#why do the side quests always end up being more polished than the main thing i wanted to drawwwww

[spheredotorb]

Guest Star Traitor Magolor: Get Overtaken by Master Crown ♡

ok it was funnier in my head ngl

[itsclydebitches]

I got witcher!Ciri too! I kind wonder wha would happen if she died tho, dont wanna put geralt or her through that but I love angst lmfaoo. The game got really confusing at point cause I you have to learn a bunch of politics and how this world works and I didnt pay that much attention so I'm sure I'll get those moments in my second playthrough too I'm playing something in the hearts of stone thnig, it was lower level so I'm assuming you should play that first? a main quest with the asshole ghost in the wedding and wow I fucking hate it, it's so umcomfortable to watch geralt be this gross n weird lol, I'm not too familar when Shani either so watching her get mad when I get geralt to say he wouldnt do what the ghost is doing is so annoying lol, OH AND the ghost is a creepy fuck! shani babe you can do much much better than an asshole who talks about his dick and fucking "maidens" every other sentence!! Geralt really does get thrown into so much shit huh I'm tempted to read the books cause I do rly like the world and most- some characters but yeah reading about yen being yen wold be one of the things to stop me, what are some of the plot points that put you off? if you don't mind sharing And yeah I'd so be up for more content esp with ciri, would be cool to see them work together, even with how combat works in this game with npcs lmao

Woo witcher Ciri ending! :D If you enjoy putting yourself through pain I recommend looking up that other ending on YouTube because there are definitely some nice angst shots in the cut scenes. I watched and then promptly went, “I don’t need to play that for myself” lol. But yeah, hard agree on things getting confusing, especially towards the end. I completely missed stuff like the fact that my actions would actually impact this war, rather than the war simply being backdrop, or that Ciri’s powers were more than just the ability to teleport short distances. So by the time I was getting called on to murder kings and Avallach was taking us to totally different worlds, I had a very John Mulaney approach of, “This might as well happen. Things are already so goddamn weird.” Which, you know, really isn't the game's fault. It's what I get for jumping into the third game first and while I don't regret that at all, the story has absolutely deserved a second playthrough where I actually understand all the basic stuff I should have known going in.

Yeah, Hearts of Stone comes first. You can do any of the side quests you’d like from either DLC, but I’d recommend keeping Blood & Wine’s main storyline for the final push. But yeah, that ghost dude is, uh… something. I quite like the wedding on the whole—I really enjoy Shani, dancing is fun, O’Dimm is being a wonderfully evil dude—but yeah, dead dude is definitely a creep. Which is partly one of the things that turned me off from the books. It has the same ‘Guy trying to write women’ energy of the games but… worse. I’ve read a lot of excerpts over the years and so many of them turn me off. There are a ton of small things, like Triss importantly informing the witchers (who are all like 100+ years old??) about periods and that Ciri can’t train today because of hers (a moment that much of the fandom celebrates as... progressive?), or Triss and Yen getting super catty with one another over Geralt, to much bigger things like Ciri nearly getting raped/being involved in intimate acts with really questionable consent. A lot of the Witcher has a “This didn’t age well” vibe to it which, to be fair, isn’t entirely the fault of the author. The story is the product of 90’s Polish culture and, again, a man trying to write some pretty complex subjects from an arguably ignorant place, which makes much of the work eye-rolling for me at best, outright uncomfortable at worst. (Which I think is why I enjoy the games far more. I have agency in this questionable world, the ability to tailor it somewhat to my own beliefs and desires, which makes moments when that's taken away, like Geralt automatically commenting on how good Yen looks at a funeral, all the more frustrating). I obviously am not a Geralt/Yen fan, which sours a great deal of the plot. From what I got through the pacing felt like a slog and, more importantly, much seems to have been lost in the translation from Polish to English. (I continually hear about how amazing the dialogue is, but sadly that hasn’t come across in translation for me. Much of it is... awkward.) The parts I’ve heard about/read excerpts of that I’m most interested in—Geralt’s hanza—ends tragically and I’m… just not here for that right now. Which isn’t to say it’s badly written or anything, just that it’s not my personal cup of tea, especially nowadays with a pandemic and what all going on lol. I look at what I know of the series as a whole and go, “Do I really want to read five books filled with outdated representation for women, that old-school fantasy violence that turned me off GoT, with a super depressing ending, all wrapped up in an iffy translation and a style I don’t think does well in long-form storytelling? … Not really.”

Still loved most of the short stories and I’ve heard that many people liked the audio book versions when they couldn't get into the text, so I might give that a go someday. I’d prefer to actually have read all the source material for a fandom I’m spending so much time in, but I sadly just haven't had the urge yet. If you do read them, anon, you’ll have to tell me what you think. It’s becoming quite the divisive topic, especially as Netflix fans turn to the books, and—putting aside that everyone’s tastes will always differ—it’s interesting to hear not just whether someone had fallen in love with the books or not, but if they haven’t what about them prevented that. It's very much a case of one person's "That was awful" being another's "Are you kidding me? That's the best part!"

[midnight-inthe-kitchen]

“Hotel Potter” (Part 3)

Paring: Remus x Reader (Marauders Era)

Warnings: Fluff, James is bad at fixing things, More awkwardness haha, and mentions of eating issues?

Word Count: 1775

A/n: I didn’t proof read this, so enjoy/I’m sorry... (Also, we’re getting close to the part I had in my DrEaM✨)

You watched as Sirius dropped his bag on the floor before immediately breaking into a sprint to fling himself onto the bed. The bed...

You didn’t know exactly why you were expecting there to be two... I mean that would be a bit excessive for a regular house... but not until this very moment did you realize the consequences of your poor decisions.

“Hey, Y/N,” Marlene called out from the hallway after hearing Sirius’ loud running start. “Good luck!” Her laugh echoed throughout the hall.

Lily came from around the corner to let you know you were always welcome in her room if Sirius turned out to be an actual dog. You simply accepted and just smiled while shedding a singular, figurative tear. “Nah, I’ll be fine... Probably ;)”

It didn’t take you very long to choose a side of the room and stick to it. You were just going to leave most of your stuff in your suitcase to avoid any huge messes. This obviously left you with some time to kill so you wandered back into the hallway.

When you got there, however, all you saw was Remus sitting on the floor in front of the first door James had tried so hard to open. When he saw you step into the hallway, he stood up.

“Where’s James?” you asked confused since they were supposed to be ‘bunking’ together.

Remus shifted his weight, “Oh um, he went to get a hammer, I think.” He shoved his hands in his pockets in hopes of looking less awkward.

“Oh,” you laugh. “Wh- why on Earth does James need a hammer?” You laugh at he thought of James actually fixing anything successfully.

He turned and jabbed his finger behind him to the door. “It, uh... locked us out.” He laughed under his breath as he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

You laughed as well. “...Did you try Alohamora?” you offered to your ‘genius’ friend.

He straightened up a little, almost offended. “We did, actually,” he smiled, “...Except James kept saying ‘Hola-ha-mora’, so it shouldn’t have worked the first three times anyways.”

You, having the heart of a Hufflepuff but intuition of a Ravenclaw, made your way over to him to see the doorknob yourself. Remus shuffled out of the way after first being stunned by your unexpected approach.

“So what’s actually wrong with it, then?” you question, getting on one knee to peer though the keyhole.

Remus awkwardly leaned over your head to look down on the situation but quickly realized how weird it looked from everyone else’s perspective and simply took a step back. “Um... You know I was actually thinking there might be internal rusting somewhere?”

You tutted your tongue on the top of your mouth, still very concentrated. “I mean sure, but that seems very unlikely due to the appearance of the rest of the house. You would think if someone could take the time to polish the toilet-paper holders, the inside of the room locks should be in perfect condition...” Remus nodded in agreement. “... And James doesn’t have the key?” you asked, confused by the concept of poor safety measures.

Remus just shrugged, “He said the house is so old that with unlocking charms, you know, because they are so common in wizarding communities, his parents figured ‘what would be the point’ of keeping any of the keys I suppose? I don’t know... Anyways, I told him that was dumb and then he went to go get a hammer.”

You stood up, having to steady yourself first from the fast rush of blood to your head. “What does he exspect to do?” you wonder out loud, “It’s not like he can just smash the handle off— though that would solve the problem,” you mutter that last part. “...But come on... I mean Mr and Mrs Potter would kill him and let Sirius bury his bones...”

“What?”

“...Nothing,” you continued. “But by the looks of it, all the handles look like an original artist’s craftsmanship which means not only are they more valuable and rare as a completed set, but they’re also way more expensive.”

Remus marveled silently at your quirky fountain of knowledge. For such a quiet and peaceful-minded soul, he often forgot that in the moments you weren’t tarnished by the boisterous personality of everyone else, you were more than bright enough to light up his world for a moment.

Just then, you and Remus turned to where you could both hear quickened footsteps making they’re way up the staircase. “Not to fear, Moony!... You’ll be reunited with your precious books in no ti-” James stopped mid-sentence before he nearly ran into the two of you.

“Back from your quest, oh key-less one?” You watch as James furrowed his brow before glancing at Remus then back to you.

”Ah, yes, I almost—”

“Is that a screwdriver?” you bite your lip to prevent yourself from laughing right in his face. James lifted up the “hammer” he got from heaven knows where with pride.

“No. It’s a hammer, Y/n, jeeze, I would have though you’d know, coming from a nice muggle community.... Now will you please move out of the way so I can fix this thing?” He readjusted his glasses sassily.

By this point in the conversation, Remus and you were nearly having a seizure trying not to burst out in laughter at your friend who really was trying his hardest. You eventually caved and shrunk up against the wall in a ball. “You ca- You can’t fix a door know with-”

“James,” Remus chuckled as he tried to pry the screwdriver from his hands. “That’s not going to-”

You both burst into another fit of laughter as James broke free and started whacking the lock with the butt-end of the device.

When the knob finally came loose, the three of you let out a little cheer. It was you, of course, who realized that the door needed to be lifted up a little while opening or closing becuse the real probably was with the hinges, not the lock.

About fifteen minutes later, when everyone had finally “set up camp”... James gave everyone a grand tour of the house. Your favorite bits were probably the drawing room because of the gorgeous window view and the library/study for obvious reasons. The part that you couldn’t quite get over, though, was the fact that there was a fireplace in practically every room. YAAAS WARMTH✨

When dinner finally hit though, you were definitely hungry. (You weren’t exactly starving because, well, eating had always seemed like a chore to you... Just thanks to the many perks of living in a 26% functioning body... But of course, you would push it aside unless you were on mental overload and therefore stress-ate an entire box of Cheerios plus a whole bag of goldfish and chocolate all night during that one OWLS season). But right now, in the midst of friends and good food, you were excited to spend the first evening of the weekend with them :)

The table (the smaller one meant for family not business guests in the main dining hall, was seated with James and Mary on both ends. Lily had somehow slithered her way to James’ left putting her, Marlene, and Sirius between the two. Peter sat on the left of James, smushing you between Remus on your left and Mary on your right.

You watched as the conversation switched from quidditch fowls, to hot quidditch team players, to James, Sirius, Mary and Marlene competing on who had gone out with the hottest Gryffindor member.

You obviously stayed out of this one as the three of you, Remus, and Peter all watched... Lily would throw in some deviously timed mention about her short flings with Slytherin team boys just to throw James off his lead.

“Sorry about not answering earlier...” Remus stated out of nowhere.

“What?” you muffled, trying not to choke on the soup you were currently obsessing over.

Remus was hoping he would t have to repeat himself, but just when he was about to, your brain registered his words.

“Oh! Oh, no no, that’s totally fine. I actually had just told Sirius that I didn’t care where I was- Wha- I’m sorry,” you laugh nervously, stuttering on every new sentence. WhY wAs iT sO HaRd To TaLk RiGhT NoW? “I just didn’t want to put you in that position, you know having to choose who to sleep with- I MEAN not sleep-sleep with just you know...” You could practically feel your face cooking.

“...Sirius(?).” You both finish as you gesture to the boy across the table from you, trying to stick his spoon to his nose using only his breath.

You both sat there, distracted and watching him until he actually succeeded. “Mary, look!” Right as he turned to show her however, it slid off and splashed soup up in his face.

You propped your head off your hand after a long moment of thought.... “Bet I could do it longer...” you start, turning back to Remus.

A confused smile stretched across his face. “...What?” he questioned again as if he hadn’t hear you properly the first time.

Without answering, you picked up the second spoon placed at your table spot (for whatever reason) and you watched as your reflection became more and more cloudy.

“Are you—”

You turned calmly to meet his face with a spoon now hanging from atop your nose.

After a good couple seconds of Remus staring at you, it finally clicked in his head what you were doing. A rare grin stretched up his face as he grabbed his own spoon and tried it himself.

It took a couple of tries for the spoon to really stick, but as soon as it did, Sirius saw from across the room and automatically turned it into a table-wide competition.

By the time pudding came around, you were holding the record of four minutes and twelve seconds versus Peter somehow who was thirteen seconds shy.

When the competition had ended though, Lily finally asked what the heck the plan was for the rest of the weekend...

In the morning, James said, everyone could go up to an abandoned village area where a muggle summer camp once stood and they could spend the night there. He promised the plumbing still worked for whatever reason, so it could be totally doable.

Every fiber of your being was telling you that was a dumb idea, especially a bunch of teenagers in the woods alone, but whatever right? Majority votes are always won by the delinquents.

[murfeelee]

Video Games Pt3: Video Game Challenge

I saw this list on Pinterest out of nowhere, and what better way to ring in the new year than with another questionnaire, about my favorite pastime! This is the spiritual successor to Part 1 and Part 2.

Day 1 - Very first video game: Pacman and/or Mortal Kombat and/or Samurai Shodown on arcade machines (way back in the day when laundromats had arcade machines and gumball machines and such in them--good times, good times U_U); Tetris on computers; and a buttload of PS1 titles (again: back in the good ole days when consoles came with promo demo discs--I had Frogger, Need for Speed, Medieval, and a bunch of others).

Day 2 - Your favorite character: Here’s my Top 10 Males post and Top 10 Females post.

Day 3 - A game that is underrated: I will preach the greatness of PS1′s Legend of Dragoon till my dying day. It was doomed to dwell in Final Fantasy 7′s shadow, which came out earlier that same year, and it’s a real shame, cuz LoD was E V E R Y T H I N G.

My favorite aspects of the game are:

Its lore and worldbuilding. On top of the fact that the premise of the game is could be an anime series in its own right, you just get SO EXCITED to visit each new location, and uncover more about the world’s history, and see the different architecture, technologies, cultures and different races (I LOVE the Winglies, of course). It’s actually a gorgeous game for its time.

The combat -- I STILL have some of the Addition patterns memorized to this very day! They get progressively harder as you level up, but once you get used to the timing you feel so dang good. Die, More and More!

The soundtrack and cutscenes. The NOSTALGIA? O_O Bruh. The story is just really good, and was the very first video game to make me cry when certain...events...happened. Play the game and find out for yourself!

Day 4 - Your guilty pleasure game: The Sims, Dragon Age...any and all EA games. Effing ashamed of myself every time I give that nest of corporate demons at Electronic Farts money. “Surprise mechanics” my arse. 

Day 5 - Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were): Has Jar Jar Binks been in a video game yet? Then that’s me. XD But I wish I was most like Lara Croft, as explained in my Top 10 Females post.

Day 6 - Most annoying character: For females it’s Lightning from Final Fantasy 13, and for males it’s Vaan, from Final Fantasy 12. I don’t mind as much when supporting characters are effing annoying (Vanille, Hope, etc), but when it’s the MAIN protagonist?! WHY, Square Enix? WHY.

Lightning was just a negative nancy debbie downer. I wish they had swapped Serah and Lightning, I seriously do. I just couldn’t stand her dry and soulless personality. She wasn’t being edgy or bada** or cool or sexy or FANG or anything; she was just a bitter jaded unhappy wench.

And with Vaan I just effing hate that dude. Why was he even there? They tried so hard to make this pushy entitled kid relevant, but I was like no, the story could’ve easily been told without him, and I wish it had been; he’s a effing idiot.

Day 7 - Favorite game couple: Yuna and Tidus from FFX (hardest I ever cried playing a video game -- THE FEELS I TELL YOU).

Day 8 - Best soundtrack: I used to think it was Skyrim, but nope, it’s Witcher 1, 2 and 3. Just listen to ALL of the songs CDPR ever produced for the entire franchise, including all the unreleased tracks, and enjoy the eargasm.

Day 9 - Saddest game scene: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice had me legit depressed for a good week. Get your tissues and holy water ready; it’s seriously effed up. The entire game is the saddest I ever played, jfc.

Day 10 - Best gameplay: Witcher 3, duh. Main quests, side quests, combat, dialogue, plot, graphics, worldbuilding, creatures, bosses, soundtrack, characters, Gwent, NEED I GO ON.

Day 11 - Gaming system of choice: Playstation for life. But the Nintendo Switch is effing brilliant, ngl; once they put Skyrim & The Witcher on it I was like SOLD.

Day 12 - A game everyone should play: At least ONE Final Fantasy game. There’s 15+, and Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts. It’s not just a game, it’s an experience.

