#he was playing a dating game i think which i mean. what else is tf2 for

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff: Best of 2020

I don’t need to say much about how this year sucked. What matters is that if you’re reading this, congrats because you made it through and you’ll know that animation in 2020 has certainly made its marks as much this year as it did the last. Effort was still made to provide some of the best entertainment imaginable, and I’m here to provide the TOP TEN BEST entertainment I’ve experienced and loved this year. With that said, let’s get to it…

10. Sonic Rebuilt

I’ll admit, I don’t like the Sonic Movie. It was not a good film to me & while I’m holding out for the sequel, I genuinely never want to see it again. But like Biden to Trump, the people behind Shrek Retold gave us a reanimated telling of the Sonic 1996 OVA. Like Shrek Retold, it offers a compelling new light to the OVA and while the original is much cleaner, and it’s not the most hype thing to come from Sonic overall, the imaginative cauldron of artists that put into this makes it far more rewatchable. 

9. Central Park

I knew after watching Bob’s Burgers that creator Loren Bouchard would eventually make a musical cartoon and I’m glad I was right. Central Park is a first for me where it’s an animated musical that isn’t a film or only occasional like Steven Universe or Adventure Time and while it isn’t the best plotwise, the numbers themselves were heartfelt and sometimes catchy. There’s a struggle in being episodic and serialized, and it’s a slow burn to connect with the characters, but this was admirable in its experimentation and I’m interested in the direction season two will go.

8. Interspecies Reviewers

The first horny anime I can safely say was never an off-putting or one-note gag fest; that’s gotta count for something. The momentum of this series never truly dies and even when there were a couple times where I just wasn’t feeling it, they pull me back with something ten-fold entertaining. Fresh variety is what I can describe this series at its best, it knew how to keep things going and growing even when it’s otherwise formulaic. All the while, this series never felt tasteless; it really felt structured and gallantly clear-minded in what it wants to show. Plus, it has Crimveal who next to Steven Universe is the best boy of 2020. Of course this show ain’t for everyone but my god, it does so much right for me upon most ecchi stuff.

7. Primal

I wanna believe this was what Genndy Tartakovsky always wanted to make after Samurai Jack ended (well, the 2nd time). This show really exhibits his many techniques in direction, like you can tell this is his work if you’ve seen his other shows. Primal always feels like the culmination of all that’s he towards as a man of animation. Even with the roars and the harsh sounds of violence, this is the only cartoon that never says anything but conveys everything so vibrantly. This admittedly isn’t my favorite piece from Genndy, but it definitely made it’s way to the top three.

6. Team Fabulous 2 Reanimated/Suponjibobu Anime

We got a tie here because these I especially felt brought people together. Suponjibobu brought people together to celebrate Spongebob Squarepants like never before, making it as legendary this year as Mr. Krabs Overdoses on Ketamine. A beginning to a series long in the making and can hopefully go for more as animation on Youtube has certainly delivered. 

The Team Fabulous 2 Collab was where a community came together to honor the creator to one of the most recognized fanworks for a game that has stood the test of time. Like Sonic Rebuilt, it’ll never replace the original but god damn it’s like the stars aligned, especially after we were dealt with another loss this year, where we could appreciate TF2 for the culturally powerful game that it is.

5. Crash Bandicoot, It’s About Time

I’ll say again but this game feels like a dream. A good, fresh looking, fun to play Crash Bandicoot game that feels like the gamiest game this year after all the discourse surrounding Last of Us 2 and plenty other shit surrounding the game industry, Nintendo included. Like, I just gotta appreciate this. It’s by no means the greatest Crash game, the completion journey is horrifying, but my god it was a great game to jump into again and again. It feels like a testament to what Crash can be in the modern era and I certainly want more of it. Bugsnax is objectively game of the year if not Hades, but Crash 4 is my personal GOTY. 

4. Glitch Techs

It’s the gamer equivalent to Men in Black, that’s enough of a seller. From the people behind Fanboy & Chum Chum, it’s genius well-animated, realized, and not immediately dated. It’s a mind-boggling crime Nickelodeon isn’t treating this show better because it deserves recognition as an innovative idea. It does a lot right and it’s a worthwhile action series up there with Rise of the TMNT that’s worth the risk to give it more of an audience as opposed to just thinking it’ll be the next Spongebob. If it’s future is anything, I enjoyed this series and there’s nothing like it.

3. Wolfwalkers

This was an animated film with the most personality to me in a long while, with the most memorable look to it, compelling leads, and animation that really made its mark in the moments that mattered. I’ll agree with other reviewers that, outside Mebh who is the greatest and besterest girl of 2020, it's a simple story but it’s effectively simple. Beside the 3rd act which was noticeably long, the moments flow one after another fluently and you really get the struggle between two immediate friends that are shackled with responsibilities their parents didn’t want to put on them. Like Netflix’s Klaus, it all comes together like a beautifully seasonal tapestry. Worth watching and supporting is the best I can tell you for this film.

2. Elinor Wonders Why

This is my most personal of personal choice for the list; like True and the Rainbow Kingdom, it’s the one that helped pick me up after being in a slump for most of this year. I’ve always had an interest in understanding the fundamentals of nature, and this show encourages thinking about the wonders of science, where something as simple as a feather can make you wonder of its many shapes, abilities, and functionality. It appealed to me in the best way that it does more than represents your existence but deep down represents why you are the way you are with your interests and the flexibility of your outlook. I wish it was number one but it did enough to make the top of this list.

1. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

I mean what else could be number one? This is the most ‘anime’ anime I have ever seen. The story, characters, and world building are at their most realized. I can’t imagine anyone other than Science Saru, with the based Yuasa, animating this with the style it has. Every episode is an engaging puzzle to every 4th episode where it all culminates with the in-universe final product of our Eizouken trio. It’s so compellingly meta it hurts as I could gush about every single detail that went into this series both in universe and the real behind the scenes. But what makes this the greatest is how nothing feels contrived, everything in this anime exists for something and the obstacles our characters face are things you’d definitely face in you were in there shoes. It’s energy is what really carried me through this year and I can safely say this is one of my all time favorites. And it really says don’t give up believing and working for better things to come, because if art like this can be made nearly flawlessly, it’s always worth carrying on to see something just as great if not greater. That’s why this is a masterpiece to me...

Then again...

#animation #anime #cartoons #sonic ova #sonic the hedgehog #central park tv #central park tv show #interspecies reviewers #ishuzoku reviewers #genndy tartakovsky's primal #Primal #suponjibobu #spongebob anime #Team Fabulous 2 #TF2 #crash bandicoot 4 #crash 4 #crash bandicoot it's about time #Glitch Techs #nickelodeon #wolfwalkers #Elinor Wonders Why #keep your hands off eizouken! #eizouken #KYHOE #keep your hands off the motion pictures club! #long post #Good Stuff #Countdown list

[the-captains-on-shore-leave]

I've seen a lot of tf2 stuff here and I'm wondering if I should get into it? I know OF the game, but that's pretty much it. What's it about? Where do I start?

buddy Y E S. it’s like this weird unlikely ~timeless masterpiece~ that has sooo many different facets to it. it’s silly and ridiculous and saturated with lots of interesting lore and characters, as well as fun and INCREDIBLY versatile gameplay- it can be played like a serious shooter with a serious objective, or it can become a block party where everything’s silly taunts and hats and the points don’t matter and oh boy just wait until you see the halloween events. tf2′s given me some of the best friends i’ve ever had, has gotten me through some of my darkest times, and has just generally brought me so much joy (directly and indirectly) throughout the years, that it will probably be one of my favorite video games for the rest of my life. so YES i highly recommend you give it a shot lol.

AND OK, SO…I ENDED UP WRITING A LOT. LIKE BASICALLY A BRIEF CRASH COURSE ON TF2. but c’mon man you’re asking me about one of my favorite games..i can’t help myself lol. i mean…objectively it’s very short for covering 10+ years of content, riiiight

but foreal it’ll just take a few minutes to read and it will give you some useful insight into tf2, what it is, and everything else you need to start your ✧・ﾟ:* magical   *:・ﾟ✧ hat-based journey (btw almost all italics are links jsyk, i know my blog is dumb and doesn’t make that obvious)

TL;DR:gaem is about shoot and silly hat with 9 boyes. is v fun 2 play, start with am watch meet the team videoz on tf yootoob.

And now for a more detailed explanation:

i’ll start by telling you how it began:  “team fortress” was the first team fortress series game ever made. this game was a quake mod, made in the mid-90s, not developed by valve, and based in another engine. it got reeeally popular, so, eventually, valve saw it, liked it, and put a ring on it, hiring the team to make a team fortress half-life mod, and later, a standalone version, known as “team fortress classic” (essentially, in regards to modern lore, tf1). valve eventually started developing a standalone sequel to tfc, “team fortress 2: brotherhood of arms.” this game was, stylistically, VERY different from the tf2 we know today- it was a super-realistic military game (kinda like counter strike?). but for some reason (thank you god) they ended up doing a 180 and went for something more cartoony  (if they’d gone with that original design, tf2 probably would’ve outdated and died off years ago). this more cartoony style is what you see today.

so now we’ve covered tf2′s history, let’s talk about what it is:  team fortress 2 is an online team-based multiplayer first-person shooter game that features a variety of gamemodes. here’s the basic in-game menu layout when you fire it up:

these different gamemodes include a casual mode, a competitive mode, and a player vs bot mode (which is super fuuuunn). here’s what the menu looks like when you click the “find a game” tab:

i’m mostly familiar with casual mode (formally known as “pubs” for “public servers”), which is the main part of the game anyway, so i’ll list what type of objectives you have to choose from in casual mode: (CORE GAME MODES) attack/defense, capture the flag, control points, king of the hill, and payload; (VALVE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING ALTERNATIVE GAME MODES)  payload race, mannpower, pass time, and miscellaneous game modes.

but tf2 doesn’t only appear in game form! i remember i was hella confused about what exactly tf2 was for the longest time because of this, so next, let’s break down what it manifests as:  a video game, a comic series, and animated shorts (both official and fan-made). source filmmaker (sfm) is the animation program valve developed and uses to animate their shorts. a few years ago, this program was made free to the public, so there have been maaaaany many fan animations and posters made over the years about tf2 using the program. so many, in fact, that valve decided to start holding an annual tf2 film festival, called “the saxxy awards” (”saxxy” coming from “saxton hale,” a dude we’ll touch on ina bit). the festival is an opportunity for animators to showcase their skills, and SO many seriously amazing projects have come out of them. i recommend checking out winglet, uberchain, mag magnet, krunkidile (specifically his “TSA” series), py-bun, and nonamesleft, they are all very skilled animators who are also quite active in the community! there are so many more amazing sfm animators, but my brain is just about fried (it’s almost 4am), so i can’t think of them right now, but keep an ear open for whenever this year’s saxxies roll around and you’ll discover more no problem!

let’s move onto what it’s about:  the story takes place in the 1970s, and centers around 9 mercenaries who have been hired to fight in a “war.” the “war” was started by 2 bitch ass rich ass brothers who got their wealthy father to buy an enormous expanse of land in new mexico and move their family there. the brothers hated each other with a petty fury, and their father hated them both because the land they convinced him to buy….was absolutely worthless! so when he died, he gave their family munitions company “mann co.” to his closest aide (barnabus hale), and left them both nothing but that enormous plot of worthless gravel-filled land (hence the name “the gravel wars”) to fight over. and they’ve been fighting over it ever since. the bros got played, but they are so single-minded in their sibling rivalry that they don’t care.

it’s on this land where most of the in-game maps are located. the brothers’ names are redmond mann and blutarch mann (hence the team names red and blu). in-game, you play on either red or blu. on both sides, you can play as any of the 9 mercenaries, scout/soldier/pyro (offense), heavy/demoman/engineer (defense), or sniper/medic/spy (support). it’s never really touched upon in lore how both brothers managed to hire the same mercenaries to fight, and it probably never will be, since it is just an in-game mechanic. but it does still beg the question. in the shorts, it’s shown that they literally fight clones of themselves (like in the game). in the comics, certain mercenaries are shown on blu team, while others are on red. there are a lot of fan theories, but generally it’s just said that “they fight each other” (interpret as you will). the world may never know.

each of the mercs are referred to by their job title (i.e. heavy weapons guy, sniper, medic, etc.), but they have their own real names oc (except maybe pyro). however, we don’t know all their names yet. they each have really unique personalities and skills that have built them to be these memorable characters. which leads me to where you should start:

i would say go to the team fortress youtube channel and just start working your way through the videos. Start with the “meet the ____” videos, cause those will give you a sense of who the 9 mercenaries are personality-wise (and sort of lore- and gameplay-wise, too). on that channel, you’ll also find some shorts that don’t have to do with any particular mercenary. these shorts were made to coincide with the various in-game updates that have happened throughout the years (the most recent short being “jungle inferno,” released just a few months ago).

once you’ve gone through all of that, and if you find you wanna dive deeper into the lore of tf2, you could start reading the tf2 comics. i highly recommend them, they’re all written very well, have a great sense of humor, and have a surprisingly extensive and intriguing storyline. you can find them all here. the comics are broken up into sections:  tf comics, update comics, and the saxton series. the saxton series are some silly vintage comic book covers that feat. ya boi saxton hale (current owner of mann co. and grandson of barnabus hale. also i didn’t mention this before but mann co. supplies the gravel war effort. jsyk). the saxton series isn’t really lore relevant. but the update and tf comics are. i highly recommend starting from the bottom of the page and working your way up. pay attention to the date the comic was uploaded (beneath the comic icon and title), and just read them in chronological order from oldest to newest. that way you won’t get confused or not know who’s who, what’s happening, etc. it’ll basically be like you were along for the updates without having to put up with the wait! speaking of which…

currently we’re all on the edge of our seats waiting for the next and final tf2 comic. been waiting for over a year and counting…

the last comic came two years after it’s predecessor, so….let’s just say you’ve got time. and plenty of it.

