REALLY gotta get into her!

House With Good Bones - THIS ONE IS ACTUALLY ON MY SHELF!! I just didn't fucking read it this year whoops. Very excited for new Kingfisher

Starling House - I was on the fence about this one since I really didn't like Once and Future Witches, but those comparisons give me hope! I'll add it to the library list!

Some Desperate Glory and Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries are 2/3 of the books published in 2023 that I actually managed to read (the 3rd is The Woman in Me lmao), I can't remember if you recc'd Some Desperate Glory, but it was SOOOOOOOO GOOD OMFG

Small Miracles - my aunt has been trying to convince me to read Atwater for quite a while, I'll have to give this one a try!

The Saint of Bright Doors - I have this one on hold!! Saw a post for it a week or so ago and it sounds absolutely delightful!

The Familiar - SO SO EXCITED for this one! I hope Bardugo is maybe...slowly....extricating herself from the Grishaverse and going to write more books not related to it... (not that they're all bad, I loved the Six of Crows duology, I'm just not into it anymore and I reeeealllly like her adult books lol)

Running Close To The Wind - oh yay new Rowland! I still haven't read her last book (the one with the guy on the cover who looked EXACTLY like my boss to the point where it became an Office Meme that [Boss] Is A Gay Romance Cover Model, still meaning to get a UK version of it but haven't yet) but I'll have to look this one up!

[witchywriter18]

Random Sebastian Sallow dating headcannons

Unlike my previous ones, this can apply to any house honestly. F!MC as well.

Must be touching you. He's either holding your hand, has an arm around your waist or shoulder, just anything that invades your personal space. If you're not big on physical affection, he will back off and respect your space. Otherwise, prepare to become joined at the hip with your boyfriend.

I imagine Sebastian's kisses vary on his mood. He's feeling calm, you get sweet gentle kisses. He's feeling a little jealous, very hot searing kisses. Feeling romantic, long passionate kisses.

If you're silently reading together, he'll occasionally just take your hand and give a kiss to the back of it, his eyes not leaving the page he's on. You're also snuggled up to him.

If Sebastian absolutely had to pick one thing that he loved about you, it would be your laugh. You could have the most donkey sounding laugh and he'd still love it. It's what makes you unique.

So if you're sad, he's gonna do anything to hear you laugh again. Doesn't matter if he utterly embarrasses himself in the process, just as long as he gets to hear your wonderful laugh.

Alright, imagine you guys are in potions. For some reason, you're making Amortentia.

To you, it smells like old books, smoke, and freshly turned Earth. Here's my reasoning. The old books because Sebastian always has his nose in a book and spends a good amount of time in the library. Smoke because of his frequent use of Confringo. And the earthy smell because Feldcroft is a farming hamlet so I imagine Sebastian has to work in the fields during the break.

For Sebastian, the potion smells like fresh rain, pine trees, and your favorite sweets from Honeydukes. Rain because it seems like when it does rain, you're always drawn to the window to watch it fall, or drag him outside to dance in it. Pine trees because you're always going into the Forbidden Forest like the adventurous little thing you are. And finally the candy because he actually took you to Honeydukes during your first week at Hogwarts, after the troll attack. He said that you needed a proper day at Hogsmead without a troll.

Dates include trips to Hogsmead, reading in the library, or just walking around the countryside. He actually prefers taking walks in the countryside because he likes being away from everyone else and just having you to himself for a little while. It feels more intimate and romantic to him.

On a scale of 1-10, I'd say Sebastian is a solid 5 or 6 maybe on the jealousy scale? He trusts you completely, just not anyone trying to make a move on you. He'll keep his composure at the start but if the person isn't taking no for an answer and keeps pushing, you'd have to hold him back from casting Confringo on the person.

You both started dating before the relic incident and after killing his uncle, Sebastian distanced himself a little bit, thinking you'd never want to see him again.

When you had had enough of this, you tracked him down, dragged him into the Undercroft, and had a good long talk about the situation.

When you said you still loved him despite the things he's done, poor thing completely broke down. Leading you to wrap him up in a hug, peppering his face with small kisses.

After Anne left to who knows where, you and Sebastian spend the breaks together.

I'm actually not quite sure if MC has family. I've seen some fics have her being from an orphanage and some where she does have family.

So if MC has family, Sebby is coming home with you for school holidays. Parents will absolutely love him.

If MC doesn't have family, you're staying with Sebastian in Feldcroft.

Just make sure our boy isn't left alone in Feldcroft feeling horrible about himself every single second.

Alright, that's enough angst, back to fluff!

During winter break, you're both making a snowman as soon as there's enough snow on the ground.

At least that's how it starts out.

When he's preparing one of the snowballs for the body, he feels a cold and wet substance hit him in the back of the head.

He turns and sees you with a not so innocent smirk on your face.

So chaos ensues with you pelting each other with snowballs.

After a while, you both go inside in a fit of giggles and warm up by the fire with some tea.

If Quiddich came back after year five and Sebastian was on the team, I'm definitely going by popular belief that our boy is a beater.

You bet you're decked out in Slytherin garb as you cheer him on, even if you aren't Slytherin.

He 100% is having you wear his jersey during a victory party or something. Basically another way of flaunting that you're his girl, no one else's.

Alright, I could go on about a relationship with this man but I better stop here.

[dominickeating-source]

TrekGalaxy - "The final frontier has a new beginning." (2001)

Lt. Malcolm Reed: British, male, late twenties. Armoury Officer. In the new age of humanity's enlightenment, Reed is a bit of a throwback. He's a 22nd century 'soldier', all spit and polish and by-the-book. He maintains a rigorous daily schedule; when he isn't on duty, he's working out on a futuristic exercise apparatus he keeps in his quarters, or toiling in the munitions lab, perfecting some new kind of torpedo.

He's the antithesis of our Chief Engineer, Charlie Tucker, who is undisciplined, a 'rebel' of sorts. The two men are frequently at odds. Reed is always trying to expand his weapons inventory, storing munitions in parts of the ship designated to Engineering. Tucker is constantly finding photon grenades cluttering his Jefferies Tubes. There just isn't enough deck space for both men.

Reed is filled with contradictions. Despite his near-obsession with regulations and munitions, he's also soft spoken, shy, and awkward around women.

--From the Official Enterprise Bible

Dominic Keating plays munitions expert Malcolm Reed on Enterprise, the guy responsible for watching the backs of the crew. Reed also goes down in the history books as the man who developed the first hand Phasers for the Star Trek universe. If Keating's face looks familiar to genre fans, it should: the actor has racked up an impressive lists of credits over the past few years with appearances on The Immortals, G vs. E, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Special Unit 2 and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Early one recent moment, trekgalaxy.com caught up with Keating in his Los Angeles home, where the easily-likeable actor shared his wit and insight into this next leg of the Star Trek adventure.

You have a very solid background in the science fiction genre.

It looks that way now, doesn't it?

Can you talk about your relationship with Science Fiction, and how it led you to your role as Malcolm Reed on Enterprise?

It is strange when you think of how much science fiction I've done in recent years. My manager pointed that out to me when we were in the middle of the audition process for Star Trek. He said to me, 'you're so right for this! You've done The Immortals, you've done Poltergeist and Buffy.' I thought, goodness, I suppose he was right in some way! It's not that I specifically set out to do only Sci-Fi, or even Star Trek. It was just another acting gig and another character. But having said that, yeah, I'm perfect for Star Trek when you look at what I've done in the past. I just hope there's a life after Star Trek - and a life in Star Trek, that I'm not just a Sci-Fi actor and that's all I'm going to ever do. 

What is life on Enterprise like for Dominic Keating?

It's very fun. I just love going to work there. It really is the best. I love it all. I came away from work last night, walking through the corridors of Paramount between the stages, and saw the sun setting on the Paramount sign and the famous water tower, and I just had to pinch myself.

So who is Malcolm Reed, and how much of him is Dominic Keating?