As much as I rag on FF13 and FF15, they’re still admittedly LEAGUES better than a lot of other crap out there. I just happen to feel that Square Enix is out of its frikkin mind lately, and tbh I’ve been rapidly losing my hype for the FF7 Remake. I was never much of a FF7 fan to begin with, aside from being a rabid Sephiroth fangirl and watching Advent Children a billion times. But Square’s gotta be drunk as a skunk if they think I’m paying all that money for god knows how many of these effing “episodes” they’re gonna piecemeal us to dangit death with. HAYUL no. I’d rather not get too attached.

Day 13 - A game you’ve played more than five times:

Day 14 - Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper: Huh?

Day 15 - What game are you playing right now: Speak of the devil, I’m replaying God of War for the zillionth time already.

Day 16 - Game with the best cut scenes: In terms of graphics and story impact IMO might be Red Dead Redemption 2. That game was frikkin gorgeous, and the story was SO DANG GOOD. Braithwaite Manor!? O_O

Day 17 - Favorite antagonist: For females it’s either Edea from FF8, or Yunalesca from FFX. For dudes it’s Sephiroth, from FF7. That man needs some serious counseling.

Day 18 - Favorite protagonist: Yuna from FFX for the ladies, and TW3′s Geralt of Rivia for the dudes. 

Day 19 - A game world you would like to live in: The more Middle Eastern-inspired scifi/steampunki-medievalesque world of Ivalice from FF12, or the medieval French/Swiss Toussaint from The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine.

Day 20 - Favorite genre: RPGs and JRPGs, and pretty much action-adventure games with swords and sorcery.

Day 21 - Game with the best story: Red Dead Redemption, which is a good thing and a bad thing. A lot of the time I felt I was watching a movie, rather than playing a game. But it was still an Oscar worthy movie. XD

Day 22 - A game sequel which disappointed you: Technically it hasn’t come out yet, but from what we’ve seen of the Nioh 2 beta release, omfg what’s going on? U_U Now, don’t get me wrong! Nioh 2 looks AMAZING. But....that’s cuz it looks exactly like Nioh 1, just with new yokai gameplay thrown in. o_O Uh...is this a DLC expansion pack or what? Cuz it sure ain't lookin like a full-fledged sequel! :P Dare I call it an asset flip. Come on, don’t do this; do MORE. Unless this is actually an expansion you’ll sell for half the price. ;)

Day 23 - Game you think had the best graphics or art style: For graphics it’s RDR2, but for most unique art style it’s always been Okami for me. <3

Day 24 - Favorite classic game: Spyro the Dragon. Their reboot for PS4 was AMAZING.

Day 25 - A game you plan on playing: Cyberpunk 2077. I’m so bummed, knowing the game’s been delayed to September 2020 instead of April, but oh well. As long as CDPR gives us that master-class level of Polish we all know and love from The Witcher 3, then take as much time as you need, I guess. At least they’re not like effing EA or Bethesda. XD

Day 26 - Best voice acting: BOY. Freaking iconic, Kratos. :P

Day 27 - Most epic scene ever: Ciri beating the absolute tastebuds outta Caranthir in TW3, not once but twice. Most OP Witcher EVER, girl; WERK.

Day 28 - Favorite game developer: Though I effing hate them, I’m still a Square Enix fangirl at heart. It’s just saddening to see this weird turn they’ve been making recently, with garbage like the Quiet Man, and especially with Final Fantasy, my favorite game series of all time. U_U I’m not looking forward to the FF7 Remake anymore, tbh. I just hope FF16 is more of a return to form.

Day 29 - A game you thought you wouldn't like, but ended up loving: Skyrim. I was never a big fan of Elder Scrolls games, and when Skyrim came out I was very meh at first. But then the mods started coming out for it and I was like wow. O_O

Day 30 - Your Favorite game of all time: Legend of Dragoon on PS1, Final Fantasy X on PS2, Skyrim on PS3/PC, The Witcher 3 on PS4, and The Sims on PC.

________________________________________________

Thanks for reading!

[092219archive]

oH IF UR STILL TAKING THAT SONG ASK THING-- bloodsport by raleigh ritchie

Send me a song and I’ll tell you which f/o it makes me think of

I LISTENED TO IT AND OHHH MY GODDD

chi, you slammed the “what and how eren envisions their selfships to be like.” absolutely decimated the head of the nail, and the entire thing while you’re at it. i was struggling to decide whether this was an ephraim or ozymandias song (as they are my main s/os), but certain verses helped me decide that it was definitely an ozy kind of song! but idate could also... be a choice for a song like this... another time-

immediately, the song starts off with “nothing is perfect but your; imperfections are quaint” which stabbed me in the heart when i listened to that, because... well, i selfship to cope with insecurities and life issues, you know? something that i continue to struggle with are the many flaws i have, and it’s difficult to accept myself when i know things are wrong with me. i always get thoughts of “i can play around with ozy/eren because eren’s a flexible and fictional character, just like ozy. but i can’t play around with ozy/real eren, because real eren is kind of gross.” but i guess something i’ve always appreciated are people that can be patient with me, because i’m a double-edged sword a lot of the times. i’m lucky to have people in my life that are willing to stick around with me, and also people who encourage me to do better.

ozy being patient is a weird thought, but not impossible. that’s because everything is already his, and if it’s not his, you’re wrong. it’s his. manchild. i imagine that... if ozy loves eren (i use “eren” as a temporary placeholder for actual me right now, because writing “ozy and i/me and ozy” is making me so unbelievably uncomfortable), i feel like he’d be patient with eren and their gross habits and behaviors, their unhealthy reclusive attitude, their crude language... eren is you could say, “already his” considering his high status -- just needs a bit of... polishing, refinement. maybe some major fixes here and there.

“and your love is worth it; and for that i will wait” is something i’m a bit iffy on though, because it’s really difficult for me to stay committed? it’s... very inconsistent -- how long i stick around and such. i haven’t been in a romantic relationship under good conditions, so i can’t really say that i’d be a “super devoted person” since i don’t have experience. i like to imagine that ozy would be able to recognize that maybe eren was someone that could love in a way that was unique, something that hits you when you least expect it, or maybe even when they’re gone. and so he wants to keep them around, even if there’s a bunch of daily missions he has to complete and side quests he has to fulfill to get what exactly he wants.

i do see myself as a chore, and that’s because i feel like a chore. i can play stupid on purpose, or it can be unintentional. i can play “hard to get” because i know what the other person wants, or i don’t. and sometimes when you’re not looking, i can leave but i won’t disappear completely. if someone and i don’t have a routine schedule, then things’ll fall apart on my end. there’s a lot to watch for. but thinking of ozy being able to push through all of that, to see past those habits and thoughts i get, it’s... really comforting. he kind of... knows that i’m more than what i make myself to be. you’re worth every second, kind of thing... yells softly

“i drive you crazy but you; always return” can either be “eren’s sept. 2018 - apr. 2019 ozy slowburn era,” or it can be scenarios of ozy “spicing” things up to keep things interesting. to get closer to eren, he keeps things unpredictable and hits them when they’re weakest, but i don’t mean that in a bad way. ozy would keep eren on their toes, and when they’re expecting something from him, he doesn’t provide. he keeps them guessing, and when eren wants answers, they’ll get their answers. and he knows that they will. if he keeps doing what he does (and he will), then eren will always be falling into whatever card he plays next. it’s a cycle that they’ll never win, but they’re determined to get what they want just as much as ozy is.

“if i fall short; if i break rank... // i am all yours;... i’m on all fours, willingly down” shows just how set ozy is on making sure he’s showing his devotion to whatever the two can have. he knows there’s some chemistry brewing, and he wants to ensure that [chemical] equilibrium. the wording isn’t something he would exactly say, but his motives show more what he means. it’s like in some of his voice lines where he says, “me, accompanying you to save humanity? wrong! it is you, who is accompanying me to save humanity!” it’s not really possessive speech or actions, but a reminder of the two’s positions when you consider him into the equation.

but by the end of the day, this is ultimately a master/servant relationship. if something he does boosts their fragile ego and it benefits him, then you can almost bet that he will dive right in. a strong master means an even stronger servant. he won’t really “lower” himself, but he’ll probably raise eren to a status nearly as high as his own. buuut, not necessarily. i’m having a difficult time putting what i mean into words 💦

“loving you is a bloodsport; fighting in a love war” is the title of the song, which is nice! but i got some analyzing and thinking to do-

i feel like, with the circumstances that eren and ozy are in, it’s really difficult to find time to “love” each other properly. rather, eren can’t love him back properly. they have to save humanity and fix the singularities, they have to work on saving themselves (as cheesy as it sounds), and getting other servants involved in the saving of humanity is already terrifying enough. loving someone with these burdens on their shoulders, especially something they can’t carry, is a struggle because god knows what will happen if you step too close.

but the thing with ozy is that, he’s spoken to gods. hell, he’s the pharaoh. what’s a master of chaldea to him? only someone he’ll conquer, just like anyone else that stepped on his path to getting what he desires.

“although you love me, sometimes we meet. things can get ugly, but we’re still a team” is something that’s like... they probably get into disagreements about the correct choice, or course they should take. what exactly is bad for eren, what exactly is good for ozy -- but they’re accommodating for each other’s needs. just, differently. and right after those lyrics, it’s “we are an army; the brakes are within // but that’s why we’re stronger; and that’s how we’ll win” which portrays exactly how i imagine things should be. they’re not going to get along 100% well at first. they’ll click, maybe, but learning about their differences, both obvious ones and those less so, help them build on each other to better themselves and achieve what they want to achieve. like i’ve been mentioning -- he knows there’s something going on, but he wants to make sure that it works. it’s like one of those symbiotic relationships in biology, or something.

“it’s not what i’m in love for; i know but i don’t know if you can help it // baby, i’m just being selfish” these also have big ozy vibes!! maybe he wasn’t actually considering on falling in love because everything is of equal value to him. it’s not like he liked the master of chaldea when they came strolling into his pyramid anyways. maybe he wanted to establish a strong master/servant bond because that’s one of the primary rules of the holy grail war (except this is the big one, and humanity is on the line), because he realizes that he’s being held back by something, which would presumably be eren.

and then he sees this weird, damaged magus and he takes interest, because this person looks just like moses for whatever reason -- and maybe it was their eyes, or certain emotions they showed -- and he invests more time into them, wondering just how and why he made that connection in the first place, and he tries to pursue something that doesn’t want to be chased, and he sees the blood and the cracks on their hands and self, and he wonders just how, exactly, did he get where he did, but he’s already so far down the rabbit hole that he keeps going and going into territory that’s dangerous and prohibited. but this is the same man that conquered leaders and land, and created structure for his people, and has had poems and movies made about him.

he’s already dedicated. he’s been that way since the beginning of time, and quite literally. there’s no reason to back down and out.

“i’ll curse the day that they return; with a smile on my face; as their heads hit the floor” is... well, excluding the cursing part, but this is how ozy is in f/go 💦 he’s always smiling! he’s always having fun!! the nerve!!!

“what i’m tryna say is; i’ll protect you ‘till the day i’ll meet my maker // so don’t fight me now; ‘cause you might need me later” kind of makes me feel like he could be referring to the database he comes from, and how he’ll be with you to get some answers from the king of mages. “i’ll poke fun at you, but i’ll stick around, especially for your final fight” thing... uuuううううー

[theglorydefender]

I wrote a Gothic story for my class and based my main character on Alex Winter’s look (tm) in Haunted Summer so if you’re interested in reading it, I’d love to get some feedback!