OKAY SO I THINK THAT JUST ABOUT BRIEFLY TOUCHES ON EVERYTHING U GOTTA KNOW. the rest of the story is lore stuff that you really should read in the comics. it’s worth it, trust me. and you just gotta experience the game for yourself. you can add me if you want (send me your steam profile) and we can play some. i’m always down for a few rounds :)

anyway, i hope this was helpful and not too tedious to get through. most importantly, i hope it encouraged you to get into tf2! it might seem daunting or a lot of stuff to take in at first, but it gets easier once you get a foothold. and you might decide that you don’t really care for the lore, only the game. or vice versa. but however you choose to enjoy it, it’s a great thing to experience, and i hope you choose to. i hope i helped at least a bit!

#asks #tf2 #tf2 crash course

[alilybit]

Steam Scam Documentation

improved readability + table of contents on my website: https://phal.io/hackers/stean (free easter egg included!)

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TLDR – What To Do

Prevention

- Never sign in using Steam anywhere unless it’s a well known site that you navigated to yourself, preferably by manually typing the URL into your browser and saving that URL as a bookmark for later, NEVER sign in on links others sent you, even your significant other whom you would trust with your life because their account could be hijacked or they don’t know they’re sharing a malicious link

- Optionally send the link to an internationally approved computer expert you trust (me?)

- When you confirm trades in the app, always double check both trade contents AND the person you’re trading with (level, friend date) because hackers can automatically replace outgoing and incoming trade offers to go to a different account with the same name and pfp as your original trade partner

When It’s Too Late

- Warn your friends not to click on any link that might be sent on your behalf, check active chats for messages you didn’t send, send/tell them this

- Change your password (if you use your Steam password elsewhere, change those as well, you should be using unique passwords and a secure open source password manager like KeePassXC)

- Log out all sessions in the Steam desktop client by clicking on your name in the top right corner next to notifications and navigating to account details -> account security - manage Steam guard -> deauthorize all other devices

- Open https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey in your browser (if you don’t trust my link, which you shouldn’t, simply find out if steamcommunity dot com is the real domain for Steam and then manually type the complete link into your browser), revoke any API key there is if you haven’t created them or don’t know what they are, if you did make them replace them

- Optionally report the link at https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en to make all common web browsers display a warning before loading the malicious site

(Source + further info: https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/)

When a Friend Sends You a Malicious Link or Acts Suspiciously

- Try to contact them somewhere outside of Steam and send/tell them this to save their account and to prevent the hijack from spreading further through their friends list

- Warn their friends

Pro Tip

The interwebs are full of malicious links/downloads, even/especially search engine results. To make sure you get the proper installer for programmes/the proper link to log into/purchase something, ALWAYS use the Wikipedia Technique™:

- Open wikipedia.org

- Search for the programme/site/shop/whatever

- Look for the website link either on the right in the summary box or by navigating to the external links section at the bottom

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I will now describe and show how a friend of mine had their account hijacked. I’ll also keep adding other forms of scam attempts to this post/site as I come across them so you can look at examples and be prepared for when it happens to you.

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Incident 1 – Can You Vote for My Team?

It was the night before my first vaccination. I was still doing something on my PC, I don’t remember what, even though it was past bedtime, when I got a message from a Steam friend. I’ll call them Ingeborg. My brother, Ingeborg and I had met a month earlier on a TF2 rocket jump server and we added each other. We played together a couple more times but beside that I didn’t know Ingeborg that well. You can see the chat from that day in the images below.

The first cropped message from Ingeborg at the top is “hey u free rn?” or something. I assumed they just wanted to ask about playing a game of TF2 with me, as it has happened before. When they dropped the question about voting for their team and getting keys in return, I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know of any competitive team they were in and I also didn’t know Ingeborg well or that alleged tournament at all. It also didn’t seem like they could just throw expensive keys around. I took some time to process the information and to think about what I should reply, but Ingeborg didn’t leave me much time to think, following up with “?” and “u here”. So I asked, feeling stupid for not knowing what they’re talking about.

Then, they also set a time limit of less than 30 minutes and kept asking why I’m not immediately replying or “voting”. I have to admit, I nearly fell for it. I want to help people and I can’t think clearly under pressure, especially when it involves other people. And, for the Permanent Record, I of course wouldn’t have taken anything in return for helping a friend. I wanted to tell them that but they didn’t even give me the time to type that. I had already put my name and password in the form, after a lot of thinking, but something prevented me from pressing enter, it just didn’t feel right. I had even briefly searched the web for that tournament and didn’t really find anything. But what finally made me realise that there is something wrong and what made me think clearly again was the border and title bar of that alleged pop-up window. (Edit: Thanks for 1 likes. I compared genuinely signing in through Steam on scrap.tf and it did not open a pop-up window, it simply completely sent me to steamcommunity.com. I guess that means pop-up Steam sign ins are always fake.) I already tried clicking on the HTTPS information earlier which didn’t work for some reason but which still didn’t make me 100 % realise that this is a fake site. Until I noticed that the title bar is a Windows 10 default light theme title bar. I’m on Linux and I use dark themes, the title bar should look completely different. I tried moving the window around and it moved choppily and I could only move it within the Firefox window. I checked the source code and it was true: It was merely an iframe within the site that contained a fake Steam login form from a different URL that’s not steamcommunity.com. This is the site in the iframe:

As you can see, it’s the Steam login form, but the address at the top is not a Steam address. I took a look at its source code and found that it was a lot longer than the original and also contained a lot of dialogue lines about removing the Steam mobile authenticator. This apparently didn’t come up when actually putting in password and username, but you should look out for fake sites telling you to remove your authenticator, they could get complete access to your account that way.

I confronted Ingeborg with this and they stopped replying. But they didn’t immediately remove me from their friends list, like that one time I was actually scammed. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Was Ingeborg really a scammer? Was everything we did together so far just to gain my trust to scam me? Like that one time I was actually scammed? The funny thing is that out conversation before this was about scammers. Some usual random scammer put a usual comment on my profile and Ingeborg warned me. But I believe in the good in everyone and I didn’t want to just assume they were a scammer without making absolutely sure. I thought about what else I knew about Ingeborg. They gifted my brother some items because he barely has any. They invited me to their Steam group. They subscribed to me on YouTube and put my channel on their home tab. Coincidentally, earlier that same day, I also took some time to take a look at their YouTube channel and subscribed. So I thought that me subscribing to them was the sign they were waiting for, signalling that I trusted them enough to fall for the scam. I checked their channel and I was still on their home tab and subscriptions. I checked their Steam group and was still a member. This convinced me that there really is a possibility that this wasn’t actually Ingeborg trying to scam be but that they’ve also been phished and someone else is now trying to also gain access to their friends’s’s accounts.

Ingeborg’s friends list and profile comments were now set to private, so I couldn’t comment or directly message their friends to warn them. But there was the Steam group. One other member was online, one with a Pokémon profile picture and I believe I also remembered noticing them on Ingeborg’s friends list because of the Pokémon theme. So I put a comment in the group and added the Pokémon person, who unfortunately had their comments disabled as well, so I put an explanatory message into my profile to let them know why I’m adding them. I warned them and asked them to tell Ingeborg that someone has access to their account, should they know Ingeborg better than me. On YouTube, Ingeborg had their Discord name listed. I tried to add them but friend requests were disabled. There was also an Instagram name. I technically don’t have Instagram but I made a test account a while ago to test a YouTube scam comment with a link to an alleged Instagram password hacking site. I logged in with that account, changed my profile picture to my real one, added an explanation to the bio and added Ingeborg. But they didn’t react. So I wrote a comment on a YouTube video. I think it took three attempts for the comment to pass the automatic spam filter. It could of course also have been Ingeborg deleting my comments exposing them for being a scammer. But the third castle stayed up. And a while later, they actually responded. I then tried to tell them to add me on Discord, that also took many attempts and extremely careful wording to get through. Not even my Discord tag with numbers spelled out and 1447 speak, as Jeremy 900 800 500 would say, went through, but a carefully camouflaged link to my website did. By then, they also messaged me on Steam, asking for help and asking me to temporarily take their valuable items to secure them. I told them to add me on Discord so I know it’s actually them I’m chatting with. As it turned out later, it was really good that they didn’t trade me their stuff.

Apparently, Ingeborg wasn’t home at the time and only had access to their phone. And they allegedly fell for the exact same scam a day before. The obvious first thing that had to be done was changing the Steam password. But it seems that the password can’t be changed in the app itself. So I had the idea that Ingeborg could log into Steam on their phone’s web browser and change the password there, which worked. We kept chatting and I kept researching. I still wasn’t sure if this was still part of Ingeborg’s ingenious plan to regain my trust to scam me again, but I believed in them. Eventually Ingeborg got home, and I stayed awake gladly until 3:47 in the morning, I… I sang as time went off. Because as long as menly men like me are prepared to give their time, a flower grows. And that flower, that small, fragile, delicate yellow flower, shall burst forth and defeat interwebs criminals. On the “next” day, the vaccine had a side effect of making me a little tired. Strangely enough, that side effect already started before the injection itself.

I also kept thinking about what the actual purpose of this series of hijacking accounts is. Ingeborg’s Steam wallet and inventory seemed to have been untouched but there must be some way for the criminals to profit off of this, if only to pay for the costs of the website and domain. On Vaccinator day, I finally found an article on https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/ that explains it. When you give them your password and current authenticator code, they obviously get access to your account, but you still have the authenticator, so what they can do is limited. Apparently, they use the opportunity to create an API key that allows them to keep accessing your account even after you changed your password and they use it to immediately replace incoming and outgoing trade offers with ones that go to a fake version of your original trade partner with the same name and profile picture. You might then not notice the difference when confirming the trade in the app and give them your items, unknowingly and without them having to have access to or remove your mobile authenticator. A brilliant idea. You might as well check if you have any API keys which you usually shouldn’t, the details are explained on the steamrep link and in the “when it’s too late” section at the top of this piece of medium literature.

And the moral of this story: Always be careful, educate yourself on how they trick you and on digital security in the sense of safety, never assume you won’t fall for it, don’t shame people who fell for it and don’t feel ashamed if you fell for it. And always have an internationally approved technical support character on your team.

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Incident 2 – Simply Building Trust AKA Social Engineer

We write the distant year of 2016. Two… œ… six… one. Oh, I’m an idiot, I held the pen upside down. Never mind. I don’t recall the incident in as many details, but I still know the most important things. It started on a TF2 tdm_hightower community server, rocket jumping and Market Gardenering around. I don’t remember exactly how one of the other players started conversing with me, I just remember that they, I’ll call them Wincohn, added me, chatted with me and wanted to trade one of my items that was not yet tradable. We chatted over the course of multiple days. Eventually, we also chatted about bad things that happened in our pasts, like the divorce of my parents and how their dad allegedly died when they were young. And we comforted each other. They also asked me if I was religious at some point, I guess because religious people are easier to scam. When I took a look at their inventory, I saw TF2 competitive matchmaking beta passes. I don’t remember exactly how that worked, but I was excited about matchmaking and you could only get in if you have the beta pass item, but having it also gives you some invites to give to other people. So I offered to take a beta invite in exchange for the item they wanted. My item, a festive Rocket Launcher was still not tradable though, so they offered me to temporarily give them something else and they would immediately give me a beta invite. Since the beta invite is not an item, I had to trust them they would actually invite me in return. We were on the aforementioned community server again and they agreed to make our trade public to the server members so they could witness it and report one of us, should we not keep our side of the bargain. So we opened a trade and I gave them one cosmetic drop I didn’t need, one cosmetic I used and two non-strange festive weapons so I don’t lose my stats, which were apparently in total about equal in value to the Rocket Launcher. Right before the trade went through, they left the server, which I only noticed when the trade window closed. And they removed me from their friends list. No beta invite. I told the others on the server that we traded but he left before it went through and he scammed me but nobody cared. The chat where we agreed that I would get a beta invite was also gone. I lost my items and I didn’t even have proof that it was a scam and not just a gift or tax dodge. Steam rightfully doesn’t return scammed items, because the scammers of course immediately sell them and taking them away from the buyer would be unfair for them and giving the victim a duplicate would be easily exploitable, but getting them banned would at least prevent further scams. The worst part, though, is that everything they told me was a lie and only served the purpose of gaining my trust. Fascinating.

