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torturing-characters-101 · 2 years

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Hi! This is kind of a weird question but how/why was influenza (and other diseases that we have vaccines for now) so deadly 100-200 years ago? Obviously vaccines help tremendously, and probably immunity over time, but are there other reasons that the flu was a much bigger deal a century ago? Sorry if this is oddly specific, but my current project is historical. Thank you!

This is a very interesting question and there are a couple of different ways of looking at it.

Let's start with influenza:

[Note: it's surprisingly difficult to get good worldwide flu data, so I'm going to use US numbers for the purposes of this post.]

I think the first thing to understand is that unlike many other infectious diseases, influenza is substantially different every year. That means that the immunity that you build in 2017 from either the flu or the flu shot won't necessarily help prevent you from getting the flu in 2023. By then it will be a different enough virus that your previous immunity won't be as helpful. Though it might make it a little milder. But keep reading, I'll give you some fun facts to share at parties:

We name flu (A) viruses based on two different proteins on the surface of the virus. The proteins are "H" and "N". There are 16 different "H" proteins, and 9 different "N" proteins that we currently know of. The combination of the two forms the "name" of a particular flu virus. Think H1N1, or H5N6, or any other combination. Each combination has their own attributes, which contributes to how infectious or deadly they are in any given year. And which ones circulate are different every year.

Just mathematically, that's a lot of substantially different flu viruses. Hundreds of them, in fact. And you have to build immunity to each one individually. You could, say, build immunity to H2N5, but that would do little to save you from next year's H4N3. And not only that, but within a single type there are many smaller variations. For example, say you got H5N3, but then it went and mutated. If you then got exposed again, you might have some immunity to new!H5N3, but it could also be just different enough that you still get sick.

Like I said above, different types of flu virus are deadlier or spread faster than others. H5N1 (a type of avian flu with a human mortality rate of 52%) is terrifyingly deadly but fortunately doesn't spread particularly well, while H1N1 (the star of both the 1918 and 2009 flu seasons) spreads rapidly and kills primarily young adults (weird, since flu usually kills babies and old people).

This is why in 2009 we did the whole "close the schools vaccinate the teens hide the president" routine. Because if it was *that* H1N1 we were all about to be screwed in ways we had never experienced before. Fortunately it wasn't, but thank goodness we did it. Also if you got vaccine #2 in 2009, you are also protected against the 1918 strain of H1N1. You're gonna be a hit at parties with that one.

Now, if you look at only deaths (not the best measure, but one with some emotional punch), within the last decade alone we have years where 12,000 people died of flu in the US (2011-2012) and years where that number is as high as 61,000 (2017-2018). These numbers are similar throughout recent history (relative to population), but then you get years like 1968 (where 100,000 people died in the US) and 1957 (where 116,000 died), and then sometimes you get these wild whopping years like 1918 where 675,000 died (equivalent to 1,750,000 people dying in today's US population). These fluctuations have happened since Hippocrates was around, and probably long before that, and there's really nothing to suggest it's getting any milder in any statistically significant way.

Now, outside of these natural fluctuations, we do have some ways of driving down these numbers. We do have a vaccine. It is different every year, based on our prediction of what the most likely or dangerous types of flus will be this year. Fortunately, you do get to keep this immunity for some time, so you can look at the flu vaccine as a personal collection of different flu viruses you have immunity to- you can collect 2-3 different ones every year in one shot and you didn't even have to catch them!! Yay! Unfortunately, since we never reach herd immunity with the flu vaccine, and we can't perfectly predict and incorporate all the strains that will circulate in a given year, while you do get some protection, it's not ever perfect. But it *is* still worth it.

We also have other feats of modern medicine as backup to the flu vaccine. We have oxygen, antiviral drugs like tamiflu, immune modulating drugs, and technology like ventilators to help keep people alive in ways we would not be able to in previous generations. So that's also an advantage. Unfortunately, these don't always work either, and we are still at the whim of those yearly fluctuations in influenza virus deaths.

And really, if you ask any epidemiologist, covid is just a little trial run for the next Big One. Which is both extremely likely to be a flu virus and which we're statistically overdue for.

TL;DR: The flu isn't getting milder so much as it varies wildly in severity every year. The next major flu pandemic is probably going to be in our lifetimes, so start collecting your flu immunity now if you haven't yet. New collections drop every August and are available until April. Get em' while they're hot. This year's included a 2009-like strain of H1N1 and a delightful H3N2 number from Hong Kong.

As for All the Other Vaccine Preventable Illnesses:

*ahem*

Yes, it's vaccines. It's obviously vaccines. Its basically only vaccines. Anyone who has ever told you it's not vaccines is lying. No other major discovery of modern medicine has ever saved as many lives, prevented as many disabilities, and created as many opportunities for a life well lived as vaccines have. No antiviral drug, no antibiotic, no ventilator can even hold a candle to vaccines. The answer is f*cking vaccines*.

I hope I have made myself clear.

Enjoy this table:

*Yes I do have a masters degree in public health and am a registered nurse that interacts with the public regularly, how did you know?

-Ross @macgyvermedical

#flu #illness #communicable illness #vaccines #flu shot #history #whump reference #writing reference

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dsmutp · 3 years

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Learning Curve (C!Charlie Slimecicle x Reader)

Teaching Charlie was a delight.

When Quackity had put you up to the job, you hadn’t been too sure about it. Teaching someone how to be human (whatever that entailed) seemed like more than you had signed up for when you had become a resident of Las Nevadas - just imagining long hours of helping someone learn the intricacies of human life made your head ache. But Quackity had insisted, and you really had nothing better to do.

Three months into the job though, and you were quite attached to Charlie.

He was a wonderful student - eager to learn and bright enough that it never took him too long to grasp new concepts (though, as with any student, some things came more naturally than others) - and an even more wonderful friend. It was amazing how a sentient piece of goo (though it was really hard for you to think of him like that anymore) could be more kind and caring than half of the actual people you knew.

You were pleased to say that Charlie had become quite fond of you as well. Though you were only supposed to spend six hours a day with him, oftentimes you wound up just spending your days together, wandering around the unfinished Las Nevadas after you had completed his schooling for the day, talking about whatever crossed your minds. Charlie was always eager to hear stories from your day to day life, and the amount of history he had seen just from being around for that many years never failed to make you gaze at him with wonder.

It wouldn’t have been a stretch to say that he had become your best friend.

You certainly liked him enough - that goofy smile never failed to brighten your mood, even on the worst days, and though the slight fluidity of his skin had been off putting at first, through the amount of daps you shared, you had gotten used to it - come to enjoy it even, something that was uniquely Charlie.

For all his wonderful attributes though, there were still some times that you got a little exasperated with him.

“Nope.” You sighed, watching as his arm bent the wrong way again. “You can’t just bend the joint that way, Charlie, that’s not how bones work.”

“But you said to hit the lever behind me..?” Charlie asked, righting his arm again.

“Right, but with humans, remember, the joints don’t bend all the way around because of the bones.” You reminded him. “Just because your body can bend that way, doesn’t mean mine can.”

Charlie nodded slowly, but the confused look was still hovering in his eyes.

“Do you want to go over joints and movement again?” You asked.

Charlie smiled sheepishly. “Yes please.”

You stepped forward, extending your arms. You had done this exercise a few times before, just to help Charlie learn which body parts worked together and which joints moved in which directions. It was easy for him to forget though - his body didn’t really have limits to movement, being slime - and he had a bad habit of just throwing human joint movements away in exchange for what was the most easy at the time.

Charlie placed his hands on your elbows, and you bent your arms, letting him feel how the joints moved and worked. “See? One way.”

“Right.” Charlie said, nodding now. His hands moved to your shoulders. “But these ones go all the way around?”

You rolled your shoulders, moving the ball joint in a circle. “Correct.”

His hands wandered down to your wrists. “Same as these?”

You rolled your wrists, nodding.

From there, Charlie’s hands found your hips. “But these ones only go forward and backward.”

“For walking.” You said, nodding. “They can go out, a little - nothing too far though.”

Charlie nodded, his eyes wandering over your body innocently. The first few times you had done this with him, you had been a little uncomfortable - it was strange, to be treated like a scientific model, slightly slimy hands running up and down your skin, asking what each of your joints and muscles did. But over time, you had gotten used to it - Charlie was only curious to learn, after all, and you were more than willing to help.

A hand over your crotch startled you, and you broke out of your train of thought, raising an eyebrow at Charlie. He only blinked at you though, saying, “You never said what this part’s for.”

You closed your eyes, steeling yourself. You had known this day would come, eventually - sex was a large part of human life, after all. You didn’t really want to be having ‘the talk’ with a sentient piece of goo that you had come to know and love, but you supposed it had had to come at some point.

“It’s for sex, Charlie.”

Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. “You have a stripper pole on you?”

The comment was so out of place that you couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. “What?”

“A stripper pole.” Charlie repeated. “Like the one in the casino? Quackity said it was for sex-”

“No, no.” You said, cutting him off, still laughing. “Sex organs Charles, for the actual act. They’re part of basic human anatomy - everyone’s got some.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed as he nodded, and movement under his pants caught your eye - the fabric shifted and pulled until it filled out a little more - like his very skin was reshaping itself to include what you had just told him.

It was then that you realized that Charlie might be the answer to every sexual fantasy you had ever had.

---

It didn’t take much convincing to get Charlie into bed with you.

You had always known that he had had something of a puppy dog crush on you - just from the way that he hung on your every word, even when you weren’t teaching, and followed you around like a little duckling. You had stopped yourself from doing anything about it though, telling yourself that it would be wrong, that he was your student - but those sentiments had faded the more time you had spent together outside of the teaching.

They were completely gone now, as you tossed Charlie’s pants over the side of the bed. Though you were both naked as the day you were born, he was perfectly comfortable, sprawled out on the pillows like he owned the place.

“So, again,” He started. “You want me to put my dick inside you? But not detach it? And thats sex?”

“The basics of it.” You said. “Simple stuff, really. You tell me if you don’t like it though - I don’t know exactly how it’ll feel for you.”

Charlie nodded, arranging his arms underneath his head with a smile. “I am ready to sex.”

You laughed as you straddled his hips, gently wrapping a hand around his cock and aligning it with your hole, just pressing his tip against your entrance. “Promise you’ll tell me to stop if it feels bad, okay? Just because I wanted to try this doesn’t mean you have to suck it up for me.”

“Promise.” Charlie assured you. “I won’t pretend to like it just because you do- hhh.”

You sank down on his cock, reveling at the feeling - there was almost no stretch as he entered you, the slime of his body simply moving like a liquid, filling out your insides completely without having the painful stretch around your entrance. Every nerve ending in you lit up at the contact - the slime filled every space without pushing too far - Charlie’s cock had molded to you completely, hitting all your spots without even trying.

“Wow.” You breathed, placing the palms of your hands on Charlie’s chest. “This is- wow. How’re you feeling Charlie?”

Underneath you, Charlie was in a daze, eyes glazed over as he stared at some point past your shoulder. His mouth moved, but only a long string of syllables came out - more like a moan than any real words.

“Descriptors, love.” You prompted, shifting to place your hands on either side of his face.

Charlie let out a breathy whimper, his hands finding purchase on your hips, squeezing the skin there. “Good.” He said. “Very very good, uh, sort of tingly? And warm? I-I don’t really know words for it…”

You smiled, caressing his hair. “Good.” You said. It was good to know that it felt pleasurable for him - you weren’t quite sure how slime anatomy worked, and if human sex was something that he would enjoy, but now that you knew it felt as good for him as it did for you, you had no intention of holding back.

You began to rock, slowly, rolling your hips over Charlie’s and letting his cock begin to rub against your walls. Charlie’s fingers dug into your hips more as his breathing canted upwards, instinct taking over as he bucked up into you a few times. You welcomed the movement, using the momentum to fuck yourself down on him harder, savoring the feeling of him running over your nerves, lighting you up from the inside.

Charlie let out another whimper, and you leaned down to press a kiss to his lips, still keeping your hands framed gently around his face. Charlie kissed back eagerly, releasing his little whimpers and moans into your mouth now, the hands at your hips moving up to your lower back, holding on for dear life.

“You’re doing so well.” You cooed, feeling that familiar coil begin to tighten in your gut. “You’re a natural, Charlie.”

“Really?” Charlie said, a grin overtaking his features. His slimy complexion really didn’t allow for a blush, but you could see the flushed pride just in his expression.

“Really.” You gasped out as a particularly good thrust made your head spin. Your hands fell from Charlie’s face as you instead buried your face into the crook of his neck with a groan, rolling your hips down with more intensity now, chasing your orgasm. Without the painful stretch in the beginning, you were reaching it so much more quickly now - though it probably also helped that Charlie’s cock had become a perfect fill for your insides too - leaving no nerve ending spared.

“Mmmm.” Charlie tipped his head back as he moaned, lips pressing together into a thin line. “It feels different now.” He said, voice shaky. “Bigger, I think?” He tried.

“That’s supposed to happen.” You said, speeding up your thrusts, for both your sake and Charlie’s. You were getting to the brink of orgasm now, the pleasure making it’s way all the way down your legs and to your toes. It was only a moment more before you were shaking with it, the rolling of your hips slowing as you rode out your high.

Charlie groaned underneath you, tipping his head back into the pillows as the slime inside you rippled, the sensation making you moan at the strangeness of it. You hadn’t really known what his orgasm was going to look (or feel) like, but you hadn’t been expecting that.

For a moment, you just laid there, head still tucked under Charlie’s jaw as you both caught your breath, just feeling him breathe.

“That was pretty fun.” Charlie said. “It felt weird, but good weird.”

You sat up, rolling off him to sprawl out on the rest of the bed, his cock sliding out as easily as it had gone in. “Glad you liked it.” You said, letting yourself stretch out into a boneless heap. “For your first time ever, you were really good, Charlie.”

Charlie beamed at the praise, and you pressed a kiss to his cheek. You were definitely going to be doing that again.