                                        The Other Side of a Memory

 It was on a cold November morning when William Alexander arrived in Dover, prepared to start a new life. The pouring rain was melting the ground beneath the black carriage, turning it into mud as the horses tried to find a way through the thick mist surrounding them. Soon enough, the clock struck twelve and William found himself in the garden in front of a villa, his new residence which he eagerly awaited for months.  Entering the hall, the rich smell of old wood and dusty books hit him, intricating with his memory of him being a young boy and spending time in his grandfather's study, where he discovered his love for books and music, spending most of his days learning about wildlife and art, as well as playing his grandfather's piano. He started to look around, examining the place and its size. The tall ceiling made the villa look even bigger on the inside, almost frightening as the cool breeze slowly played with the heavy curtains covering the windows. The maroon color of the furniture mixed with cream walls made the place seem a bit warmer than the weather outside and a black polished concert piano, which the occupant previously purchased, stood grandly in the center of the cold living room. William decided to ascend the staircase and leave his possessions in the bedroom. A black oak bed was neatly made, covered by brown satin sheets which were soon disheveled as he placed his suitcases on the bed and went over to the rather large mirror, taking his hat off.  Blond curls were soon revealed, still neatly positioned as they were protected from the rain and the piercing emerald eyes focused on fixing a velvet suit. William's appearance was rather pure, almost angelic-like as people used to call him back in the day and now, the features this young man possessed would often remind people of ancient Greek statues, with porcelain skin and a sinless look in his eyes.   However, the real reason for his arrival would reveal a tragic story. The peaceful life he led soon came to an end as his parents died in a fire, which first caught their bedroom and then destroyed most of the house. Over and over again would he have vivid dreams of them getting suffocated by the smoke as the fire caught their house and burdened by the tremendous grief and nightmares, moving away from the family home in London seemed like the best solution for William. Unlike London, Dover was peaceful, distant, quiet and its white cliffs provided tranquility, which was a necessity for the young man. He would often be seen sitting in his garden, reading, as the eyes behind the round glasses carefully scanned every page.    Mr. Alexander soon caught the attention of the occupants living in the adjacent house, a family of four; mother, father, an older brother named Henry and his sister Isabelle, who was only a few years younger than William. The mother would often comment on his actions, saying he appeared to be an introvert and suggested Henry to go over and introduce the family to the new neighbor which the son often refused, saying how their father should do it, since he was the head of the family. Isabelle, on the other hand, admired William's love for reading and often caught herself thinking what sort of books were able to caught his attention that he would spend hours reading in the garden. She wanted to go and introduce herself, as a representative of the family, but her mother would always strictly forbid, saying how it is not a woman's job to do so, especially not someone's as young as herself. "Who knows what sort of a man he is, what he does in that villa all by himself! You mustn't go there alone Isabelle!" the mother exclaimed on many occasions, leaving the young girl sulk.    Isabelle was a very whimsical girl, always curious, seeking for adventure ever since the young age and she always found a way to get what she wanted. Meeting Mr. Alexander was her next plan and she was determined to fulfill it, with or without the mother's permission. The very next day, she let the household know that she will be taking an afternoon walk and soon found herself strolling around the house and the garden, eyeing the adjacent villa. A few moments after, the sound of the piano filled the air around her and the girl decided that, even though she will interrupt his playing, it was a perfect time for her to go and introduce herself. Rushing to the house, she quickly found herself on the doorway and gently brushed her knuckles on the door. Nothing. The piano was still playing and Isabelle decided to knock a few more times, using more force so the tenant will be able to hear it. The second time turned out to be more successful as the music stopped and a young man appeared at the door, looking rather puzzled by the sudden interruption. "I'm terribly sorry for interrupting sir but that was simply wonderful! I cannot help but ask what was that piece you were playing ?" the girl asked, tucking a piece of dusky hair behind her ear. "Oh, it was..Bach's fugue, in G minor.." The man replied, still looking baffled by the posed question. "I find Bach rather heavy but this was truly soothing!" She said, with a childish grin on her face. "Why thank you..Miss ?" He asked, eager to find who the lady was. "Oh how terribly rude of me! I'm Isabelle, my family lives right over there" she said, pointing to the house. "Pleasure to meet you Miss. I am William..William Alexander" the young man said, reaching to shake her hand as she tensed a bit, by the unexpected coldness of his palms. However, Isabelle did not pay much attention to that as it was quite cold and the rain hasn't stopped for the whole week, making the sky look bruised and burdened by the black clouds. The two soon found common ground and spent some time discussing art and literature when Isabelle asked if William could possibly find time to teach her the basics of piano, which he kindly accepted. A new friendship felt like a new start, and it felt good to get his mind off of things, all those horrible nightmares where he saw the fire, the locked room and his parents slowly perishing, disappearing like the vapor surrounding them.   Dover was a peaceful town and it seemed like nothing could interrupt the tranquility of the place until one night. One of the servants living with the family nearby was reported missing which was rather unusual, considering the fact that the servants' free time was very limited and strict. The whole area went to the quest the next morning, until the master of the house in which she worked found her near an old graveyard, body sprawled on the back next to a crumbling statue of an angel, bruises all over her fair neck resembling the sky above them; blue and purple hues intricating with each other, as the thunderous clouds slowly started to gather, warning everyone that it was time to go home. It only took one crime like this for the whole area to feel threatened, wondering what sort of monster would do such an egregious thing. Many questions and assumptions were posed, but none could lead to the right answer. On the night of the servant's disappearance Isabelle heard William playing the piano, this time a rather sad tune, as she could distinguish from the melody. The next day, when the two met she explained how the recent event made her feel quite queasy and that she found his piano playing as a sort of an omen that night. "I cannot explain it but when I heard the melody Sir, I felt sad and scared at the same time! I had the feeling that something awful would occur but nothing as awful as this." Isabelle explained as William found himself almost puzzled by her thinking. "The mind could be a scary place Miss. We must learn to control it and not get frightened by it." he answered calmly and after a few moments, the two continued the piano lesson.   Isabelle's mother was not familiar with her daughter taking the piano lessons at first and was certainly not happy when she found out but Isabelle convinced her that the new neighbor had nothing but the best and kindest intentions. "Oh mother he's lovely! I've never met a man so pure in both his looks and soul. He couldn't harm a single ant mother, you have no reason to fear." she explained which left her mother thinking that her youngest child could be falling for Mr. Alexander. "Don't be silly! He is only a kind friend." the girl said, trying to conceal the obvious that she might have started looking William differently but was too unsure and afraid to admit her emotions.  A few days went by since the horrible incident took place, leaving the community shaken and just when things started settling and going back to the usual routine, another tragedy had befallen the place when a young boy, working in the stable, was found dead, covered in dried blood and a shovel neatly placed beside him, which was assumed to be the weapon of choice this time. What was once known as a peaceful place turned into a terrifying nightmare, people who were once pollyannish and full of life were left mourning over their loved ones and somehow, the weather started resembling people's emotions; cold days and raven black clouds, tiredly floating across the sky as the rain pouring outside looked like the tears streaming down their cheeks. Rain could make the flowers grow back but tears could not resurrect the innocent, lost lives buried in the garden of death, forever. It would be foolish to think that William Alexander wasn't afraid for his own life and safety and he soon ostracized himself from the environment, too afraid to go out especially after he started having those vivid nightmares again. First, he would dream of his parents and the fire, the way the red devilish flame caught his mother's nightgown, how his father begged and yelled for help but no one came, how William woke up too late that night and never had the chance to see his parents again nor say goodbye. But then, the nightmare would often be interrupted by the pictures of a young woman, the servant, who was strangled to death, her incessant cry for help waking William up as he found himself in bed, covered in cold sweat and gasping for air. He would then trudge to an open window, letting the cold moonlight hit his viridescent eyes, nostalgia feeling like fog in the brain as he tried to calm himself down and assure himself that this was just a consequence of the unfortunate happenings in Dover. Nonetheless, the chocking fear and the feeling of missing three hours of memory were filling his thoughts, leaving him sleepless for the rest of the night. But, what scared him the most were the vivid details of the tragedies, like he was there himself, witnessing the crimes which shook his new home. On the night of the young boy's murder in the stable, Isabelle heard the piano again, the same slow tune playing as she frightened that something horrible may happen again. And it did. She begged William not to play his piano again since she was too afraid of the omen-like music and thought that the evil spirits were summoned this way. "Oh Isabelle please! That does not exist. And my piano is the only thing keeping me going in these times of such unimaginable tragedies, I must play it, I need to play it in order to stay sane Isabelle, please understand.", the young man exclaimed and the girl tried to forget about her silly ideas, even feeling slightly embarrassed by the thought that William's music could call upon some evil spirits and bring unfortunate events to the place. "It's just my imagination, it has to be.", she said going back to the house.  At this point, everyone was afraid to go outside, not only because of the foul weather but because of the fear that they may end up dead, killed by God knows what but Henry, Isabelle's older brother, was not one of those people. He might have been afraid but he was concealing it well and as everyone begged for him to stay inside the house he was quick to respond back and say that whatever is out there cannot confront him. "Henry please don't go to the white cliffs, not today! Look at the weather Henry, please!" Isabelle begged but her brother, being too stubborn to listen, turned around and left. "I cannot stand the silence surrounding me nor the energy in this house Bella, I will be back, I promise. It is simply an afternoon walk, I will be fine." Henry was quick to assure his sister and closed the door. A few hours passed and midnight was approaching but Henry still hasn't returned from the walk. Suddenly, William's piano could be heard, playing the same sad tune and at that moment, Isabelle knew. "Something happened to him!" she sobbed but considering the weather and the late hours she knew there was nothing she could do. As much as she tried to assure herself that the music had nothing to do with the unfortunate situations and the disappearance of her brother, Isabelle couldn't help but think of the worst scenarios. It was eating her alive, the worrying, the uncertainty sitting on her shoulders, waiting for the next day to arrive.  The next morning, right at dawn, the family went on the quest in order to find Henry, hoping that whatever happened to him, would not resemble the frightful crimes but, as they arrived at the white cliffs, they saw his lifeless body at the bottom, surrounded by the bloody rocks. The tremendous grief which occupied their hearts as they saw their bellowed one lying there helpless could not be compared to the sharpest pain, it felt like someone ripped a piece of them and threw it to the ground or took their hearts out, squeezing them with their hands. Another life was taken away and for what cause ? Why would someone kill three innocent people and bring suffering into people's lives ? Henry was another rotting flower on a grave, leaving his family feeling hollow and numb. The pain was so strong, unimaginable, that it almost ceased to exist.  William was resting in his bedroom, watching the rain pour as his fingers glided across the pages of another book when sudden screams started filling the air. As he approached the window he saw Isabelle and the rest of her family sobbing, as the servants carried Henry's corpse back into the house. The book dropped on the floor as he quickly turned around, covering his mouth to suppress the shriek coming out. If that someone or something killed Henry, what if it kills Isabelle as well ? All sorts of thoughts started filling William's head as he bent down to pick up his book and suddenly noticed the mud on the carpet. As he started examining the bedroom he noticed muddy footsteps all over the carpet, ending at the threshold and he could feel his head pulsing because he was afraid that someone may have been in the house. And then, a voice said "I made you do it." "What ? Who said that ?!" William started panicking and turning around the room to spot the enemy. "I made you kill all of them William." the voice said as the young man approached the mirror and saw his own reflection grinning eerily. "I made you kill Henry, just like I made you start the fire William." "No! Stop it! You're not real, this is not real!" Mr. Alexander started sobbing as he grabbed his head, delicate veins on his wrists turning purple as he was trying to stop the voice inside of him. "You killed your precious parents. Have you ever thought why were your dreams so vivid ? Ha! They were real William, all of them. The candle which started the fire ? You did that. You strangled her, you pushed Henry off the cliff William and I made you do it!" the reflection replied, leaving William choking from his own tears. "I will take over." the voice threatened. "No! You cannot! I will not let you!" the poor young man yelled. "It is too late. I took over." and as William looked up, the reflection in the mirror looked like him again, only this time, the dark side took over. The emerald eyes faded to misty grey and what was once an innocent smile turned into an evil smirk. "I took over." he uttered one last time, looking himself in the mirror.  None of us has only one side of the persona but yet, we learn to control our personalities. For William, such a thing was impossible. His other side was not ordinary, it was demonic-like, unexplainable and uncontrollable. The eeriest part was that William Alexander himself did not know about the existence of this persona, its actions and most of all, its consequences and yet, it was always there. His innocent soul was possessed by this evil force, this inner being which was slowly taking over his brain until that night, when it reached its peak, its full strength to posses William entirely and demolish what was once known as an angelic-like creature, turning an angel into a demon, forever.  The next day resembled the previous one, bad thunderstorms occurring during the late scarlet sunset as Isabelle and her family slowly made their way back home, after Henry's funeral. The look in their eyes was fading, resembling the cold pale skin, the way tragedy struck their hearts, stopping their breathing for a moment. William went outside, concealing the changed persona, as he approached Isabelle, expressing tremendous grief and worry over her deceased brother. The dead grey look in his eyes frightened her for a moment, but the young girl tried to blame her sight, filled with fog from all the tears gliding down the fair cheeks. Grief often makes us look at  things differently, which was believed to be the case now as well. Mr. Alexander kindly offered a walk, saying how a friend is a necessity when tragedy occupies the heart and Isabelle accepted, having developed a strong sympathy and trust in William. The sky was slowly clearing up, twinkling stars appearing above the old graveyard as the two friends found a spot on the ground to sit and rest. Isabelle had a hard time concealing her tears and sadness but William assured her that pain always has to find its way out and that her teardrops should not be an embarrassment but an expression of love for her brother. His demonic side was successfully gaining her trust as she fell asleep on his shoulder, tired from the pain filling her being. With him, she felt safe, but did not have the slightest idea that the man offering his friendship and advice was the man who was causing all of the suffering in Dover, and her heart. As she fell asleep, William started talking, placatingly caressing her hair. "You never deserved this Isabelle, you never deserved to feel so much suffering in your heart. Remember when I told you how the human mind could be a scary place ? William never learned to control that Bella, and he let me take over his mind. He was not strong enough and neither are you. You cannot live with this burden and a hollow heart." he said, taking a pistol out of his suit. "I cannot imagine you going through life feeling suffocated by this grief. You have a good soul darling and I would hate to see it so..woeful. Please forgive me Isabelle, but it is for the best." he said, putting a pistol against her head and in a split second, she was gone, unaware of her death, her innocent soul leaving in her sleep.  Dragging her dead body to her brother's grave, William drew a heart on her chest with her blood, kissing her forehead. "You should have never knocked on my door darling, you should have never heard the piano." he said, slowly walking away from the graveyard to his villa. The chilling wind was howling as he entered the living room, sat on the chair and began playing the piano, the same old, sad tune, following after every death. The bloody fingerprints contrasting the white keys of the piano as the omen-like melody filled the rooms, indicating that the next day would reveal another tragedy, breaking many hearts once again.

[blackcatmanor]

RWBY V8 Ep 8 Photo Review (SPOILERS)

Overall a cool episode with some issues, big and small (Spoilers below)

The good:

Story and structure of the episode:

The structure of the episode was really great. The very beginning and end being one small story, but not lingering too long was perfect. The main story of the episode being Ruby and Co’s horror adventure was awesome!

After some planning and setup, there is a tussle with the hound outside, where once again it shows its greatest power: The ability to immobilize licensed huntresses in sheer confusion. 

However after the initial tussel, I LOVED when it became a horror movie-style suspense story. Wondering where it was going, who it’d run into next was pretty well done.The Schnee family working together was well done also, with Willow watching on the cameras, then defending Whitley, followed by Weiss coming to save them. A+ Schnee family interactions.

I am also taking the summoned boarbatusk attacking the hound as a Willow glyph, because the summon comes after she tries to warn Whitley about the hound and he ignores her, and she appears directly after to rescue Whitley. The Glyphs are a Schnee family trait on the mom’s side, so I think Willow has the abilities, but is too drunk, depressed, and worn down to ever use them, nor does she usually need to. But Whitley being in danger left her no other choice. 

The ending of the horror arc was….spooky yet kind of expected? A lot of people expected that Summer was the hound, and it turned out to be indeed a person but not Summer. Thank goodness. Summer should just be dead, plain and simple. She followed Ozpin’s futile fight against Salem and it cost Summer her life (It would also be cool if this is part of the reason Raven turns on Ozpin. Perhaps Raven knows the truth behind Summer’s death and it caused her to abandon Ozpin). I’m a little nervous that the confirmation that Salem can make people into Grimm, and the fact that this guy was a silver-eyed warrior is a possible foreshadowing of Summer being a grimm, which would be super lame. It would be SO melodramatic to almost cringeworthy status.

Nonetheless, the ending was kinda eerie and emotional, and shows the depths of depravity Salem plunges in her twisted quest to get the relics.

Fun fact: For a hot second I thought the Hound guy was Yuma.  😆  They look too similar. But then I realized this guy was a cat faunus soooo….ya. Maybe you could have made him a little more unique looking or something, CRWBY.

 Fun fact #2- People don’t have three knuckles on their thumbs. It should have been 2. 

 Friendship moments:

Blake’s speech is really cute, if a little forced into the situation. Arryn has always been the best voice actress of the main 4 and this is one of the best ones. She seems earnest and sincere and gives Ruby a reason to be a doe-eyed optimist even in rough times. It’s also cute to see Ruby how Blake sees her, and it’s way more meaningful and thoughtful than as a beacon of “purity” like in Volume 5’s Blake Speech about her friends. I will say it doesn’t really fit here in the middle of a war, and the speech seems a little pre-planned as it doesn’t actually respond to what Ruby was saying that nothing they’re doing seems to be helping, but I still liked it. 

Nora’s speech to Penny to help her overcome the influence of the Watts hack was nice, too, if a little predictable. I am just glad it wasn’t Ruby who said it, because Ruby has been the exclusive Penny friend for the last two volumes. It’s nice to see other people forming friendships outside of their established single BFF or love interest. 

The bad:

Shot composition.

The shot composition of the jailbreak was SUPER weird. We start from Qrow’s perspective and Robin is behind him in shot. Then they hear a breach and Robin turns into Watts.

Then there is the explosion and the camera shows a fireball and dust cloud. The shot makes it seem like the camera simply zooms out but where Qrow should be is now Robin,

Then Robin looks to the source of the breach and sees….Qrow in bird form? I’m going with Qrow in bird form even though he’s now on the other side of the room. It took me like 7 re-watches of the scene to make this call.  

The reason it was hard to discern th is is Qrow is because the composition is so confusing that on first watching, I thought it was Raven. This is because: 

1. This bird is on the entire other side of the room in relation to where Qrow was in the preceding shot 

2. I thought the person in the zoomed-out shot after the blast was STILL Qrow, as he was the preceding focus. It would then smash cut to Robin looking confused as to why a Raven would be the source of such an explosion (turns out the small figure in the zoom out transforms into Robin)

3. I thought Maybe the directors wanted there to be a misdirect in thinking it would be Cinder that causes the jailbreak, but make it Raven instead because she saw Ruby’s message to Remnant in the previous episode. 

But then I realized that would be kinda dumb because Raven’s entire motivation is to NOT fight Cinder. That and, after re-watch and noticing the person in the zoom-out changes into Robin, (though it’s hard to see), I guess the intent is that she’s looking at Qrow squawking at her about the soon-to-be falling debris.

The composition of the Mama Schnee summon is kind of the same. We don’t see her summon it and that’s for suspense reasons, but we also have never learned that she CAN summon, only that the abilities run on her side. I have to assume it’s her because she tried to warn Whitley, was ignored, and took off from her own room to intercept him. She saw she was too late and summoned a boarbatusk to distract the hound before immediately appearing in the door after the summon to get her son out. 

I don’t think this could be a Weiss summon because Weiss presumably didn’t know where they were at the moment, and they had to run down two long hallways before they met back up with her. It also has never been established that Weiss can just summon things and send them on their own way, a summon has to be in eyeshot and directed by the summoner. If this IS a Weiss summon, the fact that it can be mistaken for a Willow one is more proof that the composition of this and other scenes could use some work and polish. 

  The RWBY Hamster Wheel, AKA Ruby and Co still not really doing anything:

Ruby dead-on saying they haven’t done anything, and May having to ease her guilt was kind of 4th-wall breaking. After the launch of Amity, Ruby’s team have done nothing while Jaune and Co are the ones presumably about to engage with the main battle. Even with Amity Ruby and Co did that super half-assed. The feed cut because the thrusters can’t keep it in the air, and they have zero desire to try and find a way to get the communication tower back up. The hobbled tower, Pietro and Maria have been abandoned by the plot so the girls can sit around and do little side quests like fixing Nora and Penny, and having a horror adventure. 

Although I really did like their horror adventure, it still didn’t add much to the plot because the hound fails and dies (by NOT the huntresses, no less), so the threat of Penny getting the staff for Salem against her will still relies on Watts’ hack of her systems. If you’re going to have an attempt fail, why not move it up a little and cut out the time Ruby and Co spent sitting around drinking tea? 

It is getting hard to ignore that each episode of V8 has the main protagonist, a licensed huntress, and her group of fellow licensed huntresses not actively doing anything other than power cycling things, and then sit around drinking beverages waiting for the next thing to do to fall into their lap (literally). This episode was hamster wheel, implying motion without actually going anywyere. It starts and ends with Penny being unconscious at the manor, with a fight for her in the middle. This kind of story was okay with the Apathy arc in V6 because a kingdom wasn’t falling, but Ruby and Co’s sitting around not engaging with the plot unless being forced to by the script is getting to be a problem. 

I just wish there was a sense of what Ruby is going to do!  Before she had to wait for plot to fall into her lap, but now Penny has revealed explicitly what she is going to do, and there is still no indicatoin that a plan will be hatched to keep her from delivering the staff to Salem. We are more than mid-way through the season, and there was a 2 month hiatus and we still have zero clue what Ruby’s plan for anything is. 

You know who they should ask what to do: Whitley. Whitley comes up with more of a plan of action in 5 minutes than Ruby, Weiss, and Blake did in 7 episodes. Does the inclusion of his plan to save Mantle mean that Ruby and the team will do THAT? Though they mentioned the ships will be flown with drone bots, so do they need to be a part of that? Are they going to try only to be sidelined by evil Penny? No one knows. At least team Jaune have a plan of action. Can’t wait to see that next episode. 

Overall score: 7/10 Though RWBY is never truly suspensful IMO, the horror movie aspect was still pretty fun to engage in. Seeing the writers make a lot more effort to make these characters actual friends is nice to see as well. Some technical hiccups and more importantly the frustration that Ruby isn’t actually doing anything hinders this episode a lot, especially after such a long hiatus. 