After it happened, I was of course sad and angry. But only temporarily. I don’t hold a grudge against them, I’ve long since forgiven them. Quite on the contrary, I’m even thankful because I didn’t lose that much virtual material value (like 3 $) and it was a valuable experience. I only hope that they have changed since then and don’t do this anymore. The comments on their profile are disabled to this day, not the best sign. They also don’t have a Steam or third party ban. Either them scamming was not a common occurrence or nobody was ever able to prove it.

——————————————————————————————

Incident 3 – Wanna Join Our Tournament Team? (Incomplete)

I got another one of those friend requests on Steam from a suspicious looking profile. One of those that have TF2 comp stuff in their profile description. This time, I accepted it to see what they would do, to document more methods used by interwebs criminals.

This account had 1200 hours of TF2 playtime. So it looked like they’re an actual player, or maybe a hijacked account. Their inventory was public as well, but nearly empty, not even regular weapons or anything. They were playing TF2 the entire time and when I checked the server they were on, it always said no server. I guess that means they just have TF2 open the entire time to farm playtime that is publicly and prominently displayed on their profile to appear like a real player.

I tried to go along with their chat but it didn’t go well. I even prepared my long unused Gibus Cap Discord account that I used to use to test roles on our server. But apparently, I asked too many questions. I was too eager to get a nice phishing link into my net. After that last message, they removed me from their friends. Next time, I won’t ask questions.

#phishing #hijacking #scamming #hacking #steam #tf2

[shinssoliloquy]

WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHY? HOW?

5 Questions you should ask anyone when they’re starting off a project made from the basis of ego and tenacity. I’m really not a particularly smart person, But I’m smart enough to know how dumb I really am.

I’ve always been itching to do this. Twitter was never a great way to display my thoughts and writing on grounds that by limiting characters your characters by tweet you’d either get into long threads of diatribes that likely no one will even read or you’d have to space out your thoughts and mince words in order to fit to these said limitations. Obviously it’s not a bad way per say to fully flesh out your thoughts but there’s obviously some downsides and you won’t be fully capable of fulfilling those quandaries, much so espousing on your thoughts and opinions to the fullest extent. I could write a book but I’m not knowledgeable enough feel like my thoughts are worth putting into a non-fiction book. I could join discord servers but I don’t know a wreath of people who even care. I could still talk off into the Twitter void but that’s only for short bursts at a time, any ideas or subjects I’d like to elucidate or spell out would just get lost, all my themes would shoot off into the negative space that is a twitter timeline regardless of if they’re worth revisiting or not.

But of course, would it even matter if people do care or they don’t. People live off making Youtube videos and content based on themselves because they assume people actually care about whatever benign thought or creative pursuit they’d have in their head. It’s not up to me to judge if my thoughts are worth putting out there but I guess the reason people use social media is to give a voice to the voiceless, have anyone out there a chance of their own success, But how does that affect content input though, How does impact your very own mental psyche. This is a conversation for another post and it’s far from a topic I’ll have any meaningful outlook on, just from my own experiences as an outsider looking in.

WHO?

I always fancied myself a writer more than an illustrator. The whole crux of my need to learn how to draw was from the idea that “hey no one wants to draw my webcomic ideas on something awful or whatever internet messaging board I was using at the time that’ll date this post when I look back on it when I’m 40, I’ll learn how to draw then and show everyone I can STILL MAKE IT” Then I started drawing and never really looked back. Within the few years or so since I’ve made that discovery I never really focused on my writing, much less my creative writing. I’ve had few instances where I’d try to light up my spark by blog posting was making other short lived wordpresses and blogspots where I can peruse and write for a short while until I get bored and go back to drawing everyday. Of course two particular things happened in which I’ve gotten that spark back, to an extent. 1. The corona virus quarantine happened and I was stuck with nothing to do, I dropped out of school to go to a new college out of country that hasn’t really happened yet and aside from my retail job I haven’t had a good outlet for where to put my creativity too. So I ended up just drawing more but also, reading off some books off my backlog. I’ve always been interested in philosophy and non-fiction since reading Kant and Hume at age 12 and Now rediscovered it because of quarantine. Really I’ve always been a better writer or story teller than anything else but efforts to light up that energy in me has been fruitful and I’ve relegated to being another artist in the pile of artists who’s only personality is that they “like art”. Which made me realized how much of a better self sufficient and self respecting the writer can be rather then the animator. Illustrations are fleeting, words stick with you. Of course greats work of art exist and will always exist. Beautiful paintings can grip me just as much as a good work of philosophy can, But lately beautiful paintings have been disgruntled and disavowed from public schema. If you want to provide good art for people to see, use hashtags and make fast fleeting content for people to consume easily and forget about. Such is the way of social media and how they grip you to keep using their products, It’s not a revolutionary idea but it’s a concept that ends up working. In a way I’d like to counteract this by making fast fleeting content but also putting in forth ideas and writings which I can consider good but we’ll see how that ends up panning out. My goals as an artist is for another topic entirely but really I need a way to practice my non-fiction writing skills and having a blog where I can just go on and on about pointless shit is good exercise. 2. I’ve stopped communicating to people that would point me to a direction in life I didn’t really need to go through and because of that I took a detour in my mental stability and mental development, really it wasn’t good for me. but because of that I was able to keep track of where I need to go and have removed all elements in my life that can allow me to find different paths and know where I’ll truly be. I could also just talk to people about these kinds of stuff but it’s hard to really find people who I can talk about the stuff I want to talk about with and nothing really beats writing a whole diatribe about whatever comes to your mind at the time. Why do I have a lot on my mind? You’ll hear that story in another time but it’s MOST likely an autism thing.

WHAT?

Look at section: Who again but to summarize and clarify what I mean. Content is fast fleeting and non-self actualizing, people don’t want ideas they want content, They need personalities to leech off and see themselves in instead of being creatives themselves. As someone who makes art and wants to make more art It’s hard to really judge if my art is worth it for the algorithm or if it’s worth it to bring in audience retention. Not to mention most people who use social media are kids, and the only way to grab kids attention is to play to their interests, play into their already corroded brains by playing onto their synapses, Not to imply I dislike it per say but more so that I feel that certain audience can somewhat affect your creative output. 

WHERE?

I made a Medium account last month after reading an article on Luxury Communism. It was a fine article but what I got out of it was how good it seems to use Medium to communicate and write articles like these, Until I realized that really it can only be used for more academic pieces and while sure I’d like to do that one day something more lowkey and personal was what I really needed. Hence a tumblr, originally a blogging website before being used to oxidize internet discourse and internet creativity in general, was a perfect outlet for these kinds of posts. I’m actually used to using tumblr for one and can edit and know my way around doing these sorts of posts and the archive feature is good if I ever want to look back on old posts as opposed to Twitter. I can use the ask feauture to take requests or have feedback on my posts in a more concise manner. Unlike Medium or Wordpress I can easily hide certain posts or even the entire account if I wanted too and I won’t be seen or be recommended by the algorithm because I won’t even put tags on these posts. If you know where to find me you know where to find me. Although I do think I’ll make this public at some point I atleast need to know if I’ll even use this or if I’ll even keep making the same kinds of posts as I’d want too.

WHY? 

I’ve already explained why you knucklehead, but I guess here were some of my inspirations to make a writing blog. I could list actual writers or twitter personalities or internet reviewers with blogs I can talk about, for example Yahtzee Crosshaw, Film Crit Hulk, Or even the elusive Andrew Hussie when he had a wordposts and while those people were instrumental to my development as a writer and artist I can’t say they were my full inspiration for making this.

Back in 2016, I was introduced to the Procrastinators’ Podcast by consuming Digibro content and having her podcast be linked at the end of one of her videos. I’ve since started concurrently watching her podcast and while I’ve always sucked into Digi’s cult of personality I’ve started appreciated her other friends in the podcast too, everyone except Nate. One of those members I gravitated too was MunchyWearsTinyHats. He was only one year older than me but I could still see myself in him and in effect appreciated him more than anyone in the podcast. We both seemingly grew up watching and reading the same shit, Homestuck, TF2, He introduced me to Nuclear Throne which because one of my favorite games and we both had the same appreciation for Hussie, Sam Hyde (sadly) Performance art, weird abstract art bullshit and of course My Little Pony. If I actually joined RFCK who knows what would’ve happened but that’s just my take. Of course a surface level description of Munchy aside, as someone who consumed everything he was in, I Lived my life vicariously through him and to all the members of the Procrastinators’ Podcast to an extent even though we both became completely different people as we reached our 20s. Currently he’s 20 and I’m less than a year away to being 20. But I feel as if our paths have drifted far enough that I can properly say I became a whole new different person to who I was in 2016. I still have appreciation for MLP, Homestuck and Minecraft and all the weird media shit me and him consumed. Back then I even modeled my art and persona to look like his too, It was a whole thing. Of course all of these posts and videos and personalities are very very out of date and they don’t reflect the content I consume or even the type of person I am now. I had a friend who also liked the PCP, well it was more like a love-hate relationship I feel but it was nice having someone who I could talk about the PCP with since at this time they were the only people or content creators I was consuming, what’s less said about current pcp the better. She’s always told me, I feel sorry for people who model their lives around these content creators and take advice from them since they clearly don’t know what they’re doing. And while I agree with her to an extent, I wouldn’t go as far as to discredit these artists accomplishments since they seem fulfilled with what they’ve made of themselves, not like we’re doing anything different or are any different to them. It’s about trying to live in a world with your own meaning in it and you can’t do that but disparaging the careers of grown men you don’t even know. Again topic for another day but I guess with this blog I’m always copying and ripping off some of their ideas for myself. In 2019, Munchy made a Tumblr where he’d detail and do the same thing and post blogs or writings he’s made or opinions he’s had, It hasn’t been updated in a year and a half but if it isn’t broke, don’t call the gas company asking for a refund. I even stole his alliteration with Shinsuke’s Soliloquy and Munchy’s Manuscripts, Shinsuke being my real God-given name. Of course the posts on his tumblr are really incredibly out of date and downright stupid and I’ll talk about them on their own on a seperate post since I feel like he really just didn’t know what he talked about and they’re baseline at best and wrong at worst. Regardless he still planted the seed of me as a person to make my own blog and talk about random bullshit.

HOW?

Obviously I will still tweet out stuff on my private twitter, Obviously I will still make art. Right now I’m making my own comics and writing a few short stories that maybe? I’ll put here I’m not really sure. Just depends on if they’re worthy on being posted since I’ll make a short story collection with them instead. Maybe I’ll continue the favorite character writing, maybe I’ll make my own picrew. We’ll see and no doubt these promises will become out of date in a week or two. Rather than the right of the moment malaise of tweeting around bullshit and sending it quickly I’ll use this for more concise text, something that I can sink my teeth in and tap away for what like 5 hours or so? Beats the essays i’d be doing but it doesn’t help that I am typing this in total silence, and I guess those essays will just be posted here. Do people post their school essays like they post their poems or their artwork for school? If you want to use my ask blog then it’s right there if you want a topic for me to talk about or just ask me a regular question. I’m bringing back tumblr asks to it’s real purpose. And of course, the only thing sure about me, is that nothings for sure.

#shinsscripts

[logan-after-dark]

March 3rd 2018

I feel like I had someone else’s lucid dream last night. Many weird and wonderful details below the cut (trigger warning: a character in this dream was molested as a child, and I experienced some vague flashbacks of it/associated trauma):

The first thing I think I remember doing is floating around a place that was familiar to me, although the ‘me’ in this dream wasn’t really me, I don’t think. The elementary school I floated by was familiar to me, in that in my mind I called it Fallingbrook Elementary (which was a school I went to for a few years as a kid, grades 3-6 I believe), but then I turned around to see this castle monument thing (that doesn’t exist near Fallingbrook elementary school), and overheard some tourists nearby talking about how “the King” put a magical barrier around it to keep people out of the vicinity, so that the castle will always be in pristine condition. There’s supposedly a sign on the front of it talking about it, but nobody can get close enough because of the barrier.

I remembered hearing about that as a kid growing up in the area (once again, not me - whoever I was supposed to be in the dream, this girl), and I thought that, since I’m floating around having an out-of-body experience, might as well get a closer look.