Well, ultimately, it's all you, isn't it? (Keating laughs) It's always extensions of you. And yes, I'm taking Malcolm Reed under my wing at the moment, because they haven't quite decided where he's going to go, and how dimensional he's going to be. As he was described in the breakdown when I first heard about the part, I actually thought I wasn't particularly right for it because he was written as being bookish, button-down, a real proper Brit, shy around women. And I'm certainly not shy around women. (Keating laughs) That's really not me. I was talking with Rick Berman when they offered me the part and we were discussing how Malcolm might be and sort of the avenues he might take. I mentioned that when I was in my boarding school in England, at around the age of 17 or 18, I was thinking at that time about not going to University and joining the army. My mother had come from an army family and I'd been a member of the cadet force at my school for several years and had really liked it. Then I told him that soon after that, in training, I drove a tank in Germany - and crashed it!

It's a good thing they didn't make you the pilot on Enterprise!

(Keating laughs) No shit. So that's who I'm taking Reed out of at the moment, me when I was going to join the army. Malcolm is an army man. He's a gun man, and as for the other stuff, the shyness - it's funny when somebody says they saw something of that in you, and if you're truly honest, you can own up to it and say, yes, I can be that way. That's what I'm doing at the moment. It's a very subtle osmosis, where you just start to 'chameleon' into the part. While seeing some of the rushes [daily takes] on the pilot episode we shot, I could sense it. I could see it in my eyes. That's me on the screen, but it's not me.

Can you explain the events that led up to you winning the role of Malcolm Reed?

My manager rang and told me what the part was the night right before the first audition. I'd been playing this very funky role on a new series coming out on Showtime, my hair was all chopped up and sort of funky-punky, and it had just grown out to the point that I could slightly sweep it back a bit. I put my hair back into more of a Star Trek style, put on this little costume that I thought I would wear to the audition - a black v-neck with black pants and a pair of those space-age molded boots that are hip now. And I called my girlfriend through to the bedroom and said, 'look at that - I look very Star Trek.' She went, 'you do!' I kind of got the feeling then.

That's when I had the mental note to tell myself that I could get this. Sure enough, I went in the next day and met Rick and Brannon and the word came back literally the next day that they really liked me for this, and that if I got any other offers for roles, I was to let them know first immediately. It was what they called a 'watch and advise', which got me excited. 

I went in a couple of days later to meet Jim Conway, who was going to direct the pilot, and I think I'd left the office twenty minutes when they rang up my manager to find out how much I cost. I had one more audition with the network. It was pretty painless. I had three auditions in all - it happened in ten or twelve days. There was a brief moment of heart-in-the-mouth, because when I went for the final audition to meet the Paramount execs, as we were walking out of that office, Rick Berman looked at me and said, 'So, Dominic, are you ready for the next seven years?' I went, 'Woah!' then I waited a week for them to contact me. Ron Suma had sort of intimated that I'd gotten the job, but he said it wasn't official until Business Affairs called through to carve things in stone. A week went by where there was some sort of machination at the higher level because the deal between UPN and Paramount hadn't been set [regarding which network would pick up Enterprise]. That was a hard week, I can tell you. Your mind plays tricks with you - like did he really say that to me? Did he really look at me and say seven years? Those seven years are going to go fast!

Yes, I can tell. We're already on episode 4, and it's only just started. 

Just what is happening in the fourth episode of Enterprise?

I can tell you that Trip, the Engineer, is getting pregnant! Make of that what you will. (Keating laughs) The makeup people have already been forewarned. They've been told that he has to have some sort of pregnancy appendage on the side of his torso. Some reptilian species impregnates him, and he's to be the carrier of their alien child. After reading what Charlie Tucker III is like in the series Bible, it doesn't sound like something he's particularly going to enjoy! No, God bless him! (Keating laughs) He'll have breasts on his forearms. The guy will never want to go out of the house again! Previous Starships were armed with photon torpedoes and Phaser banks. 

Enterprise is outfitted with missiles?

You're asking the wrong person - I just press the button! (Keating laughs) I don't know if they're photon torpedoes or a different kind of missile. I knew it was going to come to this - you've found me out. (Keating laughs). They're gray, and yes, they're actual projectiles. Remember that we're going back in time with this series, so we're shooting missiles. They're actual metal projectiles that come out of torpedo tubes on the ship. But of interest, I have the supreme Honor of actually introducing Phase pistols for the very first time in the pilot. They have two settings - stun and kill - and it would be best not to confuse them! For the rest of history, you will be the guy who created Phasers! Tell me! It's very exciting.

There is a really creepy villain introduced in the pilot 'Broken Bow' called the Suliban. What can you tell us about them?

They can seep through anything, as it were. You know, I never actually saw one of them, now that I think of it. I did fire at an 'imaginary' one on the planet Rigel in the pilot episode while rescuing the captain, but it was added in later as special effects, so I never actually got to see one. I've read in the script, though, that they have the ability to be like chameleons, to take on backgrounds that they're standing in front of our clinging to, whether it's fabricated metal or balsa wood or whatever it may be. And they can seep through anything - literally - air ducts, keyholes, whatever.

So they are a mix of live action actors and special effects?

They have actors playing them. But the Suliban's antics are computer generated.

What would Star Trek fans be surprised to know about Dominic Keating?

I watched the original series as a child growing up in Leicester, and I loved it. I have lasting memories of the fried eggs falling on Spock's shoulders [in the episode 'Operation: Annihilate!']. Those episodes were fabulous. I did look at The Next Generation a little out of professional interest, because it had a British actor,

Patrick Stewart, who came to America to do it. Also that I'm an absolute golf freak. I adore golf. I live for golf. And now I live for Star Trek - which will allow me to play golf for a very long time to come!

I hesitate to use the term typical, because how many people get the chance to spend a day in outer space, but what is one of your days like on the set of Enterprise?

As an actor, it's a typical day on the set in a way. Being on a set is like being in the army. It's very regimented. It has a certain way and an only way of doing things, and therefore, everybody knows that they're all on the same page when they are doing what they are doing on a film set. There is that aspect of it. It's exactly the same on any film set wherever you go in that you know exactly what to expect. Now, with a Sci-Fi show like Star Trek in a franchise as powerful as it is that has the money it has to create a playground for actors to act in, it's second to none. It's extraordinary. The first day that I stood on the bridge set of the Enterprise, as I took a step up, I let my foot hover just momentarily over it because it was going to be the first step onto that playground. I let it all just soak in. The sets are amazing. I was on Stage 8 yesterday - I wasn't even in this scene, but the others were on this Nirvana planet, and in four days, the set designers completely changed Stage 8 into something complete with redwoods and trees and grassy brooks and I just had to walk through it for myself. It was really another world on a soundstage at Paramount Studios.

Star Trek sets are amazing!

You should see my armory. When I walked onto that set, it really touched me that they spent all this time and money building this space for me.

So is the Armory your main hangout on the ship?

Actually my main hangout is on the bridge. I'm there making sure everything's going swimmingly from my command post near the captain. But yes, you'll find me in the Armory over time, because they wouldn't have bothered building this beautiful and extensive set for just a few scenes. That's where the gray missiles are housed.

At this early stage, what is your relationship with your fellow cast mates like?

They suck and I can't stand them. (Keating laughs). I'm not kidding! And you can quote that. No, they're fantastic. We've all gelled very quickly. I'm sure we'll be friends forever. We have a very good understanding that if you've been with each other for five days and for fifteen hours every day solid, perhaps we don't want to call each other on weekends right now. But when we're actually there, we just have a ball. We are laughing all the time. It really is fabulous. And I'd like to give a heads-up to Scott Bakula, because as our captain and as the star of our show, he really has unwittingly set the precedence of being a terrific gent on the top of the show. That's got to have a really good trickle down or rush down effect on the rest of us. Scott doesn't even know that he's such a nice guy and such an actor's actor. He is there every step of the way. He's not a starry star who withers off camera, the kind that won't read lines with you. He's a proper guy.