#charlie slimecicle smut #mcyt smut #mcyt x reader #dream smp smut #dream smp x reader #charlie slimecicle x reader #slimecicle x reader #slimecicle smut #dsmp smut

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thefuchsianeko · 2 years

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never posted these here i guess. well

a while ago something compelled me to do edits with my redesign of Alastor (I WOULD link back to my original post with the redesigns, but it’s old and ugly so...)

got really into it I think

too lazy to write it all out again so I’m just gonna copy-paste what I wrote about them from Instagram... so under the cut will be the original screenshots, as well as some design notes and stuff

I sketched a couple of other characters but I mostly did Alastor... also those are the only ones I actually finished lol. I'm most interested in his redesign than the others.

tl;dr -- I tried simplifying his design while also making it more period-accurate (he died in the '20s apparently), as well as giving him details and a colour design that I think would help him stand out amongst the other characters (tho I did nothing else to edit these but if I was in charge of design a lot of colours in the environment would be changed to help characters stand out from the bg). I also kept some of his deer-traits (the ear-tufts and antlers specifically) bc idk i like deer whatever. (also if these edits are inconsistent idc if the pilot won't be consistent then neither will i)

I don't think it's a secret that I kinda don't like Hazbin Hotel that much... I mean I'm interested in seeing where it goes but the pilot itself very flawed. ANYWAY hehehh... I fucking hate Alastor's design but at this point I kinda love hating him (for reasons unintended by the creators). His design is ANNOYING AS SHIT and he comes off as try-hard so I can't take him seriously. Some design notes... So he supposedly died in the '20s but like, his outfit looks like it'd be from a lot earlier? Annoys the shit outta me but anyway I just gave him a simple suit (after skimming one of my books about '20s and '30s fashion I saw a lot of that) along with some coattails for a cooler silhouette. Almost gave him a regular tie too but I kinda like the upside-down cross thing he has goin' on (a symbol often mistakenly attributed to satanism but whatever looks neat). Cleaned up his hair, kept the ear-tuft-things for the deer-look but also I kinda like how the ears blend into the hair (here it should be assumed they're ears at least). Made his antlers bigger so you can uh ACTUALLY SEE THEM. Muted his colour scheme to help go with the '20s theme and make him stand out against allllll the fkin red, and gave him flat teeth instead of sharp teeth. I think it’d be cool if everyone else in Hell had sharp teeth except this fuckin’ guy… it’d stand out. Didn’t change his radio-staff much but I’d probably make it look more like a mic from the ‘20s. Also I changed his nose bc I want more variety and I hate his goddamn button-nose like wtf.

Oh also, his story's kinda different; in my rewrite Alastor has become a kind of a recluse for years after finishing his last big radio-show (the one that Vaggie exposition-dumps to Angel Dust in the pilot) because he’s having trouble trying to figure out what his next show will be (basically he has art-block lol). He wants it to top (or at least equal) the quality of his last show. When he hears about Charlie’s project from her news interview, her passion and belief in the hotel ignites new inspiration in him (plus the idea of the hotel is insane to him and whether it succeeds or not it’d make a great show). He goes to the hotel in the hope to make a deal so he can cover the story as it unravels. Also he doesn't show off his power that much, if anything it's all only sprinkled in and/or hinted to. He can be pretty friendly but people feel uneasy around him bc 1) he just has that kind of aura and 2) people try not to make him upset in fear of being ripped apart.

Idk if any of this doesn't make sense you can ask about it and I'll try to explain better.... maybe idk i hate words

btw don't be surprised if I make more stuff for this later on bc I kinda love him and have been thinking about a rewrite of the pilot (this is all for fun, of course. If you like the show that's great and I can see how others would like it, there's just details about it that bug me specifically).

#screenshot edit #screencap edit #hazbin hotel #redesign #alastor #character design #veez art

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purpureumwrites · 3 years

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Homelander x Reader | King of the clouds

Summary: Reader is your average supe, a childhood friend of Homelander.

Warnings: Minimal swearing.

Word count: 1k

Tagged: @capitana18girl

Your childhood hadn’t been a traditional one. Inside the walls of the Vaught laboratory you had gone from a tiny baby to a young adult. You were supposed to be an stounding, powerful supe, America’s representative, but whatever Vaught had planned to achieve that completely failed, fortunately for you. They elaborated different plans and approaches, aimed to not waste all the money spent in the project, but gave up when another kid was as impressive as they had hoped for. Homelander.

Since then, all the pressure faded away. Not just from you, but from all the professionals whose job was to raise, educate and teach you. Some of them, who had taken care of you since the moment you were born, had grown very attached and then, no longer compelled by the boundaries of your so very carefully planned education and worn out by long hours of incessant work, they loved you almost as their own child. Later you realized, in a way, they felt bad for you and the other children raised in the facilities, orphans who would never have a normal life.

Homelander, still a kid named John, was rarely allowed to join the rest for play time. He was seriously underdeveloped socially and the caretakers only let him join the other kids mostly as a test, to study the evolution of his behaviour. He was too jealous, too clingy, too violent. Always too much or too little.

Looking back now, as an adult, you probably should have realized any kind of relationship with him would be overcomplicated. Even children could see things like that.

You became friends quite easily, you were patient and everyone else just tried to avoid him, there wasn't much competition. As you both grew, the games you used to play became less innocent. You would touch each other too much. Steal kisses when no one looked. Slide a hand under each other clothes. He shared everything with you and that was no exception. You were as close as you could be.

That was, until the time came for Homelander to shine, to fullfill the purpose he had been so carefully fabricated for.

You were eased into your new supe position, you had time allocated for saving citizens, for the little press you needed to do, for marketing campaigns... and more than enough time just for your own enjoyment. You were the average supe: mildly powerful, decent looking, good filler.

But John... he was pushed into the storm of the media. He was announced the best supe in the world. Perfect representative of America. Leader of the Seven. He was proud and excited about his new position and it quickly drove you apart. It saddened you, the two of you had grown so close and had spent so much time together that it was painful to watch it divide you. But it felt natural and organic, life changes, relationships change. At least, until he met Madelyn.

Madelyn was an executive in Vought and manager to the Seven. She was smart, good looking and most important, manipulative and cunning. You realized the moment you saw them together for the first and last time. He had invited you, mainly to show off, to a party Vought had organized. The night didn’t end well. You dragged him to an empty balcony to warn him, trusting your own instincts and partially, out of jealousy.

“She’s just using you”

“Well, I don’t think so. I have a very busy life now, and she helps manage all of this”, he answered raising his arms and gesturing around him. “It takes a lot to be leader of the Seven”

“That’s not what I mean, John. You may think she cares about you, but she doesn’t, you’re just Vought’s golden child”

He turned around and looked up to the sky with his hands on his hips, exasperated.

“Maybe you’re jealous”, he replied turning to look at you.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re just a mediocre supe stuck doing the work the Seven won’t even bother with. Sucking some guys dick...”

“What are you talking ab-?”

“And I haven’t stopped doing bigger and better things since we met as children. Everyone loved you back then but now, everyone loves me!”, he cackled.

You could feel your blood boiling. The idiot.

“This is not a competition! Maybe you think you’re the one fucking her but she’s the one who will fuck you!”, you yelled, fuming, before making your way inside the building. You held back from running, trying not to make a scene, but some heads still turned when you darted through the crowd.

* * *

Months went by without seeing each other again. You were too proud to call and saw no point while he was with her. Homelander tried to push the thought of you to the back of his mind. He couldn’t, not completely, but while things worked with Madelyn, he was able to lie to himself. It wasn’t until Translucent’s disappearance and all the events that took place afterwards that you met again.

Homelander knocked on your door in the afternoon, after waiting for you to get home, armed with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne.

“I wanted to surprise you”, he smiled.

“So... she’s dead”. You had seen it on the news. They attributed it to some guy called Billy Butcher, but judging by previous experiences, if someone close to Homelander was killed, most likely he was the one to blame.

Homelander’s smile almost faltered.

“She is”, he answered offering you the flowers.

“Was it you, John?”

“Yes”, he replied, his arm still extended towards you.

“Come in”, you smiled, taking the flowers.

#homelander #homelander x reader #homelander headcanons #the boys imagine #the boys x reader

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otonymous · 4 years

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⚠️ PSA: Everybody Hurts (When People Repost)

Hello @thebestaqua32,

Thank you very much for your Ask. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you are reaching out to ask me for permission before actually doing so. Unfortunately, I do NOT allow my work to be reposted by anyone other than myself, on any platform, whether it is Wattpad, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

What follows is by no means directed towards you, dear @thebestaqua32, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about something many creators (writers and artists alike) have been dealing with for a while now, and me, myself, recently.

Over the course of the past 3-4 weeks, I have found instances of my work being reposted to no less than 3 different platforms, once with attribution in difficult to see fine print with no links back to the original source of my work, and twice with absolutely no credit at all. As you can probably imagine, it was quite upsetting to me that pieces I’ve worked so incredibly hard on was being distributed in such a manner, and a lot of time and energy was expended in order to rectify the situation — time and energy that could’ve been otherwise used to create more content for my lovely readers and followers.

Unfortunately, reposting without permission from authors and artists is a common occurrence, and some may not realize the damage doing so can inflict. I seek here to try to explain why reposting in this manner hurts everybody, not just the content creator.

Argument #1:

“How can I possibly hurt someone by reposting their work? The more likes and comments I generate on this post of mine just means I’m giving them free publicity!”

This is something I’ve heard many reposters say in defence of their actions, and while publicity is definitely a good thing for content creators, that is only the case if the people consuming a piece could be bothered to check its original source — that is, if exposure is a guarantee of user traffic being driven back to the creator’s website, social media accounts, etc. And oftentimes, especially in this digital age of “see it and forget it” fast-consumption, most cannot be bothered to do so — the action that is one-step removed proves to be too much of an effort, even if it is merely clicking a link.

Please also consider this: many creators depend on commissions to make a living. This avenue of revenue has only become more important in current times because we are in the midst of a pandemic. People are literally relying on these funds to pay their rent and feed and support themselves and their families. The ability of a creator to support themselves is thus dependent on the size of their fan base or their numbers of followers. If people cannot be bothered to check the original source of a piece of writing or artwork, this essentially cuts down on their potential earnings. You cannot commission a piece from someone or support them if you don’t know of their existence.

This is especially so if things are reposted without proper credit at all, as was the case with one of my works. The worst part was that the stolen piece was taken from a project where the proceeds from all commissions were being donated to charity. In doing so, the thousands of people who liked this post had no way of finding out about this charity project, which means that even if they would’ve been interested in donating, they would not have known how. In essence, this translated to less money being raised to help those who really needed it in dire times.

So please, please, please do not think that the act of reposting hurts no one because that is simply not the case. There needs to be a direct link between people that engage with the content and the creator, which is why reblogging on Tumblr is excellent (feel free to reblog any of my content here if you wish, dear @thebestaqua32) and retweeting (without quotes!) on Twitter is great. These are among the best ways to support us!

Argument #2: The act of reposting could potentially contribute to the decline of a fandom.

Imagine you spent hours, days or even weeks working on something — pouring your heart and soul into a piece — and when you finally shared it to the world, not much happened. Maybe you got a few likes here or there, a couple of comments if you were very lucky. How would you feel? What conclusion would you draw? Some might feel discouraged, others might stop creating altogether.

Imagine then, that same post receiving tons of comments and likes and legitimate shares because someone with a bigger following reposted it on their own social media account without your knowledge. Imagine what you would’ve done with this information — the feeling that others loved and enjoyed your work and wanted to see more. Perhaps it might’ve encouraged you to continue creating.

Case in point:

I wrote this letter. And if I weren’t alerted to the existence of this post, I would’ve never known that thousands of others had liked my work. Also, that’s 124 comments I didn’t get the chance to read. Furthermore, this was a piece that was written for the charity project. Imagine how many potential donors we might have received if people knew about its source.

Feedback is absolutely crucial to creators. It enables us to discover what others did and did not like. Not only can it serve as a compass of sorts to guide our artistic progress and work (and create pieces that can cater to the needs and desires of those who consume it), it is also a point of communication between members of a given fandom. It builds community. And without a strong sense of community, a fandom flounders and could eventually fizzle out.

Without content creators, there is very little for people to consume. Please support all of us by not reposting our work, especially without our knowledge and/or permission.

With that being said, please accept a giant THANK YOU from me to you for reading till the very end. It is very much appreciated. 🙏🏻💕

#please do not repost #PSA #reposting #q&a #thebestaqua32 #my writing #mine

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cat-scarr · 3 years

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A Deconstruction of The Flame Keeper’s Circle & The Audience’s Common Complaints | Catgirl

As the title states, I’ve been reminded of a couple complaints made about this episode that stem from a large portion of the audience’s general disliking of the way both Ben and Julie were handled during the run of Ultimate Alien. In fact, I recently read a "review" of “The Flame Keeper's Circle,” or, more of a parody, actually, since a review would actually have some kind of substance to it and not just...a slew of insults thrown at a show you claim to like. It's almost like you're looking for something to be mad at, but anyway.

One of those was the OP actually asking someone to (probably joking, but anyway) explain "how Ben's mind works" to them.

And I was like, gladly!

According to the comments under the review, it seems like the general audience didn't really like this episode all that much when it first aired. Which, I bring up because, I on the other hand, actually did. And for a reason: because it proves my previous defence points right.

There's a lot of talk about Ben coming off as a “jerk” or a “douchebag”...but, in a situation such as the one presented within “The Flame Keeper’s Circle,” I would argue he did exactly what he should have done. So that's where I beg to differ.

This episode puts Ben in a position where he, once again, needs to deal with the overlap of a romantic relationship and his priorities as a superhero. The only reason there is conflict here is because they are both important to him.

A bad boyfriend would only care about himself, but Ben clearly cares about not only the safety of his (clearly, quite naive) girlfriend, but also the safety of the rest of the earth. Which, as I’m going to be stating several times, should be something expected of him considering everything else within the series that establishes who he is as a character.

So, on the topic of things that are important, ask yourselves, why would Ben prioritize going along with Julie's idea of joining a cult more than keeping her, and the rest of the world, safe when he realizes the trouble she could potentially be getting herself into?

Throughout the episode, and the fandom’s discussions from what I’ve seen, there is so much focus on "oh, he laughed at her idea so he's a douchebag and therefore a bad boyfriend" and not enough focus on the fact that he's not blindly following an alleged “good cause” because he isn't naive and that's in character based on everything we know about him as a character.

Context matters. And this kind of thing only further makes me question the people who want to cry "inconsistent" writing or characterization because he's acting the way he's been conditioned to.

Arguably from the age of ten, Ben's been dealing with situations where he needed to fight to survive and decide who to trust. Sometimes he trusted the wrong person, which wasn't done out of any other reason besides wanting to help and do the "right thing."

For example, Michael Morningstar in the episode “All That Glitters,” who fooled Ben and his team into thinking he was innocent all while abusing school girls for their life energy and almost killing Ben's cousin.