Bingo update: I’m giving myself mama schnee summoning, though only half a jailbreak right now because we only saw the bad guy get out. Robin and Qrow still TBA. 

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Kinda vague, but a non-human d&d au where Tony and Bucky have to work together for a quest?

Tony -- gnome tinkererBucky -- dwarf warriorSteve -- human paladinNat -- halfling rogueClint -- elf rangerThor -- human cleric of the All-FatherLoki -- human mage

“Aw,boots, no,” Clint complained. The elven ranger sighed, staring downat his footwear that was ruined by the puddles of stagnant water thatpooled against the cavern floor. “Why is it always dark, dank,moldy, disgusting caves where the bad guys go to hide? Just once, I’dlike to get into a nice, clean fight in the sunlight, with trees andchirping birds and--”

“Headin the fight!” Steve barked. The paladin blocked a striking hydrahead with his enchanted shield. He severed the neck with his sword,and stepped back so that Natasha could dance in with the torches shewas wielding instead of her usual knives to cauterize the wound.

“‘Tisnot a lack of heads in the fight that we suffer from, Captain,”Thor bellowed. Before the beast had finally burst free of the cavernwhere it lay hid, the group had suffered from the impression thatthey were under attack from a large group of serpents. By the timethey figured it out, the Hydra was top-heavy with four extra heads.Thor was battering away at one head with his magical hammer, whilehis brother Loki cowered behind him and occasionally shot jaggedbolts of green flame in the monster’s direction. “Allfather Odin!I call on you --” And there went Thor, praying again “--to givemight to my arm and that of my companions, to bless us in ourendeavours against… this foul. Stinking. Revolting. Monstrous.--”

“That’senough adjectives, brother,” Loki said. “I’m sure Allfathergets the point.”

Tonydodged the beast’s tail and scampered to where the dwarf Bucky wasclashing with two heads at once. “This isn’t fast enough!” thegnome complained, even as he lined up a shot with hishastily-modified blaster. “Stane’s going to get away from usagain!”

“Well,”Bucky said, hefting one of his weapons, “I’ll just axehimto stick around, shall I?” He knew Tony would roll his eyes atthat, even in the midst of battle, in the middle of his rage andanxiety. He hacked at the mostly severed neck of the hydra headnearest him. The head dropped, spurting black blood everywhere.

Buckytossed his war-axe from one hand to the other, grabbed the flask fromhis hip and guzzled a mouthful of pure dwarven mulekick. He flickedthe brass and steel device Tony had given him months ago -- aflame-maker -- and spat, spraying the highly-flammable booze all overthe stumpy neck and searing the flesh before it could generate moreheads. “Waste of perfectly good drink,” he muttered, wiping theremnants out of his beard. He was very proud of his beard, all of aquarter of a thumbwidth long. Two seasons ago, he’d been asclean-faced as a boy, so even the tiny bit of scruffle was a sign ofhis impending maturity.

“I’llbuy you a fresh flask as soon as we get back to town and I’m notdying anymore!” Tony promised. “There’s got to be a faster wayto do this!”

“Feelfree to speak up if you have any ideas,” Natasha chimed in. Shehatedbeingrelegated to backup and support roles, but she was the only one fastenough to keep up with both Steve’s and Clint’s kills.

“Goteyes on Stane,” Clint reported, doing that freaky elf-thing wherehe was dancing along the back of the hydra, jumping from head to headwith ease and firing arrows by the bushel basket.

“Welldon’t just stand there, shoot him!” Tony demanded.

[Mobile users, ‘ware the readmore!]

“Getthe beast to open a mouth,” Loki said. Thor was practicallycarrying him; the young mage was powerful, but easily wearied.“Natasha, throw this down its throat.” He handed her a packet;Bucky’d seen dozens of those little packets, they held Loki’sspell components and were stored carefully in a waxed and enchantedleather bag, to keep them safe.

“Iam shooting him!” Clint yelled back. “What do you think I amdoing up here? Getting altitude so that I can yodel? That armor ofhis is thick as dragonhide.”

“Wecan’tlethim get away this time!” Tony said, a hint of desperation slippingthrough his usually composed demeanor. “My backup heart won’tlast much longer!”

“Wewon’t let you die, Tony,” Steve promised, sounding all sincereand paladin-y.

Tonydidn’t respond to that. He was too busy peering under the Hydra’slegs. “I can get to him,” he told Bucky in a voice low enough notto carry over the hydra’s roaring and the others’ shouting. “ButI need him distracted while I disable his armor.”

“Ifthere’s one thing I’m good at, doll,” Bucky said, “it’sbein’ distractin’.” He did trajectory calculations in his head-- his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandmother beforehim had all manned ballistas and catapults in the days of the GreatWar. Arc and trajectory were in his blood and bones.

“Steve!Shield!” he roared, getting a running start.

Thepaladin glanced over the situation, his keen eye putting all thepieces together in an instant. “Right.” He faced Bucky, trustingNatasha’s fiery brands to protect him for the moment, and angledhis shield toward the dwarf.

Buckywas no elf, but a short (ha ha, bad joke) leap he could manage. Helanded on his toes on Steve’s shield and the paladin launched himupward. Bucky tucked and rolled with the momentum, barely missingscraping his head on the roof of the cavern (that would be first indwarven history and he almost regretted the lost opportunity) and hetouched down on the Hydra’s back.

Howin the nine realms did Clint do that, Bucky wondered, irritably, ashe stumbled and fumbled his way down the beast’s back, dodged thelashing tail and ended up with his boots firmly back on the groundwhere they belonged.

“Dwarves,”he announced, “were not meant for flyin’. Oi! Stane!”

Theywere lucky in that the cavern had partially collapsed in the southernquadrant when the Hydra came up; Stane was still trying to clearenough debris to get to the tunnel. Bucky’s dwarven senses told himthere was only perhaps another four or five arm’s length to clearbefore he’d be free to run down the tunnels, and even a dwarf’skeen sense of underground design, they’d probably lose him.

Andthen, they’d lose Tony. There was an odd, squeezing pain in Bucky’schest at that thought. When they’d first put together their band ofheroes for hire -- Steve was the main catalyst for that -- Buckyadmitted to some dubiousness over the little gnome, absent-minded,sarcastic, insanely wealthy, and, to be fair, just insane. But Tonyhad proven himself useful, heroic, and… if Bucky had to admit it,and maybe he should, if only to himself, kinda cute.

Speakingof… where was Tony?

Tonyran straight under the hydra, his tiny body twisting and flippingaround its flailing limbs, and rolled up to a stop just behind Stane.From his bottomless bag of tricks he pulled a gizmo that lookedsomething like a metal arm, and aimed it toward Stane. The armextended, even as Stane gestured and mouthed a spell that was boundto mean trouble for Bucky.

Stane’sspell released in an explosion of vile red power, but not beforeTony’s gizmo had unfastened the catches of his armor, making itslip down, exposing the wizard’s chest and dropping his belt to thecavern floor.

Thearmor’s removal caused Stane’s hand to jerk, the blast went wild.Bucky tracked it, automatically. It struck one of the hugestalactites that dripped down from the roof; there had been dozenswhen they arrived, but this one, so far, had resisted falling prey tothe writhing Hydra. No more. It was going to come down. Buckyscrambled for the nearest shelter; that much rock coming down wasgoing to be ugly. “Get clear, get clear!” He yelled, wavingfrantically at Tony, who was busy with Stane.

Tonyignored Bucky’s warning, intent on the fallen belt which surelyheld Tony’s heart among the spell components. He dove for it, butfailed to grab it, succeeding only in knocking it out of Stane’sreach. “Blast!” He scrambled for it, kicking at Stane’s legs.

Buckycould see everything in that second; the way the roof was going tocome down, the way Stane and Tony and Tony’s heart were all goingto be crushed. The path was very, very clear. He didn’t hesitate.

Dwarveswere natural sprinters, is what Bucky’s Uncle Gimli had alwayssaid. Wasted on cross-country. He only needed to run twenty lengthsof a man laying down. Bucky ran. He ran like he’d never run before,not even when that entire horde of goblins were chasing them, andClint had mocked that he only needed to outrun the dwarf.

Thestone floor was flat, almost polished toward the rear of the cavern.Bucky threw himself down, momentum sliding him across. Snag, and hegrabbed the belt of components. Slid further and knocked Stane’slegs out from under him.

Scrambledto his feet ad got an arm around Tony. The gnome was short, slender.Barely weighed more than a sack of grain. The ceiling was coming downin chunks all around them. A huge, gaping crack opened in the floor.

Shit.

Buckypinwheeled to a stop, Tony still thrown over his shoulder like achild. The edging of the cavern was steady, a deep root of bedrockunderneath. Half the rest of the floor was going to go at any moment.

Anddwarves... Dwarves couldn’t jump. On the few occasions it had beena problem, Steve usually tossed Bucky, but Steve… Steve was on theother side of the Hydra, which was going through its death throes andprobably not helping with cavern stability at all.

“Go,go,” Bucky said. “Tie on a rope on the other side, hurry.”

Hegrabbed Tony by the belt and the back of his thick vest, swung, andthrew him across the crevasse, not even breathing for fear until Tonyrolled, fetching up against the cavern wall.

Tonydidn’t stop to catch his breath, but scrabbled at his belt for alength of rope and tied it with quick, deft movements to an outcrop.He wound up to throw it back across the gap to Bucky.

Behindhim, Stane was climbing back to his feet, cursing... No, make thatcursing.

Trajectoryand arc.

Tonywas the target. Bucky would live, and all he had to do was nothing.

Heknew he wouldn’t make it across the chasm, it was too far. But hemight be able to land on the slight outcropping, about twenty feetbelow. He jumped. The curse hit him, a glancing blow, striking hisshoulder. Pain, brilliant, blinding pain, seared through his leftarm.

Thecavern roof collapsed; a million tons of rock and dust came down onStane’s head.

Theblackness of the chasm below was a soft, cold comfort. Bucky tumbledin and let gravity take him… Tony’s screaming followed him intothe dark.

“No!!!”Tony screamed. Not Bucky, gods of Light, notBucky.He scrambled for the edge of the chasm, not caring about theaftershocks still shaking the ground, not caring about the flailingof the hydra, or even about his heart that Bucky had been holding.

Light,he needed... He fumbled in his bag until he found a lantern and shoneit over the edge, terror pounding cold through his veins.

Don’tget attached to the Bigs,his mother had told him, but he hadn’t listened. He’d grown tolove his friends -- Steve’s easy sincerity and Clint’s readyjokes and Natasha’s quick wit and Thor’s good humor and evenLoki’s cleverness. But most of all, mostof all,he’d come to love Bucky, steadfast and true, reliable in a way thatBigs seldom were.

Thelight reached down and there was Bucky, lying in a pool of oh, god,so much blood. One arm was outstretched, Tony’s heart shining likea beacon in its grasp. “No,” Tony said again, barely a whisper.What use was his heart if Bucky was gone?

Hechecked his rope -- the least they could do was see Bucky’s bodyreturned to his home, buried properly -- and swung over the side,shimmying down to the ledge where Bucky had landed.

Closer,the stench of the blood was unbearable, and he could see the pulpymess that was all that was left of Bucky’s left arm, which musthave borne the brunt of not one but several impacts. Tony choked backbile; he had more important things to do first. He wasn’t strong,but he could sling Bucky to his back and have one of the others pullthem up.

Butwhen he rolled Bucky over, the dwarf’s breath hitched with pain,and Tony’s eyes nearly fell out, they felt so wide. “Bucky!”

“Tony?”Bucky’s eyes were open, but they flittered around like he couldn’tsee. “Tony.. z’at you?”

“It’sme, I’m here,” Tony babbled. Change of plan, right. He wrappedthe rope around the stump of Bucky’s shoulder to make a tourniquet,though he didn’t know if he was strong enough to make it tight.“Thor!” he yelled. “Come fast! We need your healing at once!”

“Igot it, doll,” Bucky said. He’d started their adventures bysaying Tony was no bigger than a doll, and what use did they have forchildren’s toys in the wild, but it had become more… affectionatethan that, over time. “Your heart.Igot it. Takeit. Before I go home t’ meet the Gods.”

“Don’tyou dare,”Tony scolded. “You weren’t supposed to dietoget it back, you stupid Big! I don’t even wantitif you’re going to leave me!” He was aware that he sounded like apetulant child, but he didn’t care. Whatever it took to make Buckystay with him. “Thor!”

“Well,gotta say, it wasn’t the plan,” Bucky pointed out. “You gonnamiss me, doll? Give us a kiss to bear me away. Always… it wasalways you…” His face contorted with agony, blood still spurting,despite the tourniquet.

“Bucky,don’t talk like that,” Tony panted. “Stay, and I’ll give youall the kisses you want. Wanted to kiss you for months now, anyway,just... just staywith me.”He tried to tighten the tourniquet, but it was useless. Stupid gnome;he should have a device for this! He would get right on that, as soonas they were back to civilization, as soon as he could sit and thinkabout anything but the way Bucky’s skin was growing pale.

Loki’spretty face -- not so pretty when covered with sweat and dirt andblood -- peered over the side. “Hold fast to him, tinkerer, and Ishall lift you both out of the pit.” Beyond Loki, Tony could hearClint and Nat arguing, as they often did.

“So,your grand idea is to wrap us all up in your web arrows and stick usto the wall? Thanks, Spiderman.”

“I’mnot Spiderman!” Clint protested. “No one knows who Spiderman is!It’s certainly not me. Maybe it’s you. I’ve never seen you andSpiderman in a room at the same time!”

Loki’spower always felt unpleasant over Tony’s skin, like licking abattery, a jolt and buzz and tingle as it wrapped itself around them.Just in time, the veil of weightlessness draped around them and theledge they were resting on crumbled and dropped into the abyss below.Loki strained, lifting his arm and they moved in response to hiswill. He backed away from the ledge and drew the two up and out. Themage went to his knees, panting for breath and let them drift gentlyto rest on the solid ground.

“Luckily,neither of you weigh so much as two men, or I’d not be able to liftyou,” Loki said, thin chest heaving for air.

“Cleara space for the gods to work,” Thor bellowed. He went to one kneeat Bucky’s side and placed a thick, powerful hand over the dwarf’schest. “I pray to thee, Allfather Odin, to heal this dwarf ofwounds obtained because he was tooslow to get out of the way.”

“Hewasn’t!” Tony argued. “He wasoutof the way and he jumped into it to save me!” His chest hadn’tached so fiercely since Stane had stolen his heart and he’d beenforced to switch it out for the old one, the one that was slowlykilling him... He took Bucky’s hand and rubbed it. “Why isn’tit getting better?”

Lokiwas already on his feet; the mage never could stay in one place whenthere were mystical items to examine. He’d taken Stane’s belt andwas thumbing through the thick tome that--

“Isee and I understand,” Loki proclaimed. “Here, brother, let meslow the passage of time, that we may confer on what best to do.”Loki pulled a single crystal rod from his own set of pouches andpockets. “Tony, let him go, lest you be caught up in the spell. Weshall need, I think, your expertise. Steven, take Nat and Clint;explore the tunnels. According to the maps we saw, there should be adwarven forge nearby. Get it going and come back for us.”

Lokiturned to Thor and Tony. “The wound is cursed; with the loss of hisarm, it cannot be healed. I will place him in an amber sleep. Timewill have no meaning for him, until we can fashion him a new one.”

Breathcaught in Tony’s throat. “A new one?” He glanced toward Bucky,and then looked back at the brothers. “If this is another one ofyour tricks,Loki...” He knew the mage didn’t take him seriously, but he woulddestroyLokiif this was just a way to poke fun at Bucky, or worse.

“Anew arm,” Loki said. He gave Tony a serious glance. “You can dothis? Fully articulated, functional. We shall use it; Thor can bondit to his shoulder, and I can enspell it, to work as well as hisflesh and blood arm. It will confuse the curse. It will not endthecurse, but it will give us time.” He stretched forward one pale,long-fingered hand. “I do this to help heal him. You can trust mein this.”

Itwas Bucky’s only chance. Thor would have said, already, if he wereable to lift the curse with the power of his All-Father. Tonyhesitated only a moment longer, then nodded, reached out to lay hishand over Loki’s. “I can do this,” he agreed. “It will bebetter than functional.It will be magnificent.”

Lokinodded. He broke the crystal over Bucky. The dwarf took one, lastshuddering breath and stopped. Everything stopped. His breathing, thebleeding, the soft pained moans he was making. Frozen, perfectly,between one moment and the next.

Lokitook a flat, round stone from out of his pouch and placed it on theground. “Get up, you,” he told it, prodding at it with a bootedtoe. “We have work to do.” The stone, Tony could have sworn,humphed,offended. It slid under Bucky and lifted him, hovering at aboutLoki’s knee. “Give him a push, Tony, and let’s find the forge.We have much work to do.”

