#i am still playing a game with them that is less button pressing

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

I’m tired

#personal #did 6 loads of laundry over the past 2 days counting the ones in the dryer right now #just 2 left #which i refuse to do today #getting all of our dirty laundry in the whole house done #because there was laundry everywhere in the bedroom #thumbs tired from playing video games with n where you press lots of buttons #doing dinner with my mom and her bf tonight because he moved #will need to pick up more insulin from the pharmacy probably tomorrow after work #i need Something™️ but idk what it is #probably stimming or just to have my body/back/muscles relax #update #however #i am still playing a game with them that is less button pressing #also i made a very good coffee earlier so that’s nice #if you’re trying to talk to me and i’m not talking much. all of this is why

[sirfrogsworth]

Frogman's Camera Buying Guide

A few weeks ago someone asked if I could recommend an interchangeable lens camera (ILC) to supplement their smartphone photos and hopefully get better pictures of important things like vacations and pets.

I decided to go very extra with my response and due to that... I'm still not finished with it.

I'm worried I am letting this person down because they did not ask for a giant post explaining every detail about cameras in the history of forever.

So I am going to do a camera recommendation post without as much explanation and hopefully I can finish the giant post at some point in the near future.

If you want to take better pictures you are probably going to need a camera with a decent sized sensor, a fast lens, a tripod, and a flash.

The bigger sensor gives you more dynamic range so you can capture brighter and darker things in the photo.

A fast lens has a giant hole in the front that lets in a ton of light. That hole is called the aperture and the bigger it is, the better your photos in dark environments will be. So you will want something that does f/1.8 or f/1.4 (lower f-stop number = bigger hole = more light). This can also help you get a lot of cool background blur.

A tripod will help get you longer exposures without any blur from camera shake. Especially good for landscape photos.

And a flash is for taking photos of pets and other moving subjects when you are indoors and don't have a lot of light. A flash is an absolute game changer for indoor photos.

HOWEVER, never point it directly at your subject.

Point it at a large white ceiling or wall. The flash happens so fast that it freezes motion. It is how I got all of my indoor photos of Otis.

Here he was playing and being rambunctious and he is not blurry.

I used no special settings. I just stuck on a flash and pointed it at the ceiling and suddenly sheep are sticking to things.

Oh, and one other huge benefit of using a flash... you can take much better photos of pets with dark fur. So if you have a cute little void in your home, a flash can help you capture detail in their fur.

Just lift the shadow slider in your image editor and that beautiful fur will reveal itself.

If you get an ETTL or TTL flash, it will output the correct amount of light automatically. You can literally just put your camera in automatic mode, aim the flash at the ceiling, and press the shutter button.

Before I talk about recommendations I want to make one thing very clear.

GETTING A GIANT CAMERA WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY GIVE YOU BETTER PHOTOS.

Aside from my flash aimed at the ceiling trick, a big boy camera is not a magic solution for better photos. In some cases, you might actually get *worse* photos than your smartphone. You need to learn the basic fundamentals of photography and you also need to learn some basic photo editing skills.

Smartphones employ powerful algorithms and computational processes to make every photo you take look as good as possible.

ILCs say, "Here is your RAW data, you figure out the rest."

You don't have to become an expert, but if you watch this free 6 hour photography course, that will ensure you have the knowledge needed to improve your photos.

Okay, let's get into the nitty gritty of buying a nice new old ILC.

If you are on a tight budget and cannot afford a fancy mirrorless camera, I would highly suggest a used DSLR. You can get them for very reasonable prices. And unlike just about every other modern technological gadget, cameras and lenses are built to last for decades. So I have no qualms about recommending used photography gear.

However, I do highly recommend using either KEH or MPB, as they have a long trial period and decent customer service. If something goes awry with your used gear, KEH has a 180 day warranty and MPB has a 6 month warranty. So there is much less of a risk than eBay or Facebook Marketplace. You pay a bit of overhead, but the piece of mind is worth it.

Before I start my recommendations I want to quickly explain the difference between APS-C and Full Frame camera bodies. (For brevity's sake I am going to omit Micro Four Thirds bodies as they are not typically geared toward beginner photography.)

APS-C has a "crop" sensor. It is a bit smaller than full frame and does not perform as well in low light (more noise). However these bodies are cheaper and can still produce great photos. You can see above the sensor is still significantly larger than a smartphone. APS-C adds a 1.5x zoom to all lenses. This can be annoying in small spaces but advantageous for outdoor photography like wildlife and sports. You can use full frame lenses on a crop sensor body (within the same brand). APS-C lenses are usually cheaper but of lower quality.

Full frame has a larger sensor that will give you less noise in low light. It is also much easier to get background blur. Full frame also allows you to work in more cramped spaces. You *cannot* use APS-C lenses on a full frame body. However, the lenses meant for full frame cameras tend to be better quality in general.

If you can save up a little more and get a full frame body, I would recommend it. These bodies used to be geared more toward professional use, but since mirrorless cameras became popular, used full frame DSLRs have become much more accessible to those on a budget. Full frame cameras make it easier to get better results in challenging circumstances. And challenging conditions are really the main area where ILCs still kick a smartphone's ass.

For tight budgets I would recommend the following...

Canon or Nikon APS-C DSLR camera body

50mm f/1.8 lens (Nifty Fifty)

18-55mm APS-C lens (good for landscapes and portraits)

Yongnuo ETTL Flash

There are lenses called "superzooms" which can go from (as an example) 18-200mm or 70-300mm and other crazy focal lengths. That sounds fantastic and very versatile... but these are usually utter shite. You may be tempted to get one of these lenses hoping it can do everything you need, but there are no free lunches in lens land. Unless you are spending many thousands of dollars, the wider the focal range, the worse the lens will be.

When you stick to the 18-55mm range, you can be assured the images will be decent. And if you find yourself really needing a telephoto lens, you can save up and add it to your collection later on. The 18-55 will give you wide angle for landscapes all the way to slightly telephoto for portraits and moderately close wildlife. This lens cannot be used indoors or at night without a flash. Which is why I recommend the Nifty Fifty for that purpose. $100 for a moderately sharp low light lens is a no brainer.

Also, stick to Canon, Nikon, Sigma, or Tamron lenses. You can try exotic 3rd party lens brands when you know more what you are doing. And always make sure the lens has autofocus before buying.

It's hard to give you exact recommendations as used items are not reliably in stock. So I'm going to show you an example of the above, but I am not necessarily saying you should buy this *exact* combination. You might be able to get something similar with Nikon as well.

Canon 60D APS-C DSLR

50mm f/1.8 lens

Canon 18-55mm APS-C lens (EF-S mount)

Yongnuo TTL Flash

(I wouldn't recommend getting a used flash, as the Yongnuo is already a great price and you can't know if someone used the flash 100,000 times or 20 times.)

Altogether that is about $500. You can start with the 60D and the 50mm Nifty Fifty for $330 and add on the other two items later on.

My recommended full frame setup...

Full frame Canon or Nikon DSLR body

50mm f/1.8 lens (same as before)

24-70mm full frame zoom lens (full frame equivalent to 18-55mm)

ETTL Yongnuo flash (same as before)

And an example from KEH might be...

Canon 6D Full Frame DSLR

Canon 50mm f/1.8 Lens

Sigma 24-70mm Full Frame Zoom lens (EF mount)

Yonguo ETTL Flash

And that would be about $800 total.

Again, you can start with just the camera and 50mm lens and add the other items later. So invest $500 initially and go from there.

And just to give a Nikon example as well...

Nikon D600 Full Frame DSLR

Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Lens

Tamron 24-70mm

Yonguo ETTL Flash (Nikon version)

I highly recommend researching any camera body and lens before purchase. I can vouch for the items above, but you should definitely check out some YouTube videos before buying.

All of the stuff on KEH and MBP is marked down in price for aesthetic reasons. They do test everything to make sure it is functional. If you care if the camera or lens looks pristine, it will cost a little extra. But if you don't mind if it is beat to hell, you can save some money. Ugly or not, you will get the same photos out of the gear. As I said, photography stuff is built to last for a long time. Almost all repairs are due to user damage and not defects. And usually defects manifest when the product is brand new.

Oh, I forgot about the tripod!

Amazon's $35 tripod is surprisingly decent. It even got a good review on a very picky tripod review site. I recommend starting with this and then upgrading when you know more what you need out of a tripod.

Amazon 60 inch Tripod

I worry I'm leaving out a lot of important information, but hopefully I can expand in the other post I am working on.

That said, if anyone is thinking of buying a camera and you are not sure about the items you selected, please feel free to message me and I will help you assess your choices. Please make sure you include a budget range when asking for buying advice.

I hope that helps. I will try to finish the more in depth post soon. And it will include tips for how to get better photos from your smartphone if you cannot afford an ILC at the moment.

Further resources...

Recipe for Landscape Photos Froggie's Encyclopedia of Lens Terms

#photography #long post

[em-writes-stuff-sometimes]

hi em! been off the app lately cuz i've been lazy but i'm so glad i'm seeing u on my dash again <3 i can't express it properly but i missed you so so so much !! hope u can give us some sneak peaks of ur next work hihi (no rush maybe just some hints of what to expect)

Hello, nonnie! I'm glad to be on the dash again! YAY! I've missed being online and interacting with peeps, it was quiet but a bit lonely offline.

I've actually got a snippet here that is HIGHLY work-in-progress, doesn't quite slot into my story so far and might need to go through a couple edits/adjustments before finally being incorporated, but still. Hope you like the direction I'm taking it!

Trigger warnings: uncle-niece incest, medieval daddy kink, suggested (though not actual) quasi-Electra complex, psychological fuckery.

Yes, he thinks to himself, struck by your light-hearted praise, your simple joy. Your innocence, near cloying. I could be her ‘papa’.

He decides to test his theory one evening. The babes are with Rhaenyra; those insipid ladies of yours are abed or in the Sept or wherever-the-fuck; the servants have long since left after stoking the fires and turning down the bedsheets. There is no better time.

“Here.” After pressing a parcel into your hands, he waits as your brow furrows and a half smile pulls at your lips, as your fingers move to unearth the object inside, as your frown deepens while you examine what it is he has given you.

“What is it?” You pull the fabric wrappings away, fully revealing the cloth doll. For all the simplicity of its form, it is the finest specimen coin could buy—pale spun wool for hair, amethyst button eyes, silk embroidery, velvet gown. Your palm cups its head like you cup your babes’ heads. You glance up at him. “Oh. For Aelys?”

“No. For you.”

You had outgrown soft toys at a frightfully early age, preferring instead to cart about your small collection of dolls carved from wood and finely painted. He’s not entirely sure you ever possessed one of cloth.

You laugh, a sharp, strange sound, shaking your head. “I—I have no need for dolls, kepus. I am a woman grown, and a mother at that!”

He can hear the slow burgeoning of agitation in your voice, low as it is. Good. The corner of his mouth curves up. “A display of gratitude would suffice.”

“Gra—Is this some sort of game?” you ask. He cocks his head at the tone—the hostility. Curious. He’d barely done anything. You huff, rising from the bed and busying yourself by smoothing out your skirts, breaking eye contact. You stare over at the empty cradle. “I do not wish to play.”

“No game.” Daemon cannot help but notice that, for all your apparent ire, you still clutch the doll to you like it is something precious. “Call it… speculation, if you must.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Really, my girl. You’re far too vexed for a thing so trite. Perhaps I’ve struck upon a source of turmoil.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

You stubbornly refuse to look his way as he rises, his height outstripping yours easily. Barely perceptible is the subtle way your shoulders seem to shrink inward, protecting the vulnerable flesh of your throat as though he means to strike. He notices.

“Don’t you?” he asks. His fingers brush your jaw. When you jerk away, he moves instinctively to clamp your chin between thumb and finger, halting your churlish rebellion. “I’m not blind, you know—to your envy.”

Your nostrils flare despite your valiant attempts at composure. “Envy?”

Almost. You are truly angry now, he thinks. The ideal temperament to bait you into an admission. He lets his head fall, his nose skimming across your temple, featherlight. You shiver at his touch.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Of your own children, no less. I see it. You desire the attention I give to them, is that it?” You react viscerally to that, but he is quicker; one hand presses you to his chest by the scruff of the neck and the other grabs just below your rear. It is enough to topple you into him. He hums as he seats himself back down upon the edge of the bed, pulling you onto his lap, his knee bouncing below you. “No. You desire the same attention. I’m their father—and where’s yours? Where he’s always been. Not here. Not for you. Never for you.”

Your indignant squirming ceases, and he hears the hitch in your breath before you deign to speak. “Stop it. Stop. That—that’s cruel.”

Ah, fuck. Too far. He changes course.

“Sh… I know, I know. I understand. Come.” He keeps his voice soft, the sharpest of daggers seeking the yielding flesh between ribs.

Gathering you close, head tucked under his chin, rump to thigh, his hand soothing between your shoulders, he says, “Papa’s here, sweetling.”

Your stomach feels as though it has dropped cleanly through your body, past your feet and into the ground.

Papa’s here, sweetling. Papa’s here, sweetling. Papa. Papa. Papa.

At first, you know not what to do. Scramble off and yell? Pretend you did not hear him? Dive for the sheets, block the world out? Your blood feels like ice in your veins. Your eyes prickle uncomfortably. You are frozen.

Daemon speaks again, palm like a brand through the thin layer of your shift. “There’s no shame in it. In wanting this.”

The urge to flee washes over you once more, building in your bones, threatening to spring you from his hold. “I—”

“Ah.” A sharp, barking vowel of remonstration, the sound a kennelmaster might use to bring his pack to heel.

The sound a father uses to correct a wilful child, your mind supplies unhelpfully.

“Besides,” he continues, casual in his cruelty, sweet poison on the tip of his tongue. And it is cruel, surely it is, it must be, surely it is the very worst, most horrible thing he has ever done, made you small, made you insignificant, made you wish for— “You don’t have a choice. Little girls are meant to abide by their papas, are they not?”

A small, churlish part of you rankles at his words, snapping your head up to glare before you can remember why it is you had been so steadfastly avoiding his stare. The indignation fades as you look upon him. In his eyes, you see what he does not say. A softening.

Tell me to stop, it says, and I will. Deny me if you must, but only if it is truly what you desire.

Almost without sanction, you shudder. You wilt, there is no other word for it, melting like ice in the sun, dripping, limbs trickling to water as you sink properly into Daemon’s waiting arms. They fold around you, over you like they had known to expect you here, like this.

 Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. The room is bigger, or you are diminished, startlingly exposed, raw like burnt skin. Your lower lip wobbles.

“Papa,” you whisper, higher and more timorous than you have ever sounded. His arms tighten. You feel him nodding above you.

“That’s right,” he says, smooth in its devastation. Full of warmth, kindness, a muted sympathy. Poor little orphan child. Dead mother, father scarcely worth the name. All alone. It feels like an old wound, one that has never truly healed, something to live with but to never forget. “You’re mine. My babe, aren’t you?”

“But—but ‘m not.” A bizarre urge to beat your fists against his chest and wail washes over you. Regret? Resentment? Rage? You know not. “Rhaenar and—and Aelys—”

“Are mine—as you are mine.” Fingers and thumb pinch your jaw, drag it up. Daemon’s expression is set firm, tender but no less resolved. My word is your law, it says. “I have my heirs. I can have a sweet little girl, too.”

For a split second, you imagine what it might have been like if he had been your father instead—

(If it were Daemon, not Viserys, who had sired you. There would have been no septa to chastise your every failing. No threat of marriage to force your hand. Anything you had asked for—anything you desired—would be yours, scarcely a question asked. And, perhaps most damning of all, he would have given you every scrap, every iota of the attention, the care you have always felt so greedy in wanting. You would never have cause to wonder if your father loved you.)

—And, in that fleeting moment, you find yourself wishing that he had been. That he really was your papa, and not just your uncle, not just your husband. The thought makes your heart thud and your stomach lurch, your limbs acting on that swooping sensation to try and rise from his knee.

“That’s enough,” he says, dragging you back and turning your head into his neck, firm, unyielding, other hand coming down just a little too hard above your backside to be gentle. A warning. “You’re thinking too much. Sh.”

Still, you struggle. “I don’t—”

“You don’t need to think. Empty your head. Let Papa take over.”

It is like you needed permission for it before your body truly relaxes. The tears spill over your lashes, not sorrowful, no, but relieved. You let him adjust you how he likes—little girl, he says, you’re a little girl and it’s not your choice now—arm banding beneath your knees and oh, now you truly do feel little, small and young and yielding, tucked in as baby bird in a nest might be. Cradled like an infant in his grasp, it is warm and safe as it always is, but now that feeling you have never been able to reach out and name has its proper form.

I am just a babe. It slinks through your mind like a single thread in a tapestry, innocuous and necessary for the whole image to come together. I am just his babe now. Above you, Daemon voices much the same.

“That’s it… good girl…”

This is a VERY early draft for jorraeliarzus (beloved), the next instalment in my terms of endearment series. Please be aware that it might not make it into the final version without significant editing.

#daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen fanfiction #daemon x reader #daemon targaryen x oc #daemon targaryen x you #daemon x oc #daemon x you #house of the dragon fanfiction #hotd fanfiction #game of thrones fanfiction #got fanfiction #asoiaf fanfiction #a song of ice and fire fanfiction #terms of endearment │ daemon targaryen x reader

[allthingsfangirl101]

*The Boss–Keys

Warnings: rough sex, sneaking around kink, language

Being vice president of a video game company is not as glorious as gamers think. It's even less so when the president is an absolute moron. I am basically running the entire company. Antwan shows up at 11 o'clock, orders food, walks around, randomly fires people, and then usually leaves between 2 and 3.

I usually have to get as much work done as I can in the morning because I spend the rest of the afternoon un-firing people. I have to reassure them that Antwan doesn't have any actual firing ability. He has to talk to me before he can fire someone.

"So. . . I'm not. . ."

"You're not fired, Dominique," I reassured her. "You are a great designer. Keep it up."

"Thanks, Y/N," she sighed.

I walked her out of my office, patting her on the shoulder as she left. I closed the door and leaned against it. I do this multiple times a week. Antwan hasn't even noticed yet. He usually forgets who he fired the next day.

With my back still against my office door, I grabbed my phone out of my back pocket. I dialed the number to his desk phone and closed my eyes as it rang.

"We need to have a meeting," I sighed as soon as it stopped ringing, not giving him a chance to answer. "Now."

"On my way."

I hung up and kicked off my door so I could start clearing off my desk. If I didn't do this, it would end up on the floor. There was a soft knock and the door creaked open. I didn't bother moving. I stayed, slightly leaning over my desk. I smirked when the door closed and the lock clicked.

I heard him slowly walk over to me. He gently placed his hands on my hips and stepped up behind me. He slid his hands around my body until his arms were wrapped around my stomach.

"Let me guess," Keys whispered in my ear. He kissed my jawline a couple of times before continuing, "Antwan was a dick and fired someone. You then had to un-fire them and clean up his mess."

The second he stopped talking, he returned to kissing my neck.

"I only want to think of one dick right now," I moaned.

I closed my eyes and focused on his lips on my body. He had a way of relaxing every part of me. Keys never struggled to help me forget about work.

He bit my ear, slightly sucking on it. He started nibbling down my neck, moving my shirt aside so he could kiss my collarbone. I bit back a moan as he slipped his hands under my skirt until he found my underwear. I leaned my body back against him as he slid them off.

