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cuubism · 3 years

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mind & heart, body & soul - chapter 11 (ao3)

@magnusbae sorry i know i promised you wednesday 😔

Alec’s so distracted he almost walks straight into the front door of the Institute.

He wishes he could blame it on lingering drunkenness, but he knows better. It wasn’t the last vestiges of alcohol in his system that had him lost in his head as he walked home from Magnus’s loft. It wasn’t the chaos and drama of the Warlock party that had him shivering in his t-shirt because he felt so lightheaded upon leaving that he forgot half of his stuff in Magnus’s apartment, his suit and the sweatshirt he’d meant to change into after the party included.

It was Magnus. It was the warmth and strength of his body under Alec’s in bed, the weight of his arm wrapped around Alec’s back. It was the subtle scent of his cologne where Alec had his nose pressed to his neck. It was how Magnus hadn’t pushed him off, even though they were— or rather weren’t—

Thinking about it, about how Magnus had just stayed near him, not shoved Alec away, not made excuses, let them be close—Alec can’t help but find hope in it, hope for something he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to let himself want. And it’s possible that Magnus had just not pushed him away to spare Alec’s feelings, but well—in Alec’s admittedly limited experience, Magnus doesn’t tolerate people touching him when he doesn’t want them to. Including Alec, at first.

And he didn’t push Alec away…

Alec shakes himself, pushing the thoughts aside along with the lingering memory of Magnus’s body. He has work he’s supposed to be doing.

He makes it to Ops without walking into any more walls, only to find Jace, Izzy, Clary, and his mom gathered around a screen.

Alec tries to keep on top of everything at the Institute, but sometimes he forgets just how out of touch his responsibilities with Magnus can make him—both because they’re spending time together, and because the Clave likes to cut him out.

“Alec!” Jace yells, “Get ready. We’ve got a lead on Valentine.”

Alec stops in the middle of Ops and stares. “You’ve what?”

Alec tries to push thoughts of Magnus out of his head as they approach the warehouse. If they’re to nab Valentine—or at least, some of his goons—he needs to focus. Magnus can wait. If anything, his safety depends on them stopping Valentine. Alec needs to be present.

He’s apparently thinking about this so loudly that he feels Magnus push a little questioning feeling at him, even from so far away. Alec tries to send reassurance back, but he’s not sure he really manages it.

But he doesn’t have time to think much more of it, because they’re getting into position to storm the warehouse.

“Everyone fan out,” Jace says. “Cover all the entrances.”

This is Jace and Izzy’s intel, their operation, so Alec hangs back and lets them lead, even though it makes him a bit uncomfortable to relinquish control. Jace is a good strategist, but who knows what he’ll do if things go sideways.

And things always go sideways.

Alec takes his position at the back entrance, bow drawn. Hopefully, the interior of the warehouse will be an empty enough space that he’ll be able to use it.

Jace whistles through his earpiece, and Alec pushes through the door, which is, slightly disturbingly, unlocked. He creeps forward through the dark hallway, grateful for his night vision rune that lets him see at least some of what he’s getting into.

Gradually, the hallway opens onto the broader warehouse. Alec can just make out the glint of Jace and the others’ seraph blades in the darkness across the way.

And it’s just about then that he knows that whatever intel Jace and Izzy got was faulty at best, and a trap at worst.

The warehouse is full of Circle members. Circle members who are absolutely waiting for them. And Valentine’s not among them, at least as far as Alec can see. He can see his team across the way realize it at the same moment he does.

And then all hell breaks loose.

The Circle members leap into action, and Alec starts firing arrows on instinct, trusting his gut to only hit Circle members, and not his own people. He manages to take a few of them out, but is quickly surrounded, and has to drop his bow in favor of his seraph blades.

Across the way he can see Jace and Clary fighting back to back—which is, frankly, a terrible idea because they’re in no way at an equal level of training—but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it because a Circle member comes out of nowhere and jabs a blade at his face.

Alec parries and slashes across the man’s throat, then another one appears in his peripheral vision, and dear God how many are there?

The darkness of the room crowds in, and Alec can’t make how everyone else is doing, just tries to keep himself on his feet while feeling increasingly desperate about their chances.

Then, across the way, he hears Izzy yell.

Alec knows what his sister’s yell of anger sounds like, he’s had it directed at himself enough times. That was a yell of pain. And he can’t see Izzy, can’t get to her through the writhing sea of bodies, and panic crowds up his throat, and before he can take a much-needed moment to think about it he’s dropping his blade and thrusting his hands out.

Power, Magnus’s power, explodes outwards, throwing the Circle members off their feet. Alec’s not entirely sure they’re alive when they hit the ground, but he’s not really thinking about it, too focused on channeling the power, stopping it from ripping him apart too, spiraling totally out of control. It burns inside his chest, up and down his limbs, not a painful burn but a burn of warning and power, hellfire and overexertion. The warehouse echoes with a rushing noise, red light flickering on the walls and across the faces of the fallen Circle members. Alec briefly wonders if Magnus ever felt this out of control while wielding his magic, or if that time is so far away now as to be gone from his memory.

