#this is how i rank exotic animals. obviously it’s not perfect and i’m by no means an expert but i think it works well enough

[ejzah]

I made this comment last night after the episode aired: Who wants to bet that the outfits Deeks was modeling involved increasingly less material as the night progressed? Much to Deeks’ chagrin and Kensi and Kirkin’s delight.

A/N: I definitely ran with this idea, @chicgeekgirl89. I hope you enjoy.

***

Quid Pro Quo

“This is completely ridiculous,” Deeks muttered for the hundredth time. He glanced over at Kensi who was happily sipping at her champagne-completely tipsy at this point and apparently past the point of caring what Anatoli Kirkin did with him-and what looked like a thin cookie of some kind.

“Oh come now, Marty,” Kirkin said in a cajoling voice, popping up from behind the camera. “You know I love it when you pout and act all grumpy, but this is not what envisioned for this photo shoot.”

“Yeah, Marty, don’t be all pouty,” Kensi chimed in, snorting to herself. Glancing over his shoulder, he glared at her and she made a concerted, but in the end futile, effort not to laugh.

Honestly, he would probably be laughing too if one of the other guys were forced to wear something that resembled the imaginings of someone on LSD. Of course, no one else on the team had a crazy Russian ex-criminal who was obsessed with them and likely to make strange requests as a form of payment. He was just that lucky.

His current outfit was black with orange stripes, making him resemble something like a strange wasp. At least there weren’t any animals attached to it this time.

“Chin up.” Kirkin directed him with a little waving gesture which Deeks followed with a reluctant sigh. “Perfect! Time for the next outfit.”

That left four more by Deeks’ count. Without a word, he accepted the latest garment bag from Kirkin and headed for the changing rooms. He supposed he was lucky Kirkin had allowed him that small privacy.

He came back out a couple minutes later, in black pants and a light blue dress shirt paired with a black tie and shoes that probably cost more than Deeks’ whole wardrobe put together. It was the least offensive thing he’d worn all night.

“Not bad,” Kensi commented when he walked back into the photography room and took up the pose Kirkin kept asking for. “Not bad at all.” Her eyes slid down to butt and he frowned at her.

“I agree, but there’s just a little something missing,” Kirkin said with a little sigh. He looked Deeks up and down too and then clapped his hands together. He started to reach towards Deeks and then glanced in Kensi’s direction and drew back. “Martin, could you roll your sleeves up? Just above the elbows.”

Shaking his head, Deeks rolled each sleeve up a few times while Kirkin watched eagerly.

“It’s almost the same as the first case when we met.” Lowering his voice, Kirkin added, “You remember, when we were both naked in the Russian baths.” This time he did touch Deeks; it was little more than a brush of his knuckles against Deeks’ forearm, but it was enough to make him shudder uncomfortably.

“Hey, keep your hands to yourself,” Kensi ordered, a note of warning in her voice. She suddenly sounded competent sober and dangerous. Kirkin obviously heard it too because he immediately dropped his hand, and moved behind the safety of the camera again.

“I apologize. I was...overcome,” he said, his expression a little guilty.

The next half hour passed in a blur. Kirkin brought in several more props for Deeks to pose with. Then two more costume changes. Deeks noticed that the clothes were getting increasingly smaller and tighter.

Currently, he was wearing a pair of exceedingly white pants and a shiny blue shirt that was straight out of “Saturday Night Fever”. The shirt gaped open, revealing the majority of his chest and stomach.

“The 70’s had its perks,” Kensi commented, moving her chair to get a better view.

“No more champagne for you,” Deeks told her firmly.

“You look absolutely wonderful! Those pants fit you like a glove and your chest...” Kirkin made a wistful sound. “You have never looked better.”

“Can we get on with this?”

“Of course. Now for this one, I’d like you to put your left arm in the air and the other on your hip.”

“I’m not doing disco poses, Kirkin.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Deeks tried to look as serious as he could while wearing pants that left very little to the imagination. They felt tighter than anything he’d worn in his exotic dancing days.

“Maaarty, you promised...” Kirkin gave him a pointed look while throwing adopting the post he apparently wanted Deeks to mimic.

“I promised to do a photo shoot, not a feature for Play Girl magazine,” Deeks said,

“I’d buy that issue.” Off to the side, Kensi regraded him with a lascivious look in her eye.