"Get on the desk," he ordered.

I spent all day giving orders, correcting Antwan's. Keys was the only person who gave me orders. And it was incredibly sexy.

"Yes, sir," I whispered. I turned around and saw Keys reach up and tossed his jacket onto my couch.

Without breaking eye contact, I sat on my desk and opened my legs. He walked over and grabbed my thighs, spreading them apart even more. He stood between them as he played with my skirt. I gasped when he grabbed my thighs and roughly brought me to the edge, half of my ass hanging off.

Keys leaned down and pressed his lips roughly to mine. I let out the moan I'd been holding back since he walked into my office as our tongues instantly started fighting for dominance.

As we battled, I reached over and started unbuttoning his shirt from bottom to top. I tore it off of him, tossing it to the side. I started to unbutton my shirt but Keys grabbed my hands, stopping me. I put my hands on the desk, slightly behind me as Keys started unbuttoning my shirt. This was exactly why I always wore button-ups to work.

It's why we both wear them. Whenever I get tired or frustrated or irritated with work, I call Keys and ask for a meeting. He comes to my office at his earliest convenience. The second he walks in, we tear each other's clothes off and he orders me around.

It all started after a very drunk Christmas Party Keys's first year at Soonami. We started the night with flirting but soon added too many drinks. We ended up hooking up in the supply closet. The next Monday, I called him into my office to talk about the party. We didn't talk about it. Instead, we ended up having sex on my desk.

And so started our routine. We've been hooking up for about six months. A month after we started, we were at his apartment on his couch. We were about to move to his bedroom but I stopped it. I asked him if we could finally talk about it, about us. For the first time since we started, Keys and I had a real conversation. The conversation started off awkward but eventually, we confessed to caring about each other.

I was brought back to current events when Keys put his face between my breasts, slipping his tongue into my bra. As he explored my chest, I reached down and started undoing his pants. When they fell to the floor, Keys instantly pushed me back onto my desk and climbed over me.

He pressed his lips to mine as he reached into my desk drawer and found the hidden condoms. I grabbed it from him and tore it open. Keys bit my bottom lip as I slipped it onto him. The second it was on him, he pushed into me. I squeezed my eyes at the new pressure.

I broke the kiss and arched my back as Keys instantly started thrusting in and out of me. We moaned quietly as he took control. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Keys knew exactly what I liked. Still thrusting into me, Keys gently grabbed my chin.

"Look at me, baby girl," he whispered. I slowly opened my eyes, looking directly into his lust-filled eyes. Whenever we did this, Keys liked to keep eye contact.

"Oh Y/N," Keys grunted. "I want you to scream my name. So fucking badly."

"You know we can't," I gasped when he hit my G-spot.

Keys slightly repositioned himself before going back to thrusting into me. When he pushed in, he held it before pulling out.

"Shit," I moaned. "Keep going, baby."

"I thought I was supposed to be the one giving orders during our meetings," he groaned as I squeezed myself around him.

I grabbed his face, forcing his lips down onto mine to shut him up. I felt him smirk as he kissed me back. We broke apart when my office phone started ringing.

"Son of a. . ." I mumbled.

"Answer it," Keys said. I looked at him to see him smirking at me. We kept eye contact as I reached over and answered the phone.

"This is Y/N."

Keys let out a soft moan as he returned to thrusting into me. I bit my lip, not listening to a single thing that Antwan was yelling about as I focused on Keys ravishing me. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood as Keys put his face between my breasts and quickened his movements.

"You got it," I mumbled before hanging up.

"What did Antwan want?" Keys asked as he decided which breasts to make out with.

"No idea."

Keys grabbed my thigh, wrapping my leg around his waist. He snaked his hand that wasn't holding him up under my back, pushing me closer to him. We rode out our highs a little longer, our grunts and moans slowly starting to get louder.

"Next time," Keys grunted as he started pushing me towards my breaking point, "I want you screaming my name. As loud as you can."

With one final thrust, I was sent into orgasm. I arched my back and gave in.

"Yes, sir," I gasped.

Keys pulled out of me and didn't give me a chance to relax. He grabbed my hand, roughly pulling me so I was sitting up. We were back to the position we had started in; me with my legs spread open and Keys standing between them.

"My place," he said, catching his breath. "Tonight. Bring wine, I'll handle the dinner. And then, for dessert. . ."

"You want me screaming your name as loud as I can?" I teased. Keys leaned in and smashed his lips to mine. I instantly ran my fingers through his hair as our lips moved messily in sync. He broke the kiss with a soft moan.

"Abso-fucking-lutely."

                                * * * * *

I fixed my shirt, making sure one of my shoulders was exposed. After our meeting, Keys and I sent saucy texts back and forth. We sent descriptive texts of what we wanted tonight, what we wanted the other to do, and sneak previews.

Keys and I didn't hook up every night. It was only on weekends. He'd come over Friday night, we'd spend all day in bed, go out Saturday night and he wouldn't leave until Sunday afternoon. Whenever we did go out, we went out of the city so we wouldn't risk running into anyone from our company.

Part of me wondered if anything would change at work. The other part of me wondered if Antwan would have one of his classic temper tantrums when he found out I was sleeping with an employee.

I smirked when the door was roughly swung open. Keys didn't wait for me to say anything. He grabbed my waist, pulled me close to him, and pressed his lips to mine. I moaned as I wrapped my arms around his waist and kissed him back.

Without breaking the kiss, Keys pulled me into his apartment and led me over to his couch. He picked me up, gently laying us both down. He rolled his body against mine as we relaxed into the cushions. Within minutes, we were in the middle of a full makeout session with nothing but our underwear on.

Keys finally broke the kiss and started kissing my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut, slightly arching my back as he bit the skin peeking out behind my bra.

"Baby," I moaned, "don't you want to eat first?"

He pulled away and picked me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me to his room. I gasped when he dropped me onto his bed. He crawled on top of me with a smirk that gave me chills.

"Remember what you promised," he said through his teeth. I smirked as I snaked my hands up his chest and wrapped my arms around his neck.

"Loud and proud," I said softly. Keys let out a deep moan as he lowered himself and started grinding his body down on mine. As our bodies moved in sync, we finished undressing each other.

In just a few minutes, we were in his bed, under the covers, with our underwear randomly thrown around his room. I roughly switched our positions and sat on his hips. I kept eye contact as I reached behind me and unhooked my bra. I felt him harden under me as I took it off and tossed it aside.

I grabbed his hands, slid them up my thighs, and continued up my torso. He knew what I was doing and I could feel his anticipation building. When I finally got his hands to his favorite spot on my body, he squeezed them on his own.

I moved my hips so he would slide into me as he continued to massage my breasts. The movements in his hips soon fell in sync with his squeezes.

"Oh Y/N," he moaned. "Keep going."

I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. He instantly started roughly moving his lips against mine. I broke the kiss, making him pout.

"Yes, sir," I whispered before pressing my lips back to his. I began running my fingers through his hair, pulling on the strands that I caught, something I knew he liked in bed.

We continued this for some time. The longer I was on top, the tighter I started to feel. I smirked when I got an idea. A dirty idea.

"Bring your knees up," I mumbled against his lips. Without breaking the kiss, he obeyed.

I bit his lip before I broke the kiss. I sat up and leaned against his knees, making sure he was still inside of me. I watched his face, wanting to see his reaction to me. With as much force as I could, I squeezed my folds around his member inside of me.

"Fuck," he gasped.

I giggled when Keys quickly sat up, so quickly I almost fell off of his lap. He grabbed my thighs and started moving my hips faster against his. He didn't kiss my lips. Instead, he wrapped his mouth around one of my breasts. I arched my back, enjoying the feeling of his tongue on my nipple.

"Holy shit, Keys," I moaned in sync with my movements. "You're so fucking big, baby."

"Can you do me a favor?" Keys grunted, pulling his attention away from my chest. The look on his face made me stop. I sat up a little so he would slip out of me.

"Anything, baby," I whispered as I delicately placed my hands on his shoulders and started massaging them as I rocked my hips against his.

"Don't call me Keys."

"What?" I asked, all sexiness and heat between us disappearing. I started to get off of him, completely embarrassed. "You don't like that nickname?"

"No no no no no," he repeated quickly as he grabbed my thighs, stopping me from getting off of him. "I didn't mean it like that, baby girl. I love my nickname. It's just. . . I meant. . . I want you to call me by my first name as we keep going."

"Oh," I said under my breath. "Any particular reason?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I mean, I know why. . ."

"It turns you on."

He smiled softly at me. "In a way," he whispered. "But even more so, you calling me by my name makes it more intimate. And that turns me on."

"You got it," I said softly, "Walter."

Keys moaned as he smashed his lips onto mine. I smiled as I started to kiss him back. As our lips moved hungrily in sync, Keys rolled us over so he was back on top. Once he was, he tore away from my lips and started sucking on my neck.

"Say it again," he asked through his teeth.

"Anything for you," I whispered, "Walter."

When I said his name, he growled. I gasped when he swiftly pushed into me. I arched my back, his name slipping out of my mouth in moans. I asked him to keep going. I asked him to go faster. I asked him to go deeper. Every time I asked him to do something, I called him by his name.

Our orgasms built faster than they ever have. Things felt more intense. When we reached our peaks, we both let out loud moans. He stayed where he was as we came down. I chewed on my bottom lip as I felt him soften inside me. I took a shaky breath when he finally pulled out of me.

"So much better when you moan my name," Keys chuckled as he rolled off of me.

"The louder the better," I agreed. I gasped in pain as I shifted. Keys looked over at me, a small amount of guilt in his eyes.

"You doing okay?" He asked. "I wasn't too rough, was I?"

I leaned over and pressed my lips delicately to his. I pulled away but kept my face inches from his.

"I'm okay," I whispered. "It's the good kind of pain."

I kissed him again before rolling onto my back. When my head hit the pillow, I was also hit with an insane amount of guilt. I looked over at Keys, my heart sinking. I grabbed his hand, making him look at me.

"What's wrong?"

"I've been lying to you," I said under my breath. Keys' eyes narrowed as he rolled onto his side and studied me. I sat up, keeping the blanket close to my chest as I leaned against the headboard.

"What are you talking about?" He asked.

"Life Itself."

Keys sat up, fully turning towards me. He waited for me to continue, so I did.

"I lied to you and Milly," I said, my voice breaking. "Antwan didn't shelve your game, Keys. He built Free City around it."

"Which means there's proof in Antwan's game," he said slowly as he caught on. I nodded, nervously biting my bottom lip.

"All you have to do is cross the barrier at Hitman's Beach," I explained. "Then the whole design will fall and the world will see your original design. Antwan won't be able to deny it any longer."

Keys thought about it for a second before his demeanor changed. "Why did you suddenly decide to tell me all of this?"

"You deserved to know the truth," I said under my breath.

Keys smiled softly as he scooted closer. "But why now? I've been working for you for over a year. What made you suddenly go behind Antwan's back, and I'm guessing against your NDA, all of a sudden?"

"Because. . ." I hesitated.

We were just hooking up. If I answered that question, it may ruin our usual routine. Adding feelings to a sneaking around relationship could end it.

Keys scooted even closer to me as he reached up and gently cupped my face in his hand. He pulled me in and pressed his lips delicately to mine. As our lips began to move in sync, Keys pushed me back onto his bed and instantly climbed over me.

"You're trying to protect me," he whispered, breaking the kiss. "How sweet."

"I don't want this to just be a hook-up," I confessed, breaking the kiss. "I like you, Keys. I mean, really like you. And if we did start a relationship, I didn't want to start anything with this big lie between us."

"Damn," Keys whispered.

"What?"

"I don't want this to be just a hook-up either," he continued. "I really like you, Y/N. And you're right. We shouldn't start our relationship with a big lie between us, so. . ."

"So?"

"So what are you going to do to help me get my game back?"

Keys gasped, covering it up with a deep chuckle as I rolled us over, switching our positions. I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. He let his hands roam up and down my bare back as our tongues danced. I broke the kiss with a soft wine.

"Anything, baby," I said breathlessly. "Anything you need me to do, I'll do it."

#keys #Walter keys mckeys #keys imagine #free guy #free guy imagine #joe keery #joe keery imagines #joe keery x reader #joe keery POV #joe keery smut

[icyharrington]

81. For Eddie and 82. For Steve

ILY HEHE

81- "is this okay?"

(im gonna do your other one separately :3 ily hehe) ok i kinda struggled with this one but i was able to write something! it kinda sucks idk but im just tryna get some practice lol. 

anywaysss contains: dirty talk, foreplay, insecure yet dom eddie?? 

//

"Is this okay?"

Eddie's overthinking again, just like he always does; he asks you this as his hands move to cup and squeeze your breasts, lips ghosting your throat as the words pass his lips. It's probably the fifth time he's asked you this tonight, and you're unable to hold back an eye roll.

You're in the back of his van, laid out amidst scattered musical equipment and fast food wrappers, the front of your button-down undone to reveal the curves of your heaving chest. You've been playing this game with Eddie for a few weeks now, but he's still so damn insecure.

"Yes, Eddie, it's okay," you sigh, petting his head as he begins forming a hickey at the base of your neck. "You don't need to keep asking me."

"Okay. Sorry. I'm just, like, convinced that you're gonna look at me one day mid-fuck and realize that I'm repulsive," he mumbles, eagerly pulling down the cups of your lace bra, swirling over your peaked nipples with the tip of his tongue. He’s always like this when you have sex- a bona fide sex fiend who makes you cum so hard you forget your name, but also a shy, needy psuedo-virgin who desperately seeks your approval. 

“I’m starting to think you’re fishing for compliments,” you tease, moaning softly at the luxurious feeling of his hot mouth on your skin. “You’ve gotta know by now that I’m dick whipped.”

You feel his lips curl upwards against your chest, and he lifts his head to direct his massive eyes towards you. “I am pretty good at fucking, aren’t I?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” You grab him loosely by his dark hair, guiding him up so you can kiss him, steamy and open-mouthed. He groans, and you can feel his erection pressing against you through the denim of his pants. 

He breaks apart from the embrace to pant, “so the only thing stopping you from being deterred by my freakish nature is the fact that I have a nice dick?”

“No, Eddie.” You can tell that he’s not being serious from the way he continues to feel his way around your body with little discretion, almost perverted in the way that he gropes and examines your figure. “It’s that mouth.”

He pauses to smirk, quirking a brow at you. “My mouth, huh?” 

“Mhm,” you nod, gripping the back of his neck as you gaze up with wide, sweet eyes. “Not so much when you’re talking, though.”

“Fuckin’ brat.” He shakes his head as his fingertips hook into the waistband of your shorts, tugging them down your thighs. “I guess that’s your way of telling me to shut up and eat your pussy, huh?” 

You shrug. “More or less.” 

“That is enough outta you, (y/n). Why don’t you just lie back and take your panties off for me then, hm?”

You bite your lip and oblige. 

#eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things smut #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #mine #stranger things imagine #eddie munson fanfic

[itsjaywalkers]

Drabble ask game!

Jegulus

65? Angst 😋

sure nonnie!! i'm always down for some angst <3

hmm let's see let's see

65. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

"Oh, don't even. I know what you're fucking doing right now and it's not gonna work."

Regulus raises both eyebrows in mock surprise, letting his lips curl into a derisive smile. He looks James up and down, eyes narrowed, and relishes in the pleasing tingle he gets under his skin at the way the other man clenches his jaw.

It didn't use to be like this. It used to be desperate hands and hungry mouths, dark eyes and panting breaths. It used to be lingering kisses pressed into his forehead, interlaced fingers, and whispered conversations in the dead of the night.

Now it's anger. Resentment. Lies and neverending arguments. Waking up in opposite sides of the bed and avoidant gazes.

James still fucks him, and it's as passionate, as needy. Maybe even more so. But now it's filled with fury, too. With something too close to hatred. Like James wants him, wants him still, wants him forever, but despises the fact that he does, that he always will.

Regulus isn't sure of what happened to them.

Well. He supposes that he did.

"And what am I doing, James?" he questions coldly, ugly grin still in place. "Since you know me so well."

"I do. I do, but in moments like this, I wish I fucking didn't," the other man retorts, chuckling without any amusement. "You're trying to push my buttons, get me angry and get me mean, so you can go and play the victim afterwards."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. You've never learnt how to be anything else. You avoid confrontation like your life fucking depends on it, and when that doesn't work, you lash out until you make me snap. That way, you only have to lie down and take it."

Regulus grits his teeth, hands curling into fists at his sides. "You speak as if I actually have to make the effort. I don't get you mean, James, you are mean. You've always been. Cruelty comes so easy to you it actually scares me sometimes."

James takes a step forward, face contorted into so much rage Regulus can barely recognise him. He knows he'd never, but sometimes Regulus wishes he'd raise his hand. Walk over that damn line.

He thinks it'd make things easier. Or, if nothing else, at least a lot less painful.

"I think you're mistaking me with you."

Regulus laughs at that. Actually laughs. It sounds wrong, and weak, and like a ticking bomb about to explode.

"We both know that's not true," he sighs once he manages to calm down a little. "I bet you wish it were, though."

"I'm not the bad guy here, Reg," James hisses, towering threateningly over him. "It's you. It's always you. You're the one who keeps ruining this, ruining us."

I know, I know. I'm sorry. I've no idea what to do with good things. I ruin everything I touch. This is the only way I can love.

And yet, you won't leave me.

Please, never leave me.

"Of course, I'm the problem. How could it ever be you? Perfect James Potter. Has never done anything wrong in his goddamn life." Regulus snorts, full of scorn, and shakes his head. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

James bares his teeth. "And how do you see me, huh?"

Loving. Kind. Caring. Too fucking good for your own good.

Ruined.

"Selfish. Violent. Arrogant and cruel," he says instead, offering the other side of the coin. True, regardless, but not what Regulus really means to tell him now. It's too late to stop, though. "A poor excuse of a man who'd do anything to feel loved because he's a fucking nobody when he isn't being adored."

Regulus thinks this will be it. Hopes it will be it.

But then James is smiling down at him, nasty and downright mean, and it begins again, without having properly ended in the first place.

And that's the issue, isn't it?

There isn't an end to them. Regulus isn't sure if he feels more relieved or horrified at the notion at this point.

These days, both things feel kind of the same.

#silly little drabbles #jegulus my beloveds #sorry?

[mickyaltierisgf]

Part 3 was great! 💗💗

I can't wait for part 4🤭

missing at sunrise studios iv : the final chapter

poly!ghostface romickey x fem!reader nsfw! minors dni

warnings: extremely dub-con

Despite Roman’s worries, the studio was still open, negotiations were being made with the writers, and production on the movie was still going forward, albeit slowly. The only consequences so far seem to be increased security and longer hours. While you were sad to have even less time with your boyfriends, you were at least content that they were safer now. Measures were finally being taken to prevent any more unexplained disappearances. You were no closer to finding out who the killers actually were, but you had done all you could for the moment, given your limited resources.

Another downside, however, was Roman’s perpetual black mood. You knew he was already stressed on a good day, and this situation had only worsened the load. Even Mickey had been more sullen than you could ever recall. You weren’t sure if keeping the studio open was a blessing or a curse anymore. They still had their jobs, but at this point, that seemed to be all they had. Mickey had been making calls almost every other day, informing you that they’d be staying late. So it came as no surprise when he called you today to give you the same bad news. You sighed, hearing Roman yelling in the background.