Thesounds and heat of the forge was familiar; the glowing orange lightshed from the coals a comfort. The Outsiders always thought of thedwarven mines as cold and lifeless, dark and silent, but Bucky knewthey were full of light and love, warmth and wonder. He snuggleddeeper into his bed. He was awake, but he was not yet ready to facethe day. His brothers and sisters would rouse him soon enough. Therewas work to be done. His mother would be at the forge already,foredwarf for a huge task-force. Father would be at the fire, cookingbreakfast. Bacon and eggs, grilled mushrooms and small beer. Freshrolls, with butter. Mmmm…

Heinhaled, trying to smell the first hints of breakfast. Odd that therewas… nothing.

Heopened his eyes. Instead of the round, smooth ceiling of hishearthroom, there was an endless vaulted ceiling above him; ancientdwarven work.

Buckysat up, raising his hands to rub at his eyes and stopped again.

“Bythe gods,”he gasped. What… what had beendonetohim? One hand he knew as well as he ever had, work-rough and strong.Except his hand looked almost soft, as if he’d been months awayfrom work. The other… dear gods…

Theother was gleaming metal, silvery and strange. It moved at hiscommand, seamless as his arm had ever been. He clenched a fist andwatched glittery fingers, reflecting the light of the forge, close.  

“Bucky?”The voice was familiar, even if Bucky couldn’t quite place it, andsmall with uncertainty. “Are you awake?”

“What…what happenedtome?” Bucky’s voice had no power behind it, shock had robbed himof his lungs. He was panting for air and there was no air, turninghis strange metal arm over and over, trying to understand.

“Youdon’t remember?” The voice belonged to a gnome, hoveringhesitantly nearby, between Bucky and the light of the forge.“Nothing? What... Do you know me?”

Therewas… something. It niggled and wriggled in Bucky’s brain. Like aworm on a flat rock. He couldn’t see the gnome, he was standing inthe shadow, the light behind him. “I… whatis this?”He held up the arm, fingers spread wide. “Is it… me?”

“That’s...a question for the gods,” the gnome said. He took a hesitant stepforward. “You were hit with a curse that was meant for me, and yourarm... You lost the arm. We would have lost you altogether, but...”He took a gulping breath. “The curse is still in you, in yourshoulder. Loki’s been studying it, and he has ideas of how we canget it removed, but in the meantime...” He gestured. “It shouldwork like your real arm. I made it, and Thor attached it, and Lokianimated it.”

Buckystretched it, worked the fingers, one at a time. Reached out, graspedthe gnome’s wrist and tugged him closer. Out of the shadow and intothe light. “You made this? For me?”

Therewas a strange light coming from the gnome’s chest, hidden by avest, but peeking over the edges. Bucky raised the metal fingers andtapped the gnome’s chest, just over the strongest point of theglow. Metal against metal. The gnome’s heart. A mechanicalcreation, a wonder of magic and steel.

Buckyinhaled as the rush of memory flooded him. “Tony!”

Tonygasped. “You remember,” he said, slumping in relief. “Oh,Bucky. Thank the gods.”

“Youmade this?” Bucky turned the arm again. “Well, of course Iremember. Dwarves always pay their debts. And they rememberadebt owed them.”He gave Tony a fierce glare.

Tonydidn’t seem the least bit put off by the glare. He stepped closer,mouth curving into a smile under his small, neat mustache. “Do you,now? That must be something we have in common, you know. Gnomes areexcellent accountants, very precise in our calculations.”

“Thinksomeone denied me a death kiss,” Bucky said. His stomach was inknots; maybe Tony had just made that up, had been terrified andpanicking about losing a companion. “That I might stay. And get allthe kisses I wanted.” He made a grand gesture at himself, the bed,and the sly, adorable gnome in front of him. “I stayed.”

Tonytook another step closer, close enough now for Bucky to feel hisbreath. “So you did,” Tony agreed. “And a Stark always pays hisdebts.” His chin tipped up, inviting. “How would you like tobegin?”

Buckythought it was oddly fitting, as he’d one held Tony’s heart inhis hand, that he use the new hand that Tony made him to draw thegnome closer. His lips were so close to Tony’s that he could feelthe way they quivered with anticipation. “You were terriblyunspecific,” he cautioned. “All that I want… may take th’rest of our lives to get to.”

Tonyhuffed. “I,” he said fussily, “am an engineer, and I am nothingif not preciselyexactinmy terms. I offered what I intended to offer. No more, and certainlyno less.”

Bucky’smouth slotted to meet Tony’s lips. Those wide, lush lips, barelyparted, but begging for his kiss. He didn’t resist that siren’scall; didn’t even try.

Tonytasted like steel and fire, like bronze and bravery. The thoughtexploded through him with the force of a powderkeg bomb. He liftedhis hands, both of them, to cup Tony’s face, to cradle it. He ranhis tongue over Tony’s bottom lip, and when he gasped, Bucky didn’thesitate, delving the depths of that mine with eagerness.

Tony’sarms came around him, clenching, as Tony’s mouth fell open, eagerand hungry for Bucky’s kiss. “Oh,” he said when Bucky pulledaway, and would spend years denying that it came out as a squeak.“Oh, that’s... that’s even better than I thought it would be.”

Therewas a stirring in his blood and heat in his bones. Bucky tugged Tonyoff balance; they had this nice, convenient, comfortable bed righthere, and apparently nothing urgent to do. He swallowed hard, thenpulled Tony closer, tumbling the gnome into the bed with him. “Comehere, my treasure,” Bucky said, “an’ I’ll do m’ best to putall your dreams t’ shame. You said kisses… I never specifiedwhereIwas gonna kiss you.”

~ @tisfan & @27dragons

[katieskarlette]

Warcraft Q&A - Blizzcon 2017

I’m going to attempt to liveblog this if my computer/internet behave.

[This post will be edited as it goes but if there’s dragon news I’ll probably make a new post to scream about it in addition to this one.]

Q:  Warfronts:  will they be available on timer like invasions, and what are the rewards like?

A:  They won’t be up 24/7 but they’ll be up for a good amount of time.  Sounds similar to the buildings on Broken Shore.  Rewards will be similar to Timewalking where you get a good reward for the first time through, you won’t be penalized for not doing them all the time, but you will get some reward for doing them if you like them.

Q:  Will basic reputations ever be account-wide?  Not like Bloodsail, but more mainstream ones?

A:  Ion talked about the balance between character-based vs account-based.  Things that unlock content like flying or flight master’s whistle on Argus, they want to do account wide.  If you want rep because that particular character wants a crafting pattern, that’s a goal to work toward on the character with that skill.

Q.  Stat squish coming?  

A:  Yeah, and item level squish, too.  As before, we won’t notice as far as our playing experience.

Q:  Is Anduin a paladin now?

A:  “100% not a paladin.  He’s a priest”.  He’s a hero characters, and hero characters can do things that players cannot.

Q:  Cross-guild or cross-faction social groups possible?

A:  No cross-faction chat.  Do it at Battle.net level, individual to individual.

Q:  Are there improvements coming to guild recruitment?

A:  Something they’re always aware of, but no major plans.

Q:  With the new leveling scaling... is mob health changing?  Heirlooms?

A:  Gear levels and mob health are being dealt with, some for the next Legion patch, some for 8.0.  Heirlooms will continue to be ideal because they are properly itemized for current talents and such, not stuck with outdated stats from past iterations of the game.

Q:  Heart of Azeroth

A:  They liked the way to slowly get incremental increases to power, but they realize dealing with literally trillions of AP isn’t fun.  You’ll have one amulet no matter what spec you’re in, so you don’t have to collect azurite for multiple specs like we’ve had to level different artifacts.

Q:  What was the thought process behind bringing back raid buffs like Arcane Intellect?

A:  They liked them, and they liked the moment before a boss pull where all the buffs went out and it felt like “yeah, we’re ready” as opposed to “has everyone eaten their fish?”  They don’t want to make it so any one class is absolutely required for an encounter, but each one is welcome for a slightly different reason.

Q:  PVP templates, and PVP players not being able to pick their own gems, enchantments, etc.  (I don’t PVP so I have no clue what he’s talking about.)

A:  Something about how there was a problem before but they overcorrected (as they tend to do) and are tweaking it.  It’s important to have consistent rule sets, but they understand we want to make choices to make our characters feel like our own.

Q:  Titanforging

A:  Tweaks coming, but not a fundamental change to the system.  They like variability of rewards and the motivation to continue killing bosses you’ve got on farm.  Azurite-attuned armor slots will not be able to be Titanforged, however.

[Aside:  We don’t care about your guilds, people. Get to the questions.]

Q:   Player wants more options to counter roots and knockbacks.

A:  Classes are all different and something like a death knight is supposed to have a better toolkit to respond to such situations.

Q:  Why does WoW have such a lackluster character customization system?

A:  They were waiting to see what they were doing with the ally races, and now that those are being added they are going to move forward with those customization options.  Including orcs’ posture, which can be toggled in the barber shop (which now doubles as a chiropractor...LOL)

Q:  Is Jaina good now?  What about the purge of Dalaran?

A:  “Jaina is complicated.  She’s as evil as I am,” says Afrasiabi.  “She’s wracked with regret.”  She feels potentially responsible for what the Horde is today, with the way she let her father be killed.  Also the Stratholme thing.  And Theramore.  This is a character “with damage.”  We are going to help her understand the way she is and how to move forward.  She’s conflicted, not evil.  [YES THANK YOU ALEX!!!!]

Q:  There should be ducks in WoW, and why do so many bosses have holes in their ceilings?  [SERIOUSLY?  THIS IS A QUESTION THAT IS TAKING UP OUR TIME?  WTF?]

A:  Practical reason = avoiding camera angle issues; artistic reason = environmental, gives a peek of the outside world etc.

Q:  What’s happening to the night elf and undead starting zones in BFA?

A:  They won’t change.  For new players to feel the impact of things like Teldrassil burning, they have to see and know it before.  It will phase to the destroyed version when you get to a high enough level.  Same for leveling in Arathi.

Q:  Alleria can shift back and forth from high elf to void elf form.  Can the playable ones?

A:  They have a void form that’s active in combat, similar to worgen form.  They won’t be “fully voided” all the time.

Q:  Somebody complaining about farming older content for Titanforging.  [Which has already been asked.  Shut up and move on to dragons, damn it.]

A:  They know the Titanforged Unstable Arcanocrystal is OP and they’ll try to avoid outliers like that.  Item level should be the main factor in picking which armor to equip.

Q:  Mythic keystones to old dungeons?

A:  Timewalking is kind of that concept.  They may do Timewalking keystones in the future and think the idea is cool.

Q:  How soon will we be flying after BFA launches?

A:  About the same as Legion.  [Which, for the record, I am totally in favor of.]

Q:  Future of WoW companion apps?

A:  Yeah, they like those and will keep building on that in the future.  They’d like to combine the armory app with it, too, so you don’t have to switch back and forth.

Q:  Timewalking:  as more get added it takes longer to get back around to the era you like best.

A:  Some consolidation may happen but they want it to feel like a special change of pace when it comes around.  They may have non-instanced, outdoor Timewalking events someday, too.

Q:  Faction balance...how do you keep players from switching too often?

A:  “Play the game the way you want to play it,” says Ion H.  “Play what you wanna play.”  They do monitor server balance, though.  The new PVP toggle may help smooth imbalances, too.

Q:  Legendaries in  BFA?

A:  The Azurite system is replacing the random legendaries from Legion.

Q:  Quest log size limit increase, please?  [I’d be in favor!!!]

A:  This gets talked about a lot.  They may have some of them moved to some other kind of interface, especially the breadcrumb types that sit in your log for a long time.

Q:  Oh god another question about  expanding that freaking default backpack.

A:  OMG, they’re actually close to letting us “slightly increase” backpack size, and it will be a reward for using an authenticator on your account.  Odd, but I’ll take it!

Q:  New reasons and ways for us to fight the other faction?

A:  Different factions will have different in-story motivations to go into dungeons and raids.  Some bosses may be faction-specific to add to the feel of being at war with the other wise.

Q:  Will they fix the bugs, issues and exploits from vanilla, or will it be rolled out, warts and all?

A:  That’s one reason why it’s taken them so long to get it rolling.  They want to recreate vanilla as we experienced it, but minus the game-breaking bugs, crashes, etc.  Also, what’s the right version of classic?  5-man UBRS or 10-man?  Both were in vanilla, but which do they put in now?

Q:  If you unlock ally races’ heritage armor on a nightborne, for example, can you use it to transmog on your blood elf?

A:  Nope, those are locked to that ally race.

Q:  Increase to friends limit?

A:  With the focus on social features it’s something they want to do, but it’s complicated because of all the different games and systems they have to coordinate.

[SOMEBODY IN THE CROWD HAS A “WHERE’S WRATHION” SIGN!!!  I LOVE YOU, WHOMEVER YOU ARE!!!!]

Q:  Will the new zone scaling make it harder to farm low-level transmog?

A:  If a mob dropped something before, it’ll drop it after.

Q:  Warfronts...how long will they be?  Like a raid?

A:  Longer than dungeons, but just how long is still up in the air.  Feedback from alpha and beta will help them decide.

Q:  What classes will ally races have, and if they differ from the others, why?

A:  These are considered independent races, not subraces of existing ones.  They try to err on the side of letting us play what we want, as long as it makes sense.  (No void elf paladins, e.g.)

Q:  Void elves = alliance, nightborne = horde...why?

A:  The intro quests for each race will explain that.

Q:  Will the Legion threat end before BFA, and where does that leave Demon Hunters?

A:  “They just turn into regular hunters,” joked Ion.  Alex then clarified that DHs are sworn to protect the world they love, no matter the threat.  And someday we’ll see demons again!

Q:  Are the EK and Kalimdor totally Alliance and Horde now?

A:  Alex:  “Those zone boundaries are tricky for NPCs to cross.”  But no, Exodar and Quel’thalas are still holdouts.  The continents aren’t 100% red or blue.

Q:  New goblin and worgen models when?

A:  They’re working on them currently!  Goblin aren’t bad now, just need some polish and updating.  Female worgen will be reworked to be “more wolf-life and less chihuahua-like.”  THANK YOU.

Q:  something about PVP

A:  PVP flagging complicates and slows down your leveling, so they want PVP flagging to be rewarding but not so rewarding that carebears like myself feel like they have to.  (They didn’t phrase it that way; I did.  LOL)

Q:  More character slots per realm?

A:  Yep.  Six addition ones per server!  Whoa, nice!

Q:  When can we trade flasks and consumables with friends cross-realm?

A:  They know it’s needed but they have to protect individual server’s economies.  They’re working on it.

Q:  Beta when?

A:  You can opt in now.  No date announced.

AND NOOOOOOOOOOO DRAGON QUESTIONS.  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[my-strange-old-book-collector]

The Antagonistic Forces Of Johnlock

I was actually in the middle of writing another post when I realised there is a beautiful logic to the villains of Sherlock. 

It’s not a new concept that Sherlock’s villains serve as mirrors for our main characters, and I love when I find good meta on this. But there is a pattern to these mirrors, that I think we have not talked about - and this is where it gets beautiful: 

Each and every villain is designed to represent one of either John or Sherlock’s weaknesses. Weaknesses that either drive the two apart, or bring them closer to reaching one very specific common goal: love. 

And there is a very simple way of telling which villain belongs to which category...

Sherlock And John’s Narrative Goals

In order to truly understand the antagonists of Sherlock, we must first have a look at what the show is actually about. Lesson one of story telling: protagonists usually have an extrinsic goal that moves a story forward, and a stronger, intrinsic goal that tends to get bullied in the pursuit of the extrinsic one. This absolutely holds true for Sherlock as well:

Sherlock’s extrinsic goal: catching criminals.  Sherlock’s intrinsic goal: love.

John’s extrinsic goal: making a contribution to society.  John’s intrinsic goal: also love. 

Sherlock neglects his emotions and desires in order to be the very best consulting detective. But the underlying motivator for his actions is always the need to protect those he does love.

John being a man of ranks and uniforms, a man that is eager to please and to serve, he fears the social rejection that might come with admitting to his innermost desires, and he deeply struggles to emotionally connect with the people he loves (*cough* Sherlock).

Both Sherlock’s drug addiction and John’s hunger for thrill are symptomatic for how much they deprive themselves of what they actually need. 

Antagonistic Forces

So the story of Sherlock really is a quest for love. And the villains, in addition to being their brilliant villain selves, represent the antagonistic forces on that quest. Take Magnussen for instance: His weapon of choice being public denunciation, Magnussen represents fear of exposure and rejection, which is John’s biggest impediment. 

And so it makes sense that it is John who falls victim to Magnussen right from the start. John gets burnt alive, John gets flicked in the face, and it is John’s wife who is threatened to be exposed. Interestingly though, it is Sherlock who flat out destroys Magnussen in the end. Magnussen’s power over John is literally all in his head and Sherlock is having none of it. 

One of Sherlock’s own demons, on the other hand, keeps reappearing in the form of Moriarty. Moriarty is often seen as Sherlock’s evil side, but I think it is more than that: The constant boredom, the indifference to pain, and his attitude towards staying alive (”so boring, isn’t it?”) make me think that Moriarty represents depression. 