“Me too,” Kirkin added, so quietly Deeks wasn’t sure he’d heard him.

“Oh my god! Fine, I’ll do it.” He tossed his head back with a groan and planted a hand on one hip. “Anything to get this over with. But-“ he pointed between Kensi and Kirkin, two people he never thought would be joining ranks against him- “no one else will ever hear about this or see these photos.”

“Of course.” Kensi nodded along with Kirkin, pressing her lips together either in apparent delight or to hold back laughter again. Kirkin snapped a few more pictures, moving more quickly than he had before. Maybe he realized that Deeks was reaching the end of his patience.

“And now for the last outfit,” Kirkin announced, letting out a sad little sigh. “I have enjoyed this evening together.”

“Yeah it’s been great,” Deeks drawled sarcastically.

“I’ll be back in just a few moments.” He touched Deeks arm as he left the room, but this time Kensi didn’t seem to notice.

“This is so much worse than I imagined.” He plopped down in a chair beside Kensi, pushing on the bridge of his nose to alleviate the inevitable head ache he felt coming.

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Kensi said, tilting her head as she eyed him again. She reached over and trailed her fingers down his chest, pausing on his abs.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, shaking his head at her. “I brought you along to protect me.”

“I am still perfectly capable of protecting you.” She gave him a lazy smile and winked. “And enjoying the view.”

Before Deeks could comment on that, Kirkin returned with a surprisingly small bag this time.

“I was saving this for a very special occasion,” he said with a smile that made Deeks highly suspicious. Kensi leaned forward to get a better look as Kirkin reached in and removed the item of clothing.

It was small and checkered. God, what was with the guy and checkers?”

“Are those...?”

“Hot pants!” Kensi finished, laughing on clear delight. “Oh my god, they’re checkered hot pants.”

“I designed them myself.”

Deeks just stared for a minute, completely horrified. Apparently Kirkin thought it was admiration. His obsession with checkers was disturbing, but at least there weren’t any stuffed animals involved. Probably because there wasn’t room.

“You are delusional if you think I’m putting those on, Kirkin,” Deeks said, laughing at he absurdity of it. “I will wear your ludicrous idea of a coat, I’ll even hold your creepy stuffed animals, but I will not wear hot pants for you.”

“What about our deal?” Kirkin asked, giving the shorts a little shake. “You didn’t make any stipulations.”

“And that was a grave error on my part. I blame it on the overwhelming fumes of hairspray clouding my head.”

“Your hard work deserves to be recognized.” He turned to Kensi when Deeks remained stone-faced. “Kensi, tell him those muscles, deserve to be on display.”

“Yeah, I’m not quite that drunk.”

“Imagine how these-” he gave the pants another shake- “will emphasize those beautiful muscles, tan, and his tight bottom.”

“Alright, we’re out of here,” Deeks decided, grabbing Kensi’s hand and tugging her along after him.

“Marty, please don’t go,” Kirkin called frantically. “The pictures don’t even need to be published. They’ll go straight to my private collection! Martin?!”

“I am so glad I came along,” Kensi said, giggling to herself. “This goes in my top 10 favorite days.”

“You are a terrible body guard.” He tried to maintain a serious expression, but he couldn’t in the face of Kensi’s amusement.

“Oh please, Kirkin would never do anything to hurt you.” She patted his arm and added, “He adores you too much.”

“Fantastic,” he muttered.

“You know,” Kensi said a few minutes later as they drove home. “We totally should have snagged those shorts.”

“You really want to see me in checkered hot pants?”

“I’m curious.” She shrugged. “And as Kirkin said, you have a very nice butt.”

***

A/N: The reference to drawnings/paintings comes from some of my other stories where I’ve had Kirkin give Deeks a series of highly inappropriate gifts.

[therayofmoonlight]

Frustrations ... (p-2)

- Well, after a long time, I’m here bringing the continuation from the point of view of some students from Alfea (first part HERE)

PS: (If you are curious of what exactly these characters are about, you know my AU)

Andromeda)- I think a word that would sum up this girl..would be "complex", she can seem very controlled most of the time, without losing her posture and such..but she really suffers from the inside, for always wanting to pass on an image of : "I NEED TO WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE!", I will tell you two angles of her story in relation to the past when she was a freshman, and the moment when the story of the series really begins with the arrival of Iris and Leon in Alfea.