You sat on the couch, flipping through channels mindlessly, when you heard your phone ring. You stared at it for a moment, a feeling of trepidation rising in you. You weren’t someone who spooked easily, even given the less-than-pleasant phone calls you had received from the killers recently. Maybe it was the general tension in the atmosphere over the past week. The whole house felt colder and lonelier than usual. Every time the phone rang when you were alone lately, you felt that frisson of fear until the voice of one of your boyfriends came on the line and soothed it away. You saw the "Unknown" flash at you, and still you prayed that it would be Mickey’s voice again, or even Roman’s. Even if he was mad.

You hesitated a moment, but pressed the accept button and held the phone up to your ear.

"Who is it?" You asked instead of the customary ‘hello’.

"Someone close to you," the voice answered, and the frisson of fear intensified.

"Close in what way?" you asked back, looking around you. With only the TV and one lamp on and all the curtains drawn closed, there was very little light for you to see. Every shadow seemed deeper and darker now as your eyes studied them.

"That’s the question, isn’t it?" the voice replied, sounding vaguely amused. "Let’s play a game. If you can guess who I am or where I am, I’ll hang up and leave you alone."

"What about your partner?" you asked as you walked over to turn on another lamp. You’d feel better if you could actually reach the light switch, but this would have to do.

"He doesn’t really like playing games," the voice stated, sounding somehow more sinister.

"Then what’s the point?" You hiss, your frayed nerves shortening your patience.

"You might have a better chance against just one of us," the voice almost seemed to tease.

"I have enough bullets for both of you," you spat, and you hung up. You pulled a gun out of your pocket and reached for another under the couch. You liked to keep at least one weapon in every room, and ever since you’d started working on this case, you made sure they were easy to access. You’d also taken to keeping your gun on or near you at all times, at least while you were alone in the house. Maybe you were paranoid, but it was better than being defenseless.

You heard a noise, and your head snapped in the direction it came from, straining your ears to listen for more sounds. They were likely already in the house. Your heart was beating like a drum, but you were ready. This wasn’t even the first home invasion you’d dealt with. You turned your head to look toward the foyer when your phone rang. You ignored it, letting it ring, and the noise was just enough to cover up the footsteps coming towards you from the other side. Luckily, you turned your head in time to see them come through the doorway, and you quickly aimed your gun. The ringing stopped abruptly, and suddenly there was another figure on the other side of the room. You pointed your other gun that way, looking between both masked men.

"You can take off those masks, or I can take them off for you," you said with forced calm.

Shooting two guns at once was not nearly as easy as it looked on TV. Even the most skilled shooters would be hard-pressed to aim correctly at one moving target, much less two. There was no time for focus or finesse; you just had to shoot and hope for the best. At least a few shots missed; one barely grazed one of the killers in the arm. Before you knew it, your bullets had run out, and both killers were laid out on the floor. You moved around the couch, still aiming your guns, though by this point they were little more than props. One was already sitting up, and you froze, aiming both guns uselessly.

"We’re not high schoolers, y/n," your Chief’s voice said.

You backed up as you saw the other killer stir next.

"Did you really think we wouldn’t come prepared?" He continued, and he pulled the dark robe open just enough for you to glimpse a bulletproof vest underneath.

"I’ve got a lot more bullets," you replied easily, though you knew getting to them would pose a big problem.

"12 rounds," your partner’s voice chided. "You’re all out."

"Fuck you," you replied, and you threw one of your guns at his face. You made a break for it, running out through one of the doorways. If you could get to your office, you could get your semi-automatic.

You heard scrambling and footsteps chasing after you. You managed to make it into the room, but just as you tried to slam the door shut, an arm came through, and a knife nicked your arm. You pushed the door on their arm, forcing them to pull back, and managed to slam it shut and turn the lock. You ran to your desk, pulling open drawers to find your semi. You were loading it with shaking, sweaty hands when the door came flying open by force, and both killers stood across from you. You had no time to finish loading, so you grabbed the lamp beside you and tossed it, hitting one of them squarely in the head. They went down, and the other dove at you with an inhuman growl, their knife poised above their head, ready to strike. You moved just enough that their knife missed you, but they threw their other arm out, backhanding you hard. You stumbled to the side, nearly tripping over the chair. As you tried to steady yourself, the killer rammed the handle of their blade into the side of your head, and your eyes rolled up as you dropped to the floor.

When you came to, you immediately noticed a pair of cuffs restraining your wrists in front of you. You were being pulled uncomfortably by your arms, and you resisted, trying to drag your feet. One of the killers grabbed your hair, and you gritted your teeth to keep from voicing your pain, but you were forced to stop resisting. You were tossed on your bed, landing on your front and unable to turn over.

"You need to put cuffs on me." You spit, frustrated. "Two against one and—" you broke off as you were being yanked by your hair again and flipped on your back.

"You’re all talk, just as expected." The cold voice was back, and a knife was shoved right up to your neck, almost breaking the skin. "12 bullets and not one good hit."

"She must have slept her way through the academy," the other killer said on your other side, their knife snaking down your chest.

"Funny, because you’re talking a bit too much too," you said, and you kicked out with your legs, dislodging one of them and then sitting up and headbutting the next. Your mind was entirely focused on evasion and escape as you tried to scoot off the bed. But of course you were quickly pushed back down, and this time the knife being placed at your neck was pushing in and drawing blood. You froze up, your breath catching and your eyes staring wide at the black holes of the mask as it bared down on you.

"Try that again, and this knife is going right down your throat next," the voice said menacingly.

The other killer was ripping your shirt open with his own knife and then tearing through your bra next. You gasped, careful not to move and have the knife point go any deeper.

"All you had to do was sit pretty at home, maybe let your little boyfriends fuck you every once in a while, and keep your nose out of things." There was a click, and then..."But you couldn’t even do that right," Roman’s voice said.

You went so still, your heart skipping in your chest, that you thought you might pass out again and never wake up.

"What’s the matter, y/n? Don't you like this voice?"

"Oh, I think she does." Mickey’s voice rings out next, and you look at him as if trying to pierce through the mask with your gaze. The knife is cutting through your shorts and then your panties next, and they’re torn off.

"Don’t," you plead in a low voice.

Gloved fingers pry your legs apart and plunge into you. You wanted to clamp your legs shut, but that would only trap his fingers inside you. You cried out as they moved quickly in and out, and you heard the voice chuckle in Mickey’s voice.

"At the mercy of two killers, and you’re still wet," Roman’s voice tsked, and you felt tears sting your eyes as shame burned hot through you.

"Are you gonna be a good slut for us now?" Mickey asked, his fingers curling inside you and drawing out an involuntary moan.

"Answer him," Roman’s voice barked at you, and it sounded so painfully real that you felt yourself flinch.

"Yes. I-I’ll be good," you said, hating the resignation you heard in your own voice.

"You can start by putting that mouth to better use," Roman indicated as Mickey moved near your head. You saw him struggle momentarily with his long robe as Roman removed the blade from your neck and positioned your head better.

You realized you were already thinking of these killers as your boyfriends, and you hated yourself for it. They’d managed to taint your partner and your chief, now the two most important people in your life. You weren’t sure if you’d ever be able to get past this, assuming you lived through this encounter at all. The killer impersonating Mickey touched his tip to your lips, and you flinched away on instinct, but then his left hand was gripping your chin and squeezing hard enough to force your mouth open so he could slide in. You glared ineffectually, though the killer’s head was tilted back as if in bliss.

The other killer, whom you tried hard not to think of as Roman, slid inside you so easily that it felt eerily familiar and uncomfortable all at once. You felt like your senses were betraying you completely. Your body was accepting this as though it were not just expected but welcomed. The hand on your chin moved down to your chest to grope roughly at your tits. Your hands flexed between you and the other killer, who held himself above you as he thrust inside you. Your arms were feeling painfully cramped, but it was dull compared to the pleasure in the rest of your body.

You felt the body above yours go taut, and the groan they let out let you know they had come, but it was only now that you realized they must have worn protection when you didn’t feel them spill inside you. They swapped places, except you now had a hand wrapped around your throat, making it harder to draw breath than it already was. The killer seemed to be staring down at you, and you tried to close your eyes to avoid having to look at that freakish mask. But another hand slapped you lightly, demanding you look at him while he fucked your mouth. The killer between your legs was playing with your clit with skilled fingers, and your brain was chanting Mickey’s name even though you tried to stamp that thought down. You shouldn’t be drawing these comparisons. It felt like a betrayal to them. Still, the stimulation made you shake, come, and moan around the dick in your mouth. This time you felt the killer spurt his release on your tongue, and there was nowhere else for it to go, so you swallowed as you felt Roman massage your throat to help you. Moments later, water was forced past your lips, washing away any trace left behind.

No DNA left behind would make a rape kit useless. As you spluttered, coughing up a bit of water, they moved around you again. Your hands were freed, and your arms went limp by your side, trying to soothe the ache. You weren’t sure who was leaning over you now, pressing their cold mask right up against your warm cheek. "Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?" The voice changed mercifully back to that indistinguishable tone. You felt a knife tip press against your side and then plunge into you. The killer sighed along with you as your pain escaped through your lips in a silent gasp. You felt the killers looking at you, though your own eyes were shut as you curled in on yourself and clutched at your bleeding wound.

You weren’t aware of anything around you; your only focus was on the pain radiating from your side. You had to get to the hospital. When you looked around, it was dark, empty, and oppressively silent. You pressed your ripped shirt to your wound and limped around to reach a phone. When the call was over, you struggled to keep your eyes open, despite the strength feeling like it was seeping out of you with every intake of breath.

You weren’t sure what you were going to do when you got called back in to work. Your injury gave you a little more time to think about it, but more time didn’t help you make up your mind. You could ask for a transfer. A desk job to keep you busy and out of the way

You sat silently, alone in the office. Your boyfriends had taken a few days off, although you tried to convince them it wasn’t necessary. You’d nearly begged them not to. They had insisted. And now you were shut away from them anyway, trying to pretend they weren’t there. There was a throb in your side, and you winced slightly. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t meant to kill you. You could call it a miscalculated strike, but you knew better. The cut in Mickey’s hairline was explained away as an incident involving one of the microphones on set. The bandage on Roman’s arm is usually kept out of sight by the sleeves of his shirts. You didn’t ask and he didn't explain.

Your Chief's voice. Your partner's. The bulletproof vests. How they were able to sneak around so efficiently and the fact no one wanted to touch the case. Your partner was the only one you'd told about your boyfriends, which the killer had also known about. You were supposed to think it was them. And you almost had. Against every instinct you had almost convinced yourself.

You lay completely still between Mickey and Roman as they slept beside you. Roman was always very mindful of your space, but Mickey tended to latch onto whoever happened to be beside him. You were uncomfortable, but you didn’t move a muscle. Only exhaustion finally pulled your eyelids closed, plunging you into a restless sleep.

They were much gentler than they’d ever been before. Even with each other. Roman checked Mickey’s injury, and Mickey checked yours with a delicate hand. His left. And you had to force yourself not to shrink away from the touch. When you could remember, you weren’t supposed to. That shying away from their touch wasn’t normal for you. Even though you were finding it increasingly difficult to define what was normal for you anymore.

You weren’t keeping up with the case through the news. You didn’t take any calls. You didn’t ask Mickey or Roman how things were going on set, and even if they told you, you weren’t really listening. You had wanted so much to be involved, to find out more, to work on this case, and to see it through all the way to its end. You had wanted to get into the killer’s mind, and now you were there. And they were in your mind too. You wished you were as bad at your job as they thought, so maybe you wouldn’t have it all figured out and you could pretend you didn’t know what you should do about it.

Mickey popped in ‘Enemy of the State,' and you were back in the middle of the couch, all the while Mickey’s hand twisted the ends of your hair as he draped his arm around your shoulders and Roman’s hand rubbed comforting circles on your thigh. You tried to immerse yourself in the movie completely, tensing imperceptibly when Mickey parroted the scene playing.

Brill: Do they know me?

Robert Clayton Dean: Who's them?

Brill: Do they know me?!

Robert Clayton Dean : I don't know what you're talking about!

Brill : You're either very smart... or incredibly stupid.

Fin

#ghostface #scream #mickey altieri #roman bridger #ghostface x reader

[indigosabyss]

Kamala Pinballs Through the XCU: DoFP

(I wanted to do these all in order but I really had to get this out first pls forgive me.)

Charles was tired. He had been tired for the better part of a decade now. The strange man who had refused to help them back in '62 suddenly rushing into his school house and demanding his help to save the world did not make him any less tired.

And now Erik's little friend was back here, too. Still as tiny as before. Still seeming to be looking for her Monica.

"Listen, kid, between you and me. I don't think she's going to be in this tweenaged kleptomaniac's house." He leaned over to mutter into her ear, because really, why hadn't he thought to ask this before? Why was she following them around?? Charles wasn't any use to her anymore.

"Yeah, but I got curious." She replied, brushing him off to join Peter Maximoff at the arcade machine, "Dude, you gotta let me play a match. I love retro games."

"Sure!" He grinned at her as he pressed the New Game button, "Retro, huh? Really committing to the time travel bit, I see. I respect it."

"It's the truth!" Kamala insisted, jamming a button sharply and earning a goal before Peter could even think to block it.

"Okay, Future Girl." He grinned, "Where am I in the wonderful world of 2026?"

"Under a gravestone if you don't help us." Logan growled impatiently.

Kamala reached forward and grabbed his shoulder, before Peter could distract himself with annoying the man further, and smiled at him, "You're a hero, Quicksilver."

For some reason, that was what jolted a decade-old memory in Charles' brain, back from the first time he had crossed paths with Kamala Khan. Which, according to Logan, was just going to be the first of many.

Not just any memory. It was a memory he had taken from Kamala's mind, trying to find out what Monica's mind felt like from the imprint left in Kamala's mind by the interrogation machinery.

It was a confused garbled mess of voices and images and painpainpain. A young man who looked nothing like Peter except for the silver hair and the memory insisting it was Pietro Maximoff falling to the ground, riddled by bullets. Superimposed over another image.

Their Peter. Older now. Sitting on a haybale, wearing a shoddy costume. Sirens screaming because this was a fake, it was all fake, Pietro was dead and gone and never coming back-

"Charles? Charles, are you okay?" Hank was holding his shoulders, as Charles slowly came back to reality.

Dammit. Why was this happening again? It was an old memory. He was meant to be safe, now. It was all supposed to work out.

"I think- I think I need some more of the serum." He choked out.

"Are you sure? It's too early. Even with your tolerance building up a little, it should still be working at this poi-"

"The serum, Hank." His voice was cruel and desperate, but he couldn't bother to apologize as he headed for the car where he knew Hank had to have stashed some.

Thoughts and memories and nightmares from decades ago were still trapped inside his skull. If he had to bear with anymore-

He'd break. Even worse than he was already.

(The rest of the ficlets are under Unexpected Baggage Parts 1-3. Probably will write more. They detail Erik and Kamala teaming up during First Class.)

(In case you don't know, Kamala and Monica (and Carol) briefly had a telepathic link when they shared memories to see the starchart Dar-Benn was using. That link caused a transfer of other traumatic memories between the three. But what neither Charles or Kamala know is that Monica's mind has been rewritten a few times by Wanda Maximoff, leading to memories of Wanda's extreme grief being transmitted over. Such as the flashbacks Charles just got)

#charles xavier #kamala khan #hank mccoy #pietro maximoff #peter maximoff #x men days of future past #x men movies #x men #quicksilver #beast #ms marvel #professor x #fanfiction #ibis ficlets

[lastoneout]

you absolutely do not need to respond if you don't want to but how does the "everything feels worse because i'm finally healing" differ from "everything feels worse because things really are that bad currently"? i always wonder if there's a way to tell them apart. glad you're getting recovering!

Imo the difference so far, is that back when I was still in an unsafe place that was making my trauma worse, between the hysterical sobbing meltdowns I just felt so....normal. I would freak out and break sometimes, but after that I would feel weirdly fine. Or even at times like I didn't have emotions at all? It was like my brain was going "there is no war in ba sing se" to protect me and keep me from freaking out too bad, and like it kinda was! My major coping mechanism has always been ignoring my emotions and shoving them all in a box until they aren't bothering me anymore. And when I was in those shitty situations that was helpful, because I needed to keep myself alive and I wasn't going to be able to do that if I was a sobbing mess all the time.

Also, the one time it got really, really bad, like I was so deep in a traumatic situation it was clearly just completely destroying me, I really did feel like that part in Inside Out where Riley's console just goes dark and none of her emotions can press any buttons. There was this overwhelming sense of dread and misery, and I could barely take care of myself at all. I stopped going to school and showering and I barely ate anything, I didn't talk to my friends, and tbh I did some stuff that I am SUPER not proud of, bcs my brain legit wasn't working at all, and it wasn't until I got out that I started feeling like a person again.

The pain of healing never feels like that. Yes, I am in a bad mental space a lot of the time, I'm depressed and I have nightmares that make me legit so depressed I spend the whole day crying, but there's like...idk this undercurrent of function and focus that wasn't there before. I can keep doing things WHILE being sad(for the most part), instead of only being able to function when I am repressing everything. And tbh it really does feel like I don't have a choice in the matter, which sounds bad but it's kinda nice? Like my brain is done repressing things and isn't going to let me do it anymore. Every time I try it's almost like there's a firm but kind voice in my head saying "no, we can't do that anymore, you have to face this, it's okay".

It's kinda weird too bcs the deeper into healing I get the less my old coping mechanisms help. Hell most of them don't even work anymore. As an example my mom got into a car wreck recently and she was in the hospital for a while, and when I found out I tried to go into my "no feelings no nonsense we have to be strong now" mode, but it didn't work?? I spent the whole time I was there crying, and like!! I actually was happy I was crying!! Because I've never been able to do that!! It's such a weird thing to be happy I'm upset but like, it means I'm making progress.

And that makes every single moment of misery bearable because I know I need this. I've needed this my entire life, and it hurts and is scary, and sometimes I do have to just zone out and play video games or spend a day in bed being sad, but I just...know it's the right thing. Idk how else to explain it, I just know.

It also helps that now I know what a happy, safe life looks like and I know it's there waiting for me. I know this work is worthwhile because I don't want to live my life the way I used to. And I am in a happy, supportive relationship that actively inspires me to work on myself and be a better person. I know not everyone has that, but framing it in a way where I am trying to be better not just for myself but for the people I love helps give me that extra bit of strength I need to keep going.

Anyway this is kinda rambly, sorry, but I did want to answer. If anyone else has any advice for anon feel free to add it on!! I have to go to therapy now lmao but when I'm done if I think of anything else I'll add it!

#long post #ask to tag #personal #okay to rb

[all-the-things-2020]

Late Night Talking - Chapter Nine

Summary: Things don’t go as well when Em takes her turn at Dieter’s new game, and angst ensues.

Rating: R (reference to sexual acts and several f-bombs)

Word Count: 6500

My own attempt at the game was not as successful as Dieter’s. The massage portion went well. It was magical being able to run my hands over Dieter’s body and he truly seemed to appreciate my limited skills as a masseuse. And the second half of the game started out nicely — until I worked my way below his waistline.

”I’m so sorry,” I apologized for the hundredth time. 