And just like depression, Moriarty is ridiculously hard to beat. In fact, he doesn’t really get beaten, he just eventually stops of his own accord. All Sherlock can do is to survive him, and even that he can only pull off with the help of his brother. And finally, because depression never truly fully goes away, neither does Moriarty, who remains tucked away deep down in Sherlock’s mind palace even after his death. I really, really love all of this. 

There is another villain who manages to shake Sherlock to the core and that is Culverton Smith, the “cereal killer”. His highly-polished “nice-guy” image is a cruel but accurate portrait of John and his compulsion to keep up appearances. 

Smith is so popular that he can literally get away with murder. Similarly, John has become so good at putting up a facade, that we tend to overlook just how harmful this must be to anyone who tries to approach him. It is no wonder that Sherlock nearly falls victim to this particular villain and starts questioning his own judgement. Culverton Smith may represent a weakness of John’s, but he is most hurtful to Sherlock.

A War We Must Lose 

You may have noticed that I haven’t talked about any female villains yet. There is a reason for that - and this is where my inner geek starts weeping for joy. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that there is a pattern to the antagonists. Well, here it is: While the male villains all represent forces that drive John and Sherlock away from love, the female villains do the exact opposite. 

Female villains represent the forces that draw our protagonists towards each other. And if you have ever wondered what The Abominable Bride was about, this is your answer: “The women [..] we have lied to, betrayed; the women we have ignored and disparaged” they are demanding a vote. And it truly is a war that Sherlock and John must lose. 

Take the famous Irene Adler, for instance, who is widely understood as the embodiment of Sherlock’s libido. No matter how hard Sherlock claims to be above such things, she is a clear match for him and Sherlock only just about beats her - for the time being. 

Or Mary, who is technically not a villain nor actually a mirror in the traditional sense. Rather she is a combination of both Sherlock and John. Clever and bad-ass like Sherlock, kind and caring like John, she is the best of both worlds and the connection between them when things become difficult. Mary represents the bond of friendship between the two. 

And so it makes a lot of sense that Mary nearly kills Sherlock while at the same time she is saving his life. It is exactly what John’s friendship does to him: It nearly kills him, but it is also very much what keeps him going. 

Oh, but of all those female villains, why then is Mary the one to die? If Mary represents Sherlock and John’s friendship - what in the world could possibly kill her?

The answer is: Vivian Norbury. Code word “Amo”. Latin for love. Nothing could kill the friendship of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, except actual, proper, unadulterated love. John’s love, to be precise, what with her sweater vest and the tremor in her hand. 

And I adore the idea of love being a bitter old cat lady. (Seriously, Gatiss.) Quietly biding her time, never noticed, never appreciated, fatally underestimated by Sherlock Holmes, she finally has had enough. Bugger the consequences if she can make an impression on the world’s most clueless consulting detective. 

Do note at which point in the narrative this happens: John is utterly dissatisfied in his marriage and he is starting to want out. Even though Mary is the perfect woman for him, it is still not enough, he wants more and catches himself mentally cheating. And at that point, that old, quiet, neglected love finally stands up for itself. John has ignored it for way too long and there are no excuses left.

Except that this is the moment his wife dies and the guilt-ridden John can no longer stand to be around Sherlock. Anyone but him (read more about this here). And this is when Mary, aka their friendship, makes one last appearance: “John Watson, get the hell on with it.”   

Save My Soul. Seek My Room.

For Sherlock, too, there is one more villain, one final problem that he has to overcome: His own mind in the form of Eurus. That genius, detached, over-analysing, and brilliant thing that is locked away in a high-security facility without human affection or physical contact.

What would happen, if those walls would suddenly crumble? Who would get hurt if Sherlock’s mind were allowed to wander freely? 

But as it turns out, all Eurus - and therefore Sherlock’s mind - ever wanted in the first place was to be loved. There is no struggle between Sherlock’s heart and mind - they both want the same thing: human contact and affection. A co-pilot to help fly the plane. Sherlock only has to allow himself to have it. 

[flightyrock]

Ectober Day 6: Ghost Hunger

I owe everyone a bit of an explanation before we dive into this fever dream.  Yes, I know exactly what ghost hunger refers to, but it just isn’t my thing.  It’s a neat concept, but I don’t really find it fun to write for, or even read, except in the rarest of cases.  I can stand it if it advances an innovative plotline, but just for its own sake…meh.

So I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do for day 6.  I considered skipping it, but that felt like admitting defeat.  With this in the back of my mind, I was scrolling through tumblr, as one does, and found this lovely piece by @schnivel.

One of my favorite things about schnivel’s style is the dynamic quality all of his characters have. I don’t know how to explain it, but it draws the viewer in, and sells that these characters are real.  Complex emotions are portrayed and conveyed with such ease, I get that creative itch every time.  I love everything in your art tag, it makes me so happy.  Thank you for sharing!

But anyway.  In this particular piece, I love the angle of the external light and the ambient light radiating from the suspiciously viscous fluid clinging to his hands.  I think it was the combination of the fluid consistency, color choice, and blood connection that did it.

So as my mind tends to do when I’m tired and see something emotionally charged, it took a running nosedive off the deep end into absurdist territory.

So here is a fic inspired by color choice, texture, and my traumatic experiences with product promotion as a child of the 90s and early 2000s.  I am so sorry but also kind of not.  Please forgive me, schnivel.  Thank you so much for letting me ruin the mood.  And seriously, check out schnivel’s blog!

 (Sorry for all the notes.  Commentary at the end.)

Summary:  When a popular variety of novelty ketchup is discontinued, the ghost population of Amity Park clashes over who will claim the last box.

Warnings:  Customer service feels, light innuendo

Word Count: ~1700

“You do realize that’s disgusting,” Sam deadpanned, looking on with a mixture of mild horror and disgust as Danny smothered his hotdog in a quantity of green slime that could only be defined as excessive.  Somehow it was impossible to turn away.  Tucker didn’t seem to share the sentiment, busying himself with his PDA.

Spurred on by the attention, Danny looked Sam dead in the eyes, staring unflinchingly into their icy, amethyst depths while cramming as much of the sandwich into his mouth as possible.

Only to aim a tad low, bumping into his lower lip.  Time seemed to slow down as blue eyes widened comically in surprise, hand contracting around the bun reflexively, coaxing gobs of the novelty ketchup to ooze out the back and coat the front of his favorite t-shirt, soaking into white fabric with karmatic vengeance.

Sam and Tucker witnessed the following shift from shock to sudden horror at the state of his shirt became clear.  They glanced at each other, unprompted, then lost it completely, howling with laughter as Danny dropped his ‘dog to scrub frantically at his chest with a wad of the worse-than-useless paper napkins the school provided that screamed government subsidy. His response time was impressive, but the damage was done: a prominent, verdant dribble trail clearly illustrated the tragedy that unfolded at lunch that day.

“Are you kidding me? I still have half the day to go,” Danny moaned, hands running anxiously through already messy hair.

“Just phase it off!” Tucker pointed out helpfully, returning to his PDA as chuckles died down into amused sympathy.

“Tuck, intangibility doesn’t remove stains.  It’s set too far in the fabric.  Otherwise laundry would be so much easier.  Hmm.” Danny took a moment to consider the potential, wondering if that was how Vlad managed to keep his ghostwear so pristine. Maybe if he could concentrate his focus…

“You had it coming.  I don’t understand why you insist on consuming that promotional garbage.” Sam rolled her eyes derisively.

“Because it’s the best!” Danny insisted.  Sam and Tucker shared a look, resigned to their friend’s strange obsession.

Danny didn’t know what it was, but ever since that popular condiment brand out of Pittsburgh developed a line of novelty ketchup, he was hooked.  It came in all sorts of unappetizing colors, like green and purple, and the cringe-worthy ad campaign made Danny wonder if the whole thing was an elaborate prank.  But it eventually showed up at the discount food distributer his family frequented, and he bought it himself, despite Jazz’s teasing.  Funny.  He swears he’s caught her using it more than once when she thought he wasn’t around.

While Jazz was exasperated by the blatant exploitation of the mindset of the lower middle working class, Sam objected to the artificial dyes and preservatives, and Tucker insisted it was nothing less than an insult to the integrity of meat, whatever that was supposed to mean. Maybe the dye makes it taste a bit different.  Maybe he just gets a kick out of eating food in weird colors and watching his friends squirm.  Heck, maybe he’s just been desensitized by enough mutant, home-cooked meals that something so harmless but strange fills him with nostalgia.  Whatever the case, Danny couldn’t seem to get enough of the stuff.  He even started taking it to school with him as a fun way to avoid looking too closely at what was on his tray.  

“Uh oh, dude,” Tucker chuckled, bringing up a specific news article on his PDA.  “Looks like your days of ruining hot dogs are numbered.”

“You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding,” Danny begged.

“Afraid not,” Tucker grinned, sliding his tech across the table to deliver the news firsthand.

Blue eyes widened in horror, before the teenager collapsed onto the table dramatically with a moan. “Why is it that as soon as I discover something awesome, it’s gone?”

“Honestly, that’s probably why it appeared on the shelves at Hubert’s in the first place,” Sam remarked flippantly, preferring to pick at chipping nail polish than acknowledge the lump of pouting teenager currently occupying half the table.

“Yeah, brand names are always too good to be true in places like that,” Tucker nodded sagely, patting Danny on the shoulder in mock sympathy.

Danny hauled himself upright with a sigh.  “Nothing else for it.  I’ll just have to go after school and stockpile all the bottles I can.  They can’t be out yet.”

“How are you out?!  It was just here less than a week ago!”

But the dramatics of a ketchup-crazed teenager were no match for the practiced apathy projected by the young but seasoned customer service guru manning the register, six hours into a ten hour shift.  

“Look, man, I just work here.  There’s plenty of purple,” she sighed, glazed eyes carelessly roaming to glace at the condiments section, poking at her monitor screen.

“It doesn’t taste the same,” Danny moaned, prompting a significant look to pass between the duo accompanying him. They had no idea why they thought it would be a good to tag along on this juvenile side quest.  This was just embarrassing.

“Huh,” the cashier remarked offhandedly.  “Looks like we might have one more box in the back.  I’ll go check, if you want…” she trailed off unenthusiastically, distracted by the hopefully bobbing shock of black hair that wouldn’t leave her alone unless she made a show of effort.  With a long-suffering sigh, the underpaid civil servant shuffled off to the back, teenagers at her heels until she ducked behind a wildly swinging door, a scuffed sheet of plastic shoved haphazardly into the gateway in a pathetic effort to separate customer-friendly space from the chaos of the warehouse.

The friends waited attentively, then with growing annoyance, Sam scuffing the chipping tile with heavy boots as the minutes ticked by.  Around fifteen minutes in, Tucker decided to call it.

“I think she just blew you off, dude.”

“No way,” Danny insisted. “She’s just being thorough.”

At that moment, a familiar figure slouched out from behind the off-white mockery of a barrier. Danny drooped visibly at the lack of bottles in her arms.

“Welp, I found it.”  Danny perked up.  “Where is it?”

“In the back.”  She continued to amble through the aisles, not even bothering to glance at the irritating customer as she returned to the front.  Danny followed her, confused.

“And?” he ventured.

“What?” she asked, uncapping a company pen to doodle on a scrap of receipt paper, pointedly ignoring the nuisance in the vain hope it would leave her in peace.

Danny barely restrained himself in time to prevent throwing his arms up in exasperation.  “Can I have some?” he dared to ask.  The girl acted like she didn’t hear him, outlining a cartoonish face with care, allowing him to stew for a while.

She finally raised hazel orbs full of resignation to meet his.  “You somehow manage to get it down, you can just have it.”  The just leave me alone was implied.  Heavily.

Danny lit up.  “Really?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved him away, returning to her receipt sketch.

“Thanks!” Danny called over his shoulder, already on his way to claim his prize.

“That was kind of weird,” Sam observed.

“Oh, come on Sam, why do you have to be so pessimistic all the time?  She probably couldn’t reach it.  All Danny has to do is float up to the shelf, and we’re out of here,” Tucker said, confidently leading the way into the dark space, the main light coming from a desk equipped with a dated microwave and littered with the remains of hurried lunches.

It was kind of weird being behind the scenes.  The air felt heavy, stale.  It was difficult to shake the uneasy feeling that they dismissed, at first, with being in a restricted area, but that quickly faded into the background.

A puff of cold air suddenly expanded, forcing its way up a certain ghostly throat and expelling in a bluish cloud as it forced vapor in the surrounding air to condense.

“Nice going, Tuck,” Sam punched him lightly in the shoulder.

Danny ignored the exchange, quickly “going ghost” and floating up to investigate.  And was not at all surprised to find the Lunch Lady and the Box Ghost playing a less-than-friendly game of tug-of-war with the box of sauce.  Okay, maybe he was surprised; he didn’t know either of them had a subtle bone in their bodies…if they had bones.  Or bodies. Gah.

He was honestly kind of impressed that they had avoided detection for so long, and wondered if the cashier’s composure spoke to her merit, or to the horrors of customer service. Danny resolved to be nicer to customer service associates.

From there, it was “doom” this and “beware” that.  Danny threw some ectoblasts, repelled some processed meat products, brushed off some boxes.  It was amazing how much more annoying the two of them were working together.  But, still, not even really a challenge, so the half ghost made short work of the duo, while trying not to think too hard about the implications of this team up.  A certain young ghost from an alternate future came to mind…

Danny chased the pair off, trying not to think about the two of them sharing a thermos.  He was all too glad to claim his prize and head home. It had been an interesting afternoon.

Despite the strange start, the pair of friends thought that the day was pretty successful.  As a result, neither Tucker nor Sam were expecting the caricature of despair that greeted them on the front steps of Fenton Works come morning.  

“Dare we ask?” Sam muttered.

Tucker sighed, shaking his head.  “He’ll let us know soon enough.”

Somewhere in Wisconsin, a certain blue-skinned half ghost emerged from his portal, shiftily checking the entrance before ducking through with his prize.

What am I doing?  I live alone.

Still, one could never be too careful.  It wouldn’t do to have Daniel catch wind of this.  He certainly would never admit it, but he couldn’t help the strange nostalgia it inspired; the off-putting color instilled him with a strange longing for cheap meals of questionable quality cooked with a certain pair of paranormal science students.  He still had his dignity after all.

A/N:  Anyone who’s ever worked retail knows the best way to get rid of a persistent customer and score an extra break in the process is to “check” the back.  Seriously, most places know what they have in the back due to the magic of inventory, but for some reason, that middle-aged woman with too much makeup will not leave us alone, insisting we check the back because she thinks we’re idiots (you know the type). And how dare we come back without checking thoroughly.  The cashier probably found the ketchup in less than a minute, determined retrieval was impossible, then spent the rest of the time on her phone.  Of course, like 10% of the time, there really is extra in the back so I can’t exactly fault them, but we could do without the condescension.

So…yeah.  I think my mind kind of mashed together the fact that the show took place in the 2000s with the fact that ketchup looks vaguely like blood, and the drawing used the two major colors of Heinz’s horrendous EZ Squirt line.  As a child who begged for this ketchup, then refused to eat it, I can understand the initial appeal, but it got gross fast, and I didn’t finish the bottle. What can I say, it tasted off to me. I feel like I read about some human instinct regarding food safety contributing to that at some point.  But I still remember this product, especially the commercials, with horror.

Thank you so much to @schnivel for the inspiration!  Hope everyone enjoyed it!

[the-honey-bear]

2017 Games Review

I played a lot of really awesome games this year! Below are all my thoughts on them. The score out of ten is based solely on my level of enjoyment, so expect a lot of bias!

1/ Mass Effect 1 7/10

A good start to the ME series! I’ve been a fan of the Dragon Age games for a little while now, but I was put off by the shooter element in ME. However, it’s actually really fun to play! and the attention to characters and story in these games are the same reason I’ve always loved RPGs. This one is a little jankier in the controls to play than the later games but GAY SPACE ROMANCE. Driving the tank thing isn't much fun, but Shepard is great and I liked how you could play the character in different ways.

2/ Mass Effect 2 - 9/10

I ACTUALLY STARTED WITH THIS ONE. I played it late 2016 and liked it so much I bought the whole trilogy, which just happened to be on sale on ps3. Then I played it again, because I wanted to carry over my romance with my girl Liara into the third game. The way the sidequests are wrapped around the characters works so well WHY DON'T MORE GAMES DO THIS /looks at all the games where sidequests compose of random fetch quests for random people./ I especially liked how all your actions came into effect in the final mission, and ACTUALLY HAD REAL, DRASTIC EFFECT.

3/ Mass Effect 3 -9/10

I feel bad for this game cuz it's got such a bad rep because the ending is very much, ehhh. BUT THE REST OF THE GAME IS GREAT. The tension really gets amped up in this one, and you really feel like you're fighting against the odds for the sake of the universe. Also the citadel DLC is incredible.

4/ Tales of Berseria – 10/10

MAN this one comes up close on Graces' coattails for favourite Tales Of game. I should probably score this an 9 considering I had a few issues (the skits definitely go for quantity over quality in places) but fuck it cuz I can't think about this game without getting emotional about it and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all year. Velvet is an incredible and refreshing lead and words cannot explain my love for Laphicet. I was hooked on the story right from the word go and honestly my friends were barely able to get me to leave the house during the weeks I was playing this, so.

