#I mean I can name a dozen scenes that support the f/f ship just as much as the m/m ship

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Patience has its limits

The same scene was playing out yet again as if the universe never grew tired of the joke.  An alien race invades human space thinking they would roll over and die, makes a couple of gains by capturing newly founded colonies, then gets cocky and rushes head long into deep human territory only to find an amassed armada of human vessels itching for pay back. Alien fleet gets decimated, retreats, and then humanity begins the counter invasion.   Human colonies were taken back one by one and then the inevitable push into alien territory began. Sure they tried putting up a fight in every other system, but in the end humanity once again reached the alien homeworld and began setting about the plans for a final strike.  This story had played out a dozen or so times now in the last hundred years; aliens never seemed to learn from each others mistakes and instead decided to run headlong into the gauntlet of war. Something about humanity just rubbed them the wrong way and even though the other races that didn’t join in the war stated support for an end to the conflict, behind closed doors they wished for humanities downfall.  It was at this juncture that the story took the same outcome as before. The races of the galaxy finally came together and demanded humanity stop short of invading their enemies homeworld. Lines such as “Needless slaughter” and “peaceful resolution” were bounced around so much they may as well have been sprayed on to the walls. Funny though how they never seemed to come when human worlds were threatened.  Normally this is where our story would end. Humanity would leave the alien space, be hailed as keepers of the peace, then get maybe 10-20  years of peace before the next alien race tried to move in.  This time however, the chaotic nature of humans decided it would write a new script for the galactic farce they found themselves caught in......... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Admiral Hart looked down at the alien homeworld as it slowly rotated in space. From the observation deck of his flagship the Colossus, he noted how similar it was to Earth.  With the sound of boots against the polished metal floors his aide Johnathan appeared at his side.  “The delegates have arrived and await an audience with you.” 