Dieter caressed my face. “It’s fine, babe,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

”It’s just … I used to always gag when the doctor used a tongue depressor on me. I have to be careful brushing my back teeth.” I was absolutely mortified. 

Dieter kissed my forehead. “I get it. I understand. We’ll just put that on the list of ‘not gonna happens’. No biggie.”

It felt like a biggie. I’d tried it once before, years ago, with similar results. The guy in question had made a federal case out of it. We’d broken up not long afterward. 

“I just … wanted to make you happy,” I mumbled.

”I am happy,” he said. “Any time I spend with you makes me happy. And there are still a lot of ways you can make me extra happy.” 

****************************************************************************

It didn’t help that Dieter left on a press junket for his latest movie that Monday. The cast was doing group interviews as well as single interviews, taking turns appearing on various talk shows, and recording promo spots for local entertainment news programs. They were spending most of their time in New York, but would fly to Chicago and a few other cities for media blitzes. It would end in Los Angeles, where they would do the rounds of the West Coast based talk shows and attend the premiere, but that wasn’t for almost three weeks.

He managed to call me most evenings, but we didn’t always get to talk for long. Sometimes he was in between interviews and only had a few minutes to spare; other times, he was back in his hotel room but exhausted from the day and not really in the mood to talk much. I understood, but I missed him.

About a week into the junket, my phone pinged. I picked it up and saw a text from an acquaintance.

Have you seen this?

I tapped on the link and opened a video on YouTube. It was an interview for a New York news outlet, with Dieter and one of his co-stars, a very attractive young woman named Erica, who played his character’s lover in the movie. They were somewhat minor characters, and of course, his character ended up dead by the end, killed by her jealous husband. Dieter was still working his way back to the leading man role.

The video started off innocently enough, with the interviewer asking them a few generic questions about the film. Then they cut to a clip, a steamy love scene between the two of them, which I hadn’t seen before. The interviewer asked if it was hard to shoot scenes like that. Erica giggled and shook her head. “Not with him,” she said. Dieter put his arm around her and laughed. 

I clicked the pause button. I’d seen enough. This particular “friend” liked to stir up trouble, so I wasn’t surprised that she’d sent me this video. 

I put the phone down, then picked it back up. I Googled Dieter’s and Erica’s names as well as the name of the movie and found several more video interviews online. Two were of just the two of them, and while one was innocent enough, in the second, Dieter laid his head on her shoulder while laughing over something the interviewer has said. The rest of the interviews featured the entire cast, and in all of them, he was seated right next to Erica. He had his hand on her knee in one, laid his hand on her arm in another, and leaned against her in a third. 

I closed the browser and put the phone down again. Less than a minute later, I picked it back up again, and pulled up the first video again, the one my co-worker had sent me. I copied the URL and sent a text to Dieter:

explain this?

I had no idea when he’d have a chance to answer. He was terrible about texting, and most likely wouldn’t get back to me until he had a chance to call. It was just after 5:00, which meant it was just after 8:00 in New York, and he’d been getting back to his hotel closer to 10:00 most nights. Or at least, that’s what he’d been telling me when he called me. 

Calm down, I told myself. Wait until he has a chance to explain himself. It was hard, though. It had been over two weeks since I’d seen him in person, and things had ended on a slightly sour note, at least for me . I missed him, and he said he missed me, but …

I tried to watch a movie but couldn’t pay attention. I read the same paragraph a dozen times before giving up and putting my book down. In the end, I just sat and stared at my phone, willing it to ring but simultaneously dreading it.

Finally, just before 7:00, it rang. It was a FaceTime call and I took a deep breath before I accepted.

“Hey,” he said when the app opened. “What did that text mean?” He looked tired, but that day I had no sympathy for him.

“It meant what it said,” I told him.

He frowned. “It’s an interview,” he said. 

“With Erica,” I said.

“Um, yeah, she’s in the movie, too,” he said. “So what?”

“Oh, please,” I shot back. “Just tell me, are you sleeping with her?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, “where is this coming from?” He really did look surprised, but I was tired and had been fretting over this for hours and I had the bit between my teeth.

“I’m not blind,” I said. “You’re all over her, and not just in that interview. And I’ve seen the film clips.”

“First of all, I am not ‘all over her’ …”

I cut him off. “I don’t think there’s one interview where you aren’t touching her,” I said. 

“I touch everyone,” he protested. “You know that. Hell, I’m touching Rick in half those interviews. Do you think I’m sleeping with him, too?”

“You aren’t kissing Rick in the movie,” I said.

“Okay, back up,” he said. He was starting to get angry now. “We shot that movie before I ever even met you, so you can’t be jealous about that. And there were probably thirteen people in the room when we shot those scenes, so there was absolutely nothing erotic about it, trust me. Besides, you knew I was an actor, you’ve seen some of my previous work, this can’t come as a surprise to you. It’s my fucking job.”

“Yeah, okay, so you didn’t know me when you shot those scenes,” I shot back, “but you know me now and people are sending me these videos showing you flirting with another woman …”

“I am not flirting with her,” he shouted. “For fuck’s sake, she’s married. I’ve met her husband; in fact, he was here last weekend and he was sitting just off camera for half those interviews. They’ve got two kids.”

“Then why are you acting like that?”

“Because I’m bored as hell with these fucking interviews? Because she’s my friend? Because I miss you?”

I snorted. “Oh, yeah, right, you miss me.”

“I do,” he insisted. “Well, maybe not right at this moment …”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Hey …”

“Just stop pretending, okay? We both know you can do way better than me, so why do you even bother?”

I hung up before I started crying. I had always known in the back of my mind that this wouldn’t last long. Our lives were too different, and I was nowhere near good enough for someone like him. Our last weekend together had proved that.

My phone rang but I ignored it. After it rang five more times, I turned it off. It wasn’t even 8:00 yet, but I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.

****************************

I avoided my co-workers the next morning, and the day dragged on and on. My eyes were still puffy from crying when I woke up, and no amount of makeup could completely disguise it. Finally, the day ended and I headed home, wanting nothing more than to take a huge dose of ibuprofen for my headache and eat a pint of ice cream, the traditional cure for a breakup.

I had known going in that things with Dieter wouldn’t last. How could it work? He was an A list actor (well, currently B list but working his way back up to the top tier) and I was a nobody. Our lives were too different. Still, there had been moments when I truly thought we could do it, that we could exist in a bubble where he was just Deet and I was Em and Dieter Fucking Bravo was a character he played sometimes.

When I got home, there was a strange car in front of my house, but I figured the neighbors had company and didn’t think anything of it, until I unlocked the door and stepped inside. There was a bouquet of roses in a vase on my coffee table and the kitchen light was on.

“Hello?” I called out tentatively, my phone in my hand, ready to call 9-1-1.

Dieter stepped out of the kitchen. “Hey,” he said softly.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were in New York.”

“I flew home,” he said. 

“What about the press junket?” I knew those things were usually written into the contract when an actor signed on for a movie, and were nearly impossible to get out of.

“Told them I had a family emergency,” he said. “And I’m flying back on the red eye, so I’ll only miss one day of interview hell.”

I shook my head. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.” He had a key to my place; maybe he wanted to return it in person and get my key to his place.

“Well, you wouldn’t answer my phone calls, so I figured this was the only way to get you to talk,” he said. “And we definitely need to talk.” He took my hand and led me to the couch.

“I think we said everything last night,” I said, pulling my hand away from him.

“No, you said everything last night,” he said, grabbing my hand back. “You didn’t want to listen to me.”

“There’s not much to say,” I said. “It’s pretty clear it’s over.” My voice caught a little in my throat but I managed to keep myself from crying.

“Why do you say that?,” he asked sadly.

I sighed. “Because it’s true,” I said. “I saw the videos.”

“And I told you she’s married,” he said. “And we’re just friends. I hadn’t seen any of them since we wrapped. These press junkets are stressful and we’re all thrown together for hours and hours day after day.” He took my hand and started stroking my palm. “You know I’m pretty touchy-feely, especially with people I know. That’s just how I am. It doesn’t mean anything.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it softly.

“I wish I could believe you,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I said.

“Because why?”

I guessed I’d have to spell it out for him. “Because look at me! I’m not like Erica. I’m  not a size two, I don’t have perky boobs, I don’t look like I stepped off the cover of Vogue.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” He frowned. “I don’t give a shit about any of that. I don’t want Erica, or some fake-ass model. I want you.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “I can’t even give you a blow job.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Listen to me,” he said. “Look at me.” He hooked a finger under my chin, lifting my face so I was looking him in the eye. “I. Love. You. You understand?”

I wanted to believe him. I really did. I said so.

He pressed his forehead against mine. “Sweetheart,” he whispered. “You can believe me. You have to believe me. I love you. I love you so much.”

”But …”

”No buts.” I knew he was being serious because he didn’t make a butt joke. “Sex is great. I enjoy it a lot. But I’d rather be celibate with you than have a fucking orgy with anyone else in the world. Got it?”

“What did I do to deserve you?” I whispered back.

“Hell if I know,” he replied. “I’m still trying to figure out what I did to deserve you.” He chuckled and slid his arms around me. “I missed you so much,” he said in my ear. “These press tours suck. I wish you could go with me, baby.”

“Stupid job,” I said.

“Yours or mine?,” he asked. I laughed.

“Both,” I replied.

“My flight doesn’t leave until 1:00 am,” he said. “What do you want to do until then?”

“Oh, you think you can say you love me and I’ll tumble into bed with you?” I teased.

“Pretty much,” he said, winking. “But you haven’t said it back yet, so maybe I don’t want to.”

I grabbed his chin and held his face still. “I. Love. You,” I said, punctuating each word with a kiss.

“Now was that so hard?,” he asked.

”That’s what she said,” I teased. He laughed so hard he started wheezing. 

“That’s my smart ass girl,” he said once he could breathe again. “Anyone could suck me off, but only you can make me laugh like that.” He kissed me, hard. “Now, how about some dinner? I haven’t had anything to eat since last night. My stomach has been in knots since you hung up on me.”

”Would some In-n-Out be a sufficient apology?”

“You know I’d do anything for In-n-Out, baby.”

”So would I,” I admitted. 

“But I won’t do that,” we both sang, off-key. 

************************************************************************

The day after our reconciliation, I was dragging at work. A student commented that I looked tired, and I wouldn’t have said anything, except Eileen was standing right there.

“Yeah,” I said, “I didn’t get much sleep last night. My boyfriend’s been out of town on business and he flew back yesterday to surprise me. But he had to fly back to New York on a red-eye, so by the time he left for the airport and I got to bed, it was well after midnight.”

I turned to Eileen. “By the way, that reminds me,” I said casually. “I’ll be taking a couple days off the week after next.”

“Oh?,” she asked. Even though she wasn’t technically part of the library team, she was very interested in our comings and goings. I think she even kept a spreadsheet of how often the textbook clerk and I were out so she could complain about our doors being locked.

“Yeah, Dieter’s movie premieres that Thursday, so I’ll need that day off to get ready for the red carpet, and then there’s at least one after party that night, so we’ll probably spend Friday sleeping.” I smiled at her and then turned away to help another student. Take that, you gossipy bitch.

Before he’d gotten into his rental car to drive back to Ontario Airport, Dieter had asked me if I’d accompany him on the red carpet. It wasn’t something we’d planned on doing, but he said that he wanted to prove to me — and the rest of the world — that he was officially off the market. “Taken. No longer in circulation. Unavailable. End of story,” had been his exact words, each one accompanied by a kiss on the tip of my nose. How could I say no?

**********************************

Dieter had gotten back in town Sunday night. The cast had spent every day since doing interviews in L.A. and I hadn’t had a chance to see him, but after work on Wednesday, I drove to his house. He wasn’t home yet when I got there, but I let myself in and rummaged around in the kitchen to see if there was anything worth cooking for dinner. It looked like he hadn’t had time to go shopping since he’d gotten back, though.

I texted him to ask what time he thought he’d be home so I could arrange for food delivery. Surprisingly, he texted right back.

Maybe 7, not sure. If too late I’ll call you. Eat when u want, save me leftovers. Love u.

I opened up GrubHub and browsed through the restaurants that were available. I decided on Chinese food, since that was easily reheated or could even be eaten cold. I placed an order to be delivered at 7:30. If Dieter wasn’t home by then, I’d go ahead and eat if I was hungry.

I flopped on the couch and turned on the TV. He had cable and subscribed to almost every streaming service there was. I opened up Disney+ and started a binge of my favorite old school animated Disney movies. I’d made it to Robin Hood when I heard a key in the door.

“Hey,” Dieter said, his face lighting up. “What are we watching?”

I paused the TV and crossed the room to hug him. “Old Disney movies,” I said. “Dinner should be here in about twenty minutes. Golden Pagoda.”

He kissed me. “Good, I’m starved. Did you remember to get those cream cheese wontons? I love those things.”

“Yes, I did,” I replied. “And egg rolls, and that horribly spicy chicken you love.”

We settled on the couch and he unpaused the TV. “Oh, man, I remember this one,” he said.

“It was my favorite when I was little,” I said. “I had the hat and everything.”

“You aren’t one of those girls who had a crush on the fox, were you?”

I shrugged. “Guilty,” I admitted. 

He shook his head. “What is it with that fox? Is it because he doesn’t wear pants?”

“Half the classic Disney animal characters don’t wear pants,” I pointed out. “Nobody’s crushing on Donald Duck or Winne the Pooh, though. I think it might be the accent. And the hat.”

“I’m gonna get me a hat,” he said.

It felt good to just be together, watching a movie, being silly, and waiting for our food to arrive.

“I’m glad you’re home,” I murmured in his ear.

“Me, too,” he said, pulling me a bit closer. He kissed my cheek. “And I’m glad we’re good.”

I laid my head on his shoulder. I’d done a lot of thinking since our fight and reconciliation. “I’m sorry. I was an idiot.”

“Nah, you were just being human,” he said. “Love makes people crazy sometimes. I’ll probably do some dumb shit at some point, and then we’ll be even.”

We snuggled and watched the movie until the doorbell rang. Dieter fetched the food while I got some plates out of the kitchen and we covered the coffee table with takeout containers. We ate until we were full and there was still a ton of food left.

“This’ll last us the whole weekend,” he said as we packed everything back up and shoved it into the fridge. “Which is good, because after the premiere, I just want to crash for a few days.” He yawned and stretched his back.

I glanced at the clock; it was only 8:35. “What time do you have to be up in the morning?,” I asked.

“We have an interview at ten, so I need to be out of here by nine, so … 8:45?”

“Let’s make it eight,” I said. “I’m not sending you out into the world without a shower and a decent breakfast.”

“But I don’t wanna get up that early,” he whined.

“I’ve got to get up early, too,” I said. “I have an appointment at the spa at ten for a mani/pedi, facial, and something called a seaweed wrap?” I checked the calendar on my phone. “Then home to change, makeup at one, hair at three, and we have to be there at what, five?”

He nodded. “Have you decided which dress to wear?” 

I’d spent the previous weekend with a stylist who had overwhelmed me with designer dresses in a million colors and styles. We’d narrowed it down to three choices, which I’d taken photos of and sent to Dieter for his vote. Annoyingly, he’d said he liked them all and to pick the one I liked best.

“Yeah, the green one,” I said. I stepped into the bedroom and took the dress, in its garment bag, off the back of the door where I’d hung it when I got in. I unzipped the bag and pulled the dress out. It was a deep hunter green satin, sleeveless, with a fitted waist and a deep slit in the skirt. The back of the skirt trailed on the floor in a short train, and there were two drapes of material hanging from the shoulders. It was elegant and simple but the color and the satin made it look horribly expensive, which it was. I’d about fainted when I saw the price tag, but the stylist had assured me we were only renting the dress and anyway the designer was giving us a break on that just to get her name out there. 

“I even got you a little something,” I said. The stylist had rummaged around in her closets and found a silk tie that almost exactly matched the color of the dress. I pulled it off the hanger and handed it to Dieter.

“I love it!,” he said. “It’ll go great with my brown suit.” He disappeared into the bedroom and I heard him digging around in the closet. He reappeared with a gorgeous chocolate brown suit that I hadn’t seen before.

“Where have you been hiding this?” I asked. 

“In the closet, duh,” he replied. I smacked him and fingered the fine wool cloth. “I bought it in New York. Bespoke splurge. We are going to look so good tomorrow,” he said.

************************************

I had been poked and prodded and pampered until I wanted to scream. At first it had been fun, lounging in a chair while three different aestheticians worked on my hands, feet, and face, but then I’d had to go lie in a hot room with slimy layers of seaweed wrapped around my body to “reduce puffiness and draw out the toxins.” I was sweaty and gross by the time the spa attendant came back for me and shoved me into a freezing cold shower “to shock the system and kickstart the metabolism.” 

I barely had time for lunch — a salad with no dressing and cucumber water; spa cuisine sucks — before heading back to Dieter’s place to get dressed. He’d arranged a driver so I didn’t have to worry about traffic, at least. I struggled into the Spanx and uncomfortable push up bra the stylist had made me buy, then gingerly put the dress on, afraid of tearing it. It had been altered to fit me and while that made it look much better, it meant there wasn’t much leeway. I’d just gotten into it when the doorbell rang and I shuffled to the door, holding up the long skirt that dragged on the floor when I was barefoot.

It was the makeup artist. She schlepped in several tackle boxes of supplies and a fancy lighted mirror. She set up a workstation in the kitchen, spreading her things out all over the island. 

“Okay, sit down, relax, and let me do my magic,” she said with a grin. She swathed me in a sheet and clipped my hair back away from my face. The kitchen chair wasn’t the most comfortable seat in the house but every time I squirmed, she gave me a look and I did my best to sit still while she powdered and painted and blended and smudged and plucked away at my face. Every once in a while, she’d frown a little and get out the makeup remover and start over.

Finally, she nodded. “Voila,” she said, turning the mirror so I could see what she’d done.

Holy shit, I thought. That can’t be me. I looked like I’d stepped off the cover of a magazine.

She laughed. “Yeah, the magic of makeup,” she said. “You wouldn’t recognize half the women in Hollywood if you saw them without professional makeup. The photographers are going to eat you up.”

She was still packing up her things when the doorbell rang again. She motioned for me to stay seated while she answered it. The hair stylist bustled in, hauling her own array of equipment.

She moved me to the kitchen stool, which was taller than the chair, and draped me in a tie-dyed cape. She spritzed my hair with water, and started to blow it dry, working it with a round brush. She paused, worked in some mousse and went back to work with the hair dryer. Next came the curling iron, then the hair dryer again, then the curling iron yet again. She sprayed me with hairspray until I sneezed, then kept fussing and teasing and pinning and curling until I was ready to scream. Finally, she seemed satisfied and gave me a hand mirror. 

My hair fell in soft, sexy ringlets around my face. The sides were swept up just a bit and held with glittery bobby pins. I had insisted we not do any color or add extensions, but it was amazing what she’d been able to do with my hair. My gray streaks looked like fancy highlights and my hair had a bounce to it instead of just hanging there like it usually did.

“You like it?”

“I love it,” I said. 

She packed up and left, just as Dieter was coming home from his last round of interviews.

“Wow, you clean up good,” he said when he saw me. 

“Shut up and get dressed,” I told him. “We have to leave in forty minutes.”

He laughed and disappeared into the bedroom. He’d had his hair done that morning before the interviews, but I’d probably have to fix it before we left, since he had a bad habit of running his hand through it and messing it up.