5/ Horizon: Zero Dawn – 10/10

I felt so bereft after finishing Berseria I impulse bought this from the playstation store AND I DON'T REGRET IT AT ALL. If I had to recommend one game I've played this year it'd probably this one, because it's just so well-roundedly wonderful. Combat is fun, the open world is gorgeous and feels very much alive, Aloy is a fantastic lead, and damn, the story knocks it out the park. Once the plot moves past the warring tribes to the sci-fi stuff it goes from good to AMAZING. One of very few games where I ended up scouring the game for any and every data point. GO PLAY THIS.

6/ Nier Automata – 9/10

Everyone on my TL was playing and raving about this a few months back but I finally jumped on the bandwagon in the summer. The combat is ridiculously fun to play, and the world in this game is weird and bizzare and pretty damn sad, without managing to be dreary. For the first half of the game I had trouble empathising with 2B and 9S, and I got a bit bored replaying the same part of the game as 9S (2B is more fun to play as). Once the last section of the game started however it really kicked it into gear. I ended up liking and sympathising with the three leads by the end of the game, and it definitely started the waterworks a few times. A very unique feeling game.

7/ Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep – 5/10

I started off really liking this one. The combat is definitely the most fun I've had in a KH game, and feels a lot more fluid than in 1 and 2. I got pretty bored visiting the same Disney worlds, though, especially on my third playthrough with Aqua. I would have liked to have seen the last ending but I ended up getting burnt out.

8/ Nier Gestalt – 9.5/10

Whaaaaat, you say. I scored the old school Nier higher than the higher budget, more fluid, definitely more-fun-to-play sequel??? Why, you ask? Kaine, that's why.

I love the way Nier games play with different ways of telling a narrative. The original Nier I’d argue is the most successful with the way the story changes on replay (Automata does a similar thing with 9S, but I’d argue it doens’t work quite as well). I can’t say any more without spoilers to series newcomers, but I’ve never been so thrilled to feel so horrible.

I knocked off half a point because I had to push those damn boxes in the temple too many times. Hasn't Nier suffered enough???

9/ Child of Light- 8/10

A wonderful little game that oozes atmosphere and charm. All the characters speak in verse, and the soundtrack is outstanding. I loved whipping about the skies with Aurora, and the battle system is simple but addictive. It's only 12 hours long or so, and the ending feels a bit abrupt, but the rest is a delight.

10/ Stardew Valley 9/10

I'm unsure where to put this on my list, since I've been playing it for months and months, hahaha. Basically if you're a fan of Harvest Moon, this is Harvest Moon+++. It's all the things that got me addicted to the series, with a lot more freedom. You can design your own farm!! you can design your own farmer!! you can marry any of the bachelor or batchelorettes, irrespective of gender. My main complaint about this game is that I can't stop playing it :<

11) Final Fantasy XV – 7/10

I'm an old school FF fan and have been side eyeing this game ever since it came out. Got burnt by FF13 and was nervous about getting too excited about FF and being disappointed again. THIS WAS DEFINITELY BETTER THAN FF13 (don't ask me about that game, I will be very unfun and complain about everything). It's very different than previous FF's, but I enjoyed the open world and all the faffing around you could do in it. What I didn't expect was to be strapped in during chapter 9 and taken for Arydn's wild ride all the way to the end. It definitely could have been paced better, plenty of things could have been explained better, but I got so invested I played the final 5 chapters in about two days, so can I really complain? Also ily Lunafreya (when's your dlc coming out)

(the games after this I haven't finished, so I haven't rated them)

12/ Dishonoured 2

I've only played a few chapters of this game because it's been years since I played a proper stealth-based game and I die a lot, but the strength of the worldbuilding in this game really shines through in what little I've played. The world feels very alive, right down to all the NPCs on the street.

13/ Pokemon Sun

I played about 10 hours of this game when it came out, and then got a ps4 and forgot all about it RIP. On my second attempt I'm appreciating it a lot more! It's a very charming game. My favourite part is petting all my pokemon. <3

14/ Tales of Vesperia

This one is a second attempt, too! I've had real trouble connecting to the story in this game, and I still don't feel like I've completely got the hang of the battle system. But the characters are extremely likeable the game has a level of polish I've not noticed in any other Tales Of game. I definitely plan to finish it!

[fictionstuff]

Final Fantasy IX (Switch) Points: 4.0/5 Status: walkthrough used played through in approximately 40 hours this review isn't free of spoilers!

I've tried Final Fantasy IX years ago, when I was much younger and borrowed the PS1 from my uncle, but I never really got to finish it and thinking back, I never truly understood this game back then. Even now it was hard to follow sometimes, because the game isn't too clear when it comes to the main story line, although it is a truly beautiful and emotional tale that had me shed a tear at the end. This may or not be because FFIX features one of the greatest characters in all RPGs: Vivi.

Artwork/Design

Yeah, FFIX is a pretty old game with pretty old graphics that have merely been polished. This means that FFIX looks nice in HD, but the graphics show you exactly what FFIX is, a game released 19 years ago. On the other hand we can say that FFIX is special in many ways, it's the last single digit entry from the FF series and it features a style that the earlier entries had strayed away from. Rather than a realistic style, FFIX delivers a less proportioned manga look and honestly, many characters remind you more of a disney tale rather than FF.

FFIX is indeed a medieval based fantasy game and it looks that way, the character designs are cute and quirky. I absolutely love our main protagonist's design; Zidane looks like a cool young man and sweet enough, he has a tail. Lili looks gorgeous, Vivi is a black mage and he absolutely reminds you of the job from FF Tactics. Nonetheless I've always thought of him as extremely cute. Every character has a totally unique design and there's no way you won't remember their names. Eiko is a young girl with a horn, while Amarant is a huge man with awfully poignant red hair. Steiner looks like a funny knight, who can make very funny facial expressions in the neat and smooth cutscenes (FMVs) that look better than the whole game, which made me question why they didn't try this polished and fresh look for all of FFIX. Anyhow, this quirky and funny squad made FFIX so much more memorable.

While I really do like FFIX's design, the downfall of the switch's version is that there's no widescreen. This didn't bother me much, but it is indeed kind of ugly. While the characters' looks have been polished, the backgrounds still look as bad as in 2000. Nonetheless I'd like to say that FFIX features a big colourful and vibrant world with many amazing dungeons and towns, a world that dares to be explored while you gradually get closer to the truth of the universe.

Story/Combat System

FFIX was the last entry for the PS1 and also the last piece written by the man who created FF, Sakaguchi. IX went back to the roots, to the original designs and back to a concept of a deep story with fleshed out characters and this is exactly what FFIX delivers brilliantly, an engaging story with themes that every human can relate to. IX has a perfect balance between characters and story, because ultimately the characters lead the story. The game can be very emotional at times and then again, it can be very funny, cause all these characters are so different from one another, that conflicts can't be avoided.

FFIX takes place on a fictional planet called “Gaia”, which is shrouded in mist by an unknown origin. The game starts with a group of bandits who plan to kidnap the princess of Alexandria, a kingdom ruled by Queen Brahne. Funny enough, when they try to kidnap her, she willingly begs them to be kidnapped. FFIX knows how to be comically funny at the worst times as the first FMV will already make you smile as Garnet's most loyal knight, Steiner, races after Zidane and Princess Garnet (who is funnily leading Zidane around, who ought to kidnap her).

With different motivations these persons set out on a journey to ultimately save the world. While this goal isn't exactly original, IX takes it time to develop every character as they sometimes also go different ways. Before you may even know, you're in a story of war and desperation while growing ever closer to the truth of the mist, the truth of the planet, the truth about memories and the truth about who you are.

The most regretful thing is that not all characters have the same kind of character development, not all strings are completely resolved. The story on the other hand is sometimes very hard to grasp, because not all conversations are completely clear to the player. Since I always read about games I finish, I used the fandom wiki to fully understand the parts, that have been a bit hard to understand. Nevertheless I can say that IX's story touches so many critical parts of humanity: identity, death and one's will. The main characters go through all of these problems and find their resolve and all these meaningful decisions are shown to you. Vivi and Zidane get to know that they're mere puppets. While Vivi struggles with finding his identity, he finds his will to live even though he knows his time is short, even though he knows he will “stop” (die) moving one day. This fear, the awareness of his own mortality drives him forward and actually makes him out to be this fantastic character you can totally resonate with.

Zidane on the other hand has been created for a cruel purpose, to kill all those that he had come to love while he lived on Gaia. He struggles against this purpose and chooses his own way.

Princess Garnet also struggles to keep living as her mother dies and she ultimately finds out that her mother has never been her real mother and now that her mother is dead, she also has a kingdom to rule.

Even the main antagonist of the story, Kuja, deals with these human problems as he races towards wanting to destroy everything, led by the feeling of despair, of fear to die very soon.

Besides the story, FFIX also has a few side quests/side stuff to do: Tetra (a pretty stupid game of cards without real sense), chocobo digging (too exhausting honestly, took me years to find just one treasure map) and delivering moggle letters (what you can do while moving through the main story).

As all the other older entries, FFIX has an amazing soundtrack. I also love VII and VIII's soundtrack, given Nobuo Uematsu always composes the best soundtracks.

The combat system is true to the motto “back to the roots”, turn based (ATB) and this time around with 4 persons instead of 3. Abilities that your characters can master through fights (and the rewarded Aps) are attached to the armour you can equip. This part of the game leads to the strategical part of the game: the best armour isn't always the best armour. Elemental protection can be much more important. In addition every character has a different role (job) and different unique fighting styles, aka Vivi is a black mage, while Garnet is a white mage, Zidane a thief...

The battle system itself was fucking slow in 2000 and the new version didn't do much about that. Once you enter a battle, the screen will go black and goddamn, it will stay that way for at least 10-15 seconds. Not even the newest features/cheats (maximum damage, immortality, no random enemy encounters and SPEED) can change anything about that. I honestly abused the speed option at times, because no one has so much time on their hands.

FFIX also delivers the worst “limit break” method. This gauge is being filled whenever a character is damaged and while VII gave you the opportunity to use this limit break whenever you wished, IX simply wastes these breaks on random enemies. Once the gauge is filled up, the characters go into trance mod, if you want them to or not. This trance mod also takes away vital fighting options of some character and replaces them with other commands. Overall I can only say that this was probably the worst problem of the game (along with that black screen!).

[eliaspsuedo]

Fire Emblem Warriors thoughts

12-16 hours, DONE! At least with story mode, I still have history mode and all the unlockable characters to get through.

I’m sure the main Dynasty Warriors games are good. They should be if companies keep making spin-offs based on them, but my general thoughts on these Dynasty Warriors spin-offs is that they’re fun diversions but they get repetitive without any decent hook, either in the story or gameplay. I played Dynasty Warriors Gundam 1 back when I was young and Dragon Quest Heroes in preparation for this game. From what I remember of DW Gundam, it’s that I liked it for the first few hours till it got stale, but I’ll always remember the original mode. The interactions (always loved seeing the Zechs, Puru, and Domon), the scenarios, and it was the first time I saw stuff like G Gundam and most early-UC shows. Dragon Quest Heroes is one I really enjoyed for the gameplay and bits and pieces of character interaction. It felt a tower defense game, where you get medals to summon monsters as your sentry, it really livened up the combat. Lastly, because I was more familiar with DQ, I got to understand all the fanservice, references, and the joy seeing my favorite DQ characters interact with each other. So, now that is the context of where I’m coming from in terms of DW games is clear, what did I think of FE Warriors?

First up is the negatives of the game.

Story mode was pretty bare-bones, which I expected but I was hoping for a little more flavoring in what little meat I got. The plot was pretty average: Young Lords, Chaos Dragon, obvious betrayal, etc. all that stuff you’d see in a FE game, but what really made the whole story come out as “meager” for me, was the lack of cross-game interaction and involvement in the main plot. There are brief bits of cross-game interaction, like Lissa talking to Oboro or Camilla praising Robin, but they’re brief and there’s little impact on the plot. This is important because this is a chance to either flesh out the characters out of their element or give us a pair that we’d never thought about, but now we want to see more. I go back to the Zechs, Puru, and Domon group from DW Gundam. They were all from different series, had different alignments, and completely different personalities, but seeing them work together, and even get out of their comfort zone by acting out of character really made them stand-out.

But what about the Supports? That’s a problem, cause by relegating the fun and interesting interactions there the player will miss out and the story will suffer. You have to work to get them, which is harder since maps last longer, rates feels slower, and for all that hard work you get 3 minutes of character portraits talking to each other. It’s ok in regular FE because there’s more opportunities to raise levels, you get more talk, and it mostly helps side characters. Let me put it this way, would you rather see Frederick fix Leo’s collar in a text box and read about it, or fully animated while you’re in the game?

The characters in Warriors are should be an ensemble, meaning their skills, personalities, and talents are equally spread out and given a proper time to shine. This is not helped by what keeps the characters we want to see together, the main characters. My friend who only plays FE Heroes, likes Dynasty Warriors, and doesn’t like Rowan character design, helped me put it into words: “They feel like discount Sharena and Alfonse.” I agree with that, cause there’s not much to Rowan and Lianna. Aside from what they are (twins, royals of the kingdom, etc.), who they are is lost on me. Rowan gets off better, cause he has aspirations and liking to knights, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are pretty much there. Since a large chunk of the plot is about them, we got less time to get a feel out of the Heroes.

Going to DQ Heroes, I got more fun out of Luceus and Aurora, the male and female characters of that game. Now, Luceus thing was he prattled on complicated battle strategies (something I wish Robin did in the game) and took an analytical look, and Aurora was his foil that summed up his plan and just attacked and did what she felt was needed. What made them so fun to watch was how we saw those interactions during a supposedly tense moment, and it lightens up the mood and brings up the energy for hack and slash.

Another thing, voices are repetitive, especially in menus.

I saw a piece of trivia on how Rowan and Lianna were made sword users to help with the tutorials. I can see why they did it, but I have a better idea: how about making them wield all the different weapons? It lessens the oversaturation of sword users, it really make them feel like our avatar, and allows some variety in the animations. Though rigging up 5 different weapon animations seems like a hassle…

The last big negative is how many characters have little to do. This is most apparent with Marth’s group as, aside from some scenes including one with Darios, they really don’t do much in terms of the plot. In fact, now that I think about it, even the other groups don’t much to do either. The most I remember is moral support and speeches, but for active and direct actions? Not much. Takumi disarming Darios, the Shepherds teaching the group, Sakura finding a cure for Rowan, snapping Corrin out, and the Gleamstones, those all are out of the top of my head. I’m glad Celica and Lyn aren’t in Story mode cause they’d have even less to do! I doubt adding more character from the other FE games would help. With a plot this thin, I doubt we’d see more of, say, Ike that we’d see of any other character. I guess if you want to see the older cast, that’s what FE Heroes is for.

There definitely could’ve been more to the story. At best, it’s ok. I think the problem was the story was too serious. In the above DW spinoffs, while it had dramatic moments, there was a lighter or fun tone in all of them. Cause you’re reveling in all the carnage, fanservice, and characters. The story of Warriors didn’t feel like that, it just felt like another cut-out FE story, and that’s sad. If it joked around for more scenes (one or two scenes of Owain and Niles don’t count), maybe the bland story would’ve been more forgivable.

So that means I hated FE Warriors, right? NOPE

It actually surpassed my expectations!

A big part of that is the gameplay. With the added FE elements, it manages to turn the rather repetitive combat into a tactical action RPG. First, the weapon triangle means you have to think who engages what. You defeat enemies faster and easier when you have the advantage, and vice-versa. This means team composition is crucial, giving you some thought in who you pick. Do you add archers cause there are fliers? Do you add mages cause there are dragons? Can I deal with being at a disadvantage? Combine this with the second: Commanding units, and you got something just like a FE game. During gameplay you can command your units to attack certain enemies or defend forts. You cannot ignore this and power through, you have to manage your units to efficiently win. This means you have to constantly go to the map and give orders, lest you have the AI dilly-dally, and pay attention who’s attacking what. For example, Takumi is guarding that fort, so I’ll order Corrin to kill him but not let Camilla go anywhere near him since he’ll shoot her down (Fun Fact: I did defeat Takumi with Camilla). Add to the fact the AI, which can handle themselves competently (though you do have to wrestle with it a lot), takes a while to defeat enemies, then you really have to do a lot of the work with your 4 playable characters to get the job done. This leads to a very engaging and frantic juggling act, and makes the core gameplay really solid.

Next, the pair up system was a really useful feature. You pair up two units and that unit will be your sword and shield. It adds another layer of strategy to your fight since now you can swap between a sword and a lance user to easily adapt to the situation. It comes at a cost though, as it cuts your commandable units. So that’s another thing to consider, losing a possible defender. Plus, the dual guard makes attacks not hit you and it is a life saver when you’re completing Anna missions that require you to not get hit.

The maps were also impressive. Taking advantage of fliers ability to, well, fly as well as using Dragonveins to improve the map for you units. It’s a really nice touch. There weren’t too many spaces without enemies, so there’s always something to do.