Or, Simian in “Birds of a Feather," who fooled Ben into thinking he was royalty and into helping him steal something that would aid the Highbreed in their mass murder plot.

In that way, Ben and Julie could have related in this situation because they were both trusting people in the interest of doing something “good.” Both Michael and Simian made Ben believe that they had something in common, or a common goal they could work together to reach. But, he trusted them blinded by his ambition and drive to save the world. Much like Julie is blinded by the promise of being a part of a group trying to make the world a better place.

As such, Ben has made the mistake before, so he's extra weary of how things could go very wrong. He's not against his girlfriend just to be a “jerk” - he's been through things like this before, and we’ve seen him go through those things.

Furthermore, the situation in which Julie is trusting The Flame Keeper’s Circle involves her indirectly agreeing to work with Vilgax. Who, as anyone familiar with Ben should know, is one of if not Ben’s biggest, and more importantly, most dangerous enemy.

Again, she, at the beginning didn’t know that he was involved, or what Ben had gone through already to make him act the way he does in this situation, but she does know what his job entails at this point in the series. She should probably infer that he’s suspicious for a good reason, as should the audience.

Not trusting people blindly is something he learned from being the leader of his team, while trying to protect the earth, namely from the Highbreed invasion back in Alien Force when he was putting together a stronger team. It would only make sense for him to then apply that to a situation in which his significant other gets roped into that which he fights against.

Speaking of fighting against, that brings me to another odd criticism of the writing of this episode. It’s no surprise that the flawed belief of Ben coming off as an alleged “sociopath” is brought up again, considering this episode takes place after The Ultimate Kevin arc. And yes, I realize the problematic connotations of using that term as a borderline insult as part of the issue here. But that aside, in this episode, the fact that he begins to fight Vilgax in his apparent “weakened” state is what is being attributed to that description.

Besides the fact that defending Vilgax is questionable in itself, he’s never needed water to survive for the many times he actually tried to kill Ben. I can’t find a solid answer from a writer that knows for certain if his need for water is genuine except for one who is only assuming that is the case when he’s in this state.

But regardless, (since he clearly survived long enough to morph with Dagon and become a bigger threat to the earth later on) we are still defending Vilgax the LITERAL INTERGALACTIC WARLORD.

Y’know, the guy who’s only in this position because of his own immoral actions? Who absolutely would not hesitate to take advantage of his opponent's weakened state in order to further get away with his immoral actions? Such as he is in this very episode, taking advantage of the people wrongfully worshiping him?

If we are trying to imply that Ben is “just as bad as Vilgax,” then I would assume you’d easily find the flaw in that being Ben’s motivation for incapacitating a dangerous offender who is, at the moment, manipulating naive humans to work for him and help him continue get away with his immoral actions. Which is, needless to say, not the same as Vilgax, at all.

Again, you’d think that’d be obvious.

The Flame Keeper’s Circle’s mission is to end human suffering and find a solution to certain issues happening across the globe with the help of alien technology that is much more advanced than what everyday people are used to. And, while the end goal seems like a good cause, even something Ben as a superhero would be all for, the means through which they attempt to get there aren’t a good idea, at all.

A lot of people find it hard to navigate the use of technology considered advanced by human standards in the real world, so you can only imagine the various things that could go wrong if those kinds of people were suddenly exposed to something much more powerful. In short, a lot could go wrong.

Again, Ben has been in that exact position as soon as he was armed with the Omnitrix. Which is exactly why he’d see the flaw in what these people are trying to do, and therefore not be convinced that it’s such a good idea to allow them to continue, much less endorse it.

This is why I love when the writers actually allow Ben to speak for himself instead of cutting him off for drama or plot. Once he actually gets a word in, or more accurately, has his moment of heroic monologue, he makes himself very clear and, I think, only further proves what I’m trying to say about him.

Here he is, explaining exactly what I’ve been trying to highlight throughout this body of work:

Ben: “Even if Dagon was real, using alien technology to accelerate a planet’s natural development won’t bring utopia, it’ll bring disaster. It’s happened before. Why do you think the Plumbers have those laws? But even that’s not the point, because that isn’t Dagon! His name is Vilgax. He’s not a hero, he’s a selfish, evil warlord who’s using you. And if you let him get in his ship, he’s going to fly off and start an interstellar civil war.”

It’s not that only he can use alien technology to save the world, it’s that his status as a hero proves that he knows what he’s doing, unlike these businessmen in fancy robes leading a cult for profit.

That is not what I would have assumed reasonable people would consider “douchebag behaviour.” That’s actually smart, and going back to my first point, exactly what he should be doing in a situation like this.

The actual episode does end off on a positive note for both Ben and Julie, which is omitted from the review and most of the comments I have read from others on the topic. And, I bring it up because it’s actually vital to wrap up everything brought up within this episode that I have just expanded on. Not only because they make up and seem to understand each other’s perspective after all is said and done, but because they both agree to be open to further discussion on the topic, as Ben offers to go out for dinner.

Which, needless to point out I hope, but once again, is not “douchebag behaviour.”

#new essay to make up for all the drama lately #enjoy ben 10 protection squad <3 #ben 10 #ben tennyson #ben 10 ultimate alien #the flame keeper's circle #benlie #julie yamamoto #ben 10 uaf #essay files #and yes new essay title format cuz reasons :P

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little-mad · 3 years

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Downsides of Thievery Pt. 11

~ Previous Part ~ Next Part ~

Gavin wouldn’t really say he was a good judge of character, the amount of friends in low places he had was a testament to that. However, even he could tell that this new alteon that had appeared was bad news.

There was something about the way the guy held himself--it was cocky and arrogant, as if he was certain he was the most important person in the room. Not to mention the sleazy little smile he was wearing that seemed to promise trouble. But what Gavin hated most was the way the guy looked at him. It was hard to describe, but the only thing Gavin could think of to equate it to was how middle school bullies looked right before they were about to trip some poor kid in the hallway.

The green-eyed giant had been speaking in the same language that Gavin had heard a couple times throughout his time in the alteon dimension. Of course, he couldn’t understand any of it, which made him nervous for some reason.

“Not really much to look at, is he?” the new alteon remarked, now switching to English. “I know all humans are pretty pathetic, but I was expecting someone a bit tougher looking.”

Gavin scowled. This guy had intentionally alternated to speaking in a language Gavin could understand so that he would be able to hear the insult. Why was he being purposefully antagonistic? Yeah sure, Gavin was a criminal, but even Rael hadn’t been that big of a dick at first.

“Ashryn, I suppose you’re stationed here? Rael inquired. Gavin could tell he was trying to change the subject, to shift this “Ashryn” guy’s attention elsewhere.

“Why can’t he just tell this asshole to screw off?” Gavin thought to himself crankily. He tried to catch Rael’s eye but was unsuccessful. It was like he was very intentionally keeping his eyes up and forward.

“Hmm? Oh yes, that’s right,” Ashryn responded absentmindedly. He was apparently too preoccupied with staring at Gavin to give Rael his full attention.

What was it with these alteons and staring unabashedly? Just because Gavin was a comparatively tiny person from an alternate dimension didn’t mean they had the right to gawk at him like he was some sort of zoo animal. It was like all their manners flew out the window when it came to humans.

Ashryn stepped closer, a crafty smile still on his lips. “This is your first time dealing with a human up close, isn’t it?” he said to Rael while still not looking away from Gavin. “You don’t really realize how entirely inferior they are until you get close to them,” he continued. “Sure they look tiny and pathetic from afar, but up close you can really get a sense for how insignificant they are.”

Gavin really didn’t have a short temper, it was one of his few good traits actually. For the most part, he’d learned to just brush off insults and move on. He had given up on being well liked the moment he decided to become a thief. However, even Gavin’s temper had its limits, and he had just about reached his.

Springing to his feet, Gavin glared up at the massive elf-eared bastard standing in front of him. “What’s your problem?” he demanded, hands clenched in fists at his sides.

If this guy really wanted to insult Gavin and the rest of humanity so badly, why couldn’t he do it in his own native language? Oh yeah, because he was a complete ass. Ashryn didn’t just want to disparage humans, he wanted Gavin to know about it. For whatever reason, this alteon had decided he wanted to start a fight.

Next to Gavin, Rael had tensed up. The human hardly even noticed, he was too busy shooting daggers at Ashryn. Besides, Gavin was none too pleased with Rael at the moment anyways. He was basically just letting his comrade, or whatever they were to each other, run his mouth freely.

The grin on Ashryn’s face grew only wider at Gavin’s outburst. He took a step closer. “Rael, I think I’ve angered your little human,” he commented with a chuckle.

Gavin didn’t wait to see how Rael would’ve responded. Forget getting him to defend him. Who cared if Gavin was miniscule compared to Ashryn? He was going to stand up for himself. Someone needed to teach these giants some manners. Gavin was already in trouble, so it might as well be him.

“Okay you big, pointy-eared asshole,” he started with a bang. “Just because you’re bigger than humans doesn’t make you better than us--in fact with an attitude like yours, I’d argue you’re substantially worse than most humans I know...and I know some pretty shitty humans.” The words were flying out of his mouth almost of their own accord. It was like he’d opened a floodgate that he couldn’t close. “You’re clearly just a pompous dick who--”

“Enough!” The words echoed around him like thunder. At the same time there was a rush of air, a flash of movement, and then a thud that vibrated up through Gavin’s feet.

It took a moment for him to register the giant hand next to him, and a few more moments for him to realize it had just slammed down beside him. Gavin looked up, following the arm connected to the hand, expecting to see it attached to Ashryn. Instead, he was met with the rage filled face of Rael.

And then all of a sudden he was back in that clearing, pinned under a hand bigger than his entire body. The fear, the intimidation, the betrayal--it was all the same, probably even worse now actually. The worst part was that he didn’t understand, he didn’t understand why Rael was staring down at him with nothing but fury in his teal colored eyes.

Despite their turbulent relationship, Gavin had...well he had come to trust Rael. For god’s sake, he’d nearly considered the alteon to be something akin to a friend. So why...why had this happened? How had Gavin screwed this up?

“You will show some respect,” Rael growled down at him, and it was like Gavin was looking at a completely different person to the one he’d been talking to only a few minutes ago.

Why had he been put in this situation? Why did the guard outside the office have to be Ashryn? Why did Gavin have to snap like that? These questions swirled around inside Rael’s head as he looked down at the fearful human standing mere inches away from where he’d slammed his palm down on the bench.

“You had to do it,” a dark part of Rael’s mind told him. “If you hadn’t, Ashryn would never respect you, and he’d defame you to the entire Imperial Guard.” It was true--if Rael had failed to scold the human that was in his charge after he’d blatantly insulted an alteon soldier, he would be viewed as a failure among anyone who was anyone. Still, he hadn’t enjoyed doing it.

It wasn’t like last time, when Rael had trapped Gavin under his hand. There was no sense of satisfaction or pleasure derived from the action. All he could feel was a mess of anger and guilt.

He was furious that Ashryn had essentially manufactured the situation, but he was also angry with Gavin for quite literally forcing his hand. If the human had just kept his mouth shut, if he’d ignored Ashryn’s goading, then none of this would have happened. Why couldn’t Gavin have just made things easier?

“Well,” Ashryn spoke up with an appreciative tut. “I must say, you certainly know how to put a human in their place.”

Rael shifted his gaze towards the alteon. He couldn’t stand looking at Gavin anymore, seeing the fear and betrayal in those hazel eyes only deepened the heavy pit that was forming in his stomach.

“And you apparently know how to rile them up,” Rael muttered as he moved his hand away from Gavin and placed it back on his own lap.

Ashryn gave an amused chuckle. “Maybe so,” he answered with a satisfied grin on his face.

Despite having a primarily amicable relationship with one another, Rael had never much liked Ashryn. While they were about the same age and had gone through most of their training at the same time, Ashryn was regarded more highly within the Imperial Guard. Rael attributed this largely due to the fact that Ashryn’s family has had a long history of involvement with the Guard. Perhaps that also explained why the man was so pompous and smug all the time.

It was then that the door to the Emperor’s office opened for a second time. This time, it was a group of some of the top Imperial advisors exiting. They all eyed Gavin as they passed, however none of them said anything, only acknowledging the two soldiers with brief nods. Rael noticed that the last advisor out failed to close the door behind her, leaving him with a view inside the office.

There, sitting at his desk, was the Emperor of the entire realm of Iaela. He wore a calm smile on lips and waved a beckoning hand at Rael. “Bring in our human guest,” he called, his tone authoritative yet somehow still polite.

Ashryn was quick to assume his position beside the office door. He stood up straight, his arms behind his back like a perfect soldier. However, the part that the Emperor wouldn’t be able to see was his face--with that, Ashryn smirked over at Gavin. “Why does he look like he knows something that we don’t?” Unfortunately, there was no time for Rael to ruminate on his uncertainties. The Emperor was the very last person to be kept waiting.

Rael turned to Gavin. The human had gone pale and his body was so tense that it looked like the guy might bolt at any second. Rael was sure that the last thing Gavin wanted was to be picked up after what had just happened. However, there was no choice. There wasn’t even time for Rael to allow the human to walk onto his palm of his own accord.

As gently as possible, Rael carefully scooped the human up into his hands. Thankfully, Gavin didn’t put up any kind of fight; he gave a quiet gasp, but otherwise made no audible complaints. Once Rael was sure he wouldn’t drop the little man, he began to make his way into the Emperor’s office.

Immediately upon getting past the doorway, Rael felt a whoosh of air and heard a soft thud, indicating that the door had been shut behind them. This left him and Gavin entirely alone with the most powerful person in the realm.

This wouldn’t be Rael’s first time speaking with the Emperor, however it was certainly his first time alone, without any advisors, scribes, or guards around. Rael swallowed hard. He couldn’t mess this up--he had to prove himself to be a proper soldier worthy of being accepted into the ranks of the Imperial Guard. He wasn’t a peasant anymore, he was a proud, noble soldier.

“Rael, correct?” the Emperor inquired, the name sounded so foreign coming from his lips.

Rael nodded silently as he dipped into a low bow, which proved somewhat difficult while keeping his hands horizontal and steady for Gavin.

“Very well, Rael, could you place that human on my desk please?”

(Also, as a side note, I fixed up some continuity errors in chapters 6 and 9 if you feel like skimming through and seeing the minor adjustments)

#sometimes my own plot points just fly right out of my mind ig #g/t #giant/tiny #g/t writing #my writing #oc: gavin stone #oc: rael #g/t fearplay

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dreamylyfe-x · 3 years

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I’m kind of curious, what do you think of Ian and Trevor’s relationship? And that leading to him blowing up a van

Ahhh. Trevor. Yeah. I don’t think that was so great.