When Alec finally manages to close his fists and stem the torrent, every Circle member in the building is on the ground. His own people appear unharmed. Alec falls to his knees, limbs trembling with exhaustion, sweat dripping down his brow. He can still feel Magnus’s magic tingling under his skin like a phantom ache. He wonders if Magnus can feel it.

When he looks up, every Shadowhunter in the building is staring at him.

Fuck.

In retrospect, Alec probably should have anticipated the speed with which everything fell apart.

Post unwitting magic reveal, he’d managed to exchange one brief, desperate glance with Jace and Izzy before one of the older Shadowhunters on the mission—a staunch Clave loyalist, Alec’s pretty sure—was calling his parents. Calling the Heads of the Institute, because that’s technically what they are, even if they never act like it.

Alec can’t believe he could be so stupid as to reveal the magical side of their bond in front of the Clave. For a moment, afterward, he almost wanted to run, wanted to sprint to Magnus’s apartment and grab him by the hand and flee the country. But it wouldn’t have done any good. The Clave would only have found them.

No, Alec thinks as he sits down on the couch in his—in his parents’ office—he can protect Magnus better from within the Institute, where he can bear the brunt of the fallout.

His biggest regret, as he waits for his parents—and judgment—is that he didn’t get a chance to talk to Magnus about any of it. He managed to pass a quick warning through Izzy, but he was watched closely as they all marched back in silence to the Institute, and couldn’t use his phone. He longs to hear Magnus’s voice now. Who knows when he’ll next be able to, if ever. Who knows what the Clave will do with this newfound knowledge about the transferability of Downworld powers. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

All Alec knows is that Magnus cannot get within reach of the Clave, not now.

“Alexander Gideon Lightwood,” his mom snaps as she strides into the office. She probably expects him to stand at attention, but Alec stays sitting on the couch.

“Mother,” he says.

“Were you ever going to share the critical strategic info you’ve apparently been sitting on?” she asks. “Or were you just going to keep it to yourself until we’re all dead and in the ground?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Alec, now’s not the time to be cheeky. Everyone saw what happened. Did you know you could use the Warlock’s magic, or didn’t you?”

Alec can’t decide which answer will be safer for Magnus. “No,” he finally decides on.

If Maryse thinks he’s lying, she doesn’t let on. “Regardless, we’ll have to move quickly. It won’t be long before word spreads through the Downworld as well. To keep this advantage as an advantage, we’ll have to make the first move.”

“No one’s making any moves,” Alec says sternly. “If you want to punish me, do it, but leave the Downworld out of it.” Leave Magnus out of it, he thinks but doesn’t say.

“Punish you?” Maryse asks incredulously, and when Alec just stares at her she waves a dismissive hand. “We can address the lying at another time. For now, I need your expertise so we can take full advantage of these Downworld powers—”

“No one’s taking advantage of anything,” Alec repeats, louder this time. “Besides, what happened to ‘keeping angel blood pure’? I thought that was what you wanted.”

“We are at war—”

“Who are we at war with, exactly? Because I thought we were at war with Valentine. Who would do exactly what you’re thinking, by the way.”

Maryse’s jaw sets and she crosses her arms. “I should have known you’d be difficult about this. You’ve been so difficult lately. Alec, don’t you realize what this power could do for us?”

He’s not going to shake her off. And who knows what Maryse will do with this knowledge once she leaves this room. Bring it to the Clave? Go after Downworlders? Go after Magnus?

And who knows who in his mother’s circle still harbors loyalties to Valentine. Alec shudders to even think what the Circle would do with their marriage rune.

So he decides to gamble. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t work with anyone else. Just me and Magnus.”

He can practically see all the gears in Maryse’s head grind to a halt. “What do you mean?”

Alec swallows hard and hopes he isn’t condemning his husband in the hopes of protecting the rest of the Downworld. “Magnus did something to enhance the rune. I didn’t realize the effect until now, but… it’s just us. It’s not replicable.”

This is theoretically not a complete lie. They don’t actually know if the magic-sharing would have happened for anyone else. But pinning it on Magnus—Alec thinks he may come to regret that. He can’t think of any other way, though. It’s not like he has the magic to modify a soul bond.

Maryse deflates at the news. “Are you certain?”

“I watched him do it,” Alec lies.

Then Maryse gets a familiar glint in her eyes, and Alec knows he’s really fucked up.

“Then we’ll have to bring Magnus to the Institute to find out how.”

She strides for the door, and Alec lurches to his feet to block her way, panic beating wildly in his chest. “No one’s bringing Magnus anywhere.”

“Alec, move out of the way.” Alec doesn’t move, and Maryse puts her hands on her hips. “I promise I won’t hurt your…” her lips curl—“husband, I just want to ask a few questions. You can help, or you can get out of the way.”

“I’m not going to—”

The Institute’s lights flash red and the alarm blares.

Alec looks at his mother, who stares back at him in alarm.

“We’re under attack.”

“I fucking knew that warehouse thing was a distraction!” Jace yells as Alec sprints up to him in Ops.

“Yeah, well, ‘that warehouse thing’ was your plan, so—”

“Not the time!”