Sure enough, there was a sign. Well, more like white letters protruding from the stonework on the front of the small castle, declaring the spell’s intent, the King’s name, and the date it went up. I suppose the sign had to be done first before the barrier spell was cast, which may’ve been a little pre-emptive on their parts, but what can you do when you’re lucid dreaming someone else’s life XD

Anyways, I start floating/flying around this hometown and night is falling, and I find, well, myself. I find myself asleep in bed next to my boyfriend, I guess, and she wakes up in a panic as I start looking through things in her room. See, this girl had a very traumatized past - I believe it was implied that she was sexually abused as a child by a man. The details of the horrible experience started to overwhelm me, and I started to fade out like I was going to wake up, but I struggled through the haunting ‘memories’ and stuck with it. That’s why I started opening drawers. I wanted to take away the last memories of her attacker and get rid of them for her (and for myself) once and for all.

I’m not entirely sure why I, in an out-of-body experience/lucid dream/astral adventure, was able to not only find my conscious and sentient body as if it was a different person, nor why I was able to interact with her environment so directly as to open her dresser drawers and a cupboard, but there I was XD And it woke her and startled her as if there was a ghost in the room, and her boyfriend, whom I knew to be very sensitive and supportive, woke up to hold her shoulders and try to calm her down. At that point I decided to stop haunting her, and decided to let myself be seen by her, instead of remaining as some invisible creepy ghost.

The familiarity in her eyes told me it was like looking into a mirror for her. I explained to her, very calmly, what I was trying to do for her, for both of us. I told her to let me take care of the last remnants of that time, to let me destroy the last few things of him that she had left, and to let me bear that burden. She started crying and hugged me. Her boyfriend left for a couple glasses of water, and when he got back and we both explained what was going on, he held her and encouraged my search.

I found some photos of him, and the memories they provoked made me feel so sick it was nigh unbearable. But I took care of them anyways. Next I found some notes and letters I had written to him, explaining that I didn’t like what was happening. Those were hard to look at. I couldn’t read them, I just couldn’t. I showed them to her and told her ‘I’m taking these to get rid of them, okay?’ She agreed uneasily. But she seemed to be faring a lot better. Her boyfriend held her by the shoulders and she savoured that glass of water as she watched what I was doing.

I purged it all. Anything that I could find that connected me/this poor girl to him.

Now I just had to make sure he was rotting in jail like he should.

I floated through the town to find the small police station and the lockup. I don’t know why he wasn’t in a bigger prison out of town, but that’s where I found him. He was rotting in some concrete cell at the back of the station, and I found him asleep, dressed in a ragged grey jumpsuit, on the can.

He woke up. And he could see me.

And he was silent.

And, somehow, I realized that this wasn’t like him.

There was something off about his demeanor, his mannerisms, everything. He didn’t gloat, didn’t have some one-liner prepped to torment me with, he didn’t even seem to recognize me. This horrible man was someone that I knew very well and at a vulnerable time of my (again, her) life. And he was just sitting in this cell, lifeless.

I quickly realized that I didn’t really have anything to say to him, not in this state. So I left. Phased through the walls and just left him to rot.

I’m not sure how this transition occurred, but the next thing I remember doing was searching this guy’s apartment with my family - mother, father, sister, little brother. They weren’t at all like my family in real life, but I recognized them in the dream as my family. Anyways, we’re digging through his stuff, and someone finds this catalogue of masks, sort of? Long face masks like a founded sheet of paper printed to look like different characters from a video game I (apparently) recognized and enjoyed as a kid. Think sort of like League of Legends meets Team Fortress - big, buff, burly guys in a whole bunch of different roles and with different weapons and abilities. We left the apartment somewhat empty-handed. The place was a complete mess, but whatever we were looking for (evidence the abuse happened, maybe? Validation?), we didn’t really find it there.

As we’re leaving, dusk has fallen and there are very few people out on the streets. This town is old-fashioned, with interlocking brick sidewalks and old stone buildings and churches. So much so that there’s an older lady out lighting the lamps alongside the street and sidewalk. My father greets her and offers her some coin, for which she thanks him, and then I get a look at her face.

It’s not a her. It’s him, in disguise.

I recognize the eyes instantly - one grey eye, one blue - and that wicked smile. He’s out of jail and roaming the streets in a big heavy coat and a long curled wig of dark hair. We were just about to cross the empty street as a group, but I’m frozen in my tracks and have stopped breathing. I’m actually struggling for air, to make any kind of sound to alert my family, but I just can’t. At least, not until my dad comes to check on me, putting a hand on my shoulder once he sees that I’ve stopped.

“HIM,” I gasp. “IT’S HIM.”

He knows exactly what I mean, and my family leaps into action. This guy wasn’t just an average joe, I find out too late, as my family begins to fight him while I stay out of the line of fire and try to support. He cackled and gloated as he manifested some sort of pale white vine weapons from his body, all four taking down each of my family members, knocking them unconscious and putting their lives at risk. I was able to use my dream powers to push him back, to literally will the vines away from my family, rouse them, and heal whatever damage had been done. I barely understood how they were injured, I just willed them better, and I overpowered him as I did so. This caused him to panic a bit and flee, but not before my family’s own powers came into play. My adult sister (who had blonde hair and colourful leggings with a tank top) kicked him in the face from meters away. I think my dad had super strength, and I don’t know what my mom or brother had (yes, it was very reminiscent of The Incredibles - I watched a trailer for the new one recently so that probably inspired this part of the dream XD).

This asshole still managed to get away, despite the fight and effort we all put into it. Instead of chase him down though, my dad said we ought to come up with a plan and find some help.

So that’s what we did. Next thing I know we’re sitting around a table with a map of town, with a bunch of big, burly men. It turns out, these guys from the video game from earlier are also real in this dream, apparently? I definitely felt awestruck that they not only existed, but came to help me with hunting down this monster. The first thing we discovered was that the catalogue of masks that we saw at his apartment, were actually disguise masks that could change your whole appearance if you wear them. He had ordered quite a number of them through this catalogue, and even had one custom-made to look like himself, which was what the poor guy in jail had been stuck with wearing. This created a new problem though, in that the very people who came to help us couldn’t be trusted, because he could literally look like any of them anytime he wanted. Yeah. Great way to start things off.

These guys were very supportive of me though - they dwarfed me in size with their military gear and broad chests, and they were all holding my shoulder, clapping me on the back or hugging me. It felt nice to have that positive attention from a man, after everything I’d gone through in the past, and I felt warm and safe amoung them, in spite of the whole mask issue.

The characters in the game that I remembered were listed alphabetically I remember, with the first guy being caucasian with blue eyes and brown hair just long enough to have waves in it. He had a headset with a small blue screen suspended in front of one eye, and red and white body armour. His codename was Atllas I think. The next guy down on the list had a surname that started with B I believe, who was dark-skinned and looked fairly similar to TF2′s Demoman, except with both eyes, more wrinkles in his face, big broad chest, and no Scottish accent. He actually remarked at one point in the meeting that he thought the game was ridiculous, and he didn’t understand why anyone ever played it. I said “Well, here I was about to tell you that you were my favourite character to play,” and he looked abashed while Atllas had a good laugh.

The meeting left off on a rather positive note despite everything else that happened in the dream, and after that we started searching for that asshole, but after some brief confrontations that I barely recall and him switching masks a whole bunch, my memory of the dream itself gets quite fuzzy, and I don’t know whether we actually managed to catch him in the end.

#dream journal #lucid dream #tw: child molestation #not for real though #just implied #it's never happened to me #in here I try and help protect a girl from the memories of it #wow my mind goes dark places sometimes #almost as much as it gets weird #this dream was a horror film in the making

[tf2headshotcanons]

How would the mercs show their love and affection to their male s/o. Like dates they would take their s/o on, do they like kisses, etc

I want to clear a few things before I answer, if that's alright? Firstly, I personally don't ship any of them as gay (if you look at my sexuality blog, you'll see that only... 2? I ship as straight and the rest bi or pan. Those two are Sniper and Scout), so I apologise. It's because I don't see them as gay is why I'm running my own blog, because everyone else seems to make them gay so a lot of blogs are similar. I wanted to do something different with my different perspective (and no, I ain't asking for credit or praise doing that either!). So strictly gay (but not bi and stuff) asks are probably better left to the other blogs. Mainly because they fucking know their shit. I'm not gay, heck I've never been in a relationship, so actual loving shit is harder for me to do. does that make sense? O.oTo make it clear to that one cunt that sent me hate, || I do NOT hate gays || I just don't see the TF2 blokes as strictly gay (but many with the potential!) That's it! That's literally it!NOW I want to make it clear, If ya love someone. REALLY love someone. It doesn't matter if they have a dick or vagina. So this will sorta answer for both male and female, because if you love someone, their privates don't matter and that shouldn't differ how you love them. But for you, mate (a fellow Sniper fan), I'll try to gay it up for ya ;) Just... Forgive me if I'm not good at it. I'm not gay so I don't know how it differs. To me, love's love ain't it?HEADCANONMANNON TIME:Scout: Aww crap! He... He didn't expect to be... Ya know? He's honestly not comfortable with it, at first. Why? Because he always (forgive my lack of eloquentcy) wanks off to the most sexy and curvy women. But it never felt... Right. He's worried his mother won't accept him (little does he realise his father told her, and they both accept and love him, but it won't stop her teasing him). Scout... Well, Scout does like to see himself as confident and attractive, and to people he hits on - he can be! But when he actually loves someone? Bloody hell, is he kinda shy! Especially now that he's gay! So... He's timid, awkward, and sweaty. He's nervous and makes a lot of error, but ultimately he scores! He tries to be the "man" of the pair - you know, the protective and dominant one? But he's the lass, and we know it ;) Uhhh places, places... You know, fuck it. He's an amusement park kinda guy! Or a sporty guy (obviously) so places that get you out their! Scout... In the amusement park, would be out of his shell and just Scout. But if they did sports together, it'd be like a scene from Ghost, ya know, behind them and teaching them howta swing? That jobbie. Uhh what else do people do romantically? Um movies? Eat- Does he like kisses? Does he fuck! Though kissing Scout is like kissing a damn dog XP Any how, he'd overall be very competitive (but playful!) and try to protect them. He'd try to be the guy his dad wasn't to his mom. Basically, he'd see his partner as the "mom", but really that's him. Soldier: Ehh now, personally, this doesn't need too much of an answer. Because he has Zhanna, we basically know how he'd be in a relationship, and I'd personally see that he'd be the same with a bloke. Protective but knows he can fight, loveable and complimentary. Involving him in dumb shite and neck snaps. That sorta jobbie. And we already know he loves kisses, but the small and quick ones (preferably multiple times!). Honestly, it won't be much different if Zhanna had a dick... Well, she wouldn't have tits but still- My point still stands! He'd take him to the Raccoon Santuary, Training, Ball Games (ref: Demo), Merasmus' home. It's hard to say whether he'd be "alpha" because he'd most likely pick another strong character too. Chances are, they'd both be the "Dad" figure. I'm not sure whether he'd be a movie bloke. He ain't the brains, but he is the heart and spirit!Pyro: We... We don't even know what the fuck Py is. I'm going to use "they" as we don't know what they are, that would be the same for the same sex partner. Off topic, but If Pyro WAS a woman, I think she'd be good for Pauling. But you didn't hear that prediction from me ;) Anyhow, Pyro loves kisses! The same type as soldier, except loves them all day, errryday. If you give them one less kiss from the day before, they may get sad. Pyro loves watching movies, or colouring, or playing with toys, splashing in a pool, burning things or listening to a story. That's what they'd invite their partner to do. Pyro wouldn't be dominant, but they'd be the emotional crutch, they cuddler and emotive one. Basically, the "Mom" archetype. He's mostly passive BUT hurt their love and they WILL torture you! They're bossy and demanding, but full of love. Pyro just loves to be cuddled. Can we just assume for all of this that Pyro's a female and with Pauling?Demo: He's fucking cuddle central, ain't he? He's open to being gay. Suspected it. Doesn't mind it. Though I do think his Mum wouldn't accept - at first. In the end, she'd settle that he's happy and can adopt (And isn't lazy! That's probably her biggest peeve). Demo is the relaxed and chill lover. Doesn't stress, and although a hardworker can slip into bouts of laze. His man would have to be able to party but strict enough to snap him into place. Like Soldier, they may have gone out to the big ball game, or partying or drinking. You know what? Just suggest that it's Soldier he's dating! And yes, he loves kissing, but the sloppy passionate kind. He likes to take a date home to just cuddle and watch that shitty ghost drama. Oh, but his sword may be teasing you both. FYI. Overall, he's very easy going and outgoing. He'll need someone fun to keep up but somewhat strict to stop him relapsing.Heavy: He quietly mulls things over, but it's nothing new nor strange. Like Sniper, he's quiet and reclusive, though he's physically imposing. Though the quiet type, he's very protective and loving. Can even have a laugh. His ideal dates are quiet, reading, moving, or even deep discussions. Anything intimate and meaningful is a worthy date to him. Like Sniper, he probably needs someone a little more forward to approach him, but otherwise is the more protective one. He's very brotherly too and nurturing like a bear. He just loves time with his man, after all time is the most expensive currency. He's more reserved on kissing. You should know he loves you.Engi: He's another that may be mortified of being gay, mainly because the Southern stereotype of it being "unnatural". But he hasn't seen his old man in a VERY long time, so fuck his approval! Engi is another shy boy... At first. His not reserved, but he is nervous at first. He is what's known as a people pleaser and is worried to get it wrong. Where he's an adventurous inventor, he lacks in forward personality. His partner would have to be really smart and ambitious, though not afraid to try new things. He's romantic and kinky like the Medic. A bit freaky too~ So his bloke would have to be ready for anything INCLUDING surprise dominance. As far as dates go, he loves a traditional homemade dinner with a side order of philosophy and smart talk. He's also up for going to a pub but not much of a clubber, unlike Demo. He SEEMS shy at kissing, but he ain't.Sniper: He's honestly mortified at first. His already a pariah to his parents, God what if this disowns him?! God, it keeps him up at night and makes him sick. When the truth does come out, he doesn't make the first contact to his parents. In his mind, he's now an orphan. To his luck, his parents are just delighted that he's found someone to love. That's honestly their biggest wish for him. Like the Scout, he's withdrawn and reclusive. Not necessarily shy though. Just a loner, think the Wolf Children. It takes awhile to get in his heart, but when you do, he's the protective type. Awkward with intimacy and a little oblivious, which probably annoys his bloke but hey it's kinda cute! He's about the little things, holding hands and lying under the stars. He's probably the first to really settle too. He prefers natural dates, like camping or archery. Heck, maybe a bit of reading, knitting and crafting too! Or kayaking. He needs a slightly more dominant man, a friendly and approachable one, one who gives loners like him time and space, and understanding. Somewhere between social and anti. But he's a good lover, just a misplaced one. And traditional, just like his pa. He's more of a hand holder than a kisser, but his kisses mean a lot to his lover.Medic: The actual gay. He's eccentric and creepy, grumpy and funky, boisterous and ambitious. He'd actually be good for someone like Engi or Hoover. Dominant and frisky, yet around others he can be cold and withdrawn. Not in the shy way, but he's not always one to give out love. He loves to experiment and do some freaky things on the first date. Things that border illegal (like smuggling exotic animal pieces). Risk taker. He doesn't like kisses much, but in the mood he will fuck you silly. He seems prissy and cowardly, but he would be the Queen and dominantor of his man.Spy: Like his son, he's taken a back. Mainly because he's used to charming women but surprisingly, he doesn't mind the change. It's actually a turn on. He's a traditional charmer, dinner by candlelight and a movie. Though he's up to some freakier stuff if his lover allows it. He's the mysterious charmer, though he's drawn to sass and mystery himself. And though he can be quite feminine about his clothes, he still makes a good lover for a man. He's just VERY high maintenance. Sometimes, the mysterious men he likes probably can't cope with his high demands, but he calls them standards. He'll need someone who can cope with his high needs and mask. He appears self sufficient, demeaning and cold, but in reality, he loves to feel loved. He gives tough love but means it. And he loves heated passion, making out and hard sex.