Twenty minutes later he reappeared in the brown suit, with a tan shirt and that vibrant green tie. He hated wearing a tie, and I knew that by the end of the evening it would be in his pocket and he’d have the top few buttons of his shirt undone, but for now he looked like a proper grownup.

I slipped on my shoes (beautiful strappy heels that were incredibly painful after five minutes) and found my purse. It was a tiny clutch that barely held my eyeglasses but I knew that if I didn’t take them with me I’d have a headache by the end of the movie. I could see without them, but I very rarely took them off. Walking the red carpet without them, and in brand new heels, was going to be an adventure.

“Ready?” Dieter offered me his arm and I took it.

“As I’ll ever be,” I said. 

***************************************

“You look amazing,” he said softly when we were tucked into the back of the town car. The partition was closed, so the driver couldn’t see us as Dieter kissed my neck.

“Stop it,” I chided him. “You’ll mess up my makeup.”

“That’s why I’m kissing your neck,” he said, trailing little kisses down from my ear to my collarbone. “I’ll mess up your makeup later.”

“This isn’t fair,” I complained. “I can’t kiss you back because I’ll smear my lipstick.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, face buried in my throat. When he was done, he lifted his head and said, “Life’s not fair, get used to it.”

“I hate you,” I said with a laugh.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “You love me. You said it and you can’t take it back.”

“You’re in a good mood,” I said, fixing the stray strands of hair that were falling into his face. 

“It’s almost over,” he explained. “These promo tours and premieres are a pain in the ass. We do the red carpet, watch the movie, go to the party for a while and then we’re done.” He threw his head back and laughed. “We can just relax for a while. I’m turning my phone off this weekend, it’s just you and me and all that Chinese food.”

I laid my head on his shoulder, careful not to disturb my hair too much. “That sounds wonderful,” I said. My feet already hurt and I was counting the minutes until I could get out of those damnable Spanx.

We arrived at the theatre. The studio had gone all out, booking the Chinese Theatre (formerly known as Grauman’s; we were both old enough to think of it as that) in Hollywood. Our car pulled up to the curb and a smartly dressed young man opened the door for us. I slid out as gracefully as I could and waited for Dieter to climb out after me. There were hundreds of people lining the walkway to the theatre, which was actually covered with a red carpet, albeit one that had seen some use. There were a few threadbare spots and stains scattered over it but it was still nice.

“Dieter!!” Fans were screaming his name as he emerged from the car. 

“Show time,” he whispered to me before turning to the crowd with a brilliant smile and starting to wave at the fans. “Just follow my lead,” he said out the side of his mouth.

We walked slowly along the red carpet, as fans shouted and cheered. Some had signs, others waved autograph books or photos or Cliff Beast action figures at him, begging for a signature. I watched him as he graciously acknowledged everyone he could, signing things, asking how to spell names so he didn’t make a mistake. I just stood beside him, my hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, mostly ignored by the crowd.

When a young woman asked for a selfie, he obliged, even though it meant I had to let go of him. She giggled and kissed his cheek while they took the picture. He looked up at me and winked. I rolled my eyes and he laughed. “Get in here,” he said, pulling me into the next selfie, his arm tight around my shoulders.  After that, he declined any more selfies, except for a young boy with a Cliff Beasts t-shirt and the hairless head of a cancer patient. We stopped and chatted with him, took several pictures, and I asked his mom for their address, which I typed into my phone while Dieter was moving down the line. 

“I’ll make sure he gets something really cool,” I promised the boy’s mom, who had tears in her eyes. Then I hurried to catch up with Dieter; we were almost to the wall of cameras, as he’d called it.

There was a huge backdrop covered with the logo of the movie, the name of the studio and several sponsors. Opposite it was a horde of photographers, all jockeying for position to get the best shots of the arrivals. “Here we go,” Dieter said as we stepped into the line of fire.

Photographers were shouting his name, all trying to get him to look directly at their camera. Others were calling out directions. “Turn to the left! Look up!” An assistant gently guided us to the first of several marks on the carpet, predetermined places where the photographers could get good shots. I’d been practicing poses in the mirror, trying to keep my chin up so my neck looked longer, turning my body slightly so they would get a three-quarter angle, smiling until my cheeks ached.

“Look at me!,” one photographer shouted.

“Look at her!,” another demanded. 

“Look at him!”

“Look at each other!”

I was confused and Dieter laughed. “Just do whatever the hell you want, they’ll figure it out,” he said. He ducked his head down and kissed me, very lightly so as not to mess up my lipstick too much, and I heard a barrage of shutter clicks. “That’ll make ‘em happy,” he said.

We finally made our way past the gantlet of photographers and into the lobby of the theatre, where everyone was gathering to wait for the doors to the auditorium to open. Dieter dragged me over to meet the director, and one of the producers. “Always talk to the big shots first,” he’d told me earlier. “You have to do a fair amount of sucking up in this business, even with people who don’t like suck ups.”

We exchanged pleasantries, Dieter’s arm comfortably around my waist. I knew I was just there for decoration.  This was part of his job, and my job was to smile and nod and shake hands and make him look good.

Then we walked over to Erica and her husband. Erica was wearing a gorgeous beaded dress that skimmed over her curves and shimmered when she moved. Her husband was in a navy blue suit with a spotless white shirt and a navy tie.

“Hey!” Dieter said, hugging Erica and shaking hands with her husband. He introduced me and I shook hands with both of them. It was a bit awkward for a moment, but then Erica took over.

“It is so good to finally meet you,” she said to me. “He would literally not stop talking about you the entire press tour.” She tucked her arm through the crook of my elbow and leaned in. “I’m sorry about the interviews,” she whispered. 

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I overreacted. I’m new to all this.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she said. “He really is crazy about you, you know. You have nothing to worry about.” 

She let me go and Dieter and I moved on to chat with some of the other cast members. Finally the auditorium doors opened and we were ushered inside to our seats, then the rest of the audience was let in. Friends and family and others with sometimes extremely vague connections to the studio and the cast filled out the audience. Dieter and I both put on our glasses as the lights dimmed and he pulled my hand into his lap, playing with my fingers as the movie started.

I really couldn’t pay attention to the film, between my aching feet, the Spanx that made it difficult to take a deep breath, and Dieter doing things to my hand that made me look forward to the weekend.

After the movie ended, Dieter and the other cast members had to go up on the stage, while the director, producers, and several studio execs gave speeches.  Finally, we were free to go, but only to drive a few blocks down the street to the party venue. As I predicted, once we were in the car, Dieter undid his tie and unbuttoned the top three buttons on his shirt.

“Not fair,” I said. “I don’t have anything to undo.” I squirmed as my Spanx started to ride up and give me a wedgie.

“We could skip the party and go home,” he said.

“You know we can’t,” I said. There would be more photographers at the party and more people to schmooze with. 

He sighed. “Yeah, I know, but we don’t have to stay too long, I promise.”

The party was loud and without my glasses on, I quickly developed a headache, but I gallantly followed Dieter around and smiled at everyone while I sipped on a weak drink. I couldn’t blame them for watering down the drinks, because these people were hard drinkers. I watched one studio exec down seven drinks in the space of an hour.

Finally, Dieter whispered, “Ready to go?”

“I’ve been ready,” I whispered back. He smiled, and pulled out his phone to text our driver. We slipped out and dodged a few die-hard photographers before piling into the back seat of the town car for the ride home. The car had barely pulled away from the curb before Dieter was shrugging out of his suit coat and I had my shoes off.

“Oh, that helps,” I said, rubbing at the blisters and pressure spots on my feet. Dieter pulled my feet into his lap and started massaging them. It was sweet but also an excuse to slide my dress up so he could run his hand up my thigh. It didn’t take long before I was in his lap and half my lipstick was on his face and throat.

When the car pulled up in his driveway, we stumbled out and into the house. 

“Get me out of these Spanx,” I said, throwing my shoes into a corner. I never wanted to wear them again. Dieter obliged, helping me carefully take off the dress. I wrestled myself out of the shape wear and unfastened my bra. They joined the shoes in the corner of shame.

We left a trail of discarded clothing from the front door to the bedroom until we finally collapsed onto the bed. “Can we just run around naked for a few days?,” I asked, as I stretched, exhilarating in the freedom to just breathe and move without the constriction of foundation garments.

“Sounds good to me,” Dieter said. He started to pull me close but I shook my head. 

“I’ve got to get this makeup off before we go to bed or I’m going to ruin your pillowcases and my face will be a mess,” I said. I staggered into the bathroom and scrubbed at my face with cotton pads and makeup remover. By the time I got back to the bedroom, Dieter was asleep, sprawled on top of the comforter. 

I pulled the pins out of my hair, laid them on the nightstand, and crawled into the bed. I tugged at the covers and shoved Dieter around until I had him under the covers as best I could. I didn’t want him to get cold during the night. It was still warm during the day but the nights were starting to get chilly this close to the ocean. Finally, I gave up when he was mostly covered up and let my own head drop onto the pillow. There would be plenty of time to fool around during the next three days. Right now, what we both needed most was sleep.

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo fic #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo x ofc #the bubble fanfiction #late night talking

[roguemonsterfucker]

*sigh*

As some of you may have seen me talk about, I've been dedicating this week to being #1 in a weekly challenge on a game I've been playing.

The challenge was to be the person to catch the most wild horses. And horse catching is my thing.

And I was doing really well. I'd caught 2,000 horses when most people had caught less than 1,000.

It was kinda a neck and neck race with me and two other people.

But then I noticed something.

One of the other people was catching horses unusually fast.

I can catch 200 to maybe 400 every day, if I'm really dedicated. But it takes hours. We're talking, I get online at 3 PM and don't get off until 3 AM, with a few breaks for real life needs, and I can catch about 350 more or less.

But this person wouldn't get on all day and suddenly in the evening would catch 200 horses within an hour.

So here's the thing.

There's a way to summon wild horses in the game. You pay $1 (real life dollar) and you summon 8 horses.

8 horses is like... nothing. So I've never bothered. It's not worth it to me.

But this person apparently really wanted to be #1 on the horse catching list because, from what I can tell, they paid enough to be able to summon 1,000 horses just today. And I think they did it for the previous 2,000 horses they caught over the last week of the challenge as well.

That's... hundreds of real dollars.

This person spent $125+ just today to get above me on the horse catching list. I was on a roll. I had 2,400 horses caught. And they spent enough real money to top 3,000.

With less than a day left, I have no way of catching up to them especially when they could easily get another 1,000 horses at any time.

So... I'm #2 on the list. And I'm kinda depressed about it.

For me, horse catching is something I love doing. I love exploring the map, finding the horses, collecting items along the way, maybe catching the occasional special horse, and making a significant amount of in game money while doing all this. It's fun.

But this person sat still for hours and paid real money to have the horses come to them. Which... I mean, I can't say whether they enjoy that or not but it doesn't sound fun to me.

Now I have to say: There is no tangible benefit to being #1 on the list versus being #2 to #10. The top ten get the same reward.

I personally wanted to be #1 because, like I said, I love horse catching. I'm good at it and it's nice for my skills to be validated by being #1 on a list. There's no tangible benefit to it other than making me feel good. This other person isn't benefiting at all by being #1 and spending real money to do so other than to simply be #1 on the list.

What really kinda gets to me is that other people looking at the list won't know the full story. Either they'll see this person with 3,000+ horses caught and go "wow that person must be dedicated to horse catching" or go "huh that's fishy they probably spent real money to get that many."

And in either case, I'm fucked in the arena of public perception. Because if scenario A happens, they won't realize that I put in hours and hours of work into catching the 2,400 horses that netted me #2 on the list while #1 didn't do anything but spent hundreds of real dollars to buy their place there. And if scenario B happens, people may think I also spent real money to get those 2,400 horses.

I know I shouldn't actually care what people I don't know think of me, but it still is irksome. I worked so hard. I dedicated seven full days to this, traveling the world, discovering new places to catch horses. Only to be beaten by someone that didn't even play. They sat still, drained their bank, and pressed a button.

On the other hand, I feel kinda sad for this person. I looked into their stuff a bit and spending obscene amounts of money on this game seems to be their thing. They run a town, which costs real money to get, but they're the only one in it. They have a few hundred horses, all of which are customs that cost real money, but it doesn't look like they breed horses or anything. It kinda seems like all they do is spend real money and try to be #1 on a lot of lists. Which... I guess if that makes them happy, that's cool, but that way of playing seems depressing to me.

Anyways, I didn't make it to #1 on the horse catching list this week. I'm #2, second to someone who probably spent $300 of real money to be #1.

So at least I know that I won. I dedicated the time. I put in the work. And most importantly I had fun.

I found a brand new area that I really love. I caught a bunch of special horses I was able to give to my mom because they're her thing. I made over 2 mil of in game money selling a lot of the horses I caught plus during the course of my exploration I was able to collect items that also earned me a good chunk of change. It was a fun week. I think I caught more horses than I'd ever caught before in such a short period of time, which is neat. It was great.

Still... man, I wish I had enough disposable income that I could afford to blow it all on being #1 on a silly list. 😂 I'd probably spend it on something more tangible in the game, but oh well lol.

[sweetiesicheng]

mingyu - late night

word count : 513

-

"nice," you spoke when someone covered you and killed a player on the opposing team, "thanks."

"who's the kid standing on the balcony? get the hell down!" someone yelled, which almost made you take your headphones off due to their volume.

you lifted your hand up and covered your microphone, "did you figure out any of the controls?" you asked your boyfriend, who was sitting at the desk next to yours.

"no."

you laughed and removed your hand, continuing to play the round before winning.

you made sure you were muted before taking your headphones off. you looked at mingyu, who was sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed together.

"told ya this game was different," you said to him. "want to call it for tonight?" you asked him.

"yea, sure," mingyu replied and logged out the game.

you did the same, making sure to say goodbye to your teammates before logging out. you closed out of the open tabs and turned your computer monitor off.

mingyu had already gotten up and went into the bathroom. you joined him and both of you started getting ready for bed.

"i don't get how that game is easy. the controls are too weird for the games we usual play," mingyu commented as he cleaned his toothbrush after brushing his teeth.

"it's cause there's less actions, therefore, less button combinations to press," you replied, your voice a bit muffled since you were still brushing your teeth. you stepped aside so mingyu could wash his face.

both of you finished getting ready for bed while talking about video games.

"you look comfy," you commented as you looked at mingyu, who had already gotten into bed while you were finishing your skin care routine.

"cause i am comfy," he replied and you laughed. you got into bed next to him, laying down and wrapped your arm around his torso. "you know that we're gonna be tired in the morning, right?" he asked you.

"mhm."

"you should stop staying up so late," he suggested.

you rolled your eyes at his suggestion, "says the person that stayed up and played video games with me," you replied. "turn the lamp off," you instructed him.

mingyu reached over and turned the lamp off, leaving his computer monitor the one thing barely illuminating the room.

"should we set an alarm? if we don't show up, s.coups will be mad at us," you asked mingyu.

"it's just breakfast. we always have time to eat with them another time," he replied and shifted a bit.

"so you want to make s.coups mad?" you asked him, tiling your head up to look at face.

mingyu pressed his lips together but then his computer monitor turned off, so you couldn't really see his face anything.

"hm."

"exactly."

you got closer to him and closed your eyes. you felt mingyu kiss your forehead.

"so are you gonna set the alarm?" you asked him.

he sighed, "yea," he replied before reaching over to grab his phone off of his desk, which was right next to your bed.

#sweetiesicheng #sweetiesicheng seventeen #seventeen #seventeen x y/n #seventeen x you #seventeen fanfic #seventeen kpop #kpop #seventeen x reader #seventeen carat #carat #seventeen kim mingyu #seventeen mingyu #seventeen hip hop team #seventeen hip hop unit #kim mingyu #mingyu #mingyu x reader #mingyu x y/n #mingyu x you #mingyu fanfic

[aquabuggy]

I’d say please don’t re-post these images but honestly why would you. This thing sucks. 🧡

Walmart Santa Ball Game Or Whatever

Alright look. Look okay, I’ve seen a lot of water games. A lot! I own a lot too. I’ve seen the very best these games can possibly be as a result of toy designers transforming the basic concept of a water game and going ham with it. There’s some wonderful stuff out there and I hope I’ve been able to enlighten some of you to it! But my point is, one could easily assume I’ve been spoiled by these fantastic toys, and have lost appreciation for the lesser quality ones.

But it’s just not true! I love cheap water games! I love bootlegs and knockoffs and questionable design choices and poorly thought through ideas that result in a hilarious yet admittedly charming end product. They’re the bulk of my collection for good reason. They’re silly, and I like silly.

This toy though? This particular one? Is not charming, nor is it silly enough to allow me to forgive it. Let me explain.

This piece of shit sucks! Oh my god! It looks so simple right? How could this simple festive ball catching game go wrong? Well! I’m glad you asked!

Whoever designed and produced this toy, did not care! At all. At any point in the process.

Let’s go over it. First things first, this is very clearly a reskinned baseball themed game the toy company already had on hand. The backdrop is a simplistic Santa clip art they probably bought off Getty during an end of November sale for 60 cents in a value pack. Lazy start sure, but not unforgivable yet. Hey, you could even say it earns some silly points, having the placement of the mitt look like it’s bursting out of Santa, clearly not attached to his hand, and the suggestion that his cap has grown a sudden taste for violence, having sprouted hands and a bat to swing. These choices were most certainly not intentional however, so I am hesitant to reward them. That bat by the way, serves 0 function. It’s also a molded piece that is a separate part from the tank that’s glued in after the backdrop is placed. They could have left it out entirely, and they chose not to.

So the actual game right? The objective is to catch those colorful balls in the mitt right? That’s what you, understandably, would assume. But no! You can’t! It is physically impossible! At most, you can catch ONE ball in the mitt. One. I have played this game endlessly, and there is no amount of patience that will allow you to fit or stack any more than a single ball. That’s it. That’s the whole game. It takes seconds to complete, a single button press. THAT’S IT. I began to theorize at some point that maybe the goal was to pick a specific colored ball and attempt to catch it, until I realized I was definitely putting more thought into it than they ever did.

I received this toy unopened. This thing, tricked parents that likely looked fondly upon their childhood playing with water games, and took advantage of their want to pass that nostalgia on, and thus took up valuable space in some poor kids stocking. And even the kid must’ve known this thing was junk, never played with it, and it likely sat in their basement for years before someone found it again, judging by the residual mildew smell the packaging had. I bought this off of eBay for a total less than $10 after shipping and tax, and I STILL feel ripped off.

I can say with certainty that this is the very worst water game I own. I hate this thing. And I can’t even destroy it because I need to keep it as a testament to just how lazy toy companies can get with their holiday cash grabs. MERRY CHRISTMAS

#aqua #aquacore #toy aqua #aqua toys #water toys #water games #water ball game #water catch game #bug’s collection #colored text

[nemirambles]

Sonic Frontiers - Maybe The Most Important Sonic Game Ever Made

INTRO:

It has been a little over a year since the release of Sonic Frontiers. I’ve likely dumped more time into this game than most Sonic games. I was extremely skeptical about the release of this game. It was rather difficult being a fan of Sonic at the time, it still is arguably, with every showing of the game it just led to more skepticism and dooming. I couldn’t tell if I should be excited or not as I did want this to be good but who’s to say with Sonic, y’know. Eventually the game did release and well, I will vividly remember my first experience with it. Watching the game finally unlock at like 11 AM and taking it all in was so great. Kronos was a great intro island and hearing Undefeatable was insane. I hadn’t felt this sort of hype and joy since I played Unleashed years ago. I no life’d the game and finished it in like 18 or so hours. I thoroughly enjoyed Frontiers start to finish although there were some hiccups here and there. But do I still feel the same about it now? Absolutely not.