Let’s talk technical, because on the Switch it’s amazing. A steady framerate while docked (you can pick between 30 or 60 FPS), and undocked it works just as well. Especially with local co-op. I was impressed on how it ran undocked with two players. A little choppier, but it remains consistent and having a buddy around enhances the tactical edge, since you have to coordinate your actions.

History Mode was another thing I like. I haven’t completed it since I’m underleveled, but I am enjoying it more than Story Mode. On a FE map (complete with sprites), you select enemies like they’re missions and defeating certain enemies expands your area. The challenge here is to get S-Ranks to get Master Seals and other good stuff. It’s missions like defeat 500 enemies, or only use magic users, is varied enough to keep me interested, and there’s some story bits in it that seems interesting. Female Robin makes an appearance in the Awakening map, with Male Robin and Chrom watching in astonishment, it’s an interesting angle to say the least.

Finally, it’s the polish. The stunning animation, how it runs, how good the cutscenes look, and just how it feels like Fire Emblem. I had the same feeling with FE Heroes. Different format, same series, wonderful feel.

So in the end, I wasn’t expecting much, but I got more than what I asked and I definitely recommend it. Now I’ll just wait for my beautiful wife, and hope the next FE game on the Switch comes soon!

Now, let’s do the odyssey~

[vjdarkworld]

The Witcher 3 Review (NO SPOILERS)

Score: Recommended, for people that enjoy Storytelling

Best:

Storytelling

Adult content

Difficult Choices

Embodiment of Polish folklore

Quests

Good:

VisualsOnce you have a lot of good tools to use, gameplay is funExploration and Open World

Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Bad:

“Slavic jank”

Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Performance

Best:

Storytelling

This not only includes how the stories unfold, but as well the characters and world they inhabit.

One word to describe it would be believability. Of course, it’s fantasy but the way standard fantasy things would be handled is done well due to the characters.

A plot is a series of character interactions, so ultimately a story is only as good as the characters it has. Truly what sells the world is how the characters interpret it, and they all have differing viewpoints. Some take the Dark Fantasy world seriously, others find it a chance for a Fun Adventure, and most attempt to drink their sorrows away. But my personal favorite interacts in the series is between Geralt and his friends.

This is where it becomes real for me, relationships. Throughout Geralt’s adventures he meets many people. He doesn’t get along with most, but there are some he actually befriends. And even though nearly all his friends are eccentric which contrast the stoic white wolf, he still has long and ongoing friendships with em. As the director of the game said, “friends are the backbone of your life” (he was talking about life not the witcher but oddly enough it connects to the witcher for me) and that is exemplified by Geralt.

All in all, the relationships between the characters make the storytelling real.

Adult content

While other games have sex in it, The Witcher series has been able to portray sex for what it is…. Sex. Bioware has the lovely dovey sex after you Romance them, but in the Witcher it’s different and more Realistic. Adults have sex for various reasons and it’s not always romantic. Most of the time it’s just for the act itself, having a single fling cus sex is Fun.

Since witchers shoot blanks they have the stereotype of being promiscuous. It’s up to the player (no pun intended) if they will let Geralt succumb to Hook Up Culture, or actually stay in a dedicated monogamous relationship.

Something like this just isn’t address in any other mainstream RPG.

Other serious topics are brought up as well related to sexual violence and racism. They are all handled well due to one simple theme present with each situation. That is the fact that you can’t be neutral, you have to pick a side.

 Difficult Choices

It’s funny cus the white wolf almost embodies the “grey area” of neutrality that generally serious RPG fans walk the line of. That the player will be understanding for all Characters and trying to figure out a solution. But most situations aren’t like this realistically. Theoretically sure you can be critical of Both Sides, but in practice you HAVE to pick a side. Or maybe you don’t pick a side and “stay neutral” which can be the worst option cus you could be letting bad stuff happen that you could of prevented. This is why when choices pop up for Geralt, it’s pretty serious. Especially cus the effects of them happen way later in the game before you realized what you did wrong.

These choices impact the fates of certain characters, among other things. Choose wisely, or you may not be happy with what you did.

 Embodiment of Polish folklore

I’m no expert in Polish culture, or of ye’ old slavic and pagan mythology, but the entire game reeks of something being different. It just doesn’t seem like your typical Tolkien fantasy. There’s a unique twist that is clearly the result of the entire game being developed in Poland, thus polish culture shining bright within it.

Some people joke that the Witcher series is Poland’s main export, but atleast for entertainment it seems quite true. It seems like a major group effort from creative minds of Poland, banding together to present their folklore to world. Major props and respect to the CD PROJEKT RED team!

 Quests

Quests are designed like episodic content. For side quests and hunter contracts, they all tell a good standalone story from start to finish of the quest. Sometimes quests interconnect too, reference each other, presenting how much the world is connected. It makes doing the quests quite addicting cus you want to see what’s going to happen next in the quest, and then when you finish it you want another good story so you start another one. It’s almost like bingewatching a tv show. Having good stories for the quests makes even the most mundane tasks more appealing too. Trying to tell a story… WHAT A CONCEPT!

 Good:

Visuals

They are pretty nice looking if you got the Specs for it. Sometimes regular real lofe animals like cats and dogs look weird but overall its good. Landscapes pretty, monsters spooky, humans all raggedy. The aesthetic sells the world quite nicely.

 Once you have a lot of good tools to use, combat is fun

When starting out the game, you have limited options for combat. But through the course of the game, gaining abilities, new gear, etc etc, gives Geralt more tools to play around with. This is when the game opens up and you can mess around a bit. The white wolf can get pretty OP too if you play your cards right. To which if you think the game is too easy, you can always play on higher difficulties.

 Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Due to how alchemy and signs work, signs, oils, potions and decoctions generally have only a Specific situation use. Some are more versatile, but most times you will be looking up the Bestiary to figure out what tools to use.

On one hand this kinda makes the combat seem flat, cus of the limited options you can do, BUT thematically it makes sense why. It makes sense why it’s like this for a hunter of monsters, there’s a lot of monsters and they all have different weaknesses so it makes sense as to why the design is like this.

On top of that, it’s kind of deceptive cus you CAN experiment but only when you have a LOT of the tools and you know what all their purposes are. It’s a barrier, but you can get over it.

But still, in the end the gameplay still isn’t as dynamic as other combat systems which is a shame in my opinion.

 Exploration and Open World

Points of interest are labeled on the map. You get good loot and fight monsters at these points most of the time. It doesn’t truly make the game world feel Alive necessarily, it just seems more like extra stuff to do. I appreciate the effort of given the player stuff to do if they completed quests and are bored, and you get neat goodies from going these places but it’s really just There.

 Bad:

“Slavic jank”

There’s a bit of a joke about games made in slavic related areas. They are often associated with janky games, but games with so much dedication behind them that even though they are janky it’s so unique that it’s fun. Something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for example. This phenomena is due to how the gamers in these territories are completely out of the typical western Triple A bubble. And generally dedicate their time to old CRPGs, which causes them to grow a fondness for more Detailed and Dense design instead of Simple and Elegant. This isn’t a bad thing, and this type of thing can be seen in The Witcher series, where it’s both Triple A BUT has that old school CRPG style to it.

All that is good in my opinion…. But I have to be honest and say that the gameplay can be too janky at times. Movement in general feels weird with its velocity and acceleration. Roach controls awkwardly and doesn’t feel like a horse, more like you’re on something sliding around. When you run into other animals or enemies on Roach you just push them away and not run them over.

Also, for some reason the controls completely change when in combat mode and you can’t control at all when combat mode happens. This causes awkwardness where you are not moving the same way as before, as in… an enemy triggers you to go into combat mode but they are too far away for you to hurt so you are stuck moving around weird. It’s just an odd system, which I prefer to have a full range of movement and attacks, not being arbitrarily pushed into combat mode.

Also, the inventory is a bit confusing to navigate especially if you are trying to find a specific item hidden in the Other tab.

The whole character upgrade screen too is not clear cus there’s clearly abilities that are better than others WHEN you actually know their potential, but unless you’re looking up guides and the wiki you won’t really know which are the good ones to actually invest in.

All these little things that kind of ruin the “game feel” make people not want to play it past a couple hours cus they think the game is “janky” anddd the game is actually kinda janky. I have to admit it, can’t lie. There’s other open world games that have better movement overall, and I wish that this game did.

 Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Now you may wonder, what’s so bad about that? Well, I was being critical about this games jankiness, but really it’s not in the slightest as janky as Witcher 1. Witcher 2 isn’t as much janky, but Witcher 3 improved on a lot of Witcher 2’s problems so Witcher 3 is in fact the least janky.

Now it would be a hard sell to say “you need to go through 50+ hours of the previous installments to play this?” BUT if the other installments were as polished as this than it wouldn’t be as much of a problem… But it’s like I can’t tell someone “Oh you have to play through these janky games to play this game, don’t worry it’s worth it bro” cus that’s disrespecting their intelligence AND worst of all their time. Not everyone has time to look play through decent games to get to an Amazing game just so they can understand the story… which is sad.

Cus don’t get me wrong, I adore Witcher 1 more than most, but I can’t lie and say it’s worth “slogging” through the awkward gameplay to see the amazing story unfold down the road.

Why? Even if it’s a unique OK… there are better games to play that are more than just OK.

And to the book point, you shouldn’t need to read a book series before playing a videogame, the entertainment should be as singular as possible. The witcher videogames too have a different storyline than the books anyways, so it’s a moot point of them being in the same continuity and being “required”… even though they technically can help if you didn’t play the other games. Still not fair though, so nah, just nah.

 Performance

You need to make sure you have a midrange build atleast so you can run the game. But man do the frames drop in cities. Back on my old-midrange build I could play at around 50-60fps outside of Novigrad… but IN Novigrad I had 10-20fps due to NPCs and who knows what else. Also just some areas would lag on that build regardless if something was at low or medium. Very finnicky. I think by now with all the patches and optimization it’s probably better buuut I can’t say the game is well optimized. It’s serviceable with a good build… but ya get kinda screwed if you don’t and that’s a shame.

[repeatsfate]

A, K, R!!

vidya games!

K – game you’re most looking forward to? 

at the moment it’s super mario odyssey and pokemon ultra sun and moon! and, uh… my inner 12 year old is rearing her ugly head to force me to admit i’m also pretty hyped for sonic forces, oops. lOOK IT LOOKS FUN, OKAY…

i’m looking forward to fe musou too but also i’m pretty neutral on it– everything they’ve revealed has been super incredible so far and i’m looking forward to maining my birb, but i’m more interested in the confirmed fe16 and i’m looking forward to hearing more about that when the time comes.

R – most underrated game? 

hmmmm… while xenoblade chronicles itself would certainly fit the bill despite shulk being a giant meme now, i think i’ll take it a step further and go on to say xenoblade chronicles x deserves a bit more love than it got– 

despite the very real flaws with the game and some aspects of the story, a thing that draws me to it aside from the ‘if you can see it, you can go to it’ MASSIVE open world and setting on a foreign planet was just how human its supporting cast and even minor npcs are. the game does an excellent job of portraying raw humanity in both ends of the spectrum– where there are heroes, there are people even in man’s most desperate hour that took that second chance as an excuse to be horrible, horrible people. the encounter of alien life goes as swimmingly as you expect, with the remaining fragments of humanity split on how to deal with these new beings in their midst. some choose to try and form alliances and bonds, the others shun and fear the outsiders– many quests actually revolve around the racism in what’s supposed to be a safe haven for the aliens pledging themselves to humanity’s side. the conflict taking up the last leg of the game is one born of human grief and the sting of loss– and when you really get into the motivations behind it it’s so easy to understand why the person did what they did but also acknowledge yeah no you did bad buddy you gotta pay for it now. i just???? it’s so good????

the planet and creatures that make up the game’s setting are imaginative and beautiful, i honestly love just booting it up and wandering. sometimes it’s scary as all heck because OH GOD GIANT MONSTER OUT OF NOWHERE but also… that just adds to the immersion and feeling like you’re a tiny fish in a big, big sea… and when you’re strong enough to stand up to those monsters it’s the most satisfying thing in the world.

the musical direction is honestly up to taste- i personally adore xcx’s soundtrack, but those not a huge fan of hiroyuki sawano’s works might find it lacking. here’s a personal favourite! 

point is, it’s super fun, i want to do an araceli run sometime if i can ever be arsed to go back on my wii u or it gets a switch port, and a verse would be fun to play around with… i’m not a huge jrpg person, but i really really like xcx. also, fans of matthew mercer– he’s in this one, too! he plays lao huang, one of my all time favourite characters tbh

point is it is flawed, yes, but it’s also a very solid jrpg that i had fun sinking hours into and i’d totally do so again

A – favourite game of all time? 

my top fave game of all time? easy! it’s the legend of zelda: wind waker! 

it wins in both nostalgia points and a critical eye as i’ve gotten older– as a little kid, it was the first game i ever actually beat all by myself! the gamecube was the first home console i ever got to own– for a while i lived with my granny, who wasn’t very big on gaming if that makes sense? and then after moving back in with my mom she got me one for christmas and a friend lent me wind waker after i tried playing it at his house and repeatedly got stuck in the forsaken fortress. the excitement of finally making it past that and seeing this big, bright, beautiful world and story unfold before me has stuck with me to this day?? idk how to explain it i just. wind waker was an important game in my childhood, and i’ve played through it a loooooot– mostly i’ve noticed it was during times of stress or particular loneliness. everyone has that one game that’s been there™ for them during times of duress, and wind waker has always been mine. 

okay i’m read more-ing the rest of this because i… went on for a WHILE. which is also why i answered it last oops. tl;dr there are many reasons why i love this game and it’s still my fave even now that i’m nearly 23. 

as an adult, i’ve found that from a technical standpoint the game holds up really well, too– even without the hd remake on the wii u wind waker is still a very beautiful, stylistic game; a major benefit to having taken the art in a more cartoony direction is that it prevents the game from aging too much; if you were to look at the vanilla gamecube edition now, it still holds up amazingly! (meanwhile, i find that while twilight princess is still lovely, the more realistic art direction tends to date it a little. i could look at the original and just know the era it was made in, whereas if i never saw wind waker before, i would question it.) 

the textures are rather blurry, sure, but that was a product of the time– hypatia on tumblr actually produced a mod with hd textures for roms of the gamecube version– check out these comparasion shots of the then-work in progress mod versus the original textures… and then here’s a few polished shots of the mod with a few extra effects dolphin/ishiiruka can provide. in short, the original wind waker is a very, very beautiful game and age has done very little to tarnish that even with the remake’s updated graphics. 

but obviously graphics don’t make or break a game, though proper presentation is important– wind waker’s story also resonates with me deeply in various aspects. as an older sister, the initial quest to set out and rescue your younger sibling in danger caught my attention and held it fast; they do a very good job of making you feel attached to aryll, and the scene where she is kidnapped always tugs at my heartstrings every time i see it. watching this young boy who lived the world’s most quiet little life on a tiny island suddenly get swept up into this grand, big adventure to rescue someone dear to him and becoming an actual hero – despite having no relation to oot link whatsoever! – is the quintessential coming of age story that most people can relate to, and watching that change as the game plays out is always really sweet???

 it was nice watching link’s development through his little actions: the backing away from helmaroc king when he first storms the fortress and then confident staring it down the second time and then giving it what for– aside from ganondorf himself that’s my favourite boss in the game if only because of those moments of development. link’s not just some kid from outset in over his head anymore– he’s a hero who overcame the trials of the goddesses himself in the name of protecting his baby sister, and he will not fail again. and then, after he could easily just throw in the towel and take his sister home because he accomplished what he set out to do, link goes on and sees it through to the end anyways because restoring order to the world is the right thing to do– there’s no legacy of knights looming over his head like several of his other incarnations. there’s no grand kingdom, there are only desolate little islands. there’s a princess, but… he barely knows her. hell, she didn’t even know she was a princess until that moment. 

the story also touches on themes of death and the ends of eras… but also ends on a note of hope and new beginnings– clinging to the past only leads to ruin, and we must create opportunities for ourselves and the world to grow. hyrule is actually completely washed away by the end, and ganondorf goes with it– unless we assume breath of the wild is in the adult timeline, that’s it. he’s gone FOREVER in the subsequent games, with bellum and malledeus taking his place as the main villain. the kingdom link and tetra found is called new hyrule, but that’s all they share in significance– it’s their own land, just like the king said. that final scene of wind waker with the king always got to me– that message of hope is so poignant and powerful, i just. i don’t know how to put it into words, but it’s a scene i love dearly. 

then there’s the music and cast of characters, and even quests and gameplay? i know the sailing could get tedious but i always liked it; it was relaxing to me just watching the virtual waves and listening to that beautiful score?? the characters are all bright and unique and fun– they’ve got their own little lives and you can impact them in so many different ways and things definitely change once you do?? like starting windfall vs windfall after you do a few sidequests or even turn on the ferris wheel and lighthouse again feel so different? it’s a neat little detail i’ve always found!!

…i really need to stop rambling about wind waker now i actually dozed off a bit typing this post, oops.