First of all, it’s like two different relationships, really. You have season 7 when they’re meeting, getting together and falling apart... and then you have season 8 where they are... I don’t even know what.

Season 7, I mostly think the show really didn’t have the time and space to tell the story of Ian getting involved with Trevor, but they decided to proceed anyway. Which, if they had wanted it to be an eight episode arc, would have been ok. But Trevor is around for 18 episodes.

I mean, let’s lay this out. Trevor arrives in 7x04. 7x06 ends with Ian deciding he does in fact want to date him. 7x09 ends with Ian finding out Mickey’s back. Trevor and Ian are together for a hot second. And during that time, we don’t get to find out that much about him. Like we know he’s generous in a lot of ways, but also quick to anger. Kinda condescending. Kinda sweet. Mostly he’s all over the place. A lot of the time I struggle to find Trevor organic. When he gets mad, I’m always like “how did you get there, my dude?” and when he’s all moony I feel the same way. There are multiple scenes of Trevor and Ian laughing over something that go TOO LONG and feel a bit like old episodes of Murder, She Wrote, where they always had to have the show about violent death end on Jessica smiling. Then there’s stuff like Trevor telling off Frank. Trevor telling Fiona she’s a badass. It has a real Poochie vibe to me. But.... Trevor is not a Poochie. Trevor is a character who, if he had any chance of working, is about to get cut off at the knees.

The show cannot be confused about what is going to happen in 7x10 when Mickey comes back. Not just to Ian, but to the audience. Storywise, we are going to be shown positive proof that Ian is still in love with Mickey. Not just a little bit, not lingering feelings, but try to leave your family and job and give all your money away in love with his ex. And even outside of what’s on the page, they’re like “Here. This is what is looks like when Cam has chemistry with someone. This is what the performances look like when there’s some complexity and history and subtext. Here’s a character with a strong voice and a well-established personality.”

And now... Here’s Trevor.

I’m sure Trevor had his fans. Like, I get it. I particularly get it if people just really like Elliot Fletcher. But the people behind this show aren’t idiots and they know how to craft a story. You can see it with Mickeys’ two-episode arc. They have to know you can’t have that story and have a viable Ian/Trevor romance in the same season. You gotta pick one. And they picked Mickey.

AS THEY SHOULD.

*ahem*

That brings us to season 8, which is even weirder on the Trevor tip than season 7.

For most people, if you’ve been dating some guy and the second the ex showed up your boyfriend not only instantly falls back into bed with him, but then runs away with him for a few days and only comes back because of a bunch of considerations that have nothing to do with whether or not he’s in love with the guy... that’s gonna be it. EVEN if his mother dies. The normal thing to do would be, in the words of Lip Gallagher, to fuck someone else. Like ANYONE else. He cheated weeks in. It’s done.

So why the heck are they still hanging out together in season 8? Like from a story POV. What is the reason?

My theory on the Ian front is detailed in my story Unsent and it’s basically this: Ian was desperate for comfort and Trevor must have been a person he thought he could get that from. He had gotten it from him (imperfectly, maybe) in the past. I DO NOT KNOW what Trevor wanted. I really don’t. I never got to know Trevor well enough.

I’ll tell you want he didn’t want: What was best for Ian.

And honestly, why should he? Ian is his ex. For good reason. Trevor does not need to be nice to him. Trevor doesn’t even really have to tell Ian to go away, though he almost certainly should have. It probably would have been kinder. But honestly, so much of what comes next only makes sense if you decide Trevor is low-key evil. He lets Ian pine (pretty normal level of ex-punishment), tells him he loves him (NOT POSSIBLE. I love Ian Gallagher too, sir, but that is NOT POSSIBLE. You were together for a minute and you are not that ridiculous) and then does this gross, dehumanizing weird thing involving men with bigger bodies. Lets/encourages Ian to prostitute himself to get money for the shelter. Yells at Ian over Geneva when a conversation might have been more appropriate/made more sense. And then, right as Ian starts to tip into really concerning behaviour, kiiiiiinda get back with him, sort of? And then vanish when it becomes extremely clear that he’s sick.

But I don’t think the show intends for him to be evil. I’m not sure what the show intends him to be, but I suspect we’re supposed to think he’s a good guy. He almost functions like Harry in Dexter. Just the guy standing at Ian’s elbow and making comments on the action. He isn’t really being written like he’s separate from Ian. He’s there to provide some sort of stimulus to direct the action. But it’s hard to view Trevor as a character.

I actually think Shameless has incredible skill to bring in characters for ten minutes and make them seem like rounded characters. I don’t think they get there with Trevor because I don’t think they ever really decided what they were doing with him. They didn’t entirely have room for the character on the canvas in season 7 and then they kind shoehorn him in to what comes next. I also think the issues with Trevor extend to Caleb, actually. They’re both strangely changeable. Sometimes encouraging and affectionate and sometimes cold, manipulative or bullying. I personally think that Caleb is the worse of the two, but neither of them are easy to root for.

I’m not 100% I’m sure I am interpreting what you’re asking about the van correction. I certainly don’t attribute that to Trevor and I have much less frustration with him than I do with Ian’s family for not recognizing how many bright red flags there were. Certainly Trevor’s hesitancy seems to come a little late. But Trevor isn’t Ian’s boyfriend and he might consider himself Ian’s friend, but he’s also clearly got some serious feelings of wrongdoing where Ian is concerned.

In Trevor’s defence, with the whole series finished, I think season 8 is certainly one of, if not THE weakest season. Trevor isn’t the only problem. But I don’t think he’s a very successful character for them.

#asks #trevor #should I tag this anti-trevor?#ok #anti-trevor #I'm not so much an anti here as a confused person #shameless season 7 #shameless season 8 #Ian Gallagher #I skimmed a lot of Trevor scenes for this anon #so please feel loved!#and #thank you for asking!

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glitxhwayventeen · 3 years

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We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow

Minghao: Chapter 3 (Beautifully Unfinished)

Characters: Minghao x female reader

Genre/Warnings: multi-member au (different scenarios), werewolf au, fantasy, angst, blood mentions, runaways, domestic violence (I mean not really because she doesn’t really want to hurt him she’s just sad and lashing out), sleep seducing (If that’s a thing?), sleep/entranced fucking, blood mentions, death mentions, suggestive/slight smutty content, violence. Any others will be put as warnings when future chapters are thought up/written.

Author’s Note: Have any of y’all seen American Horror Story Roanoke? Well, that’s where I got the inspiration for this chapter. You didn’t ACTUALLY think I’d have a story with a fully happy couple with no tragedies or drama did you? But, if you want a song to listen to, I recommend Beautifully Unfinished by Ella Henderson and I recommend listening to it started at the point where they go to sleep. It’s perfect for the mood the Main Character’s feeling

Please remember that all of these chapters and the content within them are a work of fiction! They’re just for fun/entertainment!

Bold= Dialogue Italics= Thoughts

🥀

We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow Master List

Chapter 3: Beautifully Unfinished

It had been a few days since the Siren incident. You hadn’t heard anything since. So, of course like the fucking dumbasses you all were, you all began to forget about it and let your guards down. You all carried on like everything was normal, but everything was far from it.

You had all a long day of shopping at the market. You really just wanted to go back home and fall asleep to recover some of your energy. But when you got back, you had bigger things to worry about.

See, both Junhui and Minghao were in rut. Typically, before you came along, their ruts were always at the same time so they both… helped each other out a bit until it passed. But now that you were in the picture, Minghao had you to help him get through it. It left Jun a mess, he wasn’t upset that he didn’t have anyone to help him out or anything, he was glad Hao had finally found you. But he was struggling to… keep himself in check. And while the other wolves just kept their respective mates away from him during his rut, Minghao didn’t really see the point of trying to keep you away from him. You were just as strong as him after all, you could handle yourself and he knew you’d never do anything with him, some part of him always knew that.

But Hao was acting… off. Like even more so than he usually did. Typically, your mate was very reserved and mostly just kept to himself when the others were around and he’d be personable with you behind closed doors. Lately though, he’d been more distant, even with you. Which everyone found odd. Especially during his rut. He should only want you around him during it, but he hadn’t touched you since that day. It confused you a great deal. It was like he was a different person, half the time when you woke up now, he was already gone from bed.

Part of you attributed it to his mating season, but you were still worried about him. He was much more aggressive than usual. Again, that could’ve just been attributed to his sudden hormone change. But when Jun had got a little too close to you, he snapped.

You were in the kitchen with Jun just cleaning up after dinner, everyone took turns and it was now the both of yours. You didn’t mind, you actually liked cleaning and helping out. It made you feel like you were contributing to the pack. Jun however, was getting very bored and very distracted by you.

He couldn’t help it, you were a very attractive girl and he was going through mating season. He was trying his best to maintain his control. He’d NEVER actually act on his need to mate with you of all people, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t still suggestively flirt with you. It was just in his nature at the moment. You both knew that, so you didn’t particularly care.

While scrubbing the dishes, he blew some soapy bubbles at you playfully, so you of course blew some right back at him. It soon turned into an all out bubble fight and ended up with the both of your shirts soaked. You had been wearing a pretty thin T-Shirt and the water had made it start to stick to your bra. Junhui realized this and at first, he tried not to stare. He really did try not to. But, eventually his hormones took over and he caught a glimpse and made a stupid joke about how much better you’d probably look with your shirt off. Again, you just brushed it off and snorted a laugh, because you knew he didn’t mean any harm in it.

But Minghao, who had been sitting on the couch in the living room that was visible from the kitchen, had seen and heard the whole thing and darted to the kitchen. He quickly shoved the older wolf away from you and you watched as his yellow eyes turned red.

“Dont ever fucking speak to her like that again.” He snarled at his brother, leaving you both momentarily stunned.

“Hao, look I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m going through rut and you know how I get and the dumb shit I say-” Junhui tried to defend himself calmly, thinking that Minghao would forgive him if he apologized for his words. Boy, was he wrong.

“I don’t give a shit. Don’t fucking say shit like that to MY mate ever again!” Minghao’s breathing was becoming unstable due to his anger.

“She’s MINE. Don’t try it again.” He growled, grabbing his brother by the collar of his shirt.

“God would you calm down. I’d never try anything with your mate Hao. It was a joke. Besides, she could use some action…” Jun trailed, implying that the older wolf hadn’t slept with you in some time.

“Even if it’s just a dumb joke, seems like it’s the closest thing she’s getting to sex anytime soon.” He chuckled darkly, his testosterone started to soar from the annoyance that was bubbling inside of him at his brother’s possessiveness.

“I’ll fucking kill you.” Minghao all but screamed, shifting right there in the kitchen and pouncing on Jun.

The rest of the pack heard the whole commotion from upstairs and knew that it wasn’t gonna end well. So, by the time Minghao had phased, five boys were already down the stairs pushing him off of Jun and shoving him outside before he could do any long term damage. You just stood there in complete shock. He was always so good at controlling his emotions, even during rut according to the other boys. What the actual FUCK was his problem?

“Hao, what the hell was that?” You shouted at your mate, who seemed completely blindsided by the situation.

“What was what (Y/N)?” He sighed, running his hand through his hair while pushing the sheets and comforter of your bed over so he could get on the mattress.

“You know what Hao. What the hell did you attack Jun for? He’s one of your best friends and you went and wolfed out on him over a dumbass joke?” You screeched while throwing your hands on your hips and tipping your head to the side to show your frustration.

“You’re my mate. He shouldn’t say shit like that to you. That’s my job. Plus I’m going through rut, he should’ve know better.” Minghao just shrugged before he laid down with his hands behind his head on the pillow underneath him.

“Oh rut huh? Is that what you’re gonna blame it on? Could’ve fucking fooled me” you scoffed, laying down on your side of the bed, turned away from him.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?” He questioned, pulling you to lay flat on your back so he could see your face.

“It means you hardly act like you’re going through rut right now. You’re supposed to be a sex monster and all needy and whiney and shit. But the only reason I’d believe you were in rut right now would be your anger. You haven’t touched me in almost a week but this is your first time going through rut with a mate. You should be completely insatiable right now but you aren’t. So using that as an excuse really doesn’t fucking cut it Hao.” You declared, rolling your eyes at him.

“So you’re pissed because I haven’t fucked you?” He laughed dryly as he threw his head back in the process.

“No. I’m not mad you haven’t had sex with me Hao. I’m upset because you’re acting weird and you won’t tell me what’s wrong or what I’ve done.” You say softly while looking down to avoid his sharp gaze.

Minghao felt a twitch in his heart. He had made you sad and he wasn’t even sure why himself. He never wanted you to be upset with him or yourself. He let out a loud sigh.

“I’m- I’m sorry baby. It’s not you. Or anyone for that matter. I’ve just been struggling. I don’t even know why. I just wake up and feel completely exhausted, then I get up and get angry because I don’t want anyone around you, but Then again I also don’t feel the need to be pounding you into the mattress right now. I’m just… I’m just a mess and I’m not sure what’s happening with me. I’ll work on it.” He stroked your cheek causing you to look into his eyes with your watery ones.

“Do you promise?” You whispered aloud, blinking back any tears that ha began to form and looking up at him sweetly.

“I promise, I’ll try to get my shit together.” He assured you, pecking the tip of your nose to seal the deal.

“And that you’ll actually be here when I wake up tomorrow?” You whimpered while bringing your own hand up to hold the one he had resting on your face.

“Yes baby, I promise.” He rested his forehead against yours before connecting your lips to his for a tender kiss.

“Good,” you say, breaking the kiss after a few seconds to regain some air, “now cuddle me so I can sleep.” You giggled and began situating yourself in his arms.

“With pleasure my love” He smiled, holding you to him like his life depended on it.

You awoke in the middle of the night to an angelic humming sound. You fluttered your eyes a bit before you turned in your spot. You reached for you mate and quickly realized he wasn’t next to you anymore. You darted up in bed immediately. You had a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You had to find him.

So you got out of bed, throwing one of his large sweaters over your head before you went to sniff him out. His scent lead you outside into the dark forest, the sound had also been coming from the same way. Wolves could see almost just as good at night as they could during the daytime thankfully, otherwise you surely would’ve ended up breaking something as you made your way through the woods. His scent was getting stronger, so was the humming. You went deeper and deeper into the woods before you saw some smog floating just above the ground.