Isn't he amazing in that he can jump from being a time-traveling scientist on Quantum Leap to the gay next-door neighbor in American beauty to being the captain of a starship so effortlessly?

He's an actor's actor, that's what I say. He has to have a time machine or some painting up in an attic somewhere that's getting very old because he looks better now than he did ten years ago on Quantum Leap.

He's extraordinary, isn't he? He's a very handsome man. I was watching a Quantum Leap the other day. You can discernibly see that there is some aging process that's happened with him, but it's not that he's older. He's more knowing now. I don't know how old he is - he's over forty - but he looks damn good for it.

Maybe Star Trek has something that injects youthfulness!

It might be that we all know we're going to be employed for seven years! That will take a few stress lines off you! I know I'm a lot calmer than I used to be. (Keating laughs)

So who is the clown of the cast?

I guess that would be me. We all have a good clown-around. We all egg each other on. The first couple of weeks, the thing that got us howling was the 'shaking' when our characters went through meteorite storms or were hit by some other projectile. Some of us shook better than others, let's say. 'What are you doing over there? Are you shaking, or do you have to go to the Loo?' (Keating laughs). Jolene [Blalock, 'T'Pol'] set herself up as the ace-shaker, but she was shot down in flames, let me tell you.

Jolene Blalock is a hoot - and she's lovely.

Yes, she's adorable.

Now that Enterprise is the lone standard bearer for the Star Trek franchise, are you aware how critical its success is, and what do you plan to do to make it unique?

Yes, I am aware. I got up to speed on the Star Trek franchise when I was cast and have a good sense of what mantle it is we're carrying. You know, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are very smart, and just the very fact that they haven't put Star Trek in the title of this series is really smart, that they are now preparing an audience, and a loyal audience, for the fact that the franchise is moving on. And although it had its roots way back in the original series, it's now becoming its own life form. It's now becoming just Enterprise. You know, if one word could say Star Trek as well, that's it. I would imagine that the next seven years after our seven years won't have anything to do with what's come before.

But it will have a harking back to what we're doing now, and everything that's already been done. What can I do to insure that? To show up every day knowing my lines, having thought about how creative I can be today, and to not take any of it for granted. The minute you show up to work on a show thinking that you know it all and you have it all down, you're lazy, and I think audiences can see it. It has to be fun for us as well, and I really can't see when it won't be, even after seven years. The writing is so new and fresh - I don't know how they come up with these ideas. Even to put Trip in a pregnant position is perfect! I mean, the minute you hear that you say, 'well that's just fucking fantastic!' And high marks to them. It makes my job easy. But that's my commitment, that I keep it fresh so the audience will enjoy Enterprise.

Source: www.dominickeating.com

[ahgasegotarmy116]

Falling for You | Choi Yeonjun

Summary: You like Yeonjun, and he knows it. But what happens when you figure out he just might like you too? Pairing: f!reader Noona x Yeonjun, f2l (age gap 2 or 3 years, take your pick lol) Word Count: 3.6k a/n: I am so so so so so sorry to my anon that sent this a while ago! I hope it was worth the wait <3 p.s. not edited well because I was happy I finished it and wanted to post it asap! Let me know what you think!~

"I didn't know you were such an adrenaline junkie" Yeonjun says while fastening my harness and pulling the straps tighter, making sure everything is secure. "Why do you say that?" I ask, ultimately knowing but not wanting to admit it. "Well you've been here like 4 time since I started working here and I just started last month" he says laughing at what he probably believes is my clueless nature. "I don't know, it's exhilarating. Plus it was my first time so I don't know I guess I've been addicted ever since" I finish off getting a bit defensive but ultimately it's the truth. 

"You know, in another context that could sound really dirty" he teases making my cheeks heat up. "Yeonjun!" I scold hitting his arm, looking around to make sure no one had heard him. "What? Am I wrong?" he says, clearly loving my reaction. "No you're not but aren't you supposed to be acting professional while at work?" I question, crossing my arms over my chest. He ended up getting a job at an adventure park with bungie jumping, sky diving and zip lining, amongst other not so extreme activities.   

"Yeah but I don't need to act professional in front of you because you're my friend right?" he laughs, making excuses for himself. "Yes we're friends but still!" I argue, "Aw are you getting shy?" he teases, tilting his head at me. "You wish" I say scoffing at him, fed up with his cocky attitude already. Deep down though he knows I'm loving this...and that's the dangerous part. 

I like Yeonjun, and he knows that. I've liked him for years but we've never actually addressed it and he hasn't acted on it. Which pretty much shows me he doesn't feel the same way. So this is what we do, I act like I can't stand him but go out of my way to not so subtly be around him. Where as he does everything in his power to tease me until he gets a reaction out of me. Which honestly isn't very hard when it comes to him. 

That's been our friendship dynamic for years now and I don't want to mess that up, even if it means that we can't be together the way I want us to. "You ready to go? You know the drill so if you're all set I'll get you hooked up" he says referring to the zip lining contraption. You know, I might've been here multiple times already but I still don't know any of the proper terminology besides harness and carabiner, the latter being one Yeonjun had made fun of me for calling it 'the clippy thing' just today.

"As ready as I'll ever be" I say taking everything in. "Hey, you've done this before so don't let it psych you out" he says in a softer tone, placing a hand on my chin and pulling my face back over to his, my eyes now focusing on the floor not wanting to make eye contact with him. "Eyes on me Pretty" he says and I snap my eyes up to his but take a step back when I start choking on air. 

"Cute" he chuckles at me before bringing me back over to get hooked onto the zip line. I walk with him and let him drag me along, still caught off guard by the pet name and end up overthinking and spacing out until I get to the front of the line. "Oh hello again!" the girl that works on getting people ready to go on the line says. We've spoken a few times and she seems really nice but sometimes I get a bit insecure seeing her interactions with Yeonjun. 

"Hey!" I respond, still kind of unsure if I want to do this again. "Hey!" Yeonjun yells over to me, "Just close your eyes when you take off and count to 10 then open your eyes, that's when the best part comes into view". I nod my head at him and turn back around to face the girl as she helps me get connected. 

"You and Yeonjun seem pretty close" she says, clearly fishing for information. "Yeah we've been friends for a few years so I guess you could say that" I say. "Oh you guys are just friends? I could've sworn you were his girlfriend" she says with her brows slightly pinched together. "What would make you say that?" I ask, my heart beating a little faster. "I mean he talks about you all the time so I thought that maybe..." 

"Oh no, yeah we're um, yeah we're just friends" I say awkwardly after gaining that new piece of information and looking back over to him. "You know, if you like him you should ask him out" she says following my gaze to see him smiling and laughing with another one of their coworkers. "No I couldn't, plus I'm a few years older so I don't know" I say getting kind of embarrassed at the fact that I've admitted that I have a crush on a younger guy, and not only that but a close friend that's a younger guy.

"Wouldn't that be a bit weird?" I question, bringing my attention back over to her. "I don't think so. I mean it's not like you're 40 years old or something. Two or three years isn't that bad. Just think about it, I've seen you here so many times and I know for a fact that you both would make a really cute couple" she finished.

"I don't know about that" I say still turned towards her. "Don't know about what?" Yeonjun says sneaking up on me. "Don't sneak up on me like that! Do you see how far that fall is?" I scold and point towards the forest hundreds of feet bellow us. "You would've been fine silly. Plus you're already hooked up to the line. What's been taking you so long? I thought you went already" he asks, puzzled and looking back and forth between me and his coworker that I had been talking to.

"We were just catching up a bit" she says with a smile making an easy excuse. "You know Summer" he asks, speaking to me while pointing at the girl that I now know as Summer. "Yeah I've helped her out a few times since she's been here" she says and he nods, pacified with that answer. 

"So are you ready to go now?" he asks, double checking what I can assume is my harness, making sure I'm as safe as I can be. "I guess so" I answer again, kind of losing the thrill of the activity because of what Summer had just told me. 'Should I really ask him out?' I think to myself. "Noona?" he calls for me. "Huh? Did you say something?" I ask, feeling bad that I had spaced out on him. 