Furling his brow Admiral Hart nodded his head and the guards to the observation deck opened the doors.  Roughly two dozen delegates shuffled into the observation deck. Hart had seen many of them before and their oddities no longer phased him as they once did. Hell, even when the sentient blob of goo from the Sagvant system came in sliding across the floor he didn’t even flinch.  They gathered around Admiral Hart and the leading delegate stepped forward, a Jil by the looks of it. They wore robes of an unknown fabric that seemed to shimmer in the light of the observation deck and their demeanor reeked of a diplomat that always got their way in the end.     The Jil bowed before he spoke, mimicking a gesture he had learned of humans to give superiority to others. “Admiral Hart, we are honored you have allowed us aboard your vessel to speak with you to find a peaceful resolution to this tragic affair.”  He rose to see Hart had not even turned to acknowledge him and instead was still looking out the window.  If the Jil was offended they did not show it and continued.  “After speaking with your leaders we believe that we have found a path forward that will bring peace once more to the universe.”  It was at the mention of peace that Hart finally turned around and looked at the assembled delegates. He looked the Jil up and down and chuckled to himself.  “What pray tell do you find amusing Admiral?” the Jil asked.  Hart continued to chuckle. “You. I find you funny delegate.” Before the Jil could inquire as to why Hart began pacing up and down the assembled ranks. As he passed certain members he pointed and spoke to them.  “New Haven, 2206.” “Salvation, 2223.″ “ Holdfast, 2240.”  The list went on until finally arriving at the Jil.  “Mordin Bay, 2301.”  “Are these numbers and names meant to mean something?” The Jil asked, unsure what was going on.  Hart returned to the window and looked down at the planet once more.  “Each corresponds to the year and human planet attacked by the species I just called to. It’s amusing to me that nearly half of you have waged war against humanity and now are hear trying to broker a peace agreement.”  Several of the delegates began to shuffled in place, tugging on their clothes as if they had suddenly become tight. The Jil was better trained and showed no such signs and smiled.  “It is true we have had conflict, but each time we have been able to resolve our differences and move forward.”  Hart nodded as if something had just been confirmed.  “You speak wisely. Let us put an end to this war and once again move forward. Johnathan, contact the enemy commander and put him through to this deck.”  Johnathan pulled out a data pad and entered a few keys as the viewing window went dark and was replaced with the image of an alien in battle dress.  Admiral Hart straightened himself and presented. “I am Admiral Hart, commander of the Human retaliation fleet currently orbiting your world as we speak. With me are delegates from a dozen other species who wish to bring about an end to this war.”  The alien on screen nodded and bared their teeth. “I am known as Volv, Supreme commander of my people. It is wise you have decided to cease your hostilities before- Hart cut him off. “If you have terms or conditions you wish to state speak them now.”  Volv snarled at being cut off but continued. “We wish for human fleets to leave our territory to pre-conflict borders in exchange for reimbursement for any damages caused during the conflict.” The Jil smiled and nodded to the alien from behind Hart. Leading up to the invasion they had spoken and confirmed that this was the easiest way to win over human leaders.  The Jil stepped forward and placed themselves into the conversation. “You are most wise Supreme commander to see that further bloodshed is un-” Hart raised a hand and silenced the Jil.  “We have heard your terms and now wish to present humanities.”  This was not what the human politicians had promised him,  the Jill thought as they watched the scene unfold.  Hart cupped his hands behind his back and stared directly at his foe with a gaze that could cut through iron.  “You will surrender all military assets to humanity along with all of your planets outside of this system, you and the other leaders of your people will be arrested and tried in our courts as war criminals, a military garrison will be placed on every planet in this system to ensure further hostilities against humanity are not allowed, and we will also take that reimbursement.”  The delegates collectively gasped at this announcement, the supreme commander alone looked as close to having a heart attack despite not even having a heart.  “That is outrageous!” the supreme commander shouted. “We could never agree to those terms!”  Hart pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep inhale before blowing a cloud of smoke into the image of the supreme commander. “That’s a shame, as these terms are none negotiable. Guess the war will continue then.”  The supreme commander’s mouth dropped open at the realization, but before he could speak Hart motioned to his aide and the link was cut replacing the image once more with the view of the planet.  “Now Hart,” the Jill spoke as they stepped forward, “let’s be reasonable now. You can’t expect them to agree to such steep terms out of the blue.” Hart didn’t even bother to look at the delegate as he spoke. “I am being reasonable however as it does my people nothing to return to our territory and act as if nothing had happened at all.” He motioned to the planet below. “Clearly they are a threat and will continue to be so until they accept our terms.”  “But you will lose millions of solider if you try to invade! Their city shields are near impenetrable.”  “On that we do agree, delegate.” Hart said surprising the Jil. “Which is why we are not going to invade or attack their cities.”  “Then how can the war cont-”  A shudder ran through the ship and cut off the Jil. The humans present paid it no mind but to the delegates they were confused at what could cause such a shudder.  The Jill looked out the window to see a series of missiles had been launched from the ship and were heading planetside. He turned to Admiral Hart who was speaking with his aide.  “Even their military sites are shielded. Your attack will do nothing!”  “We agree again, though we are not targeting those either.”  “Then what are you targeting!?!” The Jil was frantic now as the situation was running off the rails.  Hart pointed to the planet below and smiled.  “We’re targeting fault lines.”  “What?”  “Fault lines. you know; the places where tectonic plates meet and overlap.”  “Why would you target those?! There’s nothing on them.”  “Well how else are we to trigger natural disasters then?”  The calmness of the Admiral’s reply struck the breath from the Jil’s lungs.  “What did you say?”  “We are firing on the fault lines to trigger natural disasters. Tsunami’s, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, but on a worldwide scale. We may not be able to breach those shields, but we won’t have to when their own planet begins to kill them off on its own.”  “This was not what your leaders promised!” The Jil shouted as more and streaks of light were appearing fired from the rest of the orbiting fleet. “We were told there would be a negotiation!”  “Oh there will be, but not between us and them” Hart said as the first missile impacted the planet somewhere in the ocean.  “This negotiation is between us and yourselves.” He gestured to the other delegates. “The patience of humanity has run dry from these constant invasions that we know you all have been secretly supporting.” “I don’t know what you’re imply-” “Shush!” Hart silenced the Jill and continued.  “So the deal here is that we will forget about your actions up until this point and you all will agree to stop any aggressive action against us. Failure to honor this obligation will result in the same for you homeworld.”  The delegates looked through the window at the planet below as massive tidal waves were striking the seaboard of every continent that wasn’t already shattering like jigsaw puzzle pieces from the earthquakes. 

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #story

[annoyinglyjovialbird]

Voltron: Next Generation

Nuclear Decisions: III

Word Count: 2177

AN: It’s a little shorter today, but I hope you find the end well worth it. :)

As Yorak finished his comment, Kova began resisting. She pulled back from Yorak’s grip, physically leaning back and away. Yorak smiled like he knew this was going to happen. His grip on her arm grew tighter as his knee pushed the back of hers. Kova fell on the ground hard, shaking her arms in vain. 