Your mate’s scent lead you further into the smog and closer to the song. You soon came upon a small clearing, a dull light had begun to rise from within the tree branches. You knew he was there. And you knew he wasn’t alone. Your heart was now pounding out of your chest. Fuck.

You pushed past the last of the trees and bushes before you found yourself in the middle of the clearing. What you saw made you sick to your stomach.

It was Minghao, he had his sleep pants pulled down slightly and had a woman’s legs wrapped around his waist. From the angle you had, you could see that the beautiful blonde woman he was with was laying on a tree stump as he plowed into her, her melodious song still drifting through the air. Tears sprung to your eyes and you fell to your knees.

“Minghao?” You sobbed loud enough for the both of them to hear as you began all but hyperventilating on the ground.

It all made sense now: Why he didn’t want to be with you during rut, he had her. Why he was so tired, he was up all night with her. Why he was always gone when you woke up, he was with her. He was fucking a siren behind your back and you were too stupid to even realize it.

Hearing his mate sound so broken while crying out his name helped shake him out of his trance. It was his instinct to always comfort you, even if he was in a dead sleep, he’d wake up to make sure you were alright. His movements halted and he blinked his eyes continuously, trying to force himself awake so that he could get a better gist of his surroundings.

He could see the trees and brush all around him, he could see the moonlight glistening in the sky above him. But why was he outside? And why were you crying for him?

That’s when he found himself deep inside another woman, who was staring back at him fondly and singing, raising her hand up to his face to try and lure him back to her. He knew what he was doing with the woman was wrong, but her song was so enchanting, he almost kept going with his actions.

But he could hear you bawling your eyes out not too far away from him. It brought him to his senses and he quickly withdrew from the woman, pushing her away and growling at her, warning her to stay away from him. She just sat up and looked at him with a smirk on her face.

“What the fuck??” Was all he could muster out, pulling you out of sobbing into your hands to look up at him.

You sniffled, catching his attention and making him attempt to come over to your aid, it was his instinct as your mate to put you first after all. Which only made you back up with a scowl on your face. He hadn’t even… pulled up his pants yet. How DARE he come near you with himself still exposed after he had been inside another woman?

Once he realized why you were inching away from him after a small gust of air hit him, he turned around quickly and positioned himself back into his sweats.

The Siren looked over at both your torn expressions with her blood red eyes and laughed, amused by the predicament that she had purposely created.

“Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag now huh?” She seductively said, finally sitting all the way up and standing on her two heeled feet.

She started getting closer to Minghao, who snarled at her to stay away from him. She just darkly chuckled.

“Oh relax baby. We had quite a bit of fun these last few days. I already got what I wanted from you so I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore…” she tsked while rubbing over her stomach tenderly, indicating that she already had fertilized eggs she would be laying soon.

“I just kept coming back for more. You were the best I’ve ever had and expecting just makes me so… horny sometimes, I’m not really sure why, so I kept going with it and kept coming back to you.”

You wanted to throw up. You wanted to rip her to shreds. You wanted to beat Minghao to death. You wanted to run away as fast as you could. But you were frozen, too traumatized by the whole situation to even move. You just went back to crying silently.

“I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t! I have a mate!” He yelled at her, in complete disbelief of the entire situation.

He loved you, more than life itself. Why would he risk what he had with you to be with her? She was lying. She HAD to have been lying… right?

“Yes, you would. Yes, you could. Yes, you did. Mates don’t really matter when it comes to sex. Me and you- We’re both just primal beings, we want to reproduce. You know, I almost moved on to the next town, but then I saw you. I could sense your need to procreate. And now, thanks to you and your willingness, I’m going to.” She devilishly smiled as she came up and began running her hand through his hair.

He jerked his head away and gritted his teeth, eyes already spotting red in anger at the woman.

“Dont fucking touch me!” He lowly let out, his fingers curling into fists and his knuckles turning white from the pressure of how tight his hand was closing.

He was yours. How dare she fucking touch him? Especially when you were right there? Who the fuck did she think she was?

“Why not baby? You’ve already touched me. And now, your mate knows it too.” The Siren fake pouted, swaying her hips from side to side.

“Fuck you! Don’t call me that! I didn’t know what I was doing!” He declared as his claws started to elongate due to the woman’s lack of respect for the both of you.

“Of course you did. My song has you follow me sure. But It doesn’t MAKE you want to fuck me. Sure you may have thought it was a dream, but you still kept coming back. Pun intended.” She taunted in your direction, clearly trying to get under your skin. Of course, it was working.

“You didn’t tell her about the ‘dreams’ you were having either. You wanted it to be a secret. You wanted THIS to be kept a secret. You didn’t want to get caught so we could keep going because you loved it so much. She must not be taking care of your needs too well…” She smirked at you while running her finger up and down his chest, making you cry even harder at her words.

Was it true? Did he really know what he was doing? Did he… want her? More than he wanted you? Did he get with a siren because his instincts told him it was time to mate and he knew you weren’t ready to have a child? Were you really not enough for your own fucking mate?

“Stop fucking talking!” He shouted at the woman as he pushed her back after hearing your sobs worsen at her continuous talking.

“Now Now Minghao. Is that any way to speak to the mother of your children?” She tilted her head and looked at him as if she won, waltzing her way backwards so he could get a better view of her.

She was pregnant. Pregnant with his offspring. The thought made some part of you break, a part that you had already thought broken after having caught them. The part of you that craved him was now… damaged? It felt like there was a hole in the part of you that could sense him, you weren’t sure how to explain it. You just knew that it hurt like hell and you wanted it to stop.

You thought he would care, hell, even he thought he probably should’ve cared a little, but honestly, He didn’t give a shit. She wasn’t really human. THEY wouldn’t be human. She was soulless. THEY would be soulless too. They were evil and he couldn’t care less about what happened to manipulative dark creatures. Those THINGS wouldn’t really be his. They would be hers. They would be sirens that preyed on innocent people the same way she did. She just used him to create more demons.

He had a mate. A mate he loved more than anything. He had you, at least he was still hoping he did. He wanted you to have his children. He wanted to watch your belly grow and wanted to hold your hand while you had his babies. He wanted to raise them to be loving happy good people just like you were.

But here you were, crying over something this evil… thing had started. He refused to allow her to speak anymore, you didn’t deserve to have to sit here and listen to her lies and torments. You didn’t deserve and of this.

“You’re talking about them like they’d be real children, like they’d be real people. They wouldn’t be. They would be pure evil. Just like you. None of you are human.” Minghao sneered, shoving her to the ground in anger and allowing his claws to fully come out. You watched as he got closer to her and you could hear his heart rate excel in furry.

“You hurt my mate. You’ve ruined everything. I’ll fucking kill you for what you’ve done!” He said, tears burning at his eyes as he knew full well things would probably never be the same with you ever again.

She just chuckled at his threat. She figured he wouldn’t let her live when they got caught, but she was glad it all happened. Sirens weren’t afraid of death, their lack of souls made it impossible for them to really be remotely remorseful or human. But at least now, she made you hate him. At least she caused the havoc she craved so deeply on yet another unsuspecting couple. She had no regrets.

You had passed out from exhaustion. Shedding so many tears really took a lot out of you. You thought that you had dreamed it all for a second. God, you hoped it was all just a dream. But, when you awoke to a very tired and worn out looking Minghao sitting next to you holding your hand, you knew it wasn’t. He had blood on his cheeks and on his sweats, he must’ve made good on his promise to kill the sadistic creature that ruined your lives.

Tears started streaming down your cheeks again at the remembrance of the woman, you pulled you hand away from his in disgust. It made his heart ache to think about everything that had happened. That he was now trying to touch you with the hands he touched her with. You couldn’t believe him. You didn’t want to even look at him.

“(Y/N), please. Let me explain.” He pleaded, pulling your hand back to his and placing a chaste kiss to it.

“FUCK YOU!”

You started to roar from the hurt he caused you. He wanted to help you, he couldn’t just have you sit there crying and not at least try to comfort you. He brought your weakened form into his chest and shushed you. You began hitting him with what little energy and strength you had. He just let you, knowing full well you couldn’t really harm him, even if you wanted to hurt him the way you were hurting. You still loved him. And you fucking hated yourself for it.

“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!?”

You smacking his body again and again while he just rubbed your back in response, tears threatening to spill from his own eyes. You were so mad. You wanted to kill him. He could see it written all over your face. The absolute devastation and betrayal had turned all your love for him into bitterness. How could it not? You trusted him and he turned around and slapped you in the face with the faith and trust you had given him.

“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US?!?”

You held your eyes shut as you continued pounding at his chest, trying to hit as much of his skin as you could so you could express the pain you felt inside. Feeling all the heartache hit you like a bullet straight through your heart. Angry tears had started falling from your eyes at a gut wrenching pace.

“I HATE YOU!”

You sobbed as you finally stopped hitting him and just went back to burying you head in his torso to vent out all your frustration and anger. Why did this have to happen?

“I fucking hate you.”

You blubbered, bringing your hands to your eyes in an attempt to muffle your howls of agony. You were sure by this point you had woken up the rest of the pack with your screams, but you didn’t care. All you could think about was the stinging feeling in your chest. How could he do this to you? How could he be so disloyal when all you had ever done was love him with your whole soul?

“I know.” He stated, kissing the top of your head as tears began to fall from his eyes and onto you.

You hated how you wanted nothing more than to cry all your pain away into his chest. You hated that you still craved his skin touching yours. You hated that his voice brought you so much comfort and security. You wanted to hate him, but you couldn’t. Even if he did what he did, he was still your mate.

Another Author’s Note: Before anyone comes for me and says shit about me having him “kill a pregnant woman” please actually READ the siren description. You’ll see that they aren’t people. They’re literally demons. She would’ve hatched ACTUAL DEMONS, even if they looked human, they wouldn’t ACTUALLY be. So he didn’t really kill anything but evil creatures which happens all the time in these aus. Also, I made this where, while he doesn’t necessarily know what he’s doing while he’s… well you know, doing her, he does have to be okay with it deep down for the sirens song to work. Meaning some part of him was actually complicit with it. It’s complicated. I’ll explain better during his next chapter. It just felt like a “every bitch and their mother’s gonna cheat” kinda day you know? But yeah, hope you guys enjoyed the third chapter of the day!

(Updated 9/24)

#seventeen #seventeen angst #seventeen au #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut #svt au #seventeen x reader #minghao #svt minghao #the8 #seventeen myungho #seventeen minghao

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oh-boy-me · 3 years

Text

Obey Me! Card Planning Tips

Hello! This game causes us all a lot of pain and suffering, but I’m MANAGING (?), so I thought I’d give what I’d consider some tips to maybe make things feel slightly more possible for you :)

I’ll split it into three parts and put it all under a read more.

Team Strength Calculation

Team Preparation

General Tips for Resources and Daily DP

Part 1: Team Strength Calculation

Each stage has 2 sins tied to it, as you’ve probably noticed. In chapters 1-20, the stats of these two sins are boosted for ALL cards (character and support) by 15%.*

In chapters 1-20, your team’s strength is calculated with the following formula:

Strength = 1.15(AttributeSin1Total) + 1.15(AS2Total) + Other5SinsTotal

For example, let’s look at Lesson 10-20, which is a Gluttony/Lust battle. My team is composed of Pandas Mean Profit (Greed), A Special Ceremony (Lust), and Colorful Panic (Pride). And I’m using zero support cards just so I only have to add up 3 numbers.

Strength = 1.15(24338) + 1.15(34921) + 122736 = 190884**

Keep in mind that the buffs only apply to the attribute sin scores. If the battle is Gluttony/Lust, the Pride scores will stay at their base values. This is the case for all lessons up through chapter 20, both normal and hard mode.

However, from Lesson 21 onwards, there are two changes. One, there is a primary sin and a secondary sin for each battle, marked by which icon is bigger in the preparation screen. (There always has been, but now it matters which is which.) In boss battles, both are primary. Second, the buffs have changed drastically.

Every card has its main sin, obviously, and its strength in that sin is the strongest. However, they still have strength in the other 6 sins as well. There are two non-main sins that a card is very strong in, two that it is average in, and two that it is terrible in.

The percent increase is now dependent on how good a card is in the battle's two attribute sins. (Remember that these buffs still only affect that sin, not the card’s total strength.)

If a card is the same sin as the battle’s primary sin, that sin gets a 160% buff

If a card is the same sin as the battle’s secondary sin, that sin gets a 90% buff

If a card’s second or third best sin is the battle’s primary sin, that sin gets a 30% buff

If a card’s second or third best sin is the battle’s secondary sin, that sin gets a 10% buff

Any sins lower than third best no longer get a buff

I’m not going to make a formula this time because it’s too long and situational. But let’s look at that same 3-card team again, this time with Lesson 21-5, a Lust/Gluttony stage in that order.

Pandas Mean Profit has an average Lust score, so it gets no bonus. Its Gluttony is its 3rd best sin, so that gets a 10% buff (10752 > 11827)

A Special Ceremony is a Lust card, so its Lust gets a 160% buff (17308 > 45000). Its Gluttony sucks, though, so that doesn’t get a bonus.

Colorful Panic has Lust as its second best sin, so it gets a 30% buff (10423 > 13549). Gluttony is its third best, so that gets a 10% buff too (9866 > 10852).

With the new system, the team’s Lust score has skyrocketed from 40158 to 65739. However, its Gluttony score dropped from 27987 to 26399.

This means that the sins of your cards suddenly matter more in battle. (And honestly I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I know people complain that it makes it harder, but. If my Comedy team in A3! is made entirely of Action/Drama cards with poor Comedy, I shouldn’t expect that team to do well. Idk why people think that shouldn’t apply to Obey Me.) Which brings us to part 2.

By the way, colored glow sticks raise the card’s total strength by 10%, and rainbow glow sticks raise it by 30%.

* It’s actually like 14.99% but it’s effectively the same. The “slightly under but so close that I’m just rounding for significant figures” thing will be consistent for all of these buffs.

** The actual in-game strength is 190881, 3 points off due to the .99% thing.

Part 2: Team Preparation

I’m so sorry. But someone has to say it. Are you listening? Great.

URs aren’t automatically better than SSRs. Honestly, they never were. They ESPECIALLY aren’t now. You’re not losing the battle because you’re using SSRs. You’re losing the battle because you’re throwing Wrath cards at a Sloth opponent.

Morning Voice is an Envy SSR card. My copy of the card is only level 10, and in a Lesson 21+ Envy battle, its Envy score is 6866.