"I asked if you would like me to go with you? We can race if you want! Then I'll walk you over to the next thing you have planned. Skydiving right?" he asks trying to recall my agenda for the day. "No not yet, after this I'm going bungie jumping and then sky diving to finish out the day" I say filling him in once again.

"Sorry, with so many people that come here I sometimes get things mixed up" he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck which is strange since things like these aren't usually what gets him acting like this. In fact I don't think I've ever seen him act like this "It's fine Yeonjun don't worry about it. So are we gonna race or not?" I ask deciding to just move past what could turn into an awkward conversation. "Sure, just give me a sec and I'll put on a harness" he says and runs off to do as he's said. 

"Did you see that?" Summer asks, "See what?" I question back. "How he wanted to help you when you get to the other side and how he offered to race you to make you less scared and how embarrassed he got with the fact that he forgot the order you're going in today, how much he lit up when you asked him if he still wanted to race how-" "Okay Summer, okay I get it" I laugh cutting her off. "Well, if you don't ask him out soon then I'll ask him out for you if you want?" she questions trying to help me out. 

"That would be even more embarrassing than just doing it by myself" I say shaking my head and getting nervous just thinking about it. "What would be embarrassing?" Yeonjun asks, this time thankfully not sneaking up me. "Nothing don't worry about it. You ready?" I ask, trying to run away from this conversation. "Yeah um, sure" he says getting even more suspicious with us than he had been before. 

"Just think about it okay?" Summer says when she comes back around after double checking Yeonjun's connection for him and now triple checking mine for an excuse to encourage me one last time to which I just nod and get myself mentally prepared for this zip line as well as the prospects of potentially asking him out myself. "Alright guys, three...two...one...GO!" Summer yells and we both set off with Yeonjun just a second faster than me, already gaining a clear lead. 

"Hey that's not fair!" I yell, laughing at his awkward position which makes him go a lot faster, knowing that I wouldn't dare do something like that. "Hurry up then!" he says going back to sitting normally to which I take advantage of and decide to try out what he had been doing before, zooming past him. "Noona! Not fair!" he whines behind me and tries his best to catch up. "Hurry up then" I tease using his own words against him and this all goes on back and forth until we finally reach the end with me finishing just a second or two before him. 

"I took it easy on you" he says making excuses for his loss. "Sure you did" I taunt, knowing full well that he pretty much did. "That's the last time though! I want a rematch!" he demands, needing to regain a sense of pride. "Maybe next time, come on let's go!" I say excitedly and drag him right along with me. 

The walk to the bungie jumping area isn't too far off and it's spent still bickering with each other about the results of the race. "Fine you won, but I'm gonna go upside down when we go bungie jumping and then I'll win this round" he says and speeds up, trying to get there first. "Hey! You can't win at bungie jumping, you either jump or you don't jump, that's it." I argue, failing to see his logic. 

"Yeah but we can one up each other" he retorts and gets in line. "Fine, then I'll go upside down too" I say once I catch up to him. "Wait really?" he asks, completely surprised that I would even say that, let alone go through with it. 

"Why? Are you trying to get me to back out so you can win?" I say raising a brow at him. "So there is a winner" he says and pokes my side, to which I return with a slap of his arm. "By your logic, yes there is. But if we both go upside down then it's a tie which means I'm still in the lead" I say, satisfied by the outcome, but only if I actually do it.

"Do you want to go first or should I?" he asks. "Is that even a questions? You go first" I say and push him in front of me in line. "Fine but don't chicken out after I go because you think it's 'too scary' he says in air quotes. I give him a sarcastic smile and a wack him in the arm as a response. "OW!" he yell, obviously playing it up. "Well then stop making fun of me and just go" I say showing him it's his turn already.

I watch every step they take in hooking him up to make sure I'll be mentally prepared for my turn. "You got this loser" I yell as encouragement after they put him in position and he does nothing but smile in response. "Alright you ready?" the worker asks and Yeonjun sends a quick nod before they give him a countdown from three and drop him a few seconds afterwards. I lean forward a bit to try to get a better look at him but by his screaming and laughing alone I can really tell he's having a great time.

"Noona oh my gosh that was so fun!" he says coming over and giving me a hug enveloping my whole body, probably in an effort to steady himself on his feet. "You ready?" he asks with a huge smile and I can't help but laugh and say yes after seeing how happy he seems. A few seconds later though, that's another story. 

"Wait Yeonjun, can't I just go the regular way?" I plead, questioning all of my life choices up until this moment. "Nope, you promised me that you would do it if I did" he scolds. "I did no-" "Shhh" he quiets me before telling the guys I'm ready to go. They start placing everything they could possibly need to to keep me from dying on my ankles as well as answer any of my questions and assuring me I'll be fine. 

"Hush you'll be fine, just tell them when you're ready" Yeonjun says, peer pressuring me into doing it. "Fine" I mumble before letting the guys know. As they start to hoist me up into the contraption that drops me I shut my eyes trying to imagine myself anywhere but here. "Noona open your eyes!" to which I shake my head just enough for him to notice, not daring to make any sudden movements. 

"Open your eyes or I'll kiss you" he yells and at that my eyes open as wide as they possibly could seeing him with a smug smile before giving me the countdown. "Three..." "Yeonjun no!" "Two" "No stop I'm done playing get me down!" and before I hear him say one I feel myself drop and get the wind knocked out of me. Once I regain some air in my lungs after the first bounce I start to scream which slowly turns into laughing like crazy just as Yeonjun had done moments before. 

"How was it? It was amazing right?" he says with a huge smile on his face, still so amused at my reactions before the drop. "OW!" he says rubbing his forearm after having hit him for a second time. "Next time listen to me!" I say and try to take a step but stumble backwards a bit, still needing to regain my center of gravity. "Careful there" Yeonjun says pulling me back up by my harness. 

My eyes widen at the proximity between us now and I look up at him and he leans closer until his nose brushes against mine with my eyes closing shut getting flustered by everything about him. "I guess I shouldn't kiss you since you opened your eyes back there huh?" he whispers and before I'm able to process what he's said he's already ten steps ahead of me. 

"Hey!" I yell and jog to catch up with him. "What was that about?" I ask him with a deep crease between my brows which he puts his thumb on to encourage me to stop furrowing my brows. "What was what about?" he asks, playin dumb. 

"You know, all that kissing talk" I say deciding not to shy away from the subject. "Why? Did you want me to kiss you Noona?" he asks with a devilish smile with his eye facing forward keeping an eye on where we're going. "I didn't say that" I retort, unamused with this entire conversation but taking advantage to look up at his side profile nonetheless. "Sure you didn't. Race you to the airport!" he says and takes off running. "Hey! No fair!" I yell and run after him anyways even with no chance in hell of beating him.

"Took you long enough" he says cheekily, already having the chance to catch his breath while waiting for me. "Your legs are longer than mine are" I pant, with my hands on my knees. "You okay?" he asks, placing a hand on my back. "Peachy keen" I say, almost having calmed my breathing down after a minute or so. 

"Drink this" he says and hands me a bottle of water, to which I gulp down half of it. "Thirsty huh?" he says with a smirk and I roll my eyes at him, not bothering to dignify his statement with a verbal response but he takes satisfaction with what little I've given nonetheless. 

"So are you ready?" he asks when I've finally gotten back to normal. "Yeah but I haven't done this one before so I don't know what I should be doing" I admit. "It's fine let me teach you, that's what I'm here for right?" he says with a genuine smile. "Right" I say, matching his smile and he walks me through all of the procedures and safety precautions. 

"Did you want to go with me or did you want one of the other instructors to go with you?" he asks. "How would it be a competition if we went together? I'll go with one of the other instructors silly" I say, surprised by his question and pushing his shoulder a bit to go grab them. "And you better go with one too so it's even!" I yell after him as he jogs over to where they're at. 