Arrival

- Andromeda has not changed much, she ONLY follows the commandments of what a "princess must do" (believe me, she is an exotic case of imperial heritage, just like Iris, because many reigns in the magical dimension have already ended and societies are in other methods having their rights), (coming back), but like every student at a new school, she was perceptively nervous !, but she tried to calm down, because she was realizing that some clouds were manifesting without her knowledge, she has an explanatory logic of being like this, which I can at less to say a little: "She was created to be perfect", making her dedicated to the extreme, so she is not a casual opponent in some competition for example.."Only one of us can win...and you can't know how much I want it ".

The beginning

- She soon notices some students huddled together in one place, she wonders what could have happened so soon, getting into the crowd and intimidating those freshmen trying to understand what was going on, until she realizes Leon and Iris being completely intrigued by all of them. those people, and apologizes to them, so they both bow and bow, and she does the same with Iris, then she quickly groups the ranks of Students, Griselda ends up arriving and thanking her, and so Faragonda begins the speech.

Katrina)- Katrina is a freshman, and she had her first contact with Andromeda just like all the other students, but what exactly made her like Andromeda so much?..maybe because of her overwhelming nature, she just showed perceptively and subliminally that Andromeda could have fun! or to have a life less linked to perfection (since OBVIOUSLY nobody is perfect), I already know a case with poor Atom..hehe, that seems to be more occlhe, but she met him in the corridors while she was lost in the corridors, and when she tried to run for seek help if you bumped into it! (an anime cliche ... but cute admit it), she had an interest in him at the time...Yes, Katrina will be a kind of Yandere (but apart from the fact that she already had other boyfriends, and only has an Atom Crush :) ).

PS: “Yes!..she studies in the same classroom as Atom, Iris and Leon”.

Atom)- Oh yes..this little mushroom head..(I think he's very cute too ;u;), He is also a freshman, but he arrived as punctual as possible in Alfea, he was also curious to know what the crowd was on arrival , but soon recovered and tried to plan as many possibilities as possible about what to do, how to do it, and how they can affect him (try to imagine a boy of average height, reflecting looking at nothing while students were trying to understand him), he already found one rival in particular, in this case..our lovable Fellix, who started making fun of him with little.."jokes", but they got bigger as Iris and Leon (even Katrina) defended him (consequently also reaching affect them...including, Iris, curiously Iris later became Fellix's number one rival).

[nazih-fares]

Over the past two years, between a hostile takedown by Vivendi and numerous other industry stories, I saw French publisher and development house Ubisoft continue to take risks and launch new IPs. After the recent Steep (which I said in my review needed a bit more of finishing touch), it is now the turn for For Honor to emerge, in a weird genre between a fighting game and MOBA mechanics, where three mighty Middle-Age warrior tribes fight an eternal war. Weird? Maybe, but it works.

First, let me start by saying that MOBA are not really my thing, and while I had fun with MMOs back in days (mostly World of Warcraft and Guild Wars), DOTA 2 or League of Legends are games that didn’t get the patience – or time for that matter – to fully get into it to a point that I know stats and traits of over 100 different characters.  Even with my short phase of playing both DOTA 2 and League of Legends, I had enough to understand the core concept of a MOBA, which is basically supporting a bunch of creeps that are your canon-fodder while you gain experience and be strong enough with your team to take over the enemy base. For Honor in this case is neither a MOBA nor an MMO, and feels more a fighting game that anything else, which was shocking for me as being in my top three most played gaming genre.

The MOBA and fantasy part of the game comes with its lore, arena fight mechanics as well as its character designs and choices (which can be also compared with the Omega Force’s titles). For Honor’s story is grounded by a fictional and eternal fight between Knights, Vikings, and Samurais, even though in real-life history, these “factions” never fought, but they do now because of some sort of world-changing cataclysm. Anyway the story is quite strange, and you discover slowly that there’s a mastermind behind this whole clash between factions, but what’s important to know is that the script of this game is not really what will get it awards. Nevertheless, there’s a “story” mode that tells the tale of three mighty Knight, Viking, and Samurai warriors, that will attempt to explain the mystic scenario of this game, while basically act as a long tutorial of each character class in each faction. Because of the AI enemy not being optimal in this story mode, I would advise to play this campaign with a friend that just grabbed the game as yourself, and play coop trough these 18 missions that need around 10-15 hours to finish depending on the difficulty levels, alongside the chance to find collectibles and other actions that will help you in customizing your gaming experience.