“Now, now, Kyla,” Yorak said like he was speaking to a child. “You better stop now unless you want your precious team blown into atoms.” Kova panted, pushing back one last time until her body sagged. She was hauled up to standing and pushed towards a heavy metal door. Yorak turned to Kova, smiling widely at the glaring girl. “I’m releasing you. You better not do something you’ll regret.” Kova nodded as the violet cuffs faded, falling to the floor with heavy, echoing thuds. Vhix appeared from behind, taking Yorak’s place on Kova’s upper arm. 

Together, the trio marched up a set of stairs on the other side of the metal door. It opened, and the bright lights briefly blinded the teen. Within a minute, Kova could see again. The entire crew of the ship she was on was standing below in perfect squares, looking up at the trio as they walked in. Huge screens were on two of the walls, showing a better view of the balcony they were on. A screen appeared in front of the balcony as Yorak approached. He smiled smugly as the telecommunication started with a swipe of his finger. 

On the Coeus, every screen on board had tuned itself to the incoming transmission. The same happened at the Garrison, where the programmers who trained to take care of unauthorized transmissions like this set to work. Unfortunately, the head programmer was on vacation and the team couldn’t get through the Garrison’s firewall. The Garrison was the only place on Earth that received the transmission, but that was enough to send panic through Curtis’s heart. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of our lovely universe,” Yorak said, stepping forward to become more prominent on the balcony. “Today, you are witnessing a historic event. One that can change the universe as we know it." 

Shiro had ordered everyone on the Coeus to report to the bridge. Keith, of course, didn’t listen, charging towards the transport bay. While he hadn’t been under supervised care in awhile, he was still recovering. Before he could even leave the transport bay in the MFE jet, the quick lapse in oxygen knocked him out. Shiro and Liz found him and hauled him back to the observation room. He would be fine. He just needed to rest. 

"The Fire has long remained in the darkest corners after a humiliating defeat and highly publicized death of our founder and first Emperor. I, Emperor Yorak, am now changing that.” Vhix pulled Kova along so she was sandwiched in between Yorak and Vhix. “The Fire is finally ready to make our grand premiere, with Voltron supporting our cause.” He gestured to Kova, who sneered. “My brother, Commander of the colonies, my sister, the leader of Voltron, and I swear to make the universe equal and whole. A balance that should’ve been since the beginning.” Vhix stepped forward, kicking Kova’s foot forward so they were closer to the screen. Kova’s fists began shaking with anger as Vhiz took the stand. 

“Imagine the possibilities of an equal and balanced world. The doors that will open to all those who join us in our cause.” For a brief minute, Vhix let go of Kova to make wide hand gestures. She took a step back so that she could look over Yorak’s shoulder. “Voltron stands with us. You will too." 

"No.” Kova stared directly at the screen. “We don’t.” With a right hook, Kova’s right fist connected with Yorak’s jaw, making him fall onto the ground. With a quick turn on the ball of her foot, she knees Vhix in the stomach, also making him fall. Yorak tried to stand, but he slips on the topmost step on the staircase and falls backward. Vhix didn’t have the same luck, so Kova kicked him down the other set of stairs. She turned to look forward, where her face was projected onto large screens. Her eyes look shocked, then determined. 

“My name is Kovalia, and yes, I am the leader of Voltron. My team has remained hidden for the past few weeks, but we have used our time to train and prepare ourselves to defend our home. My parents formed the Galactic Coalition in their prime, and I am not going to let anyone, friend or foe, destroy something I swore to protect. To everyone who stands on the side of good, of peace, I ask you to stand with Voltron. With us. To those who stand with the Fire, be prepared for war.” With that, Kova slashed her fingers through the air to cut off the connection. By that point, the soldiers down below had begun to find their way up the staircase. Kova climbed onto the wide railing of the balcony and jumped over the balcony railing before anyone could reach her. 

Her jetpacks were a godsend as she landed harmlessly on the ground below. As soon as her feet met the ground, Kova ran towards the huge doors that the soldiers were running out of. Several of them tried catching her but met the business end of her bayard. The weapon had morphed itself into a long vaulting pole. With a push, Kova vaulted over the soldiers, and the bayard morphed in mid-air. It became a small stun gun, to which Kova used to shock the door’s control. She didn’t take a second look, dashing down the hall. Through a matter of twists and turns, Kova found herself in the same area she had found herself the last time she was kidnapped. The doors refused to open, welded shut. 