Once we get up in the air and are close to jumping I notice that Yeonjun starts to space out a bit. "Are you okay?" I ask concerned as to if he should actually be jumping or not. "Yeah no I'm fine don't worry about it" he says and we both get pulled away from the conversation to get hooked up to each of our respective instructors. 

"Hey!" Yeonjun yells at me before we jump. "What?" I yell back so he knows for sure I've heard him. "Will you go out with me?" he yells and jumps off right after leaving me stunned. "You ready?" the guy I'm jumping with asks me. "Um yeah" I say and he gives me a countdown before we drop out of the plane. 

Falling through the sky is a feeling that I can't even begin to describe, with the wind in my face and seeing how tiny everything looks from up here it's actually insane. I'm not able to focus on that though ever since Yeonjun asked me if I would go out with him. Was he kidding? Was he just trying to tease me? How am I supposed to respond once we finally parachute down and we're back on the ground. 

I'm broken out of my train of thought when the guy behind me asks me if I'm okay since I haven't hardly made a sound. "Yeah I'm fine" I yell back. "Well then let me hear you say YEAH!!!" he yells, obviously trying to make sure that I'm actually not freaking out to which I respond to with a 'HELL YEAH' which seems to make him laugh.

Once we finally get close enough he pulls the tab to the parachute and we slowly but surely make our way back into the field next to the airport we had started out at. "So?" Yeonjun asks after coming over and helping me up off the ground. "So what?" I ask, not sure exactly what he's referring to since I'm still not sure if he meant what he said back there. 

"What's your answer?" he asks with a shy but excited smile, clearly hoping I say yes. Instead I grab one of the straps on his harness and pull him into me and kiss him, only lingering for a few seconds, although I want more. Once I pull back he rests his forehead against mine and whispers "Well I guess I got my answer then" before angling my face back up towards his to kiss me properly. 

Pushing back from him afterwards I push on his chest to create some distance between us as he's grabbed my waist in the meantime. "You better not make me regret this" I say giving him a stern look, making sure he'll take this seriously. 

"Don't worry Noona, I won't let you slip away"

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[fountainpenguin]

"Pretend to be sweet! Speak with a smile... Even if you're mad, play it cool for a while..." (x)

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New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 15 - “Scald (Ren, Jimmy, Scar)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

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While Impulse prowls in search of Bdubs, life goes on. Ren, Joel, Jimmy, Tango, and Cleo get along in their respective spheres. And Scar? ... Well, since Etho never showed up for Session 2, Scar's teamed with a bunch of other explorers to tackle a cave adventure. With a group that large, it's only a matter of time before hunters turn on quarries...

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

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Renthedog - Chicken

Quarry: ZombieCleo

Hunter: Smajor1995

Allegiance: Unaffiliated

💚  💛  ❤️

"Hey." Is that a weird thing to say to a guy you haven't seen since his particles dissolved? He looks better now, standing with his hands in his hoodie pockets. In traditional Joel fashion, he got a new outfit for Session 2. The hoodie's sky blue. Puffy pastel letters spell out Glitch Survivor down the front, surrounded by four hearts, several azaleas, and little sparkles.

Skizzleman stole the traits of Tropical Fish

Actually, the whole thing looks glittery. It's childish and goofy and he looks snug and content, like Ren didn't catch him staring at his reflection for a little too long while they changed in the shower house. Ren has questions (which will go unanswered) regarding what went on between Joel's boss and the skin designers in the community mere days ago.

Not that I'm one to talk. I'm going all-in on the farmer's aesthetic this time around. It just sort of happened to him. Honestly? Can't complain, dude. The flannel shirt is comfy, the jeans aren't so bad, and the whole vibe fits his familiar suspenders pretty well. He's half worried he'll overheat, so he keeps rolling the sleeves back to his elbows.

If he were to put it into words, he's playing into that vibe of all the world in chaos while he serves smiles and escapism in his pretty little garden. In fact, Ren gets up from the muck, taking out a handkerchief to wipe dirt form his hands, and walks over to join Joel by the fence. He leans against it. Joel tilts his head. He's got little panda ears.

"'Hey' yourself, Ren. Ooh, look at you working hard in the chaos game."

"Thanks, man. You're looking good on green again; nice, nice- A+ material."

Skizzleman stole the traits of Salmon

"Yeah, Grian kicked me back up since, y'know… the whole 'creeper glitch' wasn't meant to happen and I did get my proper quarry kill." Joel points two thumbs at the bubbly text across his chest. "He'd better watch his ruddy little backend, though, because I intend to hit purple before I see yellow again. This order is tall, but so am I." His eyes roam behind Ren, wandering the other side of the fence. His fingers tap together inside his hoodie pocket. "Got quite a bit of wheat there, haven't you?"

"Wheat?" He keeps his tone light and friendly, but repeats the word 'wheat' to make it undeniable what he's referring to. "Take a bit if you like; leave something if you want. It's my community garden. This, my friend, is a safe space." He glances left and right, then leans forward, dipping his voice. He even lifts one hand to catch his words, though no one seems to be around eavesdropping. "Seems to me like you're less likely to get sniped off if your would-be murderer knows you'll respawn a few blocks away to have your revenge! And lay waste to them completely where they stand!"

Joel lifts both brows, curious but flat-mouthed. "Eeeh… Not the most exciting content for you, is it? I mean… You could achieve the same thing by lurking near your base. Or plopping your bed down anytime you anticipate a fight, if you wanna be some sort of freak… Also, I'm pretty sure you can't strike your hunter back if you drop from green life to yellow? You're still yellow, right? That's a passive color."

bigbst4tz2 stole the traits of Creeper Skizzleman stole the traits of Turtle

"… Look, it's cool, okay? Spawn's cool." Ren gestures sideways, flapping the handkerchief. "I'm in my peaceful arc right now. Spawn shall be the most beautiful place to rest one's head!"

Joel looks around, skeptic impatience dancing on his lips. Spawn isn't technically a peninsula, but it stands on a raised, flat bit of land overlooking the rushing river. The wind's gusty up here, bamboo and jungle trees swishing. Ren's got his hidden chickens and pigs.

Thus far, his play session consists mostly of bartering with Scott and Skizz for the right to breed their sheep. They helped him lead the sheep back in return for the right to take two chickens, and the haughty stare in Scott's gaze warned Ren that he wouldn't hesitate to kill every animal in his underground hidey-hole, regardless of what killing so many and swapping traits that many times in a row would do to his stomach. He needs to move them. The Sushi Boys know where they are right now and that's not a good strat.

GoodTimesWithScar stole the traits of Enderman

"Peaceful, yeah," Joel says. He leans against the fencepost, cupping his cheek in one hand. Well, one panda paw. "Say… Any chance I could pull you away from your work for a couple hours, mate? Promise it'll be worth your while."

"Oh?"

"You got shovels?" Joel summons his own to his hand with a flick of the wrist. It's stone, unimpressive, but he taps it against the edge of the fence like it's made of netherite. "I'm thinking we go about digging up sand. It won't be a monopoly, but Grian always makes a grab at it, and I think yoinking it before he tries will be the best strat."

"… Seems like he'll come after you once he realizes you've got it."

"Hope he does. I want him-" Joel makes a shhhhluck! sound, gliding the shovel scoop across his own throat. "You get me? Come on; we'll make a game of it."

Ren frowns, one ear twitching like he's got a flea. He tries not to glance at the place he hid his animals, though that means jerking his eyes back to Joel as they start to drift sideways. "Well… It sounds like you might be luring me away for a bit of thievery-"

"Oh, like you've got better plans today. You and your smelly little farm, your smelly little livestock…"

So he's already aware of them. He's not trying to fake me out. Ren lifts his hands. "All right; you've convinced me. Let's have ourselves a dig, my friend." For the sake of content creation. For the sake of getting out of his own head, too… Apart from his visit to Scott and Skizz, he's pretty much been gardening all day long. He's got an inventory full of bread and a back-up chest to boot.