What is my Level 90 UR Colorful Panic’s Envy score in the same battle?

3489.

Colorful Panic is a higher rarity and 80 levels higher. It has worse Envy. Why? Because Envy is its worst sin.

Obviously you aren’t going to be using a level 10 card in a battle, so for a more realistic standpoint, my copy of Resentment Runs Deep (SSR Envy) has 46108 Envy in the same battle. That’s 13x better than the UR.

I’ll repeat it one more time before I move on. The sin scores of a card are far more important than the rarity of the card. A random SR card of the right sin is better than a UR with no sin bonus. The most impressive thing about a UR is how hard it is to get one.

Anyway, what does this mean? Is it hopeless?

Well, if you wanted to binge all three seasons within the first month of playing, yes. But let’s assume that’s not the case. (Side note, but the feeling that our cards are never good enough is definitely exacerbated by the aggressive speed at which they release new lessons combined with the fandom’s apparent allergy to spoiler warnings, but that’s a point for another post maybe.)

Remember that having URs isn’t actually all that important. Now remember the sheer amount of SSRs they release since they also aggressively release events. Also remember that with every 10-pull, you’ll get at least one SSR+. (Also remember to never do single pulls; they're not worth it at all.) If you’re really struggling with a lot of battles, here’s how you can improve your scores while focusing on as few cards as possible.

Open an Excel document or Google Sheets page and make a chart that looks something like this:

[Image Description: An 8x8 Excel sheet. The columns are labelled with each of the seven deadly sins, and the rows are labelled Cards 1 through 3 and Support 1 through 3, with a blank row in between. The rest of the sheet is blank.]

Now choose a card you want to use. Doesn’t matter why you want to use it, maybe you like how it looks, maybe you worked really hard to get it, maybe you like its ability, maybe it’s just your current strongest card. I don’t care. For my chart I’m gonna use Pandas Mean Profit because it’s really pretty and I got it from the 100-pull pity reward.

Look at your card’s top 3 sins and put them into the chart. For the character cards, note who the card is, because you can’t double up. For reference later, also note whether it’s 1st, 2nd or 3rd best. (Be sure to do this through Contacts and not a battle so there are no buffs skewing the scores.)

Once that’s in, choose another card you like for a different sin and input that card’s top 3 sins. Envy is still completely empty, so I’ll put Resentment Runs Deep in next. It’s an SSR, but I really love the Refresh Team ability. Do this for one character card and one support card of each sin at first, if you can. It doesn’t matter what level they are right now. Then fill in whatever blanks you have with cards that specialize in that sin.

If a sin comes up more than 3 times, keep whichever ones are strongest in that sin without overlapping characters. Play around with it until you get something that works for you. Keep note of the sins you’re lacking cards for.

[Image Description: The same Excel Sheet as before, except filled in with various Obey Me card names. The cells in rows 2 through 4 are color coded to match the character of the card. Each cell marks in parentheses how strong the card is in the sin of the column it’s in from 1 to 3.]

Mine looks like this. This chart isn’t perfect (if you look, none of my cards had Envy as a good non-main sin, and Pandas and Bunny have too much overlap for the same character), but it works as a rushed example. I used the cell colors to mark the characters.

Are these the teams you should be using for each battle? No, obviously not. First off there’s no single-sin battle, and second off the game will still build the teams for you.

BUT, this greatly lowers the amount of cards you need to pour resources into. Instead of 42 cards, with this chart I only have to focus on 18 cards in order to be guaranteed that all my cards get at least a SLIGHT boost in each battle. The best-case scenario would drop it down to 14 cards.

Later on, once you’ve managed the cards on your chart, the next thing to do would be to find main sin cards to replace those that are only third best in their sin. On mine I’d definitely focus on a Gluttony character card next, but in general Sloth is the one you want to be the most proactive about.

That should help you get through at least Season 2. Season 3 is admittedly where the difficulty actually IS ridiculous, but Season 2 really isn’t as hard as we’ve been saying. It just requires more planning than “the first three URs I ever got.”

I do still apologize for the resources and Grimm it’ll take, though :’)

Part 3: General Tips for Resources and Daily DP

This section is just some extra tidbits to help you have the resources to get cards and upgrade them.

[Image Description: The “hard to swallow pills” meme. The pills read “You don’t need every single card and unless you’re a whale eventually you’re going to have to prioritize some events and ignore others or you’ll never have the resources to improve the cards you already have.”]

However, events ARE good for farming Grimm, so it’s not the end of the world if you want every SSR. The only issue will come up when you need hard mode items and never have any AP, but it’s manageable.

If you’re going to log in more than once throughout the day, you can do the 2-1 job distribution. If not, do three jobs with one character each so you get the daily task done

To save money for leveling up your good cards, complete the devil tree daily mission with N-rank cards.

Use vouchers over DP whenever you can (and use Raven to get vouchers). The 99 DP level-up sale IS worth it if you can afford it, because that’s like 50% off a 10-pull once you do two.

I’m not certain, but I THINK skill level also influences how often an ability activates? I feel like my Lv 10 SSR cards activate often but my Lv 1 URs never do. So if you’re relying on an ability, the permanent SSRs might be worth looking at over limited time cards.

Anyway, I hope this helps at all in our mutual suffering.

#obey me #gameplay talk

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a-student-out-of-time · 3 years

Note

((Mod, since you value respecting different opinions and everything, something's recently happened: the Youtuber Kubz Scouts said he didn't like a character and was happy they died, so fans of that character are now screaming insults at him and demanding that he be "canceled". Because if there's one thing that drives Danganronpa fans into a screaming at the top of their lungs frenzy, it's other people daring to have a different, and perhaps unpopular, opinion about fictional characters.))

//Did you want my opinion on this? Because I can’t really give you one, since I haven’t watched his DR playthroughs and I’m not at all interested in internet drama.

//As for that kind behavior, if you do want my opinion on that, I’ll do my best to provide. I’ll put it under here for anyone who’s not interested.

Let’s not pretend this is exclusive to Danganronpa fans or that this is a new development. I remember the days when everyone was playing Undertale and anyone who didn’t go for the Pacifist Run and didn’t do everything perfectly was subject to a lot of discontent. Hell, I remember when Superwholock was a thing and people genuinely and unironically used threats like “You messed with the wrong fandom.”

Someone disliking a game or a character in a game is not a personal attack on you because you like them. We cannot assume that just because someone likes or dislikes something, they are by extension directing their feelings toward people who do not share their feelings on the matter. I examine media on its own merits and never try to list the fandom as a reason why I dislike something. Media and fandom are exclusive things and we can talk about the problems and merits of one, the other, or both.

This is the biggest one: Cancelling is not a real thing, at least not the way many of us think it is. There are people who’ve been “cancelled” and yet still have fans, still talk about things the same way, and still have a voice in public despite doing shitty things or just things deemed “unacceptable” by some group of people. Cancelling is more often than not just momentary outrage followed by mass attempts at character assassination, and it’s often filled with baseless accusations and quotes pulled out of context rather than real evidence for bad behavior. And in most cases, it will fade away. While I absolutely do think that people should be held accountable after saying and doing horrible things, there are people who’ve been “cancelled” for honest mistakes or behaviors they themselves did not realize were bad, or even for very minor things like people not liking the way they draw or for not liking a popular character. And this kind of thing really just takes the form of sending hate mail and demanding that they disappear or die. The kind of behavior people are supposed to discourage in any circumstance. The thing I dislike the most about this behavior is not just that it’s just reskinned cyberbullying, but that it actually makes the problems worse. When you harass and insult people for not holding your opinion, that is not going to endear them or anyone to your side. In fact, it’s probably going to make them stick to their opinions even harder. And when that happens, it makes it so easy for shitty people to co-opt that as a sign of how irrational and cruel your side is. It also hurts that it feels like most people who engage in this stuff think they’re doing the world a favor, when all they’re doing is harassing someone whose reputation they don’t have the power to destroy. I think most people do this either because they’re genuinely ignorant of their inability to really damage someone’s credibility, that they think it makes them a good person for stopping “unacceptable” behavior, or maybe they’re just in it for the drama, because it’s “fun”. But what really hurts the most is this expectation many of us now have, that we’re one opinion or one stupid post away from getting showered with hate mail, doxxed and maybe even pushed to the brink of suicide, and for things that we may not have even meant. To be crystal clear, I will not excuse genuinely repulsive behavior and you shouldn’t either, but this is not the way to handle it. If you want people to change their opinions or understand where they went wrong, communicate with them and help them understand. You need to engage with them openly and kindly. Compassion is the key. I say this not for the people who’ve been “cancelled”, but for the people who think it’s a good idea: it can be so easy, but you will not get anyone to agree with you just by answering hate with hate, and you will never be able to completely silence anyone in today’s world. You simply won’t. Most importantly, this kind of behavior does not put you on a moral high ground, it makes you no better than the people you claim to be standing against. Sending death threats and hate mail to people is wrong regardless of who’s doing it, and if one person does it, you’d be the bigger person by not responding to them. Most of all though, remember Hanlon’s Razor: never attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to ignorance. Some people make mistakes and post things without realizing what exactly they mean- I’ve done this myself and I had people point out how bad they were, so I simply deleted the posts. People are often much better and more understanding than they’re given credit for and I want people to understand that. And if you try and get them to listen, but they still refuse to see things your way, ignore them. Move on from them and try to find people who will. You can’t simply force opposition out of existence, but you can try to at least get more people to see things your way through kind words, sharing of thoughts and understanding alternative viewpoints. I would never ask anyone following me to try and “cancel” people who don’t like my writing. I want to encourage kind communication and open discussion, because that’s how we learn and how we improve. What I do ask is that you be good to others and to yourselves, ignore the drama, and talk openly and kindly with other people. Compassion and understanding is how things truly improve.

#mod talks #mod rambles #a student out of time #Anonymous

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konglindorm · 3 years

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Growing Up Beastly

As you probably know by now, I’m kind of obsessed with Beauty and the Beast. And I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the nature of the Beast, and especially on his origins and on the idea of the Beast as a victim. (Like this post in my Sexual Abuse in the Folk Tradition series, and this post and this one about why we don’t curse children.)

Today we’re going to talk about a slightly different Beast, from a different variant of this story type. This is, of course, Prince Lindworm.

Like our usual beloved Beast, it’s not the lindworm’s fault that he’s a lindworm, although for slightly different reasons—his mom screwed up, and he was born a lindworm. This enchanted bridegroom has literally never been unenchanted; there’s no natural state for him to return to. He’s always been a beast. (Sort of like Hans My Hedgehog, actually; maybe I’ll come back to that in another post.)

Before the lindworm gets transformed into a man, he eats two princesses. Which is…not great. However. He is a lindworm. Which is a kind of dragon. Which is, you know—I mean presumably they have dietary needs that differ from a human’s?

I have so, so many questions about this story that are not addressed in the original text. But the main one is what on earth did the lindworm think was going on here? So. Several points.

Firstly. There is a distinct possibility that he’s sort of a baby lindworm. (At least in the early Danish version. In the later version incorrectly attributed to Asbjorsen and Moe, we have a clearer timeline.) The queen gives birth while the king is at war. The lindworm slithers away, and reappears as the king is coming home from war.

Is this a war that’s lasted fifteen to twenty years? Did the king come home from the first war, stay home for several years, then go fight in another war that he’s returning from when the lindworm approaches him? Did the queen give birth to a fully grown lindworm that met the king a few months later? Did the queen give birth to a baby lindworm that was an adult by the time the king got home, either because lindworms grow faster than humans or because magic? Did she give birth to a baby lindworm that’s still a baby? How old is this lindworm?

Secondly. How did the lindworm know the king was his dad? Because he clearly did. He just slithered up one day and said “Hey, I’m your son. I wanna get married.”

Who raised this lindworm? Who told him who his real parents were? The text says he burrows under the bedchamber as soon as he’s born, and doesn’t mention him having any further contact with the queen or with anyone else.

Thirdly. Did the lindworm even know he was under a spell? Dude’s been a lindworm for his entire life. He knows his parents are human, but, like, do lindworms have access to comprehensive sex education? For all he knows, all lindworms might have human parents. Is he aware that he’s not supposed to be a lindworm? Even if he is, does that necessarily mean he wants to stop being a lindworm?

Fourthly. What was his ultimate goal here? He demands brides. He eats them. He demands more. Why?

Personally, I know nothing about lindworm culture and tradition. Maybe they’re, like, reverse black widows or praying mantises, and eating their wives is just, like, what they do. Or maybe he was just really hungry—though surely there would be people other than his new wives available to eat.

Why did he want to get married? Did he ever intend for a wife to survive past the wedding night?

Fifthly. The transformation. Did he see this coming? Again, did he even realize it was a possibility? When this chick starts demanding that he molt out of season and then whips him and bathes him in milk, what does he think is happening? Does he realize it’s a transformation spell? Was he expecting it or hoping for it? Does he think it’s just a bizarre human wedding tradition? Did the other two girls try to break the spell too, and do it wrong?

Shedding ten layers of skin in a row is gonna be pretty incapacitating for any sort of reptile. Once he’s done that, there’s no defending himself from things like the whipping. If the other girls tried to break the spell too, but skipped the shedding step and went right to whipping, he might have eaten them in self-defense.

Sixthly. The aftermath. So our lindworm is now a handsome prince. Okay, now what? What does that even mean? He’s literally always been a lindworm, with, as far as we can tell, lindworm behaviors and a lindworm palate. You aren’t turning him back into a prince—you’re turning him into a prince. Even if he always knew he was under a spell and it would someday be broken, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s like, inherently, fundamentally, a lindworm. He grew up as a lindworm, doing lindworm things.

He has no idea how to be a person, much less a prince. Walking, gesturing, chewing food—all exciting new experiences.

I mean, on the bright side, the king and queen didn’t actually miss out on their only child’s babyhood, after all—they still get to have all those fun experiences, just with an adult man who’s on his third wife and ate the first two.

I just, like, I don’t get how this whole thing is going to work. I have questions. I have concerns. I have many, many concerns.

Th circumstances are wildly different, but ultimately I think he’s a victim, too. Brides for lunch and all.

It’s not his fault he’s a lindworm, and while he was a lindworm, he did, presumably, what lindworms do. And now he’s a man, whether he wants to be or not. So he’s lost everything he’s ever known and been, and now he has to learn how to be a different kind of creature, from scratch, twenty years too late. (And depending on that whole king-at-war timeline, he may have just transitioned over night from a baby dragon to an adult man, which….yikes.)