Dirt tastes better when you’re hungry. If this interests you, keep reading as this will be a sort of in-depth-ish review of Sonic Frontiers. There’s a lot to cover and it might be a bit messy but I’ll try my best.

OPEN ZONE:

The Basics:

This is gonna be a bit of a difficult thing to talk about but I’m gonna try my best here. Sonic games famously have added gimmicks to their games to help pad out the run time. It’s no surprise to anyone that making giant maps to blast through is rather difficult. Even making multiple maps for characters who aren’t that fast is a lot of work. This is why Mario games will give you multiple objectives for singular maps in a lot of his 3D entries. So for Sonic Frontiers, the padding for this game is the open zone. I want to clarify that this is NOT open world. Open zone refers to having a large open play area but not exactly being an open world. It’s more akin to something like Super Mario Galaxy than it is something like Breath Of The Wild. You don’t have absolute freedom here, just some decently large maps with multiple objectives for thingamabobs you need to collect, like a collect-a-thon!

But how does it actually turn out? It’s… polarizing. Frontiers throws you into these giant playpens of rails, springs and enemies where you’re going from set piece to set piece as you collect these memory tokens. These memory tokens act as your way to progress through the game as you need to hit certain requirements in order to progress the story. These tokens are scattered about everywhere and despite that, they’re still a chore to collect. You’ll need about 150-ish tokens for each island which means you more or less need to go through 150 of these little set pieces or get a bundle of tokens randomly by cylooping. I think enemies can drop them too at times as well. The little segments you need to do are immensely boring. This game takes Sonic's automation issues and makes it worse.

You’re gonna be going through automatic set pieces over and over. Grind this rail and watch this little thing as you basically mindlessly hold down boost. There’s gonna be times where you have to sometimes press an extra button or two but these are really unengaging. Exploring the map in general isn’t all that fun really. Part of what makes Sonic fun is optimizing routes to get from point A to point B but there isn’t anything like that here. There’s not much to really optimize given the fact that these segments don’t take any time and don’t have much of any depth. The most you can do is find ways to try and skip these segments and once you have the tokens, you have them. The objective isn’t there anymore. Same thing for all the other things in the hub world. That kind of just leaves the open zone to be nothing but busy work padding to make sure you don’t just blitz the game.

It should also be noted that playing Frontiers without anything like the spindash or maintaining speed when jumping enabled makes traversal much less fun. However when you do have these tools, it’s a lot more manageable and enjoyable. The thing is that you won’t have spindash unless you unlock it when you have a new save. You either need to S rank a bunch of action chain challenges or you have to get it automatically from playing the Another Story campaign which is on the final island. This sucks for a plethora of reasons because this tool is maybe some of the most fun you’ll have in this game and it’ll just be inaccessible to a lot of players starting out.

Personally, if you're on PC and haven't played Frontiers before and you'd want to, I’d encourage using a cheat to unlock spindash from the start it if you’re going through the game for the first time. I'd also encourage making sure you tweak the settings to make momentum conservation stronger while also tweaking the "bounce height" option to change how far you can fling yourself with the "bump jump" ability.

The aforementioned "bump jump" ability. The localization refers to it as "bounce height" for some reason, not realizing that Sonic has a built in bounce via his stomp follow up.

The spindash and momentum being retained won’t make these memory token segments more fun per say but getting from objective to objective ends up being quite fun when you need to go across the map to meet up with Tails or something. I guess I should also mention that the spindash is less of a burst of speed like previous games and more like a sort of "moon jump" that's also tied to the boost gauge. When you use the spindash, you get a lot of speed but it dips momentarily meaning that it likely isn't designed to be a consistent source of speed like the boost. This thing is for flinging and flying and as such it's not really affected by gravity. There isn't any momentum really applied here, you just kinda go flying. Not saying that this is a bad thing but it is something to note.

But there’s also challenges to do in the open zone! You have things like action chains, koco challenges and these puzzles to unlock the map. The puzzles are just fine. None of them are that fun or difficult but I find the tetris and path puzzles enjoyable enough to where I don’t mind doing those. I actually enjoyed the action chains a lot because it gives you a goal to grind towards much like a traditional Sonic game. You don’t have an objective to work towards that’s just gone, just your own limit on self improvement and your skills. The koco challenges do fall into the camp of being things you do once and never again but I will say that doing them is quite fun and a welcome challenge compared to the piss easy game that Frontiers generally is.

Side Tangent; The M Word:

Sonic Frontiers is a game that lacks the traditional 2D Sonic momentum. You don't really gain speed going down hills or anything like that. While I do find it very weird that a open zone game like this was conceptualized without proper momentum or ball physics or insert buzzword here, I can't help but feel like complaining about it at this point is missing what the game is trying to do. Frontiers is leaning more to be a precision platformer it seems, being more of what the boost games wanted to be. Very fast with split second reaction checks. The spindash isn't like a normal spindash, it's more used for platforming and specifically launching yourself. It's a new function for the ability and they utilize it quite well in the context of this game. I think in general, Sonic Team has done very well with the platforming game design of Frontiers by the end of it.

If you add regular momentum to Frontiers, it gets quite boring to be frank. The game isn't made around it. But when you simply add an option that gives more freedom of movement while still keeping it controlled enough to fit in the game, it's pretty fun. I think this is one of those things where you just need to accept where Frontiers decides to deviate rather than knocking on it for not being more of what we haven't gotten in maybe 30 something years. Even Adventure 1 didn't have proper momentum physics. While momentum to Sonic, in my mind, is what jumping is to Mario… that hasn't been the series goal for quite some time now and maybe it's time to move on from that…? I dunno, maybe this is a really hot take but it's starting to be more of how I feel.

More Of The Same:

I was going to originally break down what each island was about but I honestly don’t see much of a point to. Whereas with something like Sonic Unleashed or Sonic 3, where each level has some different defining gimmick, these islands do not. They might as well be the same location with a new coat of paint on each. You traverse them the same way and progress the same way. The only thing that changes is that each location gets bigger and more annoying to navigate if you don’t have the spindash. This is ignoring Rhea which is basically just one giant set piece but you actually do something interesting and different here so I appreciate it for what it is while being a good moment in the story.

The guardians you fight on these islands don’t even feel particularly unique to them either. If you switch Asura and Strider, what really changes? They compliment the location just about as much as any other guardian. The only exception I can think of here is Shark who uniquely needs to be somewhere with sand so it can traverse through it. This is the only guardian in the game actually themed after the location. Any other one can fit pretty much anywhere else. I guess now is as good a time as any to also mention the new open world gameplay that comes with update 3.

It’s more of the same. The only real compliment I can give is that I actually find the new challenge towers very fun to climb. It’s a tense situation that honestly isn’t as challenging as most would lead you to believe. I heard some people say that update 2 was just this extremely difficult thing where you had to restart your save file if you failed and in the nicest way possible I just wanna say that if you believed this or felt like this was what you needed to do, you are very very bad at Sonic Frontiers. And that's okay! Just don't pretend it's a genuine design issue when in reality you just suck!

As for the new characters… they’re… definitely there! I don’t have much to say about them when it comes to platforming and traversal, they are fine. I'll speak on their combat later when I get to that segment of the blog, but as for the platforming that they go through, it looks like total shit.

It's mildly fun but a visual eyesore. Update 3 in general completely shat the bed in terms of immersive visuals because what the hell man.

Island Art Direction and Storytelling

I suppose now is also a good time to talk about the actual aesthetic of the islands and to be honest, I like Frontiers’ art direction. I generally think a lot of the things here look really cool. My main huge complaint though is a noticeable lack of it. Frontiers is not that good with its environmental storytelling and we really have no idea what’s going on with these ancients. We were given reasons as to why it’s so weird and barren yes but those are reasons crafted from the game being empty. You see things like houses but never anything like transpiration, cities, important social structures or anything like that.

Photo mode is genuinely a blast!

While this might feel like a lame nitpick I feel like it’s important for Sonic games to really immerse you in the world and its inhabitants. Unleashed felt immersive. The Adventure games also felt immersive. The Classic games felt immersive too. Sonic 2 and 3 have so many structures and locations that probe at the mind and make you wonder how it got there. It makes you curious about the inhabitants and the world they lived in.

Frontiers just doesn’t do this. There’s weird unexplainable structures and such sure but unlike a game like Sonic 3 or Unleashed, these never really contribute much to the gameplay or how you get around. You don’t have crumbling statues that block off your path really. You don’t have any temples you go inside of to explore. You don’t have any sort of amusement parks to blaze through. What would an alien festival look like? How would Sonic interact with it? How would he interact with their transportation? Are there any buildings built to utilize the chaos emeralds in day to day life? You never even use the chaos emeralds for any sort of utility in Frontiers to power a building or whatever, it’s purely for combat.

When you make a world more alive with more content and more proof of existence, this will inherently give Sonic more to do as well. But that’s the issue, this world isn’t lived in and doesn’t invoke any sort of imagination and as a result we don’t get any fun Island exclusive gameplay that plays off these concepts since they simply don’t exist. It’s a really huge missed opportunity that I wish Sonic Team focused more on. I would’ve taken smaller, more content dense islands with real history over giant plains with nothing to do and nothing to see.

Because Ice Cap is the only snowy area, it is the only place where a set piece like this can work. They used the location to it's advantage to create a unique scenario that no other stage could do!

It’s also a given but I really hate these floating platforms littered around. They don’t blend with the scenery very well and since none of them are themed around the islands it gets very tiring to look at them very quickly. Sonic Team has been doing this drag and drop block placement shit for years now and it’s both disappointing and embarrassing to see them keep up this tradition with Frontiers, especially seeing mods that at the very least theme the platforms.

The "Reimagined Platforms" mod created by Davihhh seeks to solve this issue.

I know that it’s usually bad faith to say “oh but look at these mods!” when discussing game quality as modders often get as much time as they want and foresight to see the issues with a game, but these platforms are just glaringly bad even as a first draft.

COMBAT:

A Sonic Boom with no charge motion? Impossible.

For some reason or another, Sonic Team decided that the new Sonic game ought to be a character action game which is honestly something I’m all for. I’m not an extreme action game fan, I’ve pretty much only played the Kingdom Hearts series, Metal Gear Rising and some DMC. BUT I have played a lot of fighting games and love that genre which I feel is a pretty close relative to the action game genre. I’m also 19, creeping up on 20 at the time of writing which means that I grew up in the Flash era of the internet so a lot of my tastes for what Sonic should be came from a lot of DBZ inspired Sonic content. When I saw Sonic shooting ki blasts and battling giant monsters in the trailer, I was extremely excited for what this would bring. So how did Frontiers do in this department? 

Combat Variety:

Poorly. If it wasn’t for DMC 2 and Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, I’d be able to easily put Sonic Frontiers down as the worst action game combat I’ve ever experienced. This isn’t due to it not being as deep as something like DMC though. I have no issue with simple gameplay, I’d expect it from Sonic, the issue comes from a lack of experience and direction. Frontiers suffers from a lot of core issues. First let's talk about its offensive options. Frontiers has a basic combo system where you mash out a button and you get a finisher. You can select what the specific finisher is by holding a direction on your control stick. As you go through the game, you unlock abilities on a skill tree using skill points that you get from killing enemies or randomly getting it when you cyloop.

You can also cancel some of these attacks by inputting a defensive action like parry or dodging. With this combined it’ll allow you to extend combos for longer than usual since you’re constantly going into specials that restart your position in a combo. This is actually really cool as it allows for the player to get a lot of freedom in how they choose to beat up the enemy. But there’s just one small issue. None of these attacks provide any real utility for maybe 95% of the game.

Fancy combo right? I think so at least. But I didn't really make a lot of, if any, meaningful decisions here. I was more or less just choosing what flashy cinematics to do. I could've done hurricane kick into cross slash over and over again to infinitely juggle them and melt their HP and it would've had the same result pretty much. It's a combat system that basically relies on how cool you personally want to feel as a player which is fine and all but being cool is made cooler when you have restrictions and things to keep in mind.

Using something like KH2 for example, when I do combos in KH2, I’m doing combos that are specific to the context and situation that I’m currently in. Not every boss falls for the same strategy. Now this is different from there being optimal combos. Even KH2 has strategies that stay dominant, but it’s not about avoiding a dominant strategy, it’s about making the player make meaningful decisions that will influence what tools they decide to use on enemies. One thing that heavily influences gameplay is how many enemies you have to fight.

Action games often give you a crowd of baddies to defeat and you'll need to pick them off or weave between them in order to avoid being harmed. Frontiers has none of that. You're always fighting enemies one on one unless it's something specific like the foot ninja enemies you can find in the overworld. These enemies DO make you switch up your strategy through needing to cyloop them to break their defense but once you knock them into the air it's business as usual.

I will say though that utilizing the cyloop in combat versus a crowd is rather cumbersome due to the fact that you want to stay mobile in combat and you’ll need to circle around enemies who are also mobile while hoping the terrain is flat enough as to not break your trail. You also go quite slow if you aren’t boosting while cylooping and honestly good luck trying to keep a tight cyloop circle when you’re going at 90 miles per hour. But outside of that, that’s really it for ways to deal with crowds. There is a combo ender that knocks enemies up however.

This is should be a good tool to have because these jobber enemies can’t follow you into the air, however you don’t actually have a convenient way to follow up once you’ve popped enemies up there due to the immense amount of hitstop you suffer when attacking enemies and combo finishers have even more hitstop and slow down which means even though they’re defensive cancelable, it’s not that quick. Your best bet honestly is just using the spin kick on a guy to knock him in the air and then do a parry cancel so you can juggle him. That way the other enemies can’t bother you and they can’t decide to defend themselves. Also note that for some strange reason parry is laggier if you don’t hold a direction when releasing it.

Defensive Options:

On the note of defensive options, they’re bad. I wanna take a moment to say that I think the infinite parry isn’t a bad idea on paper. I think where it messes up is that it has no risk/reward. Parry is a zero risk/extreme reward option no matter how long you hold it. Personally I think if the slowdown you gain from a parry was relative to how long you held it, i.e. you do a perfect parry and you get max slowdown and when you do a 5 second long parry you get no slowdown. This way you encourage people to learn to parry more precisely if they want more slowdown. It’s a kids game, I think the mechanics being easy to understand and utilize is fine so long as they beg for exploration and help children problem solve. 

Speaking of slowdown, that mechanic is also not particularly great in my opinion. Whenever you parry a physical attack, the game does this cinematic to emphasize the parry while slowing down time to allow Sonic to attack. This is a neat little idea and feature but when you do it repeatedly it can become quite repetitive and causes some interactions to be really awkward, especially when attack hitboxes don’t actually disable despite being parried.

You also have a dodge maneuver. It has minor invincibility frames and can only be done either left or right and attacking at what seems to be any point during the animation will cause the zigzag attack. There isn’t much to say about it outside of the fact that it’s not really useful at all outside of canceling attacks considering Sonic has such incredible speed that simply boosting in any direction works better.

Minor Things:

There’s some other minor things too like how you can’t really naturally change targets due to there not being a normal targeting system. You have to hit something and then press a bumper to target the next thing that corresponds with the direction your bumper is. The combat is also very… sticky. This is due in part to the excessive hitstop on everything but also due to how they handle inputs. I don’t really know how the game deals with inputs exactly but the buffer here seems to be something where the game stores an input no matter how much time passes. A good example can be found with Amy. Her homing attack has a slight delay for whatever reason but if you double tap the button to try and force it out, she’ll attack after she homing attacks which is nearly a full second later. Another example is with Sonic where if you hold down R2 and just happen to press X when near an enemy that will also lock you into an attack. This nasty sticky control issue permeates throughout the entire game and makes the combat feel way way worse.

But now that this is the groundwork the team is going with, how do they actually design around it?

Enemy Design:

Enemies in Frontiers range from brain numbing to irritating with only a few ever really being fun to fight. Unlike a game like KH2 where Sora has multiple ways to deal with enemies and for enemies to force specific interactions, Sonic has a much more restricted tool set that requires more outside the box solutions to. You don’t have magic or anything like that. This isn’t exactly a bad thing though as Sonic is still a platformer at heart so making him do platforming adjacent challenges while battling an enemy is welcome. The issue for me is that a lot of these aren’t fun. I wanna talk about the fun ones first though, Sumo, the Ninja series, Asura and Ghost.

Ghost just literally sort of appears at the last island and it starts draining rings from you and you need to complete a platforming segment in order to get it to stop. It’s stressful, random and actually amazing. Sure it’s guaranteed damage but it’s guaranteed damage in a game where you can avoid taking damage and farm health as much as you want so I mean hey, it is what it is.

Sumo is another fun enemy that makes you bounce off these walls in order to gain up lots of speed to slam yourself into them so they’ll go flying into electric walls. It’s not a deep fight at all but it does make you try to position yourself properly and it feels extremely satisfying to pull off a good slam.

Asura slams down one of it’s arms and you’ll need to run up them, hit the little weak points at the top, be knocked down to the bottom and then rinse repeat as it gets a bit harder with each arm. Except you actually don’t need to get knocked down. If you hold parry while the explosion cinematic plays, you’ll stay in the air where you can then maneuver your way over to the other weak points, skipping the first part of the phase entirely.

Last but not least is Ninja and its clones which are what I believe the only guardians you can juggle like a regular enemy, opening them up for a lot of combo potential. They aren’t particularly difficult but it is very fun to just see how you can beat the shit out of them.

Contrast these with something like Fortress. When fighting Fortress, you ride some grind rails and then you start hitting it. That’s kinda like Squid, where you run along a path and start to hit it. What happens if you don’t kill it in time? Well you just have to chase it down again. Is it particularly difficult or engaging? No. There’s also bosses like Spider.

For Spider, you need to cyloop its legs in order to make its main body vulnerable. Afterwards, you have to play a skydiving segment where you need to go through these rings in order to make it vulnerable, again, and then you’re allowed to beat up on the Spider. You are forced to do this every single time. The issue with these 3 is that the time it takes to make them fully vulnerable is independent of player skill. There is no way to become better at chasing down Fortress or Squid unless you literally just do a drive by which I doubt was the intended design. These are spectacle fights that lose their luster shortly after doing them the first few times and it becomes boring.

With the positive examples I listed, the amount of time it takes to do them is up to the player and there’s clear places to make optimizations. It never feels like there’s just dead time where you’re just waiting for things to get interesting whereas in a lot of Frontiers’ mini bosses, that’s what they feel like. Wasting time. And if they aren’t wasting time it’s usually because you’re tearing right through them. I’m also gonna take a moment to mention Wolf and Shark. I didn’t use those two as specific examples because it’s honestly just too easy of an out and everyone knows they’re terrible. After a while I almost just wanted to avoid enemy encounters all together because it would generally be more of the same old same old.