And I know I'm not his quarry…

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[nitewrighter]

Scoops! (Part 1)

Okay, so this fic is of course mainly taking place in the My Adventures With Superman continuity of Superman, but I also wanted to incorporate some aspects of comics Lois in there as well. It also takes a lot of inspiration from Gene Luen Yang's Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds, and I wanted to adapt elements of that comic to My Adventures with Superman. So it's a mish-mash! This is my first time writing for Superman in anything other than a shitpost, so I hope you enjoy!

Read it on AO3 here!

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“Eyes up, Smallville,” Lois was bobbing a little where she stood. She was in yoga tights and a loose cutoff tee that was apparently a souvenir from a monster truck rally called ‘MeTRUCKolis.’ Her wrapped fists were squared up in front of her. Clark loomed before her, his own legs slightly bent, wearing a beat-up white t-shirt and sweats.

Clark adjusted his glasses and took a steadying breath. “Okay,” he said, bringing his arms up.

“Ready?” she asked. He liked that little flash of fierceness in her eyes.

“Mm-hm.”

Bap. Bap. Bap. She had been talking him through proper blocking, and, from what they could observe, Kryptonian nerve endings seemed to follow a lot of the same logic as human ones, and she was always quick to correct his form or stance. Obviously she didn’t have the same hand-to-hand prowess as that skull-helmeted orange and black guy with the swords, but it was still a good opportunity to actually observe the patterns of a proper fighting style rather than be blindsided by a flurry of blows.

Bap.

Watching Lois, blocking her strikes, he could see there was clear logic to her movements: an awareness of space and a conservation of energy that seemed so far beyond him simply because he still had barely a grasp on what he was able to do to begin with. Rolling with the force of the punches was definitely instinctive for him at this point, but he was still trying to parse out how exactly his own invulnerability worked. Frankly, he didn’t really like the current approach of, “Oh, I guess that doesn’t kill me,” but it wasn’t like he was actively trying to lower whatever unconscious mental blocks he had on what probably could be hurting him a lot more if he let it. He could feel the roughness of Lois’s fist wrappings, the warmth of her skin through them, could feel his own flesh yielding, if only slightly, at the impact. He knew she actually packed a significant punch compared to the average person, but she was holding back in her own way. There was the instructive element to it, but caution, as well. After all, how hard would you want to punch someone who not only was your boyfriend, but whom you had also seen make a massive impact crater on concrete?

Bap. Bap.

Lois was a ruddy, flushed mess, but in Clark-vision she was a dewy and glowing warrior goddess, hair sleeked back with her own sweat. They had been at this for the better part of an hour—their training session interrupted only twice by Clark having to rescue several construction workers downtown when an I-Beam’s crane cables snapped loose, and later to fly a little girl and her grandfather to a hospital when the grandfather had a stroke. He had been trying to get better about letting certain things resolve themselves—Metropolis had firefighters, crisis hotlines, and paramedics, after all—but he had also gotten practiced enough with his super-hearing that he had a much stronger grasp on where the location of certain cries for help were coming from—say, if that stroke victim was also in an affordable housing unit.

Bap. Lois’s fist made contact with his left pec.

“Clark, shoulders,” she said for what was definitely more than the tenth time, “And you’re not even trying to evade.”

Clark wasn’t sure how practical evasion was when he was, in fact, significantly wider than her. Her fists were pretty centered on him as a result. He was great at evading while in flight, maybe because momentum was such a strong factor that impact could easily wrest from his control and he didn’t want to make himself into a missile by getting blasted out of the air, but here, in the laundry room basement of Lois’s apartment building, on a mat graciously lent to them by Steve Lombard, in close quarters with a much smaller (but much fiercer) opponent, there wasn’t a lot of space to evade, nor really a strong physical need to. Lois was going in for a hard left hook now.

“I don’t know if this is really working,” said Clark, finally dipping to one side with superhuman speed, sending Lois stumbling forward, but she righted her own momentum and easily pivoted into a back kick.

Careful, Clark instinctively caught her foot before it met his jaw, letting his own hand briefly follow the arc of the kick so she wouldn’t hurt herself with the sudden stop. He stood there, awkwardly holding her by the brightly-colored trainer.

“Okay, now counter,” said Lois.

“Counter?”

“You have my foot. I’m off-balance and vulnerable. Flip me, or something.”

“Lois, I’m not going to flip you.”

“We have a mat!”

“Look,” Clark let her foot go, “I know you mean well with this, but I never really thought of my powers in terms of fighting. I don’t like thinking of my powers in terms of fighting.”

“Well, don’t think about it as fighting, then,” Lois regained her stance and put her hands on her hips, “Think of it as… stopping a fight before it becomes a fight. We both saw that footage, the more you get hit…”

“The more I get hit,” Clark conceded.

“Right, you get discombobulated, and then overwhelmed. And it’s clear even if you can take those hits, that actually taking those hits uses up energy for you. There’s just a lot of surface area like this,” said Lois, splaying her fingers across Clark’s chest.

Clark gulped at the physical contact and Lois caught herself, a drop of sweat hanging on one lick of hair at her temple, and cleared her throat, putting her hands on Clark’s shoulders and guiding them so that he was standing at more of an angle. “You have to give your opponent less of a space to hit. You just keep coming at people fully sheeted forward, it’s no wonder you’re getting shot or laser-blasted in the back all the time.”

“I’d just rather the laser blasts hit me than…”

“Than the other guys shooting at you?”

Clark’s brow went between a furrow and a crinkle and he glanced off. “I mean, they’re less bulletproof.”

“Clark…” Lois started and then a sigh escaped her. It was one of her ‘I worry about you’ sighs but this one was clearly combined with the actual physical exhaustion of punching him for at least 45 minutes. “I’m gonna get some water.”

“Right…” Clark itched at the back of his neck. “How do you know Krav Maga, anyway?”

Lois gave him a kind of sad sidelong glance before taking a long gulp from her steel water bottle and Clark put 2 and 2 together.

“Oh….” he said quietly.

“One of the closest things we got to quality time, me and my dad,” she shrugged, wiping her mouth. A pause passed between the two of them, a silent, mutual acknowledgement that they didn’t have to re-open that can of worms right now. “Honestly I’m out of practice with Krav Maga specifically, though,” Lois added, “These days I just kick box down at Irons Gym twice a week.”

“I’d like to see that,” the words came out of Clark unthinkingly.

A catlike little smile spread on Lois’s lips.

“I uh—I could probably learn a lot more about proper stance and counters and, um, surface area by watching you in action,” Clark added. Were his glasses steaming up?

“Invitation’s open, Smallville,” she said, setting her water bottle down on the washing machine.  She rolled her shoulders. “Okay,” she said, clapping her wrapped palms together, “Obviously this wasn’t as productive as I would have liked, but we can finish off by showing you my ultimate move.”

“Ultimate move?” Clark blinked a little helplessly.

“Did you know you like, almost never use your legs in a fight?” Lois was hopping in place a little, bouncing her weight between her feet, loosening herself up.

“Again, I don’t really think of my powers in terms of—”

“Think fast!” Lois rushed him, launched herself into the air, twisted in mid-air, and caught him around the neck in what would have been a brilliant scissor-leg takedown if… it actually took him down. Instead, he just kind of ended up rolling back to a near-limbo position to account for her momentum, then brought himself back upright. To her credit, she did keep furiously twisting and squeezing and trying to use her own center of gravity against him the entire time he was doing this, and Clark really wasn’t sure if it was the flight or the super-strength doing most of the work in making her ultimate move… not work… but once he was standing up straight again, she slackened with a frustrated groan, leaving her basically dangling off of him by one leg yoked over his neck.

“…I see what you were going for, there,” said Clark after a beat.

“It would have worked,” Lois’s voice was half a grunt from her semi-upside-down angle, “If you weren’t… y’know.”