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Do you have any headcanons for ftm trans scout? Tf2 is a great game but it could use a little more representation..

Actually, I have a favourite little fanfic about exactly that. 

[That Name by Diredevil]

-

Headcanons?

Well, when they first band together, we know Scout is LOUD about how amazing a guy he is, and how fast/smart/strong/etc he is. And I think, perhaps under the circumstances there would be two reasons…The first being to establish himself as he/him to the group unforgettably, and secondly, to make himself feel comfortable in a new environment where things are uncertain.

That is to say, at home it’d been a bit weird for a bit as his Ma and brothers kept accidentally using [dead name] instead of Jeremy, and the wrong pronouns, but they got it eventually. Ma had cried when she realised, not bc there was anything wrong with Scout… just that “she’d accidentally given him the wrong name” (bc she had [dead name] and Jeremy picked out before he was born]. It was pretty touching.

Sure, someone made a smart comment about it… but Scout rarely had to raise a bat, before someone in the family was breaking their teeth and demanding they respect their brother. It was nice.

But on base, with RED? This was a different kettle of fish.

Scout had impulsively taken the job, even if it worried his family, that he was so far away with strangers. They didn’t say it out loud, but they didn’t want him away somewhere they couldn’t get to, if he needed them. And vice versa.The family was a Unit, and while their reputation kept low-level problems away, there were always threats that needed more than one person alone to deal with. 

Scout had fidgeted just about out of his skin the whole train ride to Teufort, it was boring as hell, especially for someone who liked to run. Besides, he was a bit worried about the outfit. You could see faint outlines of his bandages through it… he’d come up with a million excuses as to why he was wearing them… but who knew what would come out of his mouth when he was asked?

After a few useless minutes of internally panicking over it, Scout shoves the thoughts away and starts to hype himself up… 

RED didn’t just pick anyone, yeah? They needed the fuckin’ best!And here he was, the BEST at what he did!

-

Arriving was no big deal. 

Some others were there, others still coming. The Sniper seemed nice, but distant, but according to the others he was always like that. He seemed quiet, too, which was maybe why he’d just about run for cover when Scout started to rapidfire talk at the poor bugger… Funny, most Aussies were more… well, MORE. Then again, Scout wasn’t gonna go pointing fingers at the guy.He’d nearly been crushed by the Pyro’s hug, and Engineer slung a companionable arm over Scout’s shoulders as the Texan showed the runner about the place. If he noticed anything amiss, the man said nothing. Very friendly pair… Scout’d thought, til he saw the fucking flamethrower Pyro used… the way the flames reflected off the empty gasmask lenses sent a thrill of fear through the runner.

There was a Spy somewhere… Engie said he’d probably seen Scout already and would make himself known eventually.

The Soldier and Demo were playing cards when he’d met them; Soldier was almost as loud, and Demo seemed amazingly friendly. They’d invited him to play, but Engie pointed out they’d need to finish the tour first… 

So far, so good.

The Heavy hadn’t come in yet, something about having to take a secret flight out of Russia. And the Medic arrived an hour after Scout, so their introduction was brief… but the man had taken hold of the runner’s arm, when Engie was further ahead and asked how he was doing; and mentioned that he was aware of ‘zhe situation, so Scout should not hesitate to come to Medic vith any concerns, ja?’

Which was nice, but a little shocking even though it shouldn’t be. The doc would have been told… it was just, Scout wasn’t quite ready for others outside the immediate family and neighbourhood to know, right?

Medic had patted his shoulder, frowned a moment to himself, then ambled away. It was then the runner realised the man had a live, blood-spattered dove, on his shoulder… ‘Archimedes’ turns out, how’d he missed that?

Still, it was a solid introduction… his room was pretty nice, the lounge area or ‘common room’ had a sorta okay couch and a tv, so that was great. They were ordering pizza for dinner, but Engie mentioned something about making a cooking roster, once everyone’d settled in… that sounded exciting… not.Scout, despite his Ma’s best attempts to teach him, couldn’t cook for shit. Well, toast and basic stuff, but he swears the one time he tried to make a cake for his Ma’s birthday, the recipe book caught fire before he could start… it could sense an impending disaster.

The only real bother was… the bathroom. Standard set-up of a high school locker room, really… lockers, mirrors and sinks, a few cubicles, a urinal or two… and a long row of showers. Where were the stalls Miss P promised?

Fuck, this was going to be a problem.

Thankfully, he was still touring with Medic, who leaned over to mention that the Infirmary happened to have a small bathroom ‘vhich just so happened to have a shower if he vas interested’… and the runner let out a sigh of relief. “Doc, I could fuckin’ kiss ya…” he beamed, and the German chuckled.“Another time, perhaps, Herr Scout… I have to unpack first.” 

Seems like everything was pretty settled then. 

-

Miss Pauling called in, bringing the Heavy (or, as Scout first assumed, a mountain with a FACE holy shit the dude was big) with her. She spoke to each merc in turn, ascertaining whether they’d noticed anything they needed or if they’d noticed anything broken.

She was also trying to work out groceries, they’d get a weekly delivery from the local store at whatever base they ended up on… but for now there was an ad hoc list being tossed together. If they needed anything else… well, there was always the store itself. Engie had a truck, Medic an ambulance and the Sniper, his van.

Apparently this Spy fellow had a vehicle, but no one had seen him to ask. 

When Miss P got to Scout, and god did he have the worst crush on this amazing woman, she asked the same questions she had the others… then quietly leaned in to mention that if he told her his preferred brand, she could make certain any sanitary items he needed were sent on a bi-weekly basis. Maybe a calendar too. 

“Generous as you are smart and gorgeous, Miss P…” he’d grinned back, trying to charm.

She’d laughed, lightly, and put on a sympathetic smile. “Thank you, though you should know I’m not really into guys… or I’d date you in a heartbeat.” she teased. 

That? That sent Scout’s confidence into overdrive for the rest of the day… right up until he first met Spy.

-

Scout had taken a quick shower in the Infirmary when everyone else was busy. But as he left, he ran straight into Spy… the man literally appearing out of nowhere. He swore quite loudly in surprise, but the other remained nonchalant, narrowing his eyes at the runner.

“What are you doing here?” Spy asks, eventually. 

“Er… taking a shower?” Scout answers, truthfully. Holding up the messy bundle of his travel clothes and towel as proof.

“Non, I mean… what are you doing out here, on zhis base… ma fille?” Spy asked again, tilting his head. 

Now, Scout wasn’t sure what the french meant, but he had a feeling it wasn’t good. “I’m here cause I’m the best, ya fruity bastard, what’re you good at, hide’n’seek?” he mouths off in response.

Spy fixes the runner a look, dead in the eyes, as he says, “Zhis is no place for little girls, (dead name), you should know that by now.” 

And before Scout can even defend himself, the man has cloaked and gone.

Fear pools in the pit of his stomach, gnawing at him; it was all going so well, fuck, this wasn’t fair… his skin was crawling at hearing that fucking name again, especially laced with such-… such-… 

He wasn’t sure. Smug, condescending, cold… but all thrown together. That sense of wrongness, of displacement, which he thought had long since died since he’d had the chance to express himself properly… came flooding back. Fuck. If he could just… could just get to a phone and call Ma or one of his brothers… it’d be okay… he’d be okay…

“You okay, mate?” comes a voice by him, and nearly startles Scout out of his skin. Sniper’s by him, looking concerned. “Run in wiv the Spook, hey? Right bloody wanker he is, can’t wait to watch him die through me scopes.”

He’s hovering, not touching, because maybe he’s seen someone having a breakdown before, but the voice is a nice anchor. 

“B-be fine in a second, just gotta… phone home.” Scout says, simplifying his situation, and Sniper just nods. What had he heard? Fuck, did he know too?

Day one hadn’t been the time he wanted to disclose everything… 

“Sure, there’s one near the common room, but if you’re after privacy, I got one in me van, mate. C’mon… let’s set you right.” Sniper reassures, guiding the runner outside, and opening the van door. He points out the phone, offers a chair and asks if Scout was okay to be alone… the runner said yes, and dials the familiar number… relief flooding through him as his Ma picks up.

She’d sensed something was up with ‘her baby’ (he was going to be fifty with six kids of his own, and still be the family baby, Scout just fucking knew it)… and waited by the phone for his call.

“Jeremy, is everything okay?” she’d asked.Scout opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and told her everything. Afterwards, there was a moment of quiet before his Ma’s angry-calm tone came back on the line… “Oh, he did… did he?”There was three seconds when Scout assumed his mother was on her way here to flat out fucking murder the guy, before she sighed. “Scout, I didn’t wanna tell ya this LIKE this… but, I kinda knew about Spy before you left. He said he was working there too… was real pissed you were chosen’ n’everything. He knows, mostly ‘cause it’s his job to, and kinda cause he’s ya dad… I didn’t want you to find out like this, but it’s why he knew. No one told him or nothing. I’m so sorry honey.”

Spy was WHAT?

“Bombshell, huh? Well, least I got the best part of our union… you, baby. Wouldn’t trade ya for anything…” his Ma continued. She was always giving little peptalks like this to her boys… most of ‘em didn’t know their dads, but she was more than enough of a parent to them. Even when they surprised her on a daily basis (from pet snakes, to Johnny’s first boyfriend, to the time they put poprocks in a cake, and a thousand other ridiculous things). 