“Halt!” Someone said behind Kova. She turned to stare at half a dozen soldiers pointing the barrels of their weapons at her. “Surrender!" 

Kova was panting in her helmet, slowly putting her hands up. Her bayard morphed again, turning into the long curved sword. With a swing, the barrels of the three weapons directly in front of had fallen off, the cut so clean, it could’ve been done with a razor. With two hands now on the hilt, Kova widened her stance, ready to fight. 

A heavy thud sounded on the outside of the door, throwing everyone off balance. A heavier thud and an imprint on the metal door was the only warning Kova had to get out of the way. Diving into a barrel roll, she held onto the frame of the door as a third hit from outside revealed the Lion. Yellow’s head bursts through the heavy metal. With a deafening roar, Yellow extracted itself from the ruins as someone complained about just replacing the door. Kova ran to the opening and dove out. Red opened its jaws and ate Kova whole. Quick as can be, Kova ran to the cockpit of the Red Lion, where Caleb was navigating Red back to the Coeus. 

"Where’s Black?” Caleb asked. 

“No clue.” Kova was panting, staring at the large ship that she had just escaped from. “They have multiple holding bays." 

"We can’t check them all.” Caleb agreed with Kova’s train of thought. “Griffin, use the BLIP. Try to find the Black Lion.”

“On it,” Liz replied, directing Green far away from the ship so it could properly scan it. “Large number of guards in bay three.”

“Got it.” Red flew towards the ship again, but Kova put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. 

“Bay three has low-grade explosives." 

"How do you know?” Kova opened a screen on her arm, showing a picture of the ship map time-stamped on the day Kova was kidnapped the first time. With a swipe, Kova sent the image to the other Lions. 

“Bays three to six hold all explosives for the entire ship,” Kova explained, highlighting the respective bays. “I escaped from bay two, a transport bay." 

"What are we supposed to do, then?”

“Leave the LIon." 

"What?” Caleb turned to give Kova an incredulous face. If they didn’t have the Black Lion, they couldn’t form Voltron. 

“We have to.” Caleb tried to fight her, but as he continued thinking it over, he agreed with an exasperated sigh. 

“Team, retreat. Coeus, open a wormhole.” The Coeus opened a wormhole, slowly creaking its way through as the cannon on the front end of Yorak’s ship charged up. By the time it was ready to fire, the Coeus and the Lions were long gone. 

Onboard, Shiro said nothing as the teens filed past. Four of them went to their rooms, and one went to the bridge. Shiro eventually followed the teen as she removed her helmet to reveal her bright green hair. The teen stared at the bayard in her hand, a remnant of the Lion she had lost. That realization struck her deep. Kova, the jack of all trades, the pride of the Garrison, had lost. 

Shiro approached the teen from behind, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. Kova turned to meet Shiro’s sympathetic eyes, causing tears to fall from Kova’s eyes. With arms wrapped around Shiro’s large waist, she let the silent tears shed. Shiro patted the back of Kova’s head with his human hand, letting the robotic one turn off the lights in the bridge. While he said nothing, Kova could understand his meaning behind it all. 

It wasn’t her fault. She did what she could. 

Shiro led the teen back to her room, where she slept like a baby with the reassurance on her mind. Like a mantra, she repeated it over and over. It’s not my fault.

————————

In the distance, far away from the Coeus, further away from the colonies Yorak mentioned before, someone important watched the footage, too. Their face was partially obscured by the shadows in the room as they rewinded and played Kova’s speech over and over again. Specifically, the scene before the footage cut out. The glare on Kova’s shield made it impossible to see her at times, but in that quick second, her entire face was on display, albeit obscured slightly by the helmet. 

Over and over, the shadowed individual played the second. There was something about the girl’s eyes that stuck familiar. The way her dark eyebrows pinched together as her amber eyes filled with determination. While her hair was completely covered by the helmet, it could only be assumed her hair matched her eyebrows. Yorak and the Fire had been watched for months, to the point where there were several moles in various ranks throughout the organization. Yorak had referred to Vhix as his brother, already known as a fact by the individual, but he referred to the girl as his sister. 

More details about the girl began to become more apparent to the shadowed person. How the girl’s eyes weren’t as sharp as once thought, they held the same fiery spirit. Her chin and nose were more pointy, likely coming from her mother. Her armor and helmet were signatures of Voltron Paladins, leaving a small space at the bottom to allow her to talk. Her skin tone didn’t match either parent, but this was suspected to be from other causes. Her name was the nail in the coffin. While her suspected surname didn’t match any records, the unique first name she used did. 