Clark thought, Lois, you can choke me with your legs any day of the week, before blurting out, “No, I’m sure! It’s a great move!” and then quickly scooping an arm under her, “Uh—here, let me—”

Getting Lois back to an upright standing position from her current entanglement was a bit like wrestling a large fish out of water, but he managed to set her down with her looking only somewhat sulky.

“It really was a great move,” Clark tried to reassure her.

“It’s not that,” said Lois, readjusting her sports bra, (which made Clark quickly glance off, face burning), “I just… wish we had a safe environment for you to actually work on this stuff! Actually get a grasp on what you can do and how… there’s still so much we don’t understand.”

“I know,” said Clark, not wanting to say If I wasn’t what I was, we wouldn’t be spending one of our few days off like this. Even when I’m not Superman-ing everywhere, this is still eating up both our lives.

There was a familiar fanfare message chime and Clark, desperate to break that chain of thought, quickly stepped over to his duffel bag and grabbed his phone, reading the text on the screen. “Oh hey, Jimmy’s finally done with his thing.”

“His ‘thing?’”

“He wouldn’t tell me what it was,” said Clark, putting the phone back in the bag, “But he wants us both to come over and check it out.”

“Well, obviously we can’t go over there all sweaty, Smallville,” said Lois, grinning, “Looks like you’ll have to use my—-”

Clark zipped upstairs in a blur and after about 15 seconds zipped right back down, super-scrubbed clean, in a completely different outfit to account for the cold weather, and hair still slightly damp.

“…Shower,” Lois finished flatly.

“There’s still plenty of hot water left,” said Clark.

“Cool, thanks,” said Lois, not even remotely trying to hide her disappointment.

——

A shower, a change of clothes for Lois, and short tram ride later, they were at Jimmy and Clark’s apartment building.

“So, when’s Jimmy going to use his Flamebird bucks to get a penthouse?” asked Lois, as they both got in the elevator.

“You know he hasn’t really talked about the money that much,” Clark shrugged, “I dunno if he’s still trying to figure out what to do with it, or if he’s just letting the fact settle in, or what. Then five days ago he starts working on this thing and he’s just been kind of hyper-focused and really secretive about it since then.”

“Secretive, huh?” Lois brought a hand to her chin thoughtfully as the elevator dinged open, “Think he’s being mind-controlled or something?”

“Oh no, definitely not,” said Clark as they walked down the hall, “He gets exactly like this when he’s editing one of his longer video essays. I remember this one time back in college when—” Clark suddenly paused and tilted his head, squinting slightly, as he often did when his super-hearing was picking up something unusual.

“Clark?” Lois looked up at him.

“Some kind of… fizzing sound…at the docks…” Clark murmured. He stood stock-still in that hallway for about thirty seconds before straightening his head again and shrugging, continuing down the hall. “Well, it’s gone now.”

“Look at you, not flying off in a panic every time you don’t know exactly what something is,” said Lois, proudly.

“Baby steps,” said Clark, smiling.

The door to Jimmy and Clark’s apartment swung open before either of them could knock.

“Hey Ji—” Lois started.

“You’re here,” said Jimmy, breathlessly, “Come in, come on! Come in!”

Both Clark and Lois were hustled into the apartment, which was noticeably messier than usual with multiple boxes and foam packaging and those weird plastic air bags which never pop as satisfactorily as bubble wrap.

“Online shopping…?” asked Lois and Clark shrugged.

“Nothing so simple!” said Jimmy, clearly over-caffeinated and already across the apartment, forcing Lois and Clark to follow him, “I’ve finally been able to realize my vision!”

There was a mania in Jimmy’s voice that made Clark and Lois exchange glances and wonder if the whole experience with Monsieur Mallah and the Brain had rubbed off on him more than anticipated.

“What vision?” asked Clark, but they had already reached his and Jimmy’s room and Jimmy was bent over his desk.

“Lady and Gentleman,” he said deeply and dramatically, slowly pivoting around, “I give you, the one, the only,” he was holding something a little bigger than a shot put ball, covered with a dish towel, “the state-of-the-art, the one-of-a-kind, next generation in Flamebird content creation,” he whipped the dish towel away to reveal a silvery dome embraced by an incomplete disk, “Scoops!”

Clark and Lois stared at the object in Jimmy’s hand blankly. It seemingly stared back with its indifferent camera lens at the front, flanked by two triangular metal plates.

“S-Scoops…” Jimmy said, as if they should both know what he was talking about.

Clark and Lois looked up from the object to Jimmy, still clueless.

“It’s a news drone,” said Jimmy.

“Ohhhh,” Clark and Lois said at the same time.

“So it’s like… a new camera?” said Lois.

“Camera? Camera?!” Jimmy held Scoops close, aghast, “Scoops is voice-commanded with a learning AI, has a whopping six terabytes of still image, text-by-dictation, or video memory, is VPN secured and encrypted with its own personal cloud, equipped with the latest in hover-mag suspension systems, is synced with an app on my phone, and tops out at 45 miles per hour.”

“Do we also have to call it ‘Scoops’—” Clark started.

“Yes, yes, you do,” said Jimmy.

“Wait—” Lois glanced back at the boxes, “Jimmy, you put this together yourself?”

“Well, I saw the hover-mag drone frame at the AmerTek pavilion two years ago at the Metropolis Tech Trade Conference, and the processing is mostly AmazoTech AI hardware that wasn’t approved for mass-market release yet but it turns out with the company collapsing, there were a handful of people willing to look the other way and dig through lab storage for me. The lens components and digital recording are a combination of my own favorite camera companies and a handful of bits I had to 3D print myself. And I had to teach myself to solder,” Clark glanced at his hands, noting several bandages on Jimmy’s fingers and a a moleskin blister pad at his left hand’s heel. “So, I mean the components were all there (except the 3D printed ones), I just put them together.”

“But, why wouldn’t the AI tech be approved for mass market release yet?” said Clark.

“Knowing Ivo, probably branding stuff—glossy AmazoTech user interface kind of things, probably,” Jimmy was turning Scoops over in his hands, buffing away at any smudges on the chassis with his dishtowel, “But it responded just fine to my programming.”

“Can I ask how much did this cost you?” asked Lois

“Money is no object when it comes to solving mysteries and changing the face of news as we know it,” said Jimmy, smiling, which both Lois and Clark interpreted to be ‘A lot.’

“Isn’t AmerTek a weapons company—?” Clark started, adjusting his glasses.

“It’s not all weapons,” Jimmy shrugged, “Plus I figured Scoops needed a pretty hardy chassis with all the crazy stuff we get into.”

Clark and Lois still looked more concerned than convinced.

“All right, fine, I’ll give you a demo,” said Jimmy, clearing his throat, “Scoops, activate.”

The lens at the front of Scoops glowed to life and the two triangular plates flanking the lens hovered off of the drone’s spherical dome. Jimmy gently released the drone and it hovered into the air between the three of them, prompting “oohs” from both Lois and Clark.

“Oh, and Lois, can you stand right there?” said Jimmy, positioning Lois at a slightly more open area of the room.

“Me?”

“Yeah, when you hear the cue, just start acting like you’re doing a news report.”

“Oh! Um, okay,” said Lois.

Clark just kept a wary gaze fixed on the little drone now hovering over their heads. Scoops didn’t seem particularly threatening, but Clark definitely had some concerns about something made with both AmerTek and AmazoTech hardware.

“Great start, Scoops, now begin live feed on… Lois Lane,” said Jimmy, taking out his phone.

Scoops seemed to process this command for a second, then shot out the window in a tinkling explosion of glass.

There was a beat of silence. The three of them looked out the jagged hole in the window, watching as the little drone rapidly shrank into the distance through downtown Metropolis, towards the industrial district.

“It was not supposed to do that,” Jimmy said very quietly. He watched the drone zooming off into the distance for several seconds before he realized Clark and Lois were still watching him. He caught himself. “Small hiccup! Not a problem! I’ll simply recall Scoops using my phone.” He demonstratively hit a button on his phone screen, put one hand on his hip, and waited. A long, silent minute passed.