“Aw god, Ma…” he whines, flushing a little. “I’m good now… but thanks for picking up the phone so fast.”

“Anytime, my baby boy, anytime. And you let the bastard know I’m gonna kneecap ‘im when I see him next… love ya, bye!” 

He hears the phone clunk down, and chuckles. There’s a knock on the door, and Sniper peers in, “You good? Heard ya still on the phone when I got back… didn’t wanna interrupt, hate when people do that.”

“Yeah, fine… thanks.” Scout responds.

“Good, mate… time for tucker, anyway. C’mon, that Engineer bloke made something that smells amazing.” Sniper yawns, rubbing at his face. “Sorry, s’not you… timezones here are all warped around, still trying to get used to it. I mean, I did take international jobs before, but that was like, a week at most in another country, now I have to be on-board for battle in your morning… which is my night, y’see?”

The casual talk just seemed to set Scout at ease, as they moved towards the common room -it was the only room in the base with a dining table after all. He didn’t wanna go slinging the word ‘friendship’ around like some starry eyed primary schooler but… he’s pretty sure they’ve somehow formed one in the last hour. Not sure how, exactly, but it was pretty good.

-

Dinners were loud, chaotic and fun.

Spy slunk in at some point, but refused to talk. There was discolouration about his nose, and his mask seemed to bulge about the nose, like there was a dressing there. He glowered at Scout, then at Sniper; who grinned at the runner.

Turns out he’d decked the bastard one, when Scout was on the phone. Now, the runner wasn’t one for arbitrarily throwing marriage proposals around, but… He’d thanked him, and Sniper dismissed it with casual ease. 

Someone asked Spy about his face, and he made a scathing remark about feral bushmen and little girls that no one bothered to pry into. Otherwise, dinner was great, engie was a hell of a cook. 

-

Medic had to give them all their physicals, and insert the respawn chips… but apparently he also had something called an ‘uber implant’ that he was going to put in at the same time. Scout doesn’t remember much of it… just Medic doing a once over, tutting at the bandages (yeah yeah, not like ya can just order a freakin’ sports bra out of the Mann Co catalogue without someone asking questions), and using his bird as a distraction whilst he sneakily got the needle-fearing runner with the anaesthetic. 

Scout would never forgive archie, the fancy pigeon had fooled him with that fluffy please-pet-me wiggle… fully knowing his owner was waiting to pounce.

Still, when he woke up, his chest felt heavier than usual, not too bad just off. And the back of his neck was tingly. No scars though… which was fucking weird. That medigun thing was pretty amazing. 

For a second, Scout feels something wiggle around inside his ribcage… and then a coo. “Uh, Doc?”

He hears, “Oh schiesse, Archimedes you naughty bird!” before Medic’s at it with the anaesthetic again. 

-

When Scout finally wakes up birdfree, everything feels relatively normal. He gets up, slips on his clothes and thanks the Doc for everything, throwing a suspicious glance at Archimedes. 

“Uh, hey Doc… if ya got a fancy gun that can fix everything, how come Spy still looks like Snipes inverted his nose?” he suddenly asks, curious. 

Medic, looking slightly terrifying as he caresses his bonesaw, laughs. “Oho, vell… I vas informed by someone zhat his injury vas vell-deserved, und felt perhaps he vill learn his lesson better should he be left to suffer…”

…perhaps this was a man to be feared… even if he occasionally handed out lollipops after operations. Scout had a red one in his mouth right now. 

“Ya the best doc, I ever tell ya that before?” Scout grins. Another question was swirling around his mind, as he lingered in the doorway… and Medic seemed to sense it. “Uh, and also about ya medigun, can it… ya know how it don’t do scars and all, can ya maybe fix…” he points at his chest. 

“Vhen you are ready, a little later on, ve can discuss dealing vith other concerns such as zhat one. It is no big matter, surgically from my standpoint; but zhere are physiological implications to take into account. Und zhis is only day one… ve have time, I assure you; but for now you really must find something better zhan bandages. Zhe Medigun und respawn can heal some damage, but permanent use can deform your body…” Medic responds.

“I’ll try,” he says, “but ya mean it? ‘Cause we couldn’t find anyone at home who would…”

“Zhey are fools, zhen. Luckily, ve are on zhe same team…” winks Medic, “Now shoo, I have others to see today besides you, young man…” 

“Ya saying you don’t wanna appreciate all this gorgeous manly beauty for a little longer? I’m shocked! Here I was doing ya a solid by giving ya something nice to look at, when ya have to spend the rest of the day dealing with all the other old codgers…” Scout grins, cheekily, flexing… then ducking and laughing, as Medic tosses a handful of tongue depressors at him. 

“Get out of here, you cheeky junge…” the German manages, laughing heartily at the other’s antics. Scout pokes his tongue out as he disappears around the door.

-

His first death was a shock. Both to him, and the bloke who shot him.

The BLU!Scout’s eyes went wide as the scattergun exploded, and blood welled through the shirt; Scout felt fiery pain for a moment, then cold… then finally, nothing. His body hit the ground, before he could even process it… and then, he was kinda, here but nowhere.

Just for a few seconds though. It was like the teleporters, really, you just stayed in place, a continuous stream of consciousness… but you moved places. Some light, a weird whirring noise… and suddenly, he was back where he started the match. It was 2Fort, so the room was small, stark, and sparsely furnished. 

It felt real fuckin’ bizarre. 

He was immediately flattened by the Medic popping out of nowhere in a haze of light, landing on him. Scout made a strained wheeze, while the other scrambled up and off. 

“Scout? Oh, sorry… vell, zhat vas a unique experience, I must say. We had better move before Herr Heavy comes through…” Medic mutters. “Zhat BLU Spy is quite zhe pest, especially vith those disguises and all…”

“Sixty seconds remaining of Testing Phase Match.” warned the Administrator. 

This match was a formality, neither side was to win, just… die, and learn to cope with it. They’d only been in it for five minutes or so, so far, but it wasn’t supposed to last long… 

Scout’d made a  mental map of the sewers by now (that was a surprise), and even made it to the other intel room (though it was empty), before he’d been chased down by the BLU Scout. It was bizarre to think they could just… resurrect, no matter what… but everyone was getting used to it.

“See ya out there, Doc!” Scout winks, and leaves as Heavy reappears in the spawn sector.

-

Battle had been going great. Hell, he’d died hundreds of times that week alone, and killed almost as many; captured intel, lost it, taunted, attacked, defended, caught out the BLU Spy a few times…

Saved lives, had his life saved.

God, the Doc had even ubered him a few times and that was… wow, it was like being a god in a finite form, even for just a few seconds. He fuckin’ loved it!

Spy was still being a dick, but like, in French. Heavy and Medic seemed to understand him, because they tended to glare the man down… but Scout didn’t give a shit. Let the guy be bitter and weird about it, anyone who legs it on their family wasn’t worth anyone’s time anyway…

The others were pretty great to know, actually. Kind of like his own family, a bit weird, chaotic and sometimes the kitchen caught fire… but safe, fun, protected. Being here was turning out pretty great. 

He could almost forget who he was outside the base, ‘cause no one ever used names, only Classes here. And sure, that seemed real weird to begin with, but it made sense and all. Though he still called home once a week to touch bse with Ma and all… that was a given.

Apparently Snipes did too, so Scout didn’t feel so awkward about admitting to the others he needed to call his Ma… it was hard enough being the youngest without saying that sort of thing. Still, he can always use the one in the van if he needed, Sniper had offered. 

Engie kept calling him ‘son’, and teaching him things. Did something similar with Pyro, except he used ‘Py’, ‘cause no one was sure what the firebug identified as… never saw them outta the suit, either, to take a guess. 

Scout could now make… exactly one tiny model of a sentry that shot nails. He was also banned from pranking people with it…

Demo always had an amazing story to captivate the room with. Though Scout didn’t quite trust the magical talking sword the guy had… it gave the runner an eerie feeling just looking at it. He did like to drink, and who wouldn’t given some of the stuff the guy had seen? But he was pretty good at keeping the rest of the base from any drunken shenanigans. He’d even talked a very inebriated Soldier-Medic duo out of taking a nude dip in the water beneath the 2Fort bridge… despite how adamant the pair were at the time.

Heavy, as it turns out, was a ridiculously smart man. Just his English ain’t great, yet so Scout had to stop slinging slang at the poor guy, because it was too hard to keep up. Heavy sometimes read books aloud, for Scout… and sometimes Medic who was usually nearby pretending the two weren’t together, but Scout wasn’t an idiot. ‘Cause the runner had issues with words, they sometimes slid off the page when he was reading and it was a pain… made school harder than it had to be, really.

Medic & Sniper were consistently on his side.

Soldier was a very loud man, who firmly believed in certain ideals (e.g. all of RED were Americans) and acted like a commander most of the time. But he was a nice guy, if chaotic… he’d adopted a whole host of raccoons recently… that was a unique experience. Still, he never failed to let the team know his thoughts, nor failed to praise, bolster, encourage when necessary

Scout would just like it if the guy could stop with the “What are you, a girl?”/ “C’mon ladies, time to take your tampons out and man up!”/etc. thing. He knew it was just something the super macho army guys’d yell at each other but it was a little grating… but he wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

…until his tolerance level took a rather strong hit, as it usually did, once a month. He was a very fit young man, so generally it wasn’t a problem, you learned to live with it after a bit; even in guy clothes. His Ma worked out a solution with her sewing kit and twenty minutes of staring at a pair of new briefs. 

But even the most athletic people still have a bad period now and then. It wasn’t… like, traumatic or anything, for Scout; it was just part of his life, and he was a guy who sometimes felt like death was coming once a month. If he was lucky, a few cramps and that could be easily dealt with through painkillers and stretching… but there were times, when they were pretty damn bad. Like, on the verge of puking, bad. 

And of course, it had to happen eventually on base… but he’d been hoping, maybe, not the first month here. Of all fucking times!His performance took a bit of a dive, because of this, and maybe that’s why he didn’t censor himself when Soldier yelled at him. 

“C’mon maggot, stop being a damn sissy and get out there!” 

“How ‘bout you go fuck yourself?” he snaps back, breathing through the odd twinges emanating from his abdomen. God damn it, why now? They were 2-2 on intel capture, and his freaking uterus was trying to escape…

“How dare you backtalk a superior officer! Where’s all this sass coming from, you PMS-ing like a girl, soldier?” the other shouts, and Scout is thankful they’re alone, because he’s in too much discomfort to give a shit as he answers.

“YES, you flag-fucking son of a bitch!” he snaps back, and immediately panics. His eyes go wide, and they both stare at one another for a long minute.

Soldier looks him up and down, frowning. Or at least, Scout thinks that’s frowning, based on the fact the helmet obscures most of his face.

“…Private, I’m sorry.” Soldier breaks the tension with, surprising the runner. “Had I been informed of your tactical situation, son, I would have used different motivational techniques…”

Scout feels the anger, the fear, dissipate somewhat. Soldier seems genuinely distressed that he’s upset the runner…

“…I didn’t tell anyone ‘cept Doc and I think maybe Snipes worked it out. Didn’t wantcha to think like Spy, that I don’t belong on RED ‘cause they got my birth certificate wrong…” Scout says, clenching his fist as another twinge ruins the moment.

Soldier puts his hand on the runner’s shoulder in a companionable display of affection. “Son, I-… RED are the best at what they do, men, women, Pyro… it doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid to admit I was wrong, or that I’m sorry, and I’ll try not to say anything stupid like that again…”

“Nah I’m just a bit sensitive because-…” Scout tries, but Soldier interrupts.

“Son, if I have learned anything about people, and especially people with your monthly concern, it’s that they’re never oversensitive about things. They just put up with a tonne of shit until they’re too stressed out, too upset or in just far too much discomfort to play polite… never apologise for being real.” Soldier said, as if it was a throwaway statement and not the most epiphany-like moment Scout had ever experienced up until then. 

“Heh, thanks man.” Scout responds. Then lets out a shout of surprise as Soldier tosses him over his shoulder, “What the hell?”

“Doc was back by Engie, last I saw… one of them should have something to take the edge off… get you back in fighting form and all.” Soldier responds, oddly considerate. 

Scout lets out a startled yelp as they rocket jump off the platform, he’d always wanted to try it but not from this angle!

They do find Engie, and his dispenser provides some relief until the man can fish a small packet of panadol out of his toolkit. He doesn’t ask why, he’s laid back like that. 

Scout is honestly relieved at how this ended up such a non-event.

-

Some of the others have noticed Scout doesn’t shower with them, but have made their own assumptions (he’s young, it might be weird to shower with all these big, muscly older dudes). Scout’s honestly surprised Spy hasn’t used that in a big reveal, yet… but he senses the other is waiting for something. 