Kovalia. 

With a press of a button, the individual opened a second screen with the image of a young girl. The little girl was seated in between a man and a woman with small smiles, but expressionless eyes. The woman wore a green shirt and dark pants with a pair of mint green glasses. Her chestnut hair was swept to her left side. The man wore a black shirt under a brown and red leather jacket, with dark hair tied in a ponytail. The little girl wore a pretty black dress with a lace overlay with a green ribbon around her stomach. Her dark hair had been braided to form a crown on her head. She was the only one who seemed happy to be there, giving the camera a big smile. She couldn’t have been more than three years old, but the picture was enough to get an age-progression of the girl. 

Leaning forward, the individual laced their fingers together in front of their mouth as the program did its work. As it aged the three-year-old and made an overlay of the teenager, it slowly confirmed what the individual suspected. 

The screen stopped, showing a 98% match between the adorable child and the fierce teen. 

“Finally.” The individual said, showing off their toothy grin. “We finally found you,” As they leaned further into the light, more features became apparent, like their pointed Galra markings on both cheeks, their two-toned hair, and their sharp eyes. “Kyla." 

Krolia stood from her chair. As she picked up the screens, deactivating them in the process, she walked to the door. Her smile never left as the automatic door opened, then closed with a thud.

#voltron: next generation #krolia #keith kogane #vld shiro #takashi shirogane #voltron lions #red lion #blue lion #green lion #yellow lion #black lion #yorak #emperor yorak #commander vhix #kovalia shirogane #kyla kogane #pidge #keith x pidge #caleb shirogane #liz griffin #allie smythe #cake garrett

[bltngames]

Rant: The Nightmare of Steam Input

It’s hardly a surprise these days that something built by Valve Software is maybe not the most solid, well-thought-out decision anyone’s ever had. When it comes to Steam, it can sometimes feel like a cobbled together set of half-finished features. Remember Steam Music, when they were going to implement a way to listen to custom music during gameplay? Remember when they used to sell movies? Or what the “Steam Machines” initiative, when Valve was going to partner with different hardware manufacturers to sell pre-built PCs, likely in a move that was meant to mimic to how Google handles their Android phones?

And then there’s the Steam Controller, built on the back of the “Steam Input” API. Though the controller floundred, Steam Input ended up being far more interesting. The theory: plug any controller in to Steam and it just works. Does the game ask for an Xbox controller, even though you aren't using one? Steam Input will take care of that. Does the game not even support controllers at all? Steam Input can make that work, too. And for games that interface with the Steam Input technology directly, a whole host of new and exciting features get made available, like binding specific actions to a Playstation 4 controller’s touchpad, or a Nintendo controller’s motion control.

On paper, it sounds great. But like a growing number of ideas out of Valve, in practice, it’s been kind of a nightmare.  

The most recent example of this has been the launch of No Man’s Sky BEYOND, billed as one of the biggest content updates that game has ever seen. Previous PC builds of No Man’s Sky relied on basic, functional Xbox controller support. It operated very similar to the original Playstation-4-exclusive console game, but now on an Xbox controller. If you used anything besides an Xbox controller on PC, Steam Input’s base function would kick in, which in my case meant my Playstation Dualshock 4 controller would be seen as (and function identically to) an Xbox controller with zero fuss. It worked flawlessly.

With the release of BEYOND, No Man’s Sky has transitioned into using Steam Input to its fullest extent. No longer does it pretend you’ve got an Xbox controller connected, it now attempts to support the features of your controller directly. In theory, this should mean far better and more robust controller support!

Except that, as of this writing, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for Playstation controllers, it barely works for Xbox controllers, and it even seems to have mucked up keyboard support for some. Thanks to Steam Input, the game is now more or less unplayable in many different configurations.

In my personal experience, this manifests itself by only some of my Dualshock 4 buttons working, and only working some of the time. The power of Steam Input means developers can insert hooks to completely remap all your controller buttons depending on the context. So, for example, let’s say you’re playing a game like Grand Theft Auto. If that game supports Steam Input, the developer could set it up so you could change your entire button layout depending on whether you were walking around or driving a car. They could even set it up so you could have different buttons depending on whether you were driving a car, motorcycle, boat or airplane.