As you advance throughout the story, you’ll gain gold coins based on some criteria, and once you reach the 500 count, you’ll be able to start buying your very own new warrior class on top of the three starting one for each faction. Like the same strategy as Rainbow Six Siege’s operatives unlocking mechanics, Ubisoft Montreal decided to follow the same pattern and give you the chance as a player to unlock new characters the more you play the game (12 in total, 4 per faction). This logic also applies to the season pass owners, which will only get a seven-day head start to unlock the new characters, but if you wallet is heavy, you can also buy yourself the same coins with real-life currency and “speed” things up or unlock cosmetic upgrades to make each character unique in their own way.

In any case, let’s talk about each character class, shall we? First to be introduced in the story mode, are the Knight’s Vanguard, being the most versatile, easier to handle and do not have complex attack combos. However, don’t see them as the beginner class as they can become effective once you learn the depth of their technique, and their Viking counterpart can be tricky to handle with its two-handed ax, followed by the Samurai’s version with a long reach Katana. The second category includes the assassins (fitting for a Ubisoft game), which are weaker in terms of armor, more difficult to handle as they agile dual-handed warriors, except for the Samurai’ Orochi. Finally, the Heavy class of the game are like any tank in RPG: a beast of a warrior in terms of defense, and hit hard at the expense of slow movements. Finally, the hybrids are combinations of these three previously mentioned classes, with my personal one being the Viking’s Valkyrie armed which can harass swiftly like an Assassin, has Disabler abilities of the Samurai Heavy, and a long reach attack thanks to its lance (like the Samurai Vanguard).

With all this to take in consideration, and the depth of each faction’s differences even within each classes, comes the importance of training, and lots of it. The heart of the gameplay resides in a smart and simple to understand guard position (or stance), which is done to control which part of your body you want to attack and defend. So on screen, you’ll see this small chest overlay, with an arrow that is oriented up, left or right which respectively means that you are about to attack/defend your upper body, left or right side. While this seems simple by base, you discover a deeper and richer attack and defend mechanic, with a parry function that needs to be timed at the exact moment, counter attack combos, guardbreaks, and finally the map/arena itself plays a big part in the combat. You see, each arena has its own amount of obstacles, traps and cliffs which can become a viable solution to get rid of enemies, by using these environments to your advantage. There’s a fire in the middle of the field? No problem, harass your opponent until he’s forced to back into the pit and see its health fall dramatically.  present in each arena make it a viable solution when it comes to getting rid of an enemy who is unconcerned. When it comes to singleplayer, all these actions are perfectly responsive on the controller, but watch out when you play online, as a strict NAT will make you fall into the same misery of every fighting game: not being able to hit that perfect milliseconds life-saving parry because of lag. Technically speaking it’s worth mentioning that there’s difference between all platforms, with both base consoles running the game at a locked 1080p and 30 frames per second, while the PlayStation 4 Pro can reach 1440p and 30 frames per second, and PC can go as high 4K resolution but locked to roughly 40 fps (in comparison up to 90 fps with 1080p).

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Considering the fact that its main multiplayer mode sets up large battle scenes with dozens of soldiers duking it out, For Honor runs the risk of making your system stutter and lag as it tries to render all the carnage. However, I’m pleased to report that the game manages to pull off its epic stabfests with nary a stutter. Optimization is top-notch here, even with fires raging and explosions popping up. I set the dial to Ultra at 1080 and ran the game’s benchmark tool, which put my fps between 70 and 90. In real combat scenarios, I was able to hit 100 without Vsync, and with Vsync I managed a smooth 60. There were some minor stutters while turning quickly, but other than that the experience was noticeably hitch-free. In terms of controls, I will firmly recommend a controller. The reason for this is that the game’s super-intuitive and fun blocking mechanic is bound to the mouse on PC.

So instead of just flicking the right analog in the direction you wanna block, you flick your wrist to move the mouse. It’s uncomfortable and less precise, and I barely managed a few rounds with it. Stick to controller with this one, people. All in all, the game does a great job on PC and I had no trouble even when I scaled it up to 1440. Great optimization job all around.