But I think it’s also meaningful to analyze why enemies are like this. While in a game like KH2, you have limited movement with set options that developers either know you have or expect you to have. Arenas are small, closed in spaces where you can’t really just run away without going into a new room entirely if you even can. Contrast this to Frontiers where like I mentioned before, Sonic has much higher movement along with this being a giant open area where he can come and go as he pleases. There’s also the fact that you need to factor in the variable speeds that players will have due to speed being tied to a level system along with all the customizable stats there are for Sonic. There’s just quite a lot of factors that you have to keep in mind when designing challenges for Sonic so it makes sense as to why it’s like this. It needs to be broad and unspecific in what it wants from the player because the range of variables at play are also generally broad and unspecific. This is why Cyberspace has its own Sonic preset, designing around them all would be nearly impossible. But before getting into ways I think this could be handled going forward, we need to address the giant titan sized elephant in the room.

Titan Design:

One of the absolute highlights of this game when it launched. When you saw people talk about how Sonic was back, these titan fights were at the forefront. Sonic leans fully into more shonen inspirations as the heavy metal and rock music in the back pumps you up. These fights were and still are great spectacle battles that I still find cool after the fact. The issue unfortunately being just how easy they are. “Punch punch stomp” is the name of the game here and works as pretty much THE dominant strategy. There is never a reason to do anything else. Even on the hardest section of the game, Master King’s trial, it is still extremely easy. But maybe easy isn’t the right word, poorly designed might be more like it.

Giganto:

Giganto’s hitboxes do not align up with his animations very well at all. This spinning attack isn’t meant to be parried as he does it but a bit after, towards the end of the animation. When you knock him down with a cinematic, he’ll often get up with an attack that you can parry, leading for an easy loop until his second phase if you know the pattern that he swings in which is the same every single time. These swings do not have hitboxes that line up with where he swings and sometimes where it feels like something should connect, it doesn’t quite do it. Once you get into this second phase, it becomes a bit harder because now he has these lasers on his back that will hurt you when he turns for a spin. Don’t worry though since you can avoid this by standing perfectly still. He also has a laser beam attack he can do which forces you to lose some rings as it happens, meaning you don’t want to let him do this often.

But of course, you can simply get in, cyloop him and then start punching and stomping. He’ll try to retaliate after you cyloop him with this weird janky animation but you can simply parry it and be fine. 

Wyvern:

The Wyvern is a fight that has cool spectacle. You kind of just parry the missile, parry its attacks and then whale on it. It’s an extremely flat and braindead fight that only really has its spectacle to carry it. There really isn’t anything much else to say here except it’s extremely hard to tell when exactly you need to parry its attacks when you’re timing them because the hitboxes both don’t align very well and don’t even really make sense depending on the animation. Good luck trying to parry the missiles with perfect parry in the second phase when you have all this screen pollution going on by the way. This fight blows.

Knight:

Knight is my favorite titan fight in the game and it’s probably the one with the most mechanical depth. You start out the fight by just beating on it. I think what you’re supposed to do is try and cut Knight off as he spins around the arena but I’m not too sure. This is just what works for me. After beating up on him he’ll try to counter attack but much like Giganto you can simply parry this and get back to gaping him. The camera does not function well in this fight and sometimes his counterattacks are really janky and ambiguous or they simply don’t work properly.

Sometimes he’ll put up his shield to defend himself and if you beat on it enough, it’ll initiate a sequence where you ride their shield, avoid missiles and have to hit them in the face with the shield. This is actually a really cool segment but this isn’t exactly how you’re supposed to do the fight. In reality, you need to hit the shield, press R1 to change your lock on to the Knight and then start hitting him again. This is honestly really weird game design to see so late into the game. Rather than the game punishing you and trying to make you test your options if just pressing the button isn’t working, it rewards you with a spectacle segment that you can’t see otherwise which then gives you an opening on the boss.

In the second phase, you’ll need to parry the shield that is flying around the arena and send it towards the Knight. I find this to be a very cute way to make the second phase more interesting and I wish the other titan fights had gimmicks like this as well.

Supreme/The End:

Supreme is a fight that exists. Both versions of Supreme are pushovers that have little to no challenge. I beat the new Supreme on my second try and the original Supreme on my first without even knowing how it works and I’d honestly say my only one loss to the new Supreme was that I didn’t think my rings would just not replenish after the first phase of the fight. Since they made it clear that this wasn’t gonna be leisurely I decided to play the game the way that it had asked me to when doing Master King’s challenge and then this happened.

Absolutely pathetic. It would be really easy for you to see this and say "well you can just choose NOT to do this" but this arguement is anti-game design as hell and super ignorant. If something is this easy to discover and use, it is a flaw on the game design and deserves to be critiqued. Yes, it is true that you can simply not do it, but why does the game allow you to in the first place? If the next Sonic game had a "instantly win the game and unlock everything button" would it be perfectly fine because you can choose to not do it? No, it's insulting to the developers and it's insulting to people who put in the work to actually experience what you've ignored. Games are well crafted experiences where developers vaguely guide you down it without holding your hand too much. Having ways to effectively skip these experiences in extremely easy ways isn't a good thing.

Why did I decide to do this? Well the "punch punch stomp" strategy was literally the only way I was getting through those titan trials. I felt like that was the way that most people were getting through them, so I just assumed Sonic Team knew this and designed around that. That and I had a small pool of rings so I wasn't going to really take my time. So I ended up getting what you saw above. I already knew that cylooping would boost the damage you did but I had absolutely zero idea that it stacked and I have no idea why it would even stack in the first place. I don't really have too much else to say, both fights are easy.

The End, the original from the base game is maybe my favorite part of the game. I don't have a deep explanation on why or anything like that, I just found it really fun and I'm sad that they basically made it the non-canon final boss/ending with this new DLC.

Wrap Up:

There honestly isn’t much else to say about these fights. They’re fairly braindead spectacle driven fights that don’t last long and can be brute forced through with ease. Personally I feel as though the spectacle of a fight should come from not only what the boss can do but what the player is made to do in response to the boss’ actions. But I understand WHY they’re so simple. These are meant to be cathartic moments for the player to have them really feel the power of Super Sonic. I’m perfectly fine with this. The issue is that it’s just not that fun when you have it all figured out. I think part of what makes boss fights great for me personally is the feeling you get when you finally overcome these impossible odds. When the cool cinematic you see works as a reward for your hard work. There’s no hard work here. Just flashing lights and one time thrills. I hope going forward we can get fights that strike a balance of cool but still interactive to where they feel rewarding to beat.

Suggestions To Improve Combat:

So I wanna say this first before I offer up any suggestions or things to think about. I am not a professional game designer and I do not think I know any better than the people in charge. I simply have opinions on what I think could make a more fun gameplay experience. Any design ideas I offer up here have many many ripples on the overall game that I simply just can’t go over every nook and cranny of because when you pop one pimple in the game design hill, many more arise in response. This is just speculative and spitballing.

That out of the way, I think Frontiers needs a more heavy handed “combat mode” for Frontiers. Through being near an enemy and pressing both the bumper buttons, Sonic will enter a locked on state. Pressing the right stick will cause the lock-on to move to whichever direction you inputted the stick in. Pressing the bumpers again will make Sonic exit this lock-on state and resume back to normal gameplay.

In lock-on mode, his movement is restricted to be slower as the camera locks onto whoever he’s locked onto. Pressing R1 makes him put up his guard where he’ll take slight chip damage whenever he blocks an attack. Inputting a direction while having your guard up will cause Sonic to roll in the direction you input. Pressing R1 while moving will automatically initiate a roll with invincibility frames. Pressing one of the face buttons will cause Sonic to do specific parries depending on the button. Speed parry, power parry and replenish parry. These parries have a window of just 5 frames so you’ll generally need to know what you’re doing for max reward with these..

Speed functions like the parry we currently have in the game, allowing Sonic to slow down time in order to beat up on opponents. Power parry will cause an instant kill to an enemy who’s under 20% health through a QTE segment similar to Sonic Unleashed, bosses not included of course. Replenish parry utilizes a new mechanic called the “phantom meter”. There’s a sort of meter system in the game with phantom rush and quick cyloop but I don’t think these add much. Under this new mechanic, Sonic has a secondary meter that he spends in order to use his special attacks. Each attack has a cost that’s relative to its damage. This means now you cannot just mash cross slash because you’ll run out of the resource it needs. You can refill this meter either slowly through attacking the enemy or by using the new replenish parry. By putting your nuts on the line, you’ll gain a significant amount of phantom meter back.

Under this new system, you might’ve realized that defensive cancels are gone. Nonsense! There’s just a new mechanic to sort of emulate what that used to be, Phantom Cancels. For just 10% of your phantom meter, you can cancel any attack instantly so long as it hits an enemy. Into what? Whatever you want. You’re put into a completely actionable state after this. Think of Guilty Gear’s roman cancel system. This now simply prevents enemies from being comboed forever as you will eventually need to end the combo and now you must consider how much meter you burn on cancels.

Is this system perfect? Probably not, there could be a plethora of issues with it but I can’t test these ideas so I won’t know myself. But it should address concerns with combat feeling a bit too braindead. This doesn’t address enemy design since I don’t really want to get into how I’d redesign every enemy to fit under these systems but with a more limited control scheme and more precise control over the character that ignores level stats and customized settings should make a Sonic that’s easier to design around for enemy encounters.

Combat Concerns:

I had a concern when I asked for input on this idea and got told that there shouldn’t be a sort of “combat mode” for the game but I regret to inform them and anyone else worried that the game already does have a combat mode. It’s just automatic. Sonic already gets into a new state where quick steps become dodges and his idle changes so the game already has something like this. I think making a separate mode also helps with navigation since at times when you’re trying to do something in the open zone near an enemy who’s a part of a set piece, you will be forced to attack them. Making a manual mode for attacking and such fixes this issue as well.

Going Forward With Combat:

I don’t really know if I trust Sonic Team with combat going forward. Based on how they addressed difficulty concerns in the final DLC. It seems that their idea for a challenge is just “more harder = more strict, more faster, more stronger” which can contribute to difficulty but when that’s all your challenge really has to offer it shows me that you aren’t really sure how to design a good action challenge. I hope that in the next game, if they return to this combat formula, they can find developers who are a bit more experienced with how action games are supposed to be.

CYBERSPACE:

Oh look, my favorite parts of the game. Kind of. Cyberspace brings a more traditional experience to Sonic Frontiers where you go through stages that are pretty much stages you’ve played before but worse. To keep it brief since I’ve already said so much and there are things I rather talk about that I ought to get to, Cyberspace is rather boring for a majority of the game. For some reason, Sonic’s physics feel awful in both 2D and 3D with him feeling extremely slow in both. I’ve been told that Sonic’s speed in Cyberspace 3D is actually higher and that it’s an FOV difference that’s making it seem slower. I would like to direct you to this comparison.

It was brought to my attention that the Unleashed clip skips the QTE trigger which means Sonic's speed isn't capped but considering that Frontiers has no QTE trigger at all, the comparison still works in my opinion.

Anyways the 2D sections are pretty bad too. They feel abysmally slow and none of the layouts are particularly fun. Making a 2D Sonic game that’s less fun to play than Sonic Rush is an achievement that Sonic Team should probably not be praised for but lowering the bar from the floor to hell is quite impressive in my book. The spindash once again does make some of these issues better but again this isn’t something every player will have or had at the time of playing. The main Cyberspace levels I really do enjoy are the ones that actually take from the Adventure series. I think that Frontiers Sonic controls rather comfortably in Sonic Adventure level layouts and I wished there were more in the game because I had a lot of genuine fun with them. The new levels brought in for the DLC were also ones that I found extremely fun. The DLC just straight up gives you the spindash so you have it for these levels as they’re designed around it.

There’s a lot of ramps to launch yourself from with a plethora of alternate routes to take along with many objectives to do. The only issue is that these stages can feel rather cluttered and like they rely too heavily on the player just flinging themselves around. One level in particular has moon gravity for some reason and while it was cool to fly off for a while, trying to do what the level wanted got kind of slow and boring since it took so long to land. Other levels can just be a pain to navigate because it just becomes hard to know exactly where to go. Other than this though, I found these levels to be quite fun.

WRITING:

For Sonic Frontiers, Ian Flynn was brought on to write the story. You may know Ian from his work on Archie and IDW Sonic comics. He’s sort of held as this golden standard for Sonic writing and while I think that’s absolutely insanely incorrect for the comics, he wrote Frontiers’ character dialogue pretty decently for the most part. I don’t think there are really any large stand out lines to me that come off lazy or bad. At worst it’s just kind of boring. The plot for Frontiers goes as follows. Eggman fucks around some ancient ruins at some unknown island and is trapped in CyberSpace. For plot reasons, the Chaos Emeralds are suddenly at these islands. Sonic and friends follow the signal but are then shot down where they’re all trapped in CyberSpace. Sonic promptly escapes because plot and is deemed “The Key” by a mysterious totally not evil sky voice. He then has to travel through CyberSpace in order to collect keys to unlock Chaos Emerald vaults.

But as it turns out, everytime he goes into CyberSpace, he gets slightly more corrupted.

Why? Because the plot demands drama.

So after Sonic gets all the emeralds, he has to fight a Titan and go off to the next island where he rinses and repeats for a while. Around the latter half, he ends up pretty much dying after the corruption becomes too much to bear and he’s trapped in CyberSpace. His friends then huddle and make a friendship circle to bring him back to life so he can… continue to corrupt himself through interacting with CyberSpace. And then he fights the last Titan and then The End which is an allegory for death. Was the concept of death weaved throughout the narrative in order to make this sort of thing make sense? No. By the way the moon isn’t really a moon. The characters see it as something different. Ignore the fact that this fact is literally never brought up once until the DLC technically and serves no real value.

This plot sure is awesome! The dark era is back!

Character Writing:

For the most part. Sonic feels fine here. He’s not overly wordy or preachy like he is in the comics. His responses are snappy and he has a nice sarcasm to him that I think Roger brings out really well with his new voice performance. Two lines in particular I like are his goal ring joke and his initial response when Tails asks if he’s a burden.

The goal ring one is actually a nice bit of humor that this game really severely lacks where the Tails conversation is just really real. That might be a weird compliment to give a Sonic game because this is a series about brightly colored furries but it just felt like that genuine response you’d get from any real life person who really cares for you. I’ve had these same sorts of interactions with people and Sonic’s response really hits the mark here. But let’s get onto more specifics.

Amy:

Amy is unfortunately probably at her most boring here. She’s my favorite character in the series so it does hurt a bit to say that I didn’t enjoy her here not that much. The reason why I love Amy so much is that she’s not a character with a sort of larger than life character. She’s not some mystical force that goes with the wind or a child super genius or the last of her tribe or a tube baby. She’s just a girl who gets by using her compassion and ability to bring the heart out of characters. She’s compassionate and more down to earth than other characters with a determination and will that pushes her well into the tier with her peers, even being able to keep up with Sonic.

This doesn’t really get to shine here. A lot of her tomboy-ish spunk is gone and she doesn’t really have anyone to bounce off of but Sonic so she’s not really bringing the heart out of anyone really. Her romantic interest in Sonic also seems to not even be mentioned here weirdly enough. She gets set up but she doesn’t get any actual time in the game to really shine. I feel like maybe she should’ve been reserved more towards the end of the game so she could bond with Sage and help her understand love. Part of Amy’s character here is that she wants to share her love with the world and it feels weird that the character who needed that the most, Sage, wasn’t given any from her. This could’ve been a great moment to help humanize her as she began to warm up to others and realize her emotions. Alas, we don’t get that so fuck it I guess.

Knuckles:

I really enjoy Knuckles’ character in this. His story is about him feeling alone knowing that he’s the last of his kind and he’s doomed to just guard the master emerald. While I did say I enjoy Knuckles in this game, it’s not because of his story. A complaint that I have with this game’s writing is that they’ll sort of create issues that just aren’t there. Knuckles is the guardian of the master emerald, yes, but it’s not like he was missing out on game appearances because he had to be there so this arc feels kinda out of nowhere.

Knuckles has basically not missed a single adventure since his introduction in the series apart from Unleashed and I think Colors? It feels weird to make an arc around this when it wasn’t an issue before so why would it be an issue now? He made time for a hoverboard competition and sees Rouge often enough to get her flowers but he’s really alone, right? There’s also some parts where he feels sentimental about the island due to it being linked to him and his people, which is an alright idea in concept but it’s hard to care with how much we already don’t care about the ancients.

 Knuckles has fun dialogue with Sonic and their friendship feels genuine, but outside of that I can’t help but feel like this just wasn’t that great of a direction for him. 

Tails:

Tails is another example of this story kinda presenting solutions to issues that aren’t there. In Frontiers, his character arc is that he feels as though he’s a burden to Sonic. While I think the actual dialogue in this is well written, I can’t get behind why this happened. A few things in this story really seem to bend to the will of the fanbase for better or for worse which I’ll go over later but as it pertains to Tails, it’s for the worse. Tails says that “Whenever there's a crisis I'm either running away or standing on the sidelines! You're always rescuing me when all I do is follow you around!” which is just… does this count as character assassination? Tails saved Sonic’s life, he saved Station Square, he fought Chaos, he helped take down Metal Overlord, he built the Extreme Gear that his team uses in Riders, he was a key player in 06 when Sonic died, he was helping Sonic get around the globe in Unleashed, he was the one who built the god damn translator for the wisps.

Tails is REALLY important and he KNOWS he’s important. He had this same exact arc back in Adventure 1. He even got a bit of a complex in Colors and Lost World about just how smart he is and honestly he’s not even wrong for that. But because he had this one weird slip up in Forces that people would not shut up about I guess Ian felt it was necessary to give a little “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again”. It blows. I can’t really say much outside of that since that more or less just is Tails in this game unfortunately.

Sage:

Sage man. Sage is a character archetype that I enjoy very much, which are characters who learn to be human, so it disappoints me a lot that Sage’s first appearance did her pretty badly. Sage not telling Sonic what’s going on honestly felt kind of contrived. She constantly states that Sonic is the enemy and that she’s not supposed to help him while also going out of her way to protect his friends and even him by just telling him to get lost. She trapped them in Cyber Space so whenever The End got out, they would be safe. It can be assumed she tried to do the same for Sonic also but he broke out because plot.

So for the rest of the game Sage is more or less just probing Sonic for no real reason while trying to make him leave the island. The reason this bothers me is because I can’t quite grasp why she would want this. Just like hear me out. Sage notices that there’s something wrong with the island. She then traps Eggman in CyberSpace to protect him from it. But later in the game she notes that there’s something that’s trying to get out of CyberSpace. So why would she lock him in there? She’s also given the task to get Eggman out of CyberSpace but barely makes mention of the fact that she locked him in there to protect him.

But she’s also trying to prevent Sonic from letting his friends out which would in turn let Eggman out which would... accomplish what she’s trying to do. What is her goal? Also just a side thing but it’s weird because Knuckles, Amy and Tails are somehow trapped between CyberSpace and reality but Eggman seems to be fully there. Sonic was told that his memories form Cyber Space and the reason he could get out was due to just sort of “following his memories”, but if that’s the case why couldn’t Eggman do the same and why do they literally share a memory of a place neither of them have been to?

Anyways, back to Sage. Sage’s motivation sucks, her plan makes no sense and she doesn’t really add anything to the story. The worst cutscene in the game also belongs to her. I can’t believe they really gave Sage and Eggman ZERO scenes to truly show their bond and then gave her a flashback scene of her reflecting on their time together. It’s just fucking scenes of him yapping off to her about getting him out of CyberSpace as they just stand around statically as if the game had zero animation budget.