This is what No Man’s Sky now does, with half a dozen different contextual button layouts for flying your ship, exploring on foot, using certain weapons, organizing inventory, dealing with merchants, and more. While cool in theory, it’s a little overwhelming to actually consider customizing your controls. You must now dig deep and decipher what button you want to change in which context, and that’s assuming everything is working as intended.

In practice, this currently means some controller functionality only works when certain menus are visible. For example, I can only aim with the right stick while the build menu is up. Close that screen and my view instantly freezes. As I said earlier, it’s more or less unplayable.

To a certain degree I forgive the developers of No Man’s Sky (Hello Games) for this. Signs do point to something changing behind the scenes within Steam Input recently. Other, older games have been silently breaking in the last few weeks. The 2012 PC port of Sonic Adventure 2 suddenly asked me to reboot the game after informing me that my controller type had changed, and I had to remap all of my inputs in Gas Guzzlers Extreme after it, too, detected a change in Steam Input’s Xbox controller support (all its buttons had to be rebound to a “new controller” after the “old one” stopped working, despite no hardware change on my end).

It’s possible that a version of No Man’s Sky from a week or two ago worked fine with Steam Input, and now a change on Valve’s end of things has thrown everything into disarray. It's equally likely a patch will fix things up sooner rather than later (maybe even by the time this post goes up).

That excuse does not apply to a game like American Truck Simulator, however. It’s a story similar to No Man’s Sky, except while I expect No Man’s Sky is trying to use Steam Input to approximate the original controller setup (just with more depth to what buttons you remap), American Truck Simulator inexplicably did the opposite of that.

The game launched with Xbox controller support, meaning you could effectively use any controller with the game via Steam Input’s basic functionality. Sometime around the end of 2018 that changed, with SCS Software ditching Xbox support in favor of direct Steam Input support. But it’s how they did this that ended up so baffling.

Instead of updating their controller support to use Steam Input, they seemingly stripped all controller support from the game entirely, busting American Truck Simulator back down to basic keyboard controls. Then, using Steam Input, they created a custom controller configuration that translated to those keyboard keys to controller buttons. In other words, let's say the "F" key on your keyboard handles turning on your headlights. Using Steam Input, SCS Software made it so hitting the controller's X button would activate the F key on the keyboard, thus toggling the headlights. In theory, this is great, because you can use both the keyboard and the controller at the same time without changing any settings.

But it also meant that when I put down American Truck Simulator mid-2017, how the game controlled changed (relatively) overnight. Booting it back up a year later, all my buttons did something completely different through no fault of my own, and it took a lot of detective work to figure out why. I had to spend more than an hour untangling this new mess and putting everything back the way I originally had it. By the time I was done, I was too fed up to actually play American Truck Simulator.

Next, let’s talk about the exciting new features afforded by Steam Input. Though fully-featured official drivers for Playstation and Nintendo controllers are hard to come by on the PC, Steam Input enables features like the Dualshock 4’s gyroscope, allowing developers to make games with motion control in ways that would have been impossible. A whole new era of innovative uses of tilting your controller could begin!

Has anyone done anything like that? Nope, not really. Unless you count VR, but that's mostly with VR-specific controllers.

Instead, we get developers going rogue, implementing gyroscope functionality where none existed. Take Ubisoft’s Grow Home. Developed as a tech demo for a procedural climbing system, Ubisoft spun Grow Home off into a sort of big-budget indie game. You play as a charming red robot named B.U.D. as he ascends his way up a gigantic alien tree. At the very top of the tree sits his spaceship, and his central computer, M.O.M.

Grow Home uses Steam Input and plugs in to the Dualshock 4’s gyroscope, nauseatingly giving you the ability to control the game’s camera by tilting your controller. It doesn’t tell you this, you just start the game with B.U.D. staring at the floor, gently twitching from your slightest movement. What makes this crazy is the fact that if you were to play Grow Home on an actual Playstation 4 console, this gyroscope camera feature is not present. Same controller, same game, but for some reason Ubisoft secretly gave the PC version gyroscope features thanks to Steam Input.

The exact same thing happened with Croteam’s The Talos Principle. Here’s a first-person puzzle game about redirecting laser beams to unlock doors, available on just about every platform that will take it. On a Playstation 4 console, it controls like any other standard first-person shooter -- left stick moves, right stick aims. Connect your Playstation 4 Dualshock to your PC and play The Talos Principle on Steam, and suddenly you have all-new gyroscope aiming for no logical reason, necessitating a dive into the game’s settings so it can be turned off.