Now as mentioned above, each “hero” will have its own advantage depending on the faction, meaning simply that my Knight Vanguard will not play the same as your Samurai version.  For example, the Viking Heavy called Warlords is equipped with a heavy shield and Gladius (Ancient Roman primary sword), which allows him to deflect blows easily and counter at close range. The list of combo styles are roughly no more than 8 or 9 variants, but the game is not lacking in depth as mastering each attack timing will require hours of actual AI or real-life opponent before it becomes a reflex.

For Honor as a game is played in confined arenas, which replicate what a medieval battle looks like without turning into an open-world game. This restriction is logical, as it helps makes the environment look stunning, whether it is the European style forest of the Knights to the exotic maps of the Samurai, passing by the snowy peaks of the Vikings. Yet the real prowess of the game lies in its engine and how it handles animations, with a realism that obviously reinforce the sheer power of some attacks, and how visually painful a hit can be. You just wait until you get to do your first assassination, you’ll just want to see more of that, like some sort of medieval Mortal Kombat style Fatalities.

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The game also has a great and effective UI and HUD, which pair visually in a great way with all actions done. For example, when you are in guard mode (a sort of lock-on aiming), the edges of the screen darken to better concentrate your attention on the locked enemy. Or my favorite is something called Revenge mode, which activates when you attack chain combos, or get damaged to near-death, and gives you this short couple of second invulnerable moment, and flashes with bright fire orange colors on screen. All these visual output are clearly Inspired by fighting games and the effect spectacle that follows great combos and super attacks.

But like most things in life, For Honor is not perfect, and has sadly the typical flaws of a newly launched internet-required game. First of all Matchmaking seems to be illogical for me, and getting paired with players of quite different skill levels, which explains the fact that the eSports/Ranked mode of the multiplayer is not launching until late April (in 2 month basically). It could be normal as matchmaking algorithms usually take time to identify a bunch of newly created accounts, but at the same time a technical beta, closed beta and open beta seemed to have not helped prevent server issues. In my case I managed to switch from a Strict to an Open NAT connection, but even that didn’t help with random disconnections from a multiplayer game.

Nevertheless, these launch issues will probably be fixed soon with a patch no doubt (as Ubisoft proved it with constant support on Rainbow Six Siege and The Division), but the biggest issue I believe is how niche this game is. You see, the campaign can be played alone or in coop, which offers several levels of difficulty thus could expand the lifespan of the game, but it’s the multiplayer modes and the number of variety that will truly make the game a long-term investment for players. Sadly due to this rare mix between a fighting game and MOBA style multiplayer modes, the complexity of it might not get the amount of players to truly make this a competitive or eSports hit, but who knows, it could become what Wargaming did with World of Tanks in Europe. In any case, its originality of gameplay features might arise curiosity in players, which will find everything you need of a game that is multiplayer firstly and a traditional singleplayer campaign game second. There’s 9 characters to unlock, a ranking system, “loot boxes” that contain equipment that boost your stats, or just cosmetic changes like a majestic mountain of golden spikes on top of helmet. To top thing off, there’s a sort of constant online Faction War (similar to the Mortal Kombat X system), which has you fight for one specific Faction, and all your feats during your multiplayer game will contribute War Assets to that banner. What this affects is the what territory each faction occupies on the For Honor world, which dictates which map you’ll be playing on as a defender in multiplayer, and which one when you’ll be the attacker.

One last thing to close this review, which is always a topic dear to me in videogames: the soundtrack. Sadly this is the thing that felt very unoriginal and bland, and even if some tunes are quite majestic, they don’t really ooze power and the fantastic theme that is a war between three iconic warrior factions of our history.

For Honor was reviewed using an Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC downloadable code of the game provided by Ubisoft Middle East. The PC version was tested by Mazen Abdallah on a PC running Windows 10, with an 8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1070 fitted on a 4th Generation Intel i7 4790 3.6Ghz CPU and topped with 16GB of RAM, while the console versions were tested by Nazih Fares and Luciano Rahal. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Ubisoft’s For Honor is an enjoyable, visually stunning and gritty experience that might be a bit too original for its own good. Over the past two years, between a hostile takedown by Vivendi and numerous other industry stories, I saw French publisher and development house Ubisoft continue to take risks and launch new IPs.