Overall Writing:

Man the writing here just… isn’t great. It’s super contrived, character arcs either feel like they’re pandering, are misplaced or just unfulfilled. The concept of death is barely present in the story. Sure, the ancients died but like… it isn’t really used in an interesting way. The End is kind of like “oh I killed the ancients and now I’m gonna kill YOU” but for what purpose? The End is so sudden and out of nowhere that characters don’t even have time to process that it’s coming. You could say that the fact it just appears adds to how much like death in life, it happens randomly and unpredictably. But all sorts of deities just sort of randomly appear in Sonic so I don’t really know. The End ends up being as much of a symbol for death as something like Biolizard, i.e not at all. The connection wouldn’t really even be there if not for there being a statement in a stream saying so.

Supposed translation of this livestream.

Ironically, another game starring a moon uses the concept of death to much greater effect, that game being Majora’s Mask. Majora has imminent death linger over you for the entire game. You see how it affects people and even affects you as you play through it. Even Sonic Unleashed, a game that isn’t really even about death, has moments where you see people try to triumph over their despair of everything going to shit with a sort of unbreakable optimism. Sonic’s main highlight in that game being his unbreakable will and inability to give up.

This isn’t to say that Frontiers doesn’t have good points or that that unbreakable will isn’t there of course. One of the best scenes in the game is from Sonic being on his deathbed and feeling the full force of the cyber corruption. He limps onward, barely able to walk. Sage appears to ask him why he persists despite every sign saying not to, to which he gives a deep breath, smirks and continues pushing on. That is a great scene. He doesn’t give some wordy response, he doesn’t beat her over the head with his morals, he just remembers his friends and that’s enough to push him through.

I also feel like Sonic’s final line before battling The End was also good… even if it doesn’t make sense in context.

“He took your home world... He took your lives... Are you going to let him do it all over again?! I need your help. We can end this! Please!!”

Who’s he saying this to? Absolutely nobody. But it’s still a nice line. The DLC does revamp the ending but it feels more like something someone would write to try and fix the story more than anything else. It’s crammed with all sorts of things that don’t really add anything to the story and feels more like they tried to band-aid fix what people saw wrong with the original ending. A complaint people had with the game was that Sonic didn’t actually get a new cyber form akin to how he used to get exclusive forms for the storybook games. So they decided to give him a new form through learning to control his cyber corruption by proving himself through trials given to him by the ancients.

That’s cool and all but… how? I’m not trying to be nitpicky or whatever but surely I’m not the only one curious as to how a corruption that is given to you through interacting with CyberSpace can somehow be harnessed into a power and even a new form. But whatever, at least we get a cool new form– …and it’s just Super Sonic with blue eyes while the more unique design is used only for a cutscene. Godspeed, Sonic Team.

Another complaint was that the other characters weren’t involved as much so they got hammered in. I guess I should talk about the pilots of the titans but there isn’t really anything to say. They existed and they got washed by The End. None of them really have any character depth. They don’t really add much but they sure are there.

Overall, the narrative of Frontiers feels like a mess that tries too hard to address issues that fans had without realizing that fans honestly don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about sometimes. Ironically I feel like listening to them and jumbo-stuffing the ending didn’t really help it out much. I heavily prefer the original ending, Sage’s sacrifice was a great way to conclude her arc even if her character was poorly done. It felt more emotional and a bit less like bullshit plot armor or convenience coming through to give fan service. The shmup was also great. It’s a good ending.

If the writing section of this feels messy, that’s because I had a lot of thoughts about Frontiers’ writing but I quite struggled with putting them down. There’s so much to talk about with so many threads you can go on to really question the choices made but I just can’t do it all. From how weirdly unexplained CyberSpace is, to why the Ancients look the way they do, to why the emeralds just magically appeared at the islands… There’s just a lot to cover. Hopefully this wasn’t too incomprehensible. If it was, sorry.

QUICK POINT RAPID FIRE:

There’s some stuff I wanna mention here but they’re kinda like loose leaf notes so here’s just a quick rapid fire of some takes I wanna throw out.

It Sounds Nice:

The music in Frontiers ranges from fine to fantastic. While the start of Kronos and pacing of the music was phenomenal, I cannot remember a grand majority of the open zone tracks outside of their final more triumphant versions. While I appreciate the ambition to create like 7 different orchestral tracks for each phase of the island, I can't help but feel like it wasn’t fully worth it considering many of them are just alright. The CyberSpace tracks are also alright mostly. A large amount of them aren’t too amazing and they feel rather detached to the stages they’re applied to. They became much much better in the DLC.No opinion on the new character themes in the DLC. It is okay. The Titan music is fantastic, zero complaints. 

Pretty Lights:

The lighting in this game is marvelous. I genuinely love how the CyberSpace stages look and Frontiers has some genuinely beautiful landscapes. The VFX work here is also amazing. They didn’t skip out on making sure these effects looked as good as possible. The cutscene animation is more static but the camera angles are a lot more dynamic than usual which helps with keeping the scenes looking interesting even if movement is minimal. The dynamic camera angles in combat are also quite nice but I can’t help but feel like Sonic Team didn’t utilize foreshortening and forced perspective quite as much as they could’ve. The Titan fight cinematics in general could’ve been improved had they been more dynamic and striking.

Is That Fur Genuine?:

Sonic and his stupid friends look good. Well, their textures look good. The model quality still isn’t very great but I’m at least glad the fur is back to the same quality as SA1. It’s nice. Heres to hoping they give us an actual good model in the next game because Sonic Team can clearly fucking do it.

Shinji Frontiers:

The voice direction here is nice. I think everyone did a very good job. I’m happy to see Roger finally start to get his roses because he does great with his Sonic voice.

Creaky:

The bed creak sample is used in the alternative Tower theme. I just find this kinda funny.

WRAP UP:

So that’s Sonic Frontiers. A very confused and messy collect-a-thon that doesn’t really succeed at much of anything. Its open zones feel half baked and like a game that’s far too late to the collect-a-thon party, the combat feels like a first draft, the writing is a mess and only makes itself messier with time and its more Sonic elements suck at being that. So what is good here? Uhhh– A lot of small stuff. Notably the movement. Probably some of the best movement that Sonic has ever had in a 3D space. This isn’t to say everything else sucks, this isn’t a broken unplayable game, but it’s a very polarizing one, at least to me.

My title for this review was calling it the "most important Sonic game ever made" and that's not really just clickbait. Frontiers is the most experimental game this series has ever seen I think. There's just so much added to it and so much being tried that there's legit so many possible directions to take after this and I think it will end up being the most influential game in the series. This is a turning point for better or worse. Whether Sonic Team gets their act together and does something great with it or we're sentenced to more mediocrity is up in the air.

Personally, I'm on the side of cautious optimism, but I do hope the best for the blue bastard going forward.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic frontiers #review #nemi be sayin shit fr #Youtube

[smbhax]

Quick plays of a bunch of Neo Geo Pocket and Neo Geo Pocket Color games in Mednafen!

Kikou Seiki Unitron JP-only RPG sequel by SNK 2nd party Yumekobo. My old notes say this came bundled with a Japanese "slim" NGPC I wanted, that I had only played the first game, Biomotor Unitron, very briefly, and that I wasn't impressed with the "Pokemonesque" gameplay here, greatly preferring the likes of Card Fighter's Clash. That will probably still be the case. Nice presentation though. Translation patch from romhacking.net only does 1st few minutes of intro, and menus. Could be a decent RPG.

Neo Turf Masters Saurus' (SNK 2nd party?) version of Nazca's Neo Geo golf game. Doesn't have RPG stuff like Mario Golf but I was getting into the actual golf part. Some wild course stuff like being atop a huge waterfall. Can't save mid-course in-game? Emulator solves that I suppose. Want to play this more. Waitasec, I have MVS/AES version from the Humble Bundle NEOGEO collection. Well now I gotta try that (I think I thought at some point MVS/AES ver had flashing FX? Not seeing them at the moment).

The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise Your avatar hops around a board triggering King of Fighters-themed button mash minigames, most of which aren't very fun. (There's a pretty fun hidden game if you put the cart in a b&w NGP, haven't done that yet, need to use an older emulator.)

Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams Amusingly drawn cutscenes with a silly young witch; boring horizontal shooting.

Faselei! Rather lovely solo mech tactical strategy by Sacnoth. "Program" your mech's next series of moves by socketing action-specific, upgradeable "chips," then watch them play out alongside the enemy's moves. Lush presentation.

Neo 21 The card game in slightly jank graphics.

NeoGeo Cup '98 Plus Initial, b&w version of…

NeoGeo Cup '98 Plus Color Kinda cute national team tournament soccer w/ absurd clothing stat-boost items to collect (don't get too attached--thieves will steal them). Gameplay's a bit maddening as it seems nearly impossible to pass to your CPU teammates, who a) are usually offscreen and b) always seem to run the other way than you'd expected; meanwhile, the CPU always has 2-3 players right on you. Back in the day I found a spot to shoot from pretty far out and to the side that goalies couldn't block; darned if I remember where it was. ; )

Dynamite Slugger Seems like a pretty good baseball game by ADK and I am terrible at them, specifically here the very streamlined pitching, and the fielding where I always press the wrong base button to throw to. Not as flash-screen heavy as the "Baseball Stars" games (Saurus did the NGPC version of those), but there is a strobing effect for a home run. : P Nice graphics. Maybe some day I'll have an inning where I hold the CPU scoreless…

Pocket Tennis Earlier, more challenging version with fewer characters and less animation--more challenging because serving is touchier and your character has a shorter reach. : P

Pocket Tennis Color By Yumekobo. Movement feels good until you try to coordinate it with hitting the ball, at which point I encounter mysterious whiffs, dives that take me away from the ball, and hits that often don't go in the direction I wanted. Feels more like ping pong than tennis a lot of the time. Some weird courts with hard-to-read nets. : P My old notes point out that the CPU doesn't move on defense, so you just hit it past them.

Of these, the games I have marked to come back to are Neo Turf Masters (the MVS one, at least, and possibly this one to compare), KOF:BdP for the b&w hidden game, and Dynamite Slugger.

Session: https://youtu.be/NXEMPA2eMR0

#neo geo pocket color #neogeo pocket color #neogeo pocket #neo geo pocket #yumekobo #sacnoth #kikou seiki unitron #biomotor unitron #neo turf masters #king of fighters battle de paradise #cotton fantastic night dreams #faselei #neo 21 #neogeo cup 98 plus #neogeo cup 98 plus color #dynamite slugger #pocket tennis #pocket tennis color #game #games #video game #video games #gaming #gaming videos #portable gaming #mednafen #emulation

[ladyirisreviews]

Breath of Fire - Review

I had this game on my backlog for ages, and I finally played it, though after playing so many modern RPGs I felt let down by it.

This doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to be talked about however, as this is still a very interesting game and a classic indeed, even if that means it's archaic in some ways.

let's start by explaining a bit about the game.

Released by Capcom in 1992, Breath of Fire was the first RPG made by the company.

Set in a world with different tribes of beast-men, some even able to transform into big creatures, a clan known as the dark dragons plans on taking over the world.

And after getting attacked by them and barely surviving, everything falls into the shoulders of a young man of the light dragon clan, the main character.

As you advance through the story you'll meet various characters that will join you in your quest to free the lands they inhabit.

As far as storytelling goes, the intro has the most immersive narration in all of the game, and it's easy to miss, you have to wait for quite some time on the title screen.

Outside of it, most of the dialogue of the game is very direct, characters telling you where to go, what to do, and the usual NPCs that give some clues on things you might need to do.

Scenes, where the main characters interact with each other, are few and far between, making them dry despite having interesting designs.

The antagonists also fail at being interesting, it's just the usual unidimensional team of evil dudes who want to control the world, not that it's a bad thing but like I said, after playing so many modern RPGs this feels substantially less special.

Now let's talk about the battle system, your options are:

Fight, Auto Battle, Run, Status, Change row (Front row or back row), and Change character for a reserve character.

In the fight option there's a normal attack, block, magic or item, auto-battle will make all the party members attack with their normal attack until the battle ends or until you press B, which is quite faster than with normal commands.

Despite having 2 functions that are uncommon for RPGs at this time, the auto-battle and changing party members in the middle of a fight, the way battles go is extremely straightforward.

You attack until you need to heal, and that's it.

Because of this healing items are very important early on, before you get any healing spells.

Also, spells are not very valuable for most of the game, you'll mostly be using the healing spells, because the damage spells do a set damage, and it never increases no matter how much your character levels up, and buffing spells don't do that much of a difference either.

It's until the end of the game that you get spells that can do some decent damage, but they get overshadowed by other much stronger options you'll have available by then.

I also felt elemental weaknesses weren't a thing, or that the reward for them wasn't substantial, so normal attacks were the main way to deal damage, at least the auto-battle helps you to not mash the A button over and over.

I found out later that elemental weaknesses are a thing but because they only do double damage, and spells do very little damage, is hardly worth it anyway.

The most strategic thing you can do in this game is to move a character from the front to the back, which only changes the damage it receives and takes.

Random battles go by quick because of the auto-battle, but bosses can take a while, you might expect that you need some planning on the bosses, so the auto-battle function shouldn't be used, but the vast majority of them play out the same as a random battle, except the hp pool is much larger.

Most of them have this mechanic that is called a second wind, where you deplete the boss hp bar but it stays alive, I am not gonna lie, it surprised me at first and I thought that when they were in this state you had to do specific actions to win the fight, but it's just like an invisible second bar of hp, and the surprise effect wears off very fast when you realize this.

I can only think of 1 boss battle that was good because it had a gimmick that required you to examine what was happening and change your attacks accordingly, but it is a letdown that most bosses are the same thing over and over again.

But what about the dungeons?

Well, the dungeon design on this game is also very simplistic, all the fork roads or mechanics they might have are only to get chests, which in the vast majority of cases will be equipment that isn't that far, or even lower than the one you could buy at the last town, or common use items, making most of the extra exploration in dungeons feel a bit pointless, there are a few actually good rewards but, as you can guess, they are pretty rare.

The dungeons are also very short, and none have actual puzzles, the closest thing to a puzzle is picking the correct path on multiple fork roads.

The overworld is also pretty small all things considered, but both the world and dungeons feel bigger than they are because of the very high encounter rate that permeates most of the game, it helps that they are fast and that the auto-battle function is there I guess, but it only makes the battles a little distraction rather than the core gameplay of your RPG.

The nice graphics and the battle music changing a few times through the game helps a little bit in making the game less monotonous, but still, they keep feeling like interruptions to the exploration rather than actual gameplay, and I think the exploration part of this game is pretty good.

Through the game you will encounter some obstacles you can't get over because they require specific party members to be in the leading position, and by pressing A they can do a special action exclusive to them, or by their presence alone they can achieve something, however, the game is not specific on what your characters can do, and this can lead you into situations where you can't progress because you don't know character have an overworld ability, but when you do know it is satisfying to travel back to places where you couldn't get something and get rewarded for remembering, and these rewards can be actually worth the hassle.

Next, I want to talk a bit about towns, I wouldn't normally make a point out of them but bear with me for a moment.

Towns are where you will get your next objectives, upgrade your equipment, rest, and stock on items, you know, the standard, the game also has a day and night cycle, on the day most of the NPCs will be outside of their houses but at night they will be found inside, which is a nice detail.

The towns don't have anything wrong with them technically, but I find it frustrating to explore them, and all for a simple reason.

You see, when you enter a house, almost always the music of the town will be replaced for this theme, and this happens throughout all of the game, it ends up being very annoying, the actual town themes are nice, but listening to the start over and over again starts to get frustrating.

Again, it's not a big thing but it's something that personally bothered me, outside of that theme, I found the music to be generally nice all around.

All this complaining must make you think I really don't like this game, but the truth is that I don't mind it, for its time, even if there were way better RPGs out there, it's a pretty ok game.

It's like if the team in charge of this tried to make a very basic RPG, but have it be very polished, sure it isn't perfect but it has accessibility stuff that some games that came after it didn't, an auto-battle for random encounters, a very handy warp spell, loses that only take money out of you instead of being an instant game over, and an item to make random encounters disappear for a while.

It's certainly not a game I would recommend if you want a full and rich RPG experience, considering how much better games there are out there now.

But if you are specifically into old RPGs, I think it's a game I could recommend, or you know, if you always play a series from the beginning, like me.

Not everyone wants to play an RPG with an extensive story, some people just like the satisfaction of going through an RPG and finishing it, and I get that, so if you want to give this game a go, there are some tips I can give you to make the experience as smooth as possible.

Item names can be funky sometimes, so always check in the item menu what an item does, this is another cool feature not any RPG had back then.

Since the inventory is old school, meaning everything is on the same menu and there's no sorting, do try to keep a certain order so it's not hell when you are searching for a specific item.

You might notice you can't compare the stats of a piece of equipment to what you are wearing, but in the stores, there is an option that lets you trade what you are wearing for the piece of equipment you want to check, and in here it does tell you how much your stats would increase or decrease.

The item mrble3, this is your best buddy for when you don't want to go through 20 minutes of random encounters just to get a chest you forgot or couldn't get before, they are very cheap so grab a handful whenever you are low on it.

And finally, the character abilities, there's a little hint that they exist near the beginning of the game but you are never told exactly what each character can do, so I'm gonna list all of them, because I lost a lot of time trying to figure some solutions out, and I couldn't because I didn't know a character had that ability, so spoiler warning I guess.

The main character can fish on wells in the overworld or on certain bridges, there are also some specific places where he can fish inside a town.

Near the end of the game, Nina can transform into a big bird, making her your airship basically.

Bo can walk through trees in the overworld, and also hunt the random animals that appear sometimes after an encounter with his bow.

Karn can open locked doors and disable any traps a chest might have.

Gobi can transform into a big fish after you get a certain item, making him your submarine.

Ox can destroy breakable walls, but he can also punch specific trees in the overworld, and there are 2 instances where that's needed to progress in the game, just as a heads up.

Mogu can dig on specific spots in the overworld and some dungeons.

And finally, Karn can transform, but only if you find hidden wise men and talk to them with Karn, that will teach him these transformation spells, and the last one you learn has the ability to scream, this scream can open specific doors in the overworld.

And that's pretty much it, I can't give more tips without linking a guide.

You know, I wish this game was more than it was, the world is pretty interesting, so an actual story with actual characters in that world could have a lot of potential, but maybe I'll get that wish with the sequels, I can't say I am not excited to play them.

I really like when a flawed game gets a sequel, because there's a high chance some of it flaws will get removed and it could be what it was always meant to be, or you know, at least a bit better.

If I had the chance to play this game again... I would definitely pass on it, there's just so many games I like way more, and many others I have still yet to play, but I can't say it was a waste of time either.

I have the firm belief that if a game was underwhelming to me, there's at least something to be learned from the experience, and as someone who wants to make videogames someday, specifically RPGs, this knowledge is very valuable to me.

Also, as a first attempt, it isn't as bad as it could have been, still, unless you either crave for that kind of experience, want to play the whole series, or also appreciate what you can learn from it, I wouldn't recommend it if you are looking for a really good game.

#game review #gaming #fantasy rpg #jrpg #super nintendo #super famicom #breath of fire #video games #trans creator #long post