What is the learning curve going to be like here? Let’s assume he’s not going to try to eat any more people, because of the sizing issue if nothing else—lindworms are probably a lot bigger than men. (How does he feel about the bride eating, looking back? Does he feel guilty? Does he shrug it off as a lindworm thing that he did when he was a lindworm? Is it all just kind of awkward?) Is he going to eat—or try to eat—a few cats or rats or lap dogs? How many months or years will it take him to remember he has to step out of bed in the mornings, instead of trying to slither and falling in a heap on the floor? When molting season comes around, is he going to try it and sprain something? (Or will molting forever be associated with terrible, terrible trauma after that bizarro transformation sequence?)

This guy has been totally screwed over since literally the moment of his conception. And for the stupidest reason. He didn’t insult someone, didn’t turn down their advances or refuse to share or help. His mom ate too many flowers. That’s it. That’s the whole reason he’s a monster, the whole reason two innocent girls are dead.

(Also, on the subject of those flowers, he should have been a girl. The queen ate the girl flower first, then the boy flower; she should have had a girl. I think I’ve done everything I’m going to with this story, but if you want to write a retelling where the lindworm is a girl, hit me up in like five years when my publishing company has expanded a little and I’ll publish it for you.)

(I wrote a book about the crazy aftermath, and you can get it here.)

#lindworm #prince lindworm #king lindorm #king lindworm #beauty and the beast #folklore #fairy tales #fairy tale analysis

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dropoutparty · 3 years

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ngc ramblings part 3- chapter 5

here we are at part 3!!! sorry this one took so long, i originally was gonna make this post include entropy and extus (along with finally talking about face in depth) but it was so fuckin long that im splitting it into 2 different posts! the next part isnt done yet but im like almost halfway done so it shouldnt be too much longer until its out! also before we get into this one:

tw for: death, animal death, and suicide. pls take care of urself and don't read this if those things are triggering for u <3

ok lets get on with the post

at the start of entropy zach doesnt waste any time getting right to the point. this place is bigger than the other planets so far, and zach says the music this time around is a melody that “started out normal but then got distorted” played by a violin sounding instrument. even tho i do sometimes forget that this is supposed to be a creepypasta im not surprised that he said it made him feel depressed and unnerved lmao. anyways, this planet has all new level types in it!! no reused ones!! ok now this is epic. the bosses this time around are megalon, battra, and mechagodzilla, but itll be a good while before we get to those guys because this chapter is long as hell holy shit?? buckle up babez <33 now, before i get into the meat of things as usual im gonna talk abt the planet name! entropy basically means “a lack of order/predictability or a gradual decline into disorder” and that's very accurate to this part of the story. at this point, red is pissed off and is getting desperate, which means from here on out things are going to be getting more intense and more unstable. this world is the turning point in the overall story, basically.

now with that out of the way, zach first goes to the worlds quiz level as usual! this time something was different. usually, in the quiz levels there would be goofy ass music playin in the bg (specifically the GH1D0RA cheat music, if you wanna like listen to it ig?) but from here on out its been replaced by the music from the games password screen, which zach called creepy earlier on in the pasta. im gonna glaze over the quiz again this time, but when we get to the next planet ill talk about all of the quizzes in depth all at once. basically all you need to know for now abt what happens here is face asks “do you like mothra?” and when zach picks no (after going on a tangent abt how mothra sucks lmao,, bro i swear im good at the game my controllers just messed up /s), face enters bastard mode and goes “TOO BAD!” and boom now zach cant play as anyone but mothra. zach is pissed for now but little does he know this is just going to become an even more epic gamer bc of this,, youll never get better at something if you never try and all that.

after that, zach moves on to the first level type- the forest. immediately zach gets an eerie feeling from this level bc he has some kinda fear involving forests at night (i can think of a reason why but ill have to talk abt that later just to be sure). hes also not feelin great about being forced to play as mothra, so the pressure of it all is def starting to get to him by now. the music in the forest is woodwinds followed by slow, rhythmic drums and chiming bells. must have been some ominous woodwinds and bells bc it made him feel like he was intruding somewhere he shouldnt be (oh rlly?? u dont say,, everything up until now has been fine /s). getting into the level itself, eventually zach comes across some weird deer-like monsters just vibing and scares them away when he gets close. later in the level he finds more of these weird deer along with a sloth-like creature on some of the trees and some raptor dudes killing some of the deer. zach shoots one of the raptors but thats about it. nothing really happened in this level but zach noted that he didnt feel like he was playing a video game, but instead it felt more like he was exploring a forest in another dimension. thats interesting for reasons ill ~get to later~ (yall must be so tired of hearing that by now omg,, i know im tired of saying it at least. i was gonna wait until after replay to talk about things but i severely underestimated how long this whole project would be, so i might make a post for the “more on that later” stuff before i get into replay. let me know what u think i should do).

anyways, the next thing zach checks out is the first tv screen level so far. these levels just play an animation with some music in the background, and theres a different animation per level. this time around the animation is of a kid with a beaver(?) head licking a lollipop and the music is the GH1D0RA music that the quiz levels used to use. the only thing of note here is that zach says he had a shirt that looked just like that when he was a kid. after that, were off to some of the weirdest fuckin levels in this whole thing imo- the hourglass levels. these levels have an entirely brown color palette, with grandfather clocks standing in the background (the level appears to be in like a hallway or something) and various time measuring things floating in the air. the music is the same as the board (ig cosby just didnt feel like thinking of what theme this place would have lol). after a little bit zach was rlly happy to see actual enemies from the normal game show up! these are basically like aircraft, tanks, etc. thats not the main attraction here tho, bc this level has its own unique mechanic! this mechanic is the colored hourglass items you can pick up. there are three of them, a blue one that slows time down and makes enemies from the past appear, a red one that speeds up time and makes enemies from the future appear, and a green one that made the time flow normally and spawned enemies from the normal game. zach found the blue one first, which caused a bunch of prehistoric enemies based on real animals to show up. after that he found a green one and fought normal enemies again, and then he found a red hourglass. the future enemies here look like aliens to me, and zach says that one enemy reminds him of something he saw in a book once. eventually, a special future creature showed up and zach was suddenly in a boss battle! or a mini boss battle? that description is probably more accurate. this guy doesnt have a face, and he can only attack by shooting a beam from his face, it sure does look cool! after zach beat it tho, he was off to the next level type, which is basically a toxic waste dump.

zach called it grungy and inhospitable, with the music being a synth ambient loop that made him feel dizzy while he listened to it. this is important because this is the first instance of the game making zach feel something *physically*, not just psychologically. all of the enemies here are mutated to some degree, with him first seeing green mummies with bird skulls coming out from vats of toxic slutch and a brownish cow skeleton monster with spider legs. later zach comes across a deer from the woods, drinking some toxic slutch (delinchous). zach got close to it to try making it stopped but suddenly some enemies came out of nowhere and scared it into running right off a ledge and into the slutch. rip :pensive:. after that zach found more mutated enemies (i.e some things with tentacles and some other deformed thing with human teeth) before he finally gets to the end of the level, where theres another miniboss waiting for him!! this ones a toxic sludge monster with a whale skull who attacks with a mouth projectile and by charging into you. the monster sank into the slutch and thats all for this level babeyy!

the next level is another forest, but this time its winter! its still at night, but this time zach doesnt feel off put, which he mostly attributes to the music. he describes it as a gentle, calm song that almost sounded romantic. the entire first segment of this level had no enemies in it, but dw this level is interesting i swear. the next segment starts out just as empty as the last one, but this time its silent. that is, until the music from “unforgiving cold” starts playing. yaa you remember that place!! i think i said it was less interesting than i remembered but its interesting again now bc it was foreshadowing these levels!! anyways soon after the music started up, zach started to come across tons of frozen bodies of the deer from earlier. some were mutilated, some werent, but they were all frozen and covered in snow. eventually zach does come across something living though, a sloth creature from earlier! its just vibing when suddenly the winter versions of the raptors from earlier rush in and fuckin obliterate the sloth thing. those things just blindly try killing everything in sight, and even start fighting themselves before zach finally gets to the last part of the level.

now this is where shit starts to get crayzay. this part opens up to a big empty field with a full moon and the nice music from earlier back. despite the nice music tho, zach immediately starts feeling dread and eventually he finds a lake. the lake comes down from the sky and starts to crack like an egg, a humanoid figure curled up in the fetus position dropping into the lake below and the moon halves disintegrated. this spawned the moon beast, the hardest challenge zachs had to deal with so far. after he finally defeats it, the screen goes to black and the name “melissa” is on screen, written in red. after that, the screen then says kys. the word kill then fills up the screen, layering over itself until it forms a picture of reds face. its now that we finally get to hear abt the whole melissa thing (which makes it sound like shes been mentioned in the pasta before this but thats not what i mean lmao). to summarize, zach had a middle school gf named melissa (also bro middle school?? wadda hell) who often went into “episodes” where she would stare off, expressionless, before trembling and putting her face in her hands. she and zach hung out in a field at night a lot but one night she just stared at the moon the whole time before running into traffic and dying.

NOW its finally later!!! were not done with entropy yet, but this is the end of part one of entropy so i wanna just take a little break to talk about things so far. this planet is FULL of symbolism and foreshadowing. to start off, i think a lot of the questions face asks at the beginning foreshadow things that happen. some examples are “is time slipping though your fingers?” which could allude to the time levels, “do you have any regrets?” which i think obviously foreshadows the whole melissa thing, “is it safe to go out at night?” and “do you find it hard to sleep at night?” both follow the same kinda theme, which i think relates to how the melissa incident happened at night, specifically out at night. i dont think the forest levels have anything too important in them, other than to introduce the presence of an innocent, harmless creature that doesnt deserve what happens to it later (aka the deer things) which might symbolize melissa. more evidence for this symbolizing melissa comes from the encounter with the deer in the toxic dump and the winter forest, where in the former zach tries to stop it from hurting itself but is too late, being forced to watch it die, and in the latter the same innocent thing from earlier is found dead close to where the real incident took place. the two big themes to keep in mind here are death and time, more specifically the past. most of the enemies here are either made from bones or kill other enemies, there's a dedicated time level referencing things that zach remembers seeing at one point (aka that one alien zach recognized), the beaver head had the same shirt as child zach did, it all connects to zachs past and the death of melissa. as for the moon beast, its the most obvious reference for reasons ive already explained. i dont really know what the moon cracking open and dropping a curled up human into the lake could mean other than some other thing melissa related, but i *do* think that the fact that the moon beast is the most difficult thing zach has faced so far is symbolic of the fact that the trauma from this event has followed him throughout his entire life, and its something he struggles with daily. it could even be the reason why he said no when face asked if he could sleep easily at night. the moon beast also has some black fur around its neck, which i think is meant to represent a tire track, referencing and/or mocking the way melissa died.

its so cool how this entire part of the story builds up to and foreshadows the bomb it drops at the end of the part, giving people something to look back on. a lot of ppl say that as soon as the melissa stuff gets introduced the story goes down in quality, and i do somewhat agree with that sentiment, especially if they want the story to actually be scary, but i think the direction the story goes from this point on is so unique and cool. it does follow the whole “theres a ghost in the game” troupe (even tho it was probably seen as a spin on that originally) but it doesnt do the same cliches as so many other gaming creepypastas do and it really takes the concept and makes it its own. i just think its neat,,,

anyways im done gushing abt this story, lets get on with part 2 of extus!! basically zach has a fuckin panic attack and, after taking a few minutes to calm himself down when its over, he decides that he has to finish the game now because if he doesnt its just going to haunt him for the rest of his life. zach has now realized that the game is “alive” and can somehow see his thoughts and memories, so understandably hes pretty freaked out by it at this point. when he keeps playing, the first thing he does is check out another tv screen level. this time, the animation is of a fish dude just kinda standing there with his mouth flapping open and closed and the music is the neptune board music from the original game. the only reason i can think of for why this is here is maybe the game is mocking zach for the panic attack he just had (bc when u have a panic attack you feel like you can barely breathe, if ur lucky enough to have never had one before and u dont know) but thats abt it. its probably just a random goofy thing cosby threw in there.

anyways, the next actual level is the first labyrinth level. this time around, its a gold labyrinth specifically. the music in these levels is a slow, ominous drum beat with female vocals occasionally coming in and (basically from here on out) the monster zach plays as is now half the size it used to be. i think this shows how zachs feeling at this point, like this whole thing isnt just being a big strong monster and beating up enemies any more, he feels small and scared and helpless in the face of something potentially dangerous that he doesnt understand maybe his confusion about the game is the reason *why* theres so many labyrinth levels here in the first place. anyways im getting ahead of myself. personally, i think the aesthetic of the gold labyrinth is very similar to the green temples back on trance. while trance had a more circular and soft theme to it's architecture and sculpture, entropys is much more square or rectangle oriented. despite this, i think that the golden mazes at least are another religious kind of building, and the architecture is just different because theyre two different cultures who just happen to worship the same spiritual figure (aka melissa. did i say that earlier? i think i did,, if i didnt well the religions worship melissa, not knowing she's a dead human or anything. probably).

moving on, zach notes how the gold labyrinth would probably have been impossible to navigate as any of the other monsters, so turns out face being an asshole was a blessing in disguise after all huh? anyways this place is full of weird gold monsters, lava/fire traps, and stone faces (both in more of an easter island head style and in the regular feminine headshot weve seen so far). zach comes across two feminine heads, one that is more adult looking and pure gold, and another one that looks much younger and whos eyes have red irises and blue scleras. this statue apparently looks a lot like melissa did on the night she died, so zach leaves it pretty quickly. i *think* this is the first time we see the color blue associated with melissa? if it isnt sorry abt that, its been a couple days since i worked on ngcr so ive forgotten some of the smaller or more subtle things by now. GOD i keep getting side tracked ANYWAYS eventually zach finds a non-gold enemy and sees it get picked up by like an arcade crane claw. hes curious so he follows the claw, only to see the monster be put in a big gold cauldron and walk out the side of it as a gold monster.

gonna be honest, no idea what the hell this could mean. like? theres been no themes of corruption or good things becoming evil so far so this just kinda. exists,, yea idk lol. im not part of like any discord servers or anything so all this theorizing and analysis has just been me, maybe getting some small ideas from like random youtube comments or something, so if something ive said so far has been unanimously disagreed with somewhere i dont know about it. thats also why this isnt really a definitive or comprehensive analysis (even tho im trying to be as comprehensive as i can).