Clark was squinting out the window. “I.. um.. Jimmy, I don’t think it’s coming back.”

This was when Jimmy’s face finally dropped. “Oh come on!” He was tapping at his phone furiously, “It was doing great in the test runs!”

“Do you know where it’s going—?” Lois started.

“I’ve got both its camera feed and a GPS locator for it on my phone,” said Jimmy, “But Clark, can you—?”

“On it,” said Clark, before zipping out of the room in a blur, leaving a flutter of loose papers in his wake. A few heartbeats later and a blue-clad, red-caped figure was soaring after Scoops. Jimmy’s phone pinged. “GPS feed, let’s go!” He said, hooking his arm in Lois’s and sprinting off out of the apartment.

——-

In theory, Clark knew with enough speed he could easily overtake the drone, snatch it out of its course, and yank it back to his and Jimmy’s place, but it turned out the drone had a significant lead on him because he first got sidetracked first swooping a bike messenger out of the way of a taxi that had run a red light, then giving directions to those tourists, then taking that little old lady’s big box of dead batteries to the e-waste recycling center—okay, in retrospect she could have found a nice neighborhood boy for that last task but come on, he was right there, what was he going to do? Say no? But okay, yes, that did turn into taking the whole apartment building’s dead batteries and Lois would say, ‘Clark look at yourself, you are literally taking people’s garbage, we’ve talked about prioritizing,’ but he was already on the way and proper disposal of batteries was important too, wasn’t it? It reduced fire risk and kept toxins from leeching into the soil, so he was basically preventing future crises in Metropolis. Plus, it wasn’t like Scoops was actually in any danger, it was just… on the run, apparently. Gone rogue. The guilt did hit Clark pretty hard once he got back on task. Poor Jimmy seemed so excited about Scoops, and had obviously been working really hard on it—for all his feelings about AmazoTech, Clark wished he could have been more supportive in the moment. At least the drone’s distinctive hover-mag whir made it pretty easy for him to quickly relocate it, but something was irking at the back of his mind as soon as he got a visual bead on it once again.

The fizzing sound from earlier, he thought, watching the drone, It’s going toward where the fizzing sound was.

The drone suddenly dropped into a sharp descent and Clark shifted his position in the air to drop after it. The Metropolis docks. Scoops was now hovering around, seemingly searching among the massive shipping containers. Clark floated after the drone, feeling a bit of unease at his environment. Shipping containers could easily create close quarters, definitely weren’t fun to be slammed into, even with invulnerability, could clatter over and hurt someone if he hit them with enough force, and provided a lot of coverage for people to hide behind and within that super-senses couldn’t account for 100% of the time.

“Scoops?” Clark felt a little ridiculous calling after it, but it responded to voice commands, didn’t it? “Scoops?” He called again.

He heard a low grunt of pain on the other side of one of the shipping containers and quickly hopped over it to see two shipping yard security guards on the ground, one unconscious, the other groaning in pain. Both had steady heartbeats, but there was a faint smell of electricity in the air, and burnt hair.

“Sir?” He dropped to one knee.

The security guard grunted. “The… the bracelet…” was all he managed before passing out. Clark set his jaw before picking them both up and quickly moving them back to a safer location where hopefully their coworkers would find them, then followed the sound of Scoops’ hover-mag whirring as quietly as he could, realizing there was now a metallic resonant quality to the sound—it was coming from inside one of the shipping containers. The sound of the hover-mag had stilled to one location. He reached the source—a shipping container at the very edge of the pier, the doors were swung open. Clark leaned in to peek inside. There were a couple of crates scattered around the interior of the shipping container, of varying age and make.

Unconsciously, Clark set his feet back on the ground.

There was a woman in the shipping container, her back to him, thin hands clasped around Scoops’s chassis as the drone’s single camera eye stared down at her as if to say, ‘Now what?’ Slung across the woman’s back was a chunky chrome gun that seemed nearly as big as her whole torso, but what really caught Clark’s eye was the gleaming art deco spider bracelet on her wrist. All the guard had said to Clark was ‘the bracelet,’ which made wariness prickle on the back of his neck. Why the guard would mention the bracelet rather than the almost comically huge gun was beyond him. So… she wasn’t friendly, probably. But still, he knew he didn’t understand the situation, and just because someone had a very very big scary gun, and had probably knocked out two security guards, that didn’t mean they were incapable of reasonable discussion.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask for that drone back,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, before pausing for a second, and adding, “Please.”

She turned to face him and he froze.

She was in a sleek black outfit, with a cropped black jacket, a low-cut, side-slit black dress over charcoal web-patterned leggings, and short boots. Her hair was bleached white and probably medium length, though it was hard to tell, with short blunt bangs at the front and the back swept up into two sleek, asymmetrical victory rolls. She turned around and gave him a too-familiar catlike little smile on too-red lips, the construction of her face utterly unmistakeable.

“Lois…?” The name came out of him dumbly and he immediately realized Superman always called her ‘Ms. Lane,’ always. She had Lois’s fierce pixie features, looked to be a handful of years older, but there was a sense of both sharp awareness and unfathomable exhaustion behind her eyes that filled him with dread. She had seen things—things she could never bring to share with another human being. It was an exhaustion he caught in his own face in the mirror sometimes, when he had been Superman for just a little too long that day, and the awareness that the world was just so much was weighing on him heavier and heavier.

That catlike smile turned pitying. “Very close, Boy Scout,” she said, before, with a shift of her shoulders, she slung that massive gun down to her hip and hauled it up to point at him.

“Okay,” Clark put his hands up, “Ma’am, I think you should know, you’re not the first—”

She blasted him in a blinding ray of neon coral and day-glo yellow, the force of it slamming him into the shipping container behind him, the steel buckling with a protesting shriek at his impact. Clark still wasn’t sure how his invulnerability worked, exactly, but in that moment, when that beam first hit him, full on in the torso (Surface area—again with the surface area), the image of the charred remains of a skeleton flashed to his mind and his train of thought became a throbbing panicked heartbeat of ‘This would kill a human, this would kill a human, this would kill a human.’ He wasn’t sure if it was 3 seconds or an eternity had passed before the beam ceased and he practically peeled off of the side of the shipping container to drop on the ground with a sad thud.

“The BG-80 Toastmaster,” said the woman, stepping toward him slowly, “Courtesy of Earth-Zero. With some modifications.”

Clark struggled to his elbows and knees and coughed, smoke rising off of him.

She tsk-tsked. “Oh you are squishier in this universe, aren’t you?”

“Look,” Clark’s voice was thick, and it took some effort to raise his head and one hand from the ground to try to motion at her in an ‘I mean no harm’ gesture,  “I know the League of Lois Lanes doesn’t trust me, but whatever’s happening—”

“You think I’m with the League?” she said with a bitter laugh in her voice. She blasted him again. In the back.

Somewhere in the mind-numbing blaze of pain and the sensation of the concrete crumbling underneath him as he was slammed to the ground, he thought, Huh, that really is a lot of surface area. The second blow at least managed to kick better survival instincts into gear. This isn’t your Lois, he had to tell himself, She is very much an active threat. She wants to hurt you. She has hurt you, she is hurting you, so you have to get over the face and the voice and the everything else and act so she doesn’t hurt you or someone else again. The gun—just heat vision it—just concentrate, you’re close enough and it’s big enough that you don’t have to worry too much about hitting her—no, wait—what if it explodes? You don’t know what it’s made of—

There was a series of clicks and Clark looked up at her, willing the heat behind his eyes, but the muzzle of the gun was glowing red now and again, he got caught up in that exhaustion, that pity, in her face. She wasn’t with the League of Lois Lanes? Then what did she want? Why was she here? And what did Scoops of all things have to do with it all?

“Don’t worry,” she said dispassionately, “I’m not hitting you with anything you can’t take.”

“But—” Clark started. But she fired again. The blast wasn’t that overwhelming neon this time, but red, red, red. And then everything went black.