This could perhaps be explained by the environment Valve has cultivated on Steam. On a console, there’s a laborious, and sometimes even expensive “certification” process games must go through to release. Additional rounds of certification is required to issue updates and patches. Usually, platform holders require games to meet certain standards of functionality as to avoid driving away potential customers and spoiling the marketplace for everyone else.

On Steam, that all gets thrown out the window. For a small, one-time submission fee, anyone can publish (almost) anything on Steam and update it instantly, for free, forever. Any whim you have can be instantly realized for zero cost other than the time it takes to implement. New gyroscope controls? Sure, why not! Who’s going to tell you no? Definitely not Valve, that’s for sure.

This lead to the worst of all worlds. I suffer from occasional flare-ups of carpal tunnel syndrome thanks to art-related pursuits. One night a few months ago I found myself with enough discomfort in my hand that I tried playing Valve’s own Left 4 Dead 2 with a controller. Besides launching on PC, Left 4 Dead 2 had console ports on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. As such, the PC version originally received standard Xbox controller support. And more than once, I’d fallen back on playing L4D2 with a controller for any number of reasons. It wasn’t as accurate as using a keyboard and mouse, but in a pinch it was convenient, functional and comfortable.

Booting up Left 4 Dead 2 in 2019 and grabbing my controller, just like with American Truck Simulator, I was met with a top-to-bottom control system rewrite made to accommodate Valve ditching Xbox support and replacing it with Steam Input. This meant that none of my buttons were the same anymore.

And, just like with Grow Home and The Talos Principle, suddenly Left 4 Dead 2 also had completely unnecessary (and frankly, hyper-sensitive) gyroscope aiming bolted on over the top, even though I didn’t need or want it. It was like I stepped on to an alien planet.

Worse yet, this new Steam Input configuration was actually a step back from the previous Xbox controller config.

Left 4 Dead 2 was old enough that it was an early game to feature emotes on a radial wheel chosen using the analog stick. This made it easy to communicate with teammates even if you didn’t have a headset for voice chat. To some degree, it was made specifically for a controller. In Valve’s new, official Steam Input controller config for L4D2, the option to show these chat shortcuts was removed entirely. So not only were all my buttons different, but some old functionality was now gone. Why? Why not, said Valve. After all, nobody is going to stop them.

To butcher a quote from Jurassic Park’s Ian Malcolm, just because you could, doesn’t mean you should.

The solution to this is the same solution Valve has for everything they do nowadays. Steam Input is not a closed system. You can, if you so choose, connect to an online database where users share their own custom controller configurations. In Valve's eyes, the “Free Market” solves all problems, even problems Valve makes for themselves.

Assuming your needs match the free market, anyway. You may spend just as long browsing and testing other people’s Steam Input configs as it would take you to dig into the settings and fix it yourself. Either way, it’s an unwanted distraction.

The greatest benefit of Microsoft standardizing PC game controllers via the Xbox 360 was that you simply plugged in the controller and it worked. No mapping buttons, no detecting analog stick ranges, no fiddling with any of the options menus. The game in question simply said, “I know what this is!” and you were ready to go. The only problem with that was it only applied to Xbox controllers, a problem Steam originally solved. Thanks to Steam, every controller was functionally an Xbox controller!

But as is increasingly the case, Valve’s aspirations to be more than simply a library of PC games outstripped their ability to control the quality of the input or output. They fixed a very important problem, but were so determined to prove their own intelligence that we've landed right back where we started: forever tinkering with options menus when we could just be playing video games like we wanted.

#steam #valve #no man's sky #the talos principal #hello games #croteam #writing #long #left 4 dead #xbox #controller #switch #nintendo #gamepad #playstation #dualshock #feature

[sniperct]

in a fandom I’m in I’ve been seeing shippers of a m/m ship taunting shippers of a f/f ship with comments about it looking more canon

and like

aside from eating our own, this is also a textbook case of femslash erasure

#I mean I can name a dozen scenes that support the f/f ship just as much as the m/m ship #femslash erasure #it's frustrating #we shouldn't be eating our own #I've seen stuff like this in other fandoms too #f/f couples are the redheaded stepchild of fandom

[eponymous-rose]

I hope this doesn't sound bratty, but I was wondering how to get more notes or kudos on fics? I'm starting to get really discourage...

Aw man, no, not bratty at all! Much as I’d love to say “psssh the numbers don’t matter,” or “be sure to appreciate every single note because it means somebody read your stuff!” (which is true) I know exactly how frustrating it can be to see maybe one or two notes or kudos (tops!) on the story you spent ages writing. To that end, I have some super duper cynical advice, and then I have some more genuine advice, and both are really based on the fact that, once you hit a certain baseline level of coherence, the quality of the writing has almost nothing to do with the number of notes or kudos it gets.