Scout still flirts with Miss P when she comes on base, because she’s beautiful and he does still kinda love her, but there’s also a degree of thrill to having her turn him down because ‘she’s not into boys’. She’s known from the start, and never once misgendered him… never leaves him without anything he needs, either. Last time, he even found a large box of his favourite chocolate in there amongst the items, and he had a feeling that was her doing too…

God she needed more than one day off a year, even if Scout only took her out as a friend… she was too damn good to them all. 

Demo did mention in passing that Scout had a nice body and if he was concerned about not measuring up to the others in the shower, then he didn’t need to worry, this wasn’t high school. No one pulled ye olde point and laugh here. Soldier had jumped in and gone off on a tangent about cleanliness in the ranks, and how privates should wash theirs whenever, and wherever possible. Which derailed the conversation a bit, though Scout could see the cogs whirring in Demo’s mind. Afterwards, when they had a quiet moment, Demo approached in a casual way; out of earshot of the others, to speak with him.“Lad... like I said before, it disnae matter what ye do or don’t have... you can always shower with the rest of the team, and no one’ll gawk. Pyro showers in their suit and it was only a bit odd the first time. But I’m sensing that the reason has to do with someone on the team, and ye should know I’m always ready to throw a punch for ye, lad, never forget it. Just say the word.” He winks. Or, Scout assumes it was, considering...“Thanks, man. Maybe... soon. I just-... I mean, I trust like, alla ya except Spy but only a few people either know or have worked it out. Not that I think Pyro’d care, or Engie... pretty sure Snipes knows, Medic, Soldier, Heavy probably worked it out, and now you seem to...” Scout trails off.

“...so Spy’s the blaggard, is he?” Demo’s voice was a little colder.

“Well yeah, but it’s... more than that.” Scout adds, shoulders slumping, “First thing he said was... well he kinda called me his daughter and used the wrong name’n’all. When I called Ma about it, ‘cause it freaked me out, she kinda mentioned he’s my dad...”

“Well, fuck, laddie. I’m going to get some of the hard stuff, and we can bag him out until we pass out, aye?” Demo offers, beaming.

“Sounds like a plan to me...” Scout answers, following as the Scot led the way.

Medic was too busy laughing at the hungover pair to do anything useful, for at least half an hour; because apparently they serenaded the Doc, whilst inebriated, in violently clashing accents and utterly out of tune. Heavy had had to carry them to bed.

Neither merc would let them forget it for years to come.

-

Everything just sort of clicked into place, really.

It was like home, with his Ma and brothers... except with more murder and death on a daily basis. Also, better cooking. Scout cannot emphasise that enough. Engie’d even managed to get Scout cooking basic dishes properly... and only the toaster had caught fire that one time. 

Actually, the more Scout interacted with the guy, the more he seemed to realise that Engie had known all along. Especially since the man went out of his way to call him ‘son’, ‘lad’, ‘boy’, and ‘young man’ in every sentence... it was nice. Scout should have twigged earlier, really.

So he stopped taking Spy’s shit, and decided to just confront the guy publicly. Spies didn’t like exposure, but Scouts revelled in it.

“....so emotional, don’t you think that’s a handicap for this line of work?” purrs the Spy, appearing behind Scout at the table. He’s eating cereal and reading a new Flash comic, but he’s not alone; most of the others are lounging across the room by the tv, but all attention is immediately, subtly turned on Spy and Scout. God help the man.

“Funny you should say that, I saw you losin’ ya shit after that Blu poured piss on ya, earlier...” Scout backhands, blandly. Not rising to the bait.

He can sense the man’s lips curling into a scowl of disgust. “Zhat is another matter entirely... I am talking about-...” Spy responds, but Scout interjects.

“Oh I know whatcha talking about, there pal, and if ya don’t fuck off I’ll slap ya silly with a used tampon... see how ya cope emotionally after that, huh?” Scout grins at the revulsion on Spy’s face.

“So vulgar, of course you get zhat from your mother... as daughters often do.” 

Well fuck. Scout slams the spoon down and stands up, getting right up into Spy’s face. 

“Now look, you creepy bastard, the reality of this is ya thought ya had a daughter... but surprise, it’s a fucking boy! Now accept ya have a son, that ya abandoned by the way, or go one annoying the shit outta him about the fact that ya wanted a girl to abandon instead. Either way, he doesn’t fucking care.” 

Spy looked taken aback. 

“Yeah, I said it out loud, surprised? The rest of the team knows, they don’t give a shit as far as I know... you’re the one with the hangup. So maybe just come to terms with your own crap, and when you think you’re human enough, we can try to do the whole dad-son thing, okay?” Scout finishes. He’s tired, of this fight, of this conversation. It had been building for months. 

Spy just stares at him for a long moment, as if he had never seen Scout before this very second... and finally composes himself. “Very well... mon fils.” He has cloaked and left, before Scout can fully register what has happened. 

“Good job laddie!” Demo cries, coming over to clap him on the shoulder. 

Sniper puts his Huntsman down, nodding to the runner as if it was nothing. Pyro hugged Scout, but that may have been unrelated to the whole situation... Pyro just liked to hug. Engie said, “Proud of ya, son.” and left it at that.

The others acknowledged the moment, but didn’t make a fuss.

All in all, it was pretty good.

-

Maybe in time Spy can reconcile.

Maybe not.

But it doesn’t matter as long as the team is on Scout’s side, no matter what. 

Scout... Jeremy... loves being a RED, for precisely that reason.

- - - - - - - - - -

The End.

Headcanons like that?

#Anonymous #tf2 #scouts #trans #ftm #Scout #added everyone #did make spy a dick but he seems the most likely to be difficult #to soldier there is no gender... only Americans

[0poole]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Good God.

I finally managed to watch the final episodes of the show, and even though it wasn’t the most pitch-perfect ending ever (and even though I skipped like all of the final season), I still gotta dish out my thoughts on the whole thing. It’s not my tippy-top most favorite show, but it’s definitely the one with the most lasting impact on me. I mean, considering it created one of the biggest fandoms of all time, I’m pretty sure I’m far from alone there.

Obviously have to start from the beginning. I think I got into MLP around the 2nd season, maybe in the middle of it but definitely before the 3rd. I don’t exactly remember, since it was so long ago, but the first two seasons might hold some of the most saccharine, mindless nostalgia of all. Every single episode holds some spot in my memory, even the filler episodes with the cheesy notes to Celestia at the end of them. Honestly those were adorable, even if they were the classic kid’s show trope of “Let’s explain the moral to the kids who don’t have half a brain” but it’s actually pretty charming. That’s nostalgia talking, by the way. Obviously. If I found a new show today that did that, I’d roll my eyes a little, and I probably did when I was first watching the show. 

But, it’s an understatement that this was my life. Of course, I was at that time of my life where one thing could very easily become my entire world, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t matter to me. The pretty solid, unchanging artstyle gave me an opening to try and draw it, and for years I exclusively drew ponies, and even when I had a human character, I’d only be able to draw them in pony form, so I ended up meshing their stories into fanfiction on how they could become ponies. My “Icon” character at the time, Satyr, was probably the first original character I drew, and I can still remember the exact drawing I made of him. Obviously a pony, he was sort of larger and masculine, conveniently blinking eye so I didn’t have to deal with that, basic hair/tail styles, and for some reason a jagged zig-zag pattern going laterally across his body, like those “How would a horse wear pants?” memes. I thought it was really good, so I kept going, and here I am ages later still drawing stuff. I couldn’t even bare to fully ditch the shitty characters I made (and I’m going to explain them without context because I just feel like it): Satyr got split into his immortal and prince-ly side; Diane, a manic serial killer, shrunk down but kept her impossibly anxious personality; Gaseous is basically all the same, except he doesn’t meet the rest of the crew in what parts of his story I know about; Sistenagon (here we go with the weird names, they don’t mean anything) still kept his (her? Don’t actually remember which I called it) wasp-y nature, except in the form of an insect-based fairy tribe leader; Stelerachyt, who I drew as a Diamond Dog, is still a big, fluffy, dog, but turned into a more regal and kingly type of person; and Myriad Alloy (the only one with an actual pony name) got a complete makeover, and actually became my favorite end result after all is said and done.

Like, I love ranting about these guys. They were basically my own Mane Six. And yes, Satyr TOTALLY dated Twilight. Why wouldn’t he? Main character a Main character. Plus, he was supposed to be me, and I totally wanted to hit that. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I mean, I guess a big part of why I actually went down that path was because of the large fanbase. I didn’t begin with the beginning of the show, but I guess I came in with the first large wave, so all of the stuff I made got just enough attention to make me think people wanted to see what I was making. If I started out with OCs, no one would’ve cared, and I very well could’ve stopped.

Even apart from that, this show definitely kick started my downward spiral into femininity. I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Everyone “knew” MLP as being something super shallow, only to be enjoyed by shallow little girls, then they pumped out Friendship is Magic and everyone else loved it, so I gave it a shot, and I loved it too. Obviously every fandom has the people who openly, irrationally hate them, but the whole thing was welcoming enough to keep it solidified in my mind, and bish bash bosh, it kept going and will probably keep going into eternity. It’s funny, even then I drew Satyr with the more feminine pony design (not entirely because drawing the male pony type was harder), so I was setting myself up for the future.

I guess this kind of gives me a window to talk about My Life as a Teenage Robot, because for as long as I could remember before actually watching the show, I seriously despised any instance of XJ9 I could find. If an image of her popped up on screen, I would close it faster than if it was porn found while around my parents. I don’t know why she was so harshly ingrained in my mind. You could argue I just hated “girly” stuff before I realized I actually loved it, and didn’t want to face my emotions, but I wasn’t exaggerating at all about that porn thing. I actually couldn’t look at her for more than a second. But, one day I decided to cave in and see what was up, and soon enough she became one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time.

Back to ponies, some of the content produced by the fandom also had some extremely fond memories in my mind. I think I still have some songs by The Living Tombstone and WoodenToaster on my MP3 player (partially because it’s just good stuff) and for some reason playing on MLP-themed TF2 servers was actually really fun too. Some notable fandom people reacting to recent episodes was a spectacle I always looked forward to, and I still am subscribed to Saberspark and Ratchet on Youtube after all this time, probably as well as various other people who are still there but haven’t posted anything since the settling of the fandom. I just remembered, Hotdiggetydemon probably qualifies for all that too, since his .Mov series was the talk of the whole fandom. That, and Friendship is Witchcraft. I had to re-look up the name of that one though, but I still loved it.

I guess I should play favorites, huh? Favorites was the one game everyone in the fandom played. 

Favorite episode: Can’t not be a tie between the 2-parters of Season 2. Discord is a riot, and Chrysalis is actually one of my favorite villain designs of all time. I’m a sucker for both shapeshifters and bugs, so you can’t expect me to not like her. Glad she rode the villain boat till the very end, although reformed Discord is definitely fine too. Plus, the rest of the Changelings turned anyway.

Favorite song: You expect me to not tie things up here? The Flim Flam brother’s Super Cider Squeezy 6000 is great, as are the brothers themselves, and I also love This Day Aria, since it’s the focal point where people realized this show seriously wasn’t just colorful, cute ponies. The Art of the Dress is also pretty catchy. 

Actually, just remembered. Under Our Spell might be it. Took me a while to remember the EQG stuff, but that song is seriously good, and unironically better than the generic dribble that somehow magically beat it.

Favorite background pony(ies): Vinyl and Octavia are a pretty cute duo, and with the killer duet in the Slice of Life episode, ya gotta love em. Funny thing, though: There’s this background pony that looks almost identical to my current self-insert pony OC, with purple hair and a grey coat, with a seemingly writing-based cutie mark and green eyes. He’s even a unicorn too. It wasn’t intentional, I swear.

Favorite CMC: Sweetie Belle is too much. Her little squeaks are too pure. I can’t take it. Applebloom has nice colors, though.

Favorite Princess: If you don’t say Luna you’re a cop

Favorite non-pony species: Obviously Changelings, but after their reformation the honors actually switch to the Kirins, just because of how cool they look. The Yaks are pretty fun too. Speaking of…

Favorite nu-Mane Six (or are they called the School Six? Whatever, you know what I mean): All Yona. And yes, I had to look up her name was, who cares? She’s adorable.

Favorite of the Pillars of Equestria: I honestly love that they made Starswirl an actual character in the show. For the longest time, people just assumed he would stay in the form of Twilight’s Nightmare Night costume forever, but then they actually made him real! That’s really cool.

Favorite Equestria Girls design: Once again, Sweetie Belle steals both this spot and my heart.

And, of course… Favorite of the Mane Six:

Honestly, it just depends on the mood I’m in. Not even remotely lying there.

Fluttershy would’ve been my answer way back then, since I was into the shy types. There’s definitely something still there. You can’t deny that she’s the most cuddly of them all.