anyways zach finds the exit soon after and hes on to the next level type (there's so fucking many of them ik dont worry weve almost gotten to all of them now), the indigo cliffs. the background of these levels is similar to the blue mountains from trance, but now the moon and clouds from the toxic dump background is also here (and colored indigo to match). the music here is just a deep rumbling noise. the first “enemies” he sees here are just a bunch of multicolored little guys coming out of a hole in the ground and jumping off a cliff. were continuing the death theme yall!! anyways zach continues, flying over some more weird creatures (tho some of them just look like dinosaurs lol) before he sees a bunch more of the multicolored guys out and about but this time theyre getting grabbed by birds!! wadda heel!!! zach comments on how the multicolored dudes seem eager to die and thinks maybe the moon has something to do with it (like melissa dude wat!!!! that's crazy /s). at the end of the level there were some more multicolored dudes just walking into a creatures mouth so zach attacked the thing and killed it and the levels over yay!

now its time for the bosses babeyy!!! first zach fights battra (basically an evil moth kaiju), the music is varans theme. battra starts off in his larvae form, where he basically just fought by running into you and shooting stuff at you. while fighting this form, zach noticed that the game buffed mothra because his gamer skillz were too cringe lmaoo. he beats the larvae form and battra goes into his second form, where hes basically a stronger clone of mothra (misogyny). zach fights battra and has fun doing it (for once,, good for him) and he wins yay! next hes fighting megalon (a big beetle/bug kaiju), whos music was gigans theme. im tired when im writing this so ill just give you zachs description of how he fought: “strong, persistent, but dumb”. after this, zach checks out the last tv screen of entropy. this time, it shows a big buff guy with a sack over his head hit a womans head with a sledgehammer while shes tied to a table or something. the music for it was the password theme. i think this is probably here because red is getting angrier? like this guy is still here after i triggered his ptsd?? what the hell!!!

anyways before we get to the last boss we have one last level type to get through- the shadow labyrinth. at this point, zach starts to feel drained because no shit sherlock you just had a panic attack and youve been playing this game for fuckin several hours at this point of course youre fuckin drained. anyways zach enters the shadow labyrinth, which is a black recolor of the gold labyrinth. the music is “evil ambience” similar to unforgiving colds music but distinctly different apparently. there werent any enemies so zach just kinda wandered for a while until the lights turned off, darkening the whole screen and (secretly) spawning tons of spooky enemies thatll chase and hit mothra in the dark. eventually the lights came back on and zach started scrambling to the exit. when the lights turned back off, zach was able to find one of the melissa looking statues and stood next to it. it warded off the monsters while the lights were off, so zach was safe. i think this shows 2 things: 1) its a little more validation for my “religion in this world worships melissa” theory and 2) it foreshadows the way melissa wants to protect zach at the end of the game. zach beat the shadow labyrinth a lot faster than the gold one so were done with all the stages now!! now theres only the last boss and red and were done with entropy!

the last boss is mechagodzilla, but when zach starts the level, normal godzilla is there instead!! its whatever tho bc soon the disguise is gone and its just pretty much the normal mechagodzilla fight (but now hes got a gay beam). at about half health tho, mechagodzillas sprite breaks into pieces like gezoras did way back on earth and reforms into not-mechagodzilla. even tho it looks uncanny (and the usage of the face statue on the front is probably there to further mock zach bc melissa) zach beats it p easily and now its time for the chase. ba dum ba dum thats the sound of a chase.

as usual tho, before i get to the red chase its time to talk about entropy as a planet!! i think the best way to describe the layout is “a big forest with a toxic waste dump in it takes up half the planet while the other half is a large religious temple/labyrinth with a dangerous underbelly”. there doesnt seem to be any intelligent life there now (its all dead by now probably) but there was at some point at least because imean the huge labyrinth is there dude!!! i dont have much to say for this section tbh bc i feel like i've already said everything i wanted to, so its time for the chase ig!!

basically the chase with red here takes place in a labyrinth level bc of course it does. this labyrinth, however, seems to be made of some kind of organic matter. is it flesh? organs? nondescript viscera? idk but it's pulsating and bloody. also this time red has wings too!! anyways, basically zach avoids red throughout the maze, red breaks through one of the walls with his big alien tongue, and zach gets to the end of the maze. nothing crazy happens at the end of this chapter (i think it was crazy enough as is) so thats the end of that and now its time for the penultimate planet- extus.

#ngc ramblings #nes godzilla creepypasta #godzilla nes creepypasta #godzilla nes

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jothzuko · 4 years

Text

To Chip Away

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Summary: Suki's spent a lot of time excelling at acting like she's fine. She's a leader; it comes with the territory, and pretending to be fine after escaping the Boiling Rock is just the next logical step. They've all got bigger problems, anyway. Still, it turns out she's not fooling Sokka quite as well as she'd hoped.

It takes Sokka a while to notice Suki’s gone, which he’d prefer to attribute to her stealth skills rather than his own failings. He’s let his guard down a little at the Air Temple, has stopped mentally doing headcounts every couple minutes, although he maybe should resume those with the way people keep disappearing on them (if he and Zuko had been the last ones missing, surely they could be forgiven, since they’d come back with more people than they’d left with).

Either way, he’s halfway through talking to his dad when he looks around at some point and realizes she’s not with the group. “Did you see Suki leave?”

Hakoda takes a second to catch up with the sudden about-face in the conversation, but then he says, “Don’t think so. She can’t have gone far, though, the flying bison’s still here.”

“He has a name, Dad. Did you forget Appa’s name?”

“There have been quite a few new names to keep track of, and aren’t you trying to find your girlfriend?”

Sokka nods. “I’ll be back, I still wanna hear about Kallik spitting on Fire Nation troops.”

“That’s pretty much the whole story,” Hakoda says, but Sokka’s already up and heading off to find Suki.

His dad had been right, there weren’t a lot of places she could’ve gone without some serious climbing, and only a few were out of view from the space where they’d set up camp. There’s a ledge, though, high enough up the cliffside trail that someone could remain unseen, and that seems like as good a guess as any. He follows the path up, sticking close to the cliff wall and, spirits, he’s not particularly afraid of heights, but he still wishes the Air Nomads had built these paths a little wider. Not that they’d needed them, of course, but it would’ve been nice.

He crests the hill, only a little winded, and finds her there with her back to him, staring off into the distance. She doesn’t seem to hear him at first, so he kicks a pebble against the rock face because startling someone on a mountain ledge doesn’t seem like the world’s best idea.

She turns at the noise, already on high alert, and then she relaxes. “Sokka.”

“Hey.” Sokka comes to sit next to her, swinging his legs over the side of the ledge and ignoring just how nervous that makes him. Like with the paths, there’s fear of heights, and there’s a much more reasonable fear of falling miles to your death, and he’s not really ashamed to say he has a healthy dose of the latter. “Just came to check on you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Of course I am.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“I’m fine,” she says, the words a little razor-edged.

But if Sokka doesn’t press, no one else is going to, and it seems like someone needs to. “You were in prison.”

“And now I’m not in prison. So I’m fine.” She’s trying hard enough to be convincing that Sokka almost gives up and believes her, except that he remembers holding her, kneeling on the floor of that cell, her breath catching in her throat and her tears soaking the shoulder of his stolen guard uniform. That, and the fact that she’s out here alone in the first place.

“Alright, fine. I won’t keep bothering you about it, I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep it to yourself, you know?”

“I don’t,” she says, but there’s something in it that tells him to let the quiet stretch out between them, and then she shakes her head a little. “Maybe I do. I don’t want to start breaking down now if I’m not sure I can put myself back together fast enough.”

“You’re not doing it alone.”

“I’m not used to that. Or- I don’t know. It’s different.”

Sokka tips his head and asks, “What do you mean?” and he thinks maybe he knows the particular kind of loneliness she’s talking about, but he can’t be sure.

“I was never alone when I had the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors, but I was their leader, you know? I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t sure of myself because I wanted them to be able to trust me. And I guess they shouldn’t have, but…”

“They absolutely should trust you, are you kidding me? They couldn’t have a better leader.”

Suki looks away, pulling her knee up to her chest and rubbing at a barely visible smudge of dirt on her shoe. “I couldn’t protect them. Not that they can’t protect themselves, I know they can, but I should’ve- I don’t know, I should’ve fought harder. There had to have been something.”

“I know you, okay? I know you would’ve done everything you could, and they know that too, probably even better than I do.”

“I guess,” she says, but she might as well not have said it at all with how little conviction there is behind it.

“I’m serious, it’s not your fault. Losing to Azula and her friends is pretty much a rite of passage around here. They’re scary.”

“I love the way they fight, actually. It was nice to have it not directed at us for once when we were trying to escape.”

“Yeah, I’d kind of like to learn how to throw knives now, but that’s a whole other thing.”

She’s quiet for a minute, looking at something or nothing off in the distance, and then she says, “Do you know me?”

It’s an unexpected step back in the conversation, one Sokka hadn’t been ready for, and he can’t say it doesn’t sting a little. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean that in a bad way, I promise. It’s just that sometimes it feels like I’ve known you forever, but then I total up the days we’ve actually spent together and it’s not very many.”

“Well, yeah, but sometimes you can just… get people.”

“I know.” She shakes her head. “Maybe I’m overthinking it. It was just a weird thing to realize.”

“Well, short time or not, it was enough that you knew I’d find you,” Sokka says, but a half-second later he’s seized by doubt. “Unless… that wasn’t true.”

“I meant that. I wasn’t about to lie to you when you were in the middle of trying to rescue me. It’s just a little more complicated than that.”

He reaches out for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “So tell me.”

Suki’s expression goes unreadable for a second, back to staring at the horizon, but then she says, “I believed you’d come for me. I really did. But there were bad days when I thought… I don’t know. I guess I wondered if I’d ever make it outside again, because even if you did try to rescue me, so much could’ve gone wrong. Sometimes I almost hoped you didn’t come because I couldn’t watch you die.”

“I was always gonna find you. No matter how long it took.”

“I know. But some days I hoped you didn’t, because then I could keep believing in something. If you got killed trying to rescue me… that would have been it.”

“That’s…”

“Yeah, it’s dark, I know.”

“No, I mean- well, yeah, it is dark, but I get it.” And he thinks he does. He thinks he’d feel the same way, honestly, if it was Suki or Katara or his dad or anyone else risking their lives to save him. It’s something he’d never voice to the rest of the group, too much to put on the people he tries to protect, but it feels safe in the space between the two of them. “I can’t imagine not having anything to do but sit there and think about that.”

“Can’t say I recommend it,” Suki says, and she’s clearly trying to keep her tone light, but it’s not working all that well. There’s too much strain in her voice for that.

“If you wanna tell somebody about that, I know a guy.”

“Oh yeah?”

“His name is Wang Fire. He’s the personal therapist to the Avatar.”

“I don’t know the backstory there, but I’m gonna guess it’s you in disguise,” Suki says, with just the faintest hint of a smile.

“You… would be absolutely correct. But in my defense, I rock a good fake beard.”

Suki makes a show of studying him. “I think I like you okay without it.”

“Okay, well, I’m a little hurt. But the point is, I’ve got two functioning ears and nowhere else to be.”

Suki turns her eyes to the horizon again instead, swinging her legs so her heels kick back against the stone. “I don’t know what there is to say, honestly. I sat in a cell and I tried not to lose my mind. I tried to keep some structure at first, and I’d do some training or try to plan an escape or whatever, but it wears you down after a while. I’d have entire days of just staring at the ceiling trying to remember how to even feel like myself.”

And yes, okay, logically Sokka knows that he hadn’t known where she was, but that doesn’t mean the guilt of not breaking her out sooner doesn’t make it feel hard to breathe. He wants her to keep talking, though, because hopefully getting it all out will do some good, so he just squeezes her hand and waits for her to continue.

“The other prisoners didn’t mess with me or anything- one of them did tell me they thought it was cool that I was an enemy of the state as a teenager, so that was kind of funny- but we weren’t exactly friends, either. It was just… really lonely. I’ve never spent that much time away from the other Warriors, let alone completely on my own.”

“I really can’t imagine. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like it’s your fault.”

“If I ever figure out something better to say in a situation like this, I’ll let you know. Probably become world famous for it, honestly. I think there’s a real market.”

“Don’t forget me when you’re a celebrity.”

“I could never.” Sokka hesitates for a second, unwilling to shatter the little bit of lightness in the conversation, but he needs to ask the thing he’s been too afraid of. “Azula said- she said something about you being her favorite prisoner. She made it sound like she’d- I don’t know, hurt you, or at least was out there being horrible to you. Was that true, or was that just to throw me off?” Suki hasn’t mentioned it, sure, but maybe it was the type of thing that was too awful to talk about. That’s what it had been in his nightmares, at the very least.

Suki shakes her head. “She was messing with you. She wasn’t pleasant when I got captured or anything, but I didn’t have information she wanted. Once she figured that out, I wasn’t worth her time, and she definitely wasn’t going all the way out to the Boiling Rock for my sake.”

Suddenly, Sokka can breathe a little easier. “I really hoped, just- it’s Azula. Even Toph doesn’t know when she’s lying.”

Suki frowns. “Is Toph… supposed to know when she’s lying?”

“Oh, right. You weren’t there for that, but yeah. Turns out she can tell when someone’s lying because their heartrate picks up.”

“Didn’t know that was possible, but that’s kind of just an everyday thing at this point.”

Sokka sighs. “Tell me about it.”

They sit in silence for a little while longer, but this time there’s less tension to it, not nearly as much hanging in the balance and waiting to be spoken. Maybe Sokka does feel less like he knows the girl next to him than he used to, but maybe that’s not a bad thing, because if he’s lucky he’ll get to know her. He has to believe they’ll have time, after the war. He has to believe they'll make it until after the war.

“Thanks for coming to find me,” Suki says after a while.

“Feel any better?”

“A little.”

“For what it’s worth, I still think you’re the coolest, bravest, toughest person I know.”

She tips her head onto his shoulder. “You’re sweet.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Oh yeah? When?”

“Uh. By you, right now.”

“You’re also ridiculous.”

Sokka turns and kisses the top of her head. “I can live with that.”

#suki #sokka #sukka #atla fic #atla #it's ME back with another fic no one wanted but that I am going to give you anyway #suki was a teenager in prison and I will address that or die trying #also I already did sukka comfort in one direction so now we're uno reverse carding it

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warsofasoiaf · 3 years

Note

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola.

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that.

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#video game reviews #cyberpunk 2077

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