Here’s the super duper cynical advice that probably applies to almost all major fandoms: write the most popular ship. Most of the time, it’ll be super easy to spot! Find the fandom fave character, who by complete coincidence is almost always the most conventionally attractive and whitest dude on the show, even if he’s a relatively minor character. Does he have a close male friend that the actors and producers constantly joke/hint might be something more? Write ‘em together! Is there a female character who may or may not be a love interest but seems to be heading in that direction? Write ‘em together! In all cases, though, make sure that the fandom fave is the center of the story, and that his female love interest/less-conventionally-attractive and/or less-white male love interest is mostly there as a means of providing support for the fandom fave’s angst. Better yet, create a villain who opposes the ship and must be defeated: an inexplicably vicious revenge-driven canon female love interest is a common choice when writing m/m fic, and an unexpected betrayal by the female character’s best friend that sends her straight into the fandom fave’s arms is a common choice when writing m/f fic. Write slow-burn fic with a vanilla sex scene at the end. Scene.

…it hurt to write that. Listen, it’s undeniable that there’s some amazing and creative and thoughtful stuff out there for these mega-pairings, and if that’s what floats your boat, by all means, go for it (I’ve shipped and written for mega-pairings, goodness knows), but it’s also kinda important to keep in mind that the way these mega-pairings come about and the way they tend to be written most commonly can be… not good—some of that’s on the show-creators’ end, some of that’s on fandom’s end, and it’s all a mess. But if you just want notes, go ahead and write that to the exclusion of all else (just please try to keep away from the more actively offensive trends, whatever you write?). You’re more likely to get picked up by the big-name fans, because they probably became the big-name fans by writing that stuff themselves.

Here’s the more genuine advice: there’s an element of randomness to what does and doesn’t get picked up by the internet, and once it happens to you one time, it’s more likely to happen again. Here’s some more of the genuine advice: passion shows. If you’re passionate about a teeny-tiny little pairing or no pairing at all, you’re way, way, way more likely to write an enjoyable and likeable story than if you force yourself to write the big, popular stuff. You might put out a dozen fics that get virtually no attention, but if you keep producing quality stuff that lights a fire under you, that thirteenth could well get picked up and reblogged by someone with a sizeable following, or appear on somebody’s rec list, and then your backlog will be the delight of all. Try new things. Have fun.

There’s also been, over the past five years or so, a slow-growing fatigue with the old model I mentioned up in the super duper cynical advice paragraph. Fandom is changing, slowly but surely, and is starting to push back against its more distasteful elements. You see it pretty frequently now: conventional fandom-fave-ship fics will reliably pull in a lot of notes, but every now and then something completely off-the-wall and creative and brilliant will resonate with everyone at once and it’ll pull in a lot of notes. That happens. Take note when it does, because that’s the way fandom’s slowly shifting, and that’s nothing but a good sign.

I mean, heck, I write mostly PG-13-rated genfic focusing on female characters and femslash, which isn’t exactly most fandoms’ favorite thing; I went through a very, very, very long drought in terms of support and interest when I started writing, and the only thing that kept me going was that I genuinely loved what I was writing. For whatever specific numbers are worth, for me and my relatively small- to medium-sized fandoms, it took slowly climbing to a four-digit follower count on tumblr and a three-digit subscription count on AO3 to ensure any sort of reliable interest in the stories I wrote, no matter the content. How do you get there? Reblog the stuff you like. Create in other ways, if you can–fanart, gifsets. Make shorter meta posts that require less effort on your part but might get people’s wheels turning in a familiar way. Review other people’s fics. If you’re participating in the community, it makes it a lot easier to maybe convince people to try reading something that might be a little outside of their usual wheelhouse. You gotta be having fun, first and foremost, or else what’s the point? And it’s marvelous when you pull in someone new. One of my favorite things is getting comments on a post that start with “I literally never read genfic, but…” Most of all, try to communicate how grateful you are when something like that happens. It’s so important to let people know how much it means to you that they took an interest in your passion.

Anyway, this is all really rambly and I hope some of it makes sense. I’m sorry you’re feeling discouraged, but I hope you stick with what you’re doing, because goodness knows fandom could always use more variety!

#eponymous fandom tag #long text post #Anonymous