Twilight might’ve been a tie for the top around then too, since I was also the too-smart-for-humanity type. That leads into you liking the “smart” ones. Plus, in the latter half of the series, she did feel like she was put one step above the rest of the cast. That kinda makes her feel slightly off, I guess. Still like her, though.

Pinkie Pie’s one of those that I can imagine liking, but if I ever actually had to deal with that much energy I might actually melt. And, not in that I’m-totally-in-love kind of melting. Literal, actual melting. 

Rarity, in terms of concept, is easily my favorite type of character for the show. On the surface, she’s the generic fashionista type that every girl’s show has, but instead of her being someone who “just makes clothes” she’s actually seriously hard working and goes through all the regular motions you’d expect from an artist. Turning such a cliche on its head and giving it a much more realistic image is perfect for this show. Also, she’s purple. I like purple.

Not much really needs to be said about Applejack. She really seems like the most logical one of the group, even at the very beginning. That’s great to have when everyone else is acting like spoiled/sheltered brats (at least, when she’s not acting that way either).

But, I really gotta be honest… I’m never really in the mood for Rainbow Dash. She’s like the opposite of AJ, where she’s always some degree of arrogant, and even though watching her achieve her dreams is nice, her big head gets a little annoying for side gags. Also, if you showed me a plain picture of the Mane Six, I would’ve told you she was the main character instead of Twilight, just because she stands out so much more. I mean, the show isn’t called ��Twilight Sparkle: Friendship is Magic,” but still.

If you really want a straight answer, I’m in a Rarity mood right now, so I’ll go with that. It’s probably the safest bet, because, like I said, I do love purple. Not just purple, but purple AND white put together. One of my favorite color combinations. Just add a little gold, and you’re, well, you know...

But… Yeah. All good things had to come to an end. I feel like its time came. Plus, they ended the show with the little story book thing they did in the very first episode, so as far as I’m concerned the series is complete. It did its job, anyway.

#mlp #mlp fim #friendship is magic #my little pony #rant #rambling #opinions #nostalgia #poole #cute #mlp 10th anniversary

[squadaloo]

My year in games - 2017 (First half)

For the past few years, my interest in games had been dwindling.  Despite the long list of games I played in 2016, only a few lasted me very long and only a couple I found gripping enough to play more than an hour at a time.  2017 so far has had no less than 5 such games in which hours melted away while playing them.  Here are the games I’ve played so far this year:

Batman: A Telltale Game Series (PS4, Beat game once) - I received this for Christmas.  It’s my first Telltale game since I generally don’t enjoy interactive stories, and I found it pretty decent but not great.  First off, the game on the PS4 is marred by absolutely horrible glitches.  The game full on crashed no less than 5 times throughout my playthrough, and one option on the main menu (the one that lets you review your choices) causes the game to softlock without fail every time.  With that being said, the story the game tells is pretty decent and different for a Batman game with there being more Bruce Wayne than usual.  While I liked that aspect of the story, the Bruce Wayne presented here felt almost too...nice.  Like, I found it hard to believe he could be Batman even in his darker moments.  Also, I can’t confirm this without replaying the game, but I left feeling like my choices basically didn’t matter and the game was essentially funneling towards the same conclusions every time.

Planet Coaster (PC, Spent 70 hours on one park) - Planet Coaster is the closest anybody has come to making a truly great, powerful, but relatively simple to use theme park builder.  The management aspects of the game when I last played back in January left much to be desired and there were numerous annoyances I had with placing objects and with limited ride choices, but overall I was able to make what I felt was a beautiful park over the course of 70 hours.

Overwatch (PC, Spent 5 hours in Private Matches) - Yes, I finally got the game everybody and their mom has been talking about.  I’m generally not a FPS fan, but I did like Team Fortress 2 for its variety of classes, and Overwatch very much feels like an expansion of TF2′s idea.  With a wide variety of fun characters, you’re bound to pick a few you like.  Overall, the game is great fun with friends.  However, I haven’t played it as much as I’d like given I don’t want to play with randoms online because I suck.

Rocket League (PC, Spent 2 hours in Private Matches) - Bought this for a LAN party.  It’s fun for a few insane hours with friends and the variety of game modes keeps things interesting.  Ultimately though, I did get tired of it.  It seems like a game best taken in small doses.

Gravity Rush 2 (PS4, Spent 30 hours beating the game and side missions, spent another 30 hours goofing around) - Much like its predecessor, Gravity Rush 2 is a game I love so much more than the sum of its parts.  It improves the combat from the original game by weakening your main gravity kick forcing you to rely on multiple other moves, adds more enemies, and new styles for attacking.  Flying around and controlling gravity is a blast.  However, not everything is perfect:  there’s a few missions where you’re in tight quarters and the camera becomes a nightmare.  It also has terrible stealth missions, and they are numerous.  The game is fun overall, but certainly doesn’t use its gravity flipping mechanics to their full potential.  Other than that, though, the environments are very pretty, large, and well realized:  I’d dare say the cities of Jirga Para Lhao and Hekseville are two of my favorite locations in all of gaming and I enjoyed just wandering around taking in the sites.

The story is very fragmented and feels more like a bunch of different seasons of a show condensed and often has plot holes that don’t make a whole lot of sense, but it does a great job of building characters you care about.  By the end of the game and the series, Kat and Raven pretty much became my favorite characters in any game because they were well realized, had arcs, and were overall just fun to be around.  Raven especially gets a shoutout because the game’s great partner AI actually does some of the character building for her.  Too often in games, you get a simple partner that helps you attack enemies around you and not much else.  Raven actively helps you achieve your goals:  need to pick up 7 people and take them to a location but can only pick up 2 at a time?  No worries, Raven will split up and take a few herself.  Need to sneak into a base, but there’s two guards in the way?  You attack one and she’ll automatically attack the other.  Start a super attack on a boss?  She’ll notice and if she’s not tied up fighting another enemy, she’ll join you.  It seems so simple, but it’s amazing how often things like this don’t really happen in other games.  It actually made me miss her the few times she’d step aside in the story.

The side missions also do a great job of giving you great nuggets of story, sort of like breather filler episodes in a TV show.  However, ultimately my love of the game really boils down to the final two hours of the game being absolutely phenomenal.  What it lacks in fully satisfying answers to questions it more than makes up with great gameplay and unbelievably satisfying character development.  I’ve never been more satisfied with the ending of a game in my life, and it is to date the only game to ever make me cry.  Oh, and the soundtrack is among the best ever.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch, Spent 100 hours beating the game and every shrine along with other sidequests) - You know, ask anybody what they think about this game and they’ll pretty much all start listing the things they don’t like.  For me, it’s the rain.  It’s irritating and flat out denies you progressing at points.  The weapon durability, while not a bad idea, can also be irritating.  The dungeons, while a neat idea, could really stand to be longer and more fleshed out.  The final boss is too easy.

After they’ve finished listing their qualms, though, everybody pretty much says the same thing:  “but other than that, it’s perfect.”  Breath of the Wild is a game in which you almost never actively think about how great it is while playing it, but come to appreciate it more and more when you go to play other games.  I never once thought “Oh my God, this game is amazing” and yet I also rarely had a play session last shorter than 4 hours.  For somebody who rarely can pay attention to a single game for more than an hour at a time, I cannot stress how engaging a game has to be for me to sit down and play it for 4 hours at a time, and yet this happened constantly for about 2 weeks straight with Zelda.  Combat is simple, but always satisfying as you’re constantly reading attacks and waiting to get that perfect dodge to activate flurry rush.  One of my favorite things to do in open world games is explore, but one of my least favorite things to do is constantly backtrack.  The huge number of shrines (which are great in their own right) means I can explore to my heart’s content, but almost always just fast travel wherever I want whenever I want.  I cannot stress how much the fast travel system and climbing has ruined other games for me:  it feels so liberating to be able to go anywhere quickly.  The world is full of interesting characters and things to see despite how vast it is.  It’s an achievement.

In the past, I’ve found the story in Zelda games to be pretty weak.  They seem like the good basis for a plot, but outside of a few exceptions (Midna, Hilda, Spirit Tracks Zelda) failed to have truly good characters with solid arcs.  I’ve seen many people complain about the story in Breath of the Wild probably because its mostly told through short optional memories and hidden diaries, but honestly, I think it’s heads and shoulders better than any story the series has told so far.  It’s a story that’s truly about the Legend of Zelda:  it’s about how the characters respond to the burden of having to live up to the legend and I find that to be an absolutely brilliant idea.  I don’t want to get too deep into spoilers, but Nintendo said in one of their behind the scenes videos that their goal was to make Zelda “a character worth saving” and I feel they definitely succeeded.  BotW’s Zelda is easily the best character in the entire series with a full satisfying arc.

Simply put, the game is amazing.  Buy it.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo Switch, Spent 95 hours playing an enhanced version of a game I played 250 hours of) - Mario Kart 8 is my favorite Mario Kart.  Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is for the most part, a better version of my favorite Mario Kart.  I was at first irritated about having to rebuy this game because I was afraid I wouldn’t want to play it very much.  However, the portability of the Switch quickly took that thought out of my mind as I’ve been able to play with people at work on my breaks and bring it over for LAN parties.  The game’s full of great tracks, great music, and great racing.  The changed item balance makes racing near the front of the pack much more fun and less frustrating since you can’t get screwed over by coins as much.  However, the middle of the pack is now Hell due to the double item system so it’s a bit of a trade off.  Overall though, I find myself having to think more while racing in MK8DX:  thinking about whether there’s double item boxes up ahead, whether I should save my item or risk it to try to get a new item, whether I want to hold this coin for a boo to take or not, and so on which I think makes it more engaging than vanilla 8.

Also, the new Battle Mode doesn’t suck.

Star Trek Bridge Crew (PSVR, Spent 3 hours total between online and single player) - I wanted to like this game more than I do because I like VR and I like Star Trek.  The core idea of the game is interesting:  you and 3 other people team up to take different positions on the bridge of a Starfleet vessel and go on a mission.  Indeed, in the one match I played online with random people, this idea was fun...except there’s the fundamental flaw that other people are awful and will ruin everything.  In my case, I got to listen to a guy hit on the female NPCs on the bridge for 30 minutes and divide them up on who on our crew would get who.  It completely ruined the game experience for me and I felt embarrassed to be playing.

There is a single player mode in which you’re just the captain, but it feels kind of boring.  It wasn’t long before the siren song of Mario Kart pulled me away from this.  I’ll probably return to it some day, though, since I still have plenty of missions left to try.

Nier Automata (PC, Spent 35 hours getting endings A-X and Z, as well as side quests) - This is a game I hadn’t heard of until Kotaku staff members mentioned in a post in late 2016 how it was a game they were really looking forward to for 2017.  The demo for it went up on the Playstation store at the same time as the Gravity Rush 2 demo so I figured “why not?”  Turns out the demo was fucking amazing, but I decided to wait until it was cheaper to buy since I had other games to play.

For those unaware, Nier Automata is an action RPG that is also a platformer, a topdown shooter, hack and slash, shooter, and whatever else it Goddamn pleases to be at any given moment.  Somehow, despite these shifts in gameplay, it manages to be mostly competent in all of them.  However, after an excellent prologue (as seen in the demo) in which it constantly shifts perspectives to keep things fresh, it becomes open world and spots shifting as much which I found to be disappointing as it was the thing that sold me on the game.  It’s also the first open world game I played after playing Breath of the Wild, and so going back to feeling restricted to having to walk to fast travel points, not having fast travel unlocked until partway through the story, and having to backtrack quite a bit was a shock.  It’s not bad at these things, but the lack of freedom was something I wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for Zelda.  Combat is fun, but can feel repetitive.  It’s fast and frantic which I enjoy, but the perfect dodge system feels a bit too easy to spam meaning I don’t have to think about each individual encounter the way I do in Zelda.

The story is difficult to talk about without going into spoilers, but I felt it was mostly great with a few moments of utter brilliance mixed in with some moments of frustration.  I do care about the characters and the voice acting is surprisingly well done, but the game I felt alternated between great twists and plot developments I could see coming from 20 miles away.  It’s hard to get into without spoilers, but to me, it also had a habit of undermining its most emotional moments with weird bits of execution.  Near the end (well, third and fourth ending.  It’s complicated), I felt the story started to rely on tropes I don’t particularly care for which started hurting my enjoyment of it, although its ultimate conclusion (the 5th ending. Again, complicated) was very satisfying.  It’s a very dark story, but somehow manages to balance it very well with a surprisingly great sense of humor.

Overall, solid game.

And that does it.  Thank God I split this year in half, or else I’d still have to talk about Splatoon 2, Sonic Mania, Metroid Samus Returns, Sonic Forces, and Super Mario Odyssey.  Plus there’s the games I may wait to get until things have died down like Horizon Zero Dawn and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.  Did I mention this year was a great year for video games?  Because it’s a great year for video games.