Alec doesn’t even have the chance to ask Jace what the hell is going on before Circle members are storming into Ops, blades drawn. And of course Alec’s unarmed, because the idiot Shadowhunter who reported him to his mother and apparently thought he was a Downworld operative, whatever the hell that even means, took his weapons.

That’s just fucking great.

Jace throws him one of his seraph blades just as the first Circle member swings for Alec’s throat. Alec parries and guts the man, yelling over his shoulder to Jace. “What do they even want?”

“The cup, I guess? Do they need a reason to be assholes?”

“I guess not.”

Another Circle member comes at Alec and Alec beats him down with the flat of his blade. Ops around him is a battlefield, Shadowhunters and Circle members falling left and right, blood splattering the pristine floor. And all the while, in the back of Alec’s mind is Maryse’s threat.

We’ll just have to bring Magnus to the Institute.

Over Alec’s dead body. Which, admittedly, is looking more and more likely as more Circle members stream through the doors of Ops.

Then Alec hears the telltale sound of a portal whooshing open behind him.

“Alexander?”

Alec whirls around to find Magnus standing several meters away—and a Circle member already rushing him from behind.

“Magnus, watch out!”

Magnus ducks to the side and Alec flings his blade, impaling the Circle member through the skull. Magnus looks back at him, eyes wide.

“What are you doing here?” Alec yells. “I specifically told you not to come to the Institute!”

“You were blocking me out!” Another Circle member rushes him, and Magnus yanks Alec’s blade out of the other’s corpse and uses it to deflect the blow. The adamas glimmers crimson in his grip. “Marriage is founded on communication, Alexander.”

Now weaponless, Alec summons one of Magnus’s fireballs to his hands and hurls it at another Circle member. “I was a little busy!”

“Yes, I heard from dear Clarissa what happened. I’ve come to help.”

“By doing exactly what I warned you not to do?”

Magnus slashes across another Circle member’s chest and blood splatters onto his face. It makes him look wild, powerful and battle-crazed. His eyes are unglamored. “Come now. I wasn’t going to let you handle the Clave alone.”

Alec shoves a Circle member away with a burst of magic and savors the look of alarm on the man’s face at the red glow emerging from his palms. “Don’t underestimate them. You don’t know what the Clave will do if they get ahold of Downworlders’ magic.”

“On the contrary, I know exactly what the Clave will do with Downworlders’ magic. Which is why I’m here to stop it.”

“Magnus, the Clave is my problem.”

“Not how it works, Alexander.”

Alec doesn’t get a chance to respond to this as the fighting suddenly snaps to a halt. The Circle members stand back, blades held out to ward off any Shadowhunters who might follow, and Alec doesn’t understand why until he hears a new voice ring out.

“Well, isn’t this fun.”

Alec knows who it is before he even turns to see Valentine. It’s too late to conceal the magic dancing in his palms, or the red-glowing seraph blade that Magnus is still holding out, but fortunately Valentine doesn’t seem particularly concerned with either of them.

He’s addressing Jace.

“Come now, son, you know it’s over,” he says, taking a cautious step closer. Jace, blade held out before him, holds his ground.

“Nothing’s over,” he spits, “and we’ll force you out of the Institute if we have to.”

“I have you surrounded. Now, you can give me what I want, or I can get it the hard way. And I’d rather not. It’s always a shame to spill Shadowhunter blood.”

“But I don’t have Shadowhunter blood, do I?” Jace yells. “You saw to that.”

“And in this case, that’s a blessing. Jace, I need you to help me complete my plans. Together, we can solve everything.”

“Fuck off!”

Alec turns to Magnus to see if he might have a better sense of what’s going on, only to find him gone. At almost the same moment, Maryse storms into Ops, eyes dark and every line of her body a warning.

“Valentine, step away from my son!”

Valentine looks at her and scoffs. “Your son? No, I don’t think so.”

Alec tries to slip away, sneak off to find Magnus—he hopes his husband’s taken advantage of the distraction to escape the Institute, but somehow doubts it—but before he gets the chance Maryse is drawing her blade and pointing it at Valentine.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Institute.”

Valentine grins like he was just hoping she’d say that. “Not quite yet. I have some business to complete first.”

And then he runs out of Ops.

Jace sprints after him.

And in Valentine’s absence the fight springs back to life.

Alec fights his way through the halls, trying to follow Jace’s path and, tangentially, Magnus’s. He’d managed to retrieve a blade from a fallen Circle member and now wields that in one hand, Magnus’s magic in the other. His body is cut and bruised to hell from the fighting, his clothes drenched in blood and exhaustion tugging at his limbs, but he ignores all of that and keeps pushing forward.

All he can feel from Magnus is a vague sense of urgency, which tells him absolutely nothing about where he’s gone or what he’s up to, but Alec can’t focus on that right now.

He has to help Jace stop Valentine. Besides the fact that Magnus’s very safety depends on it, Alec’s also realizing, with a stab of guilt, that he’s been so caught up in his own issues these past few weeks that he’s been completely out of the loop on everything going on with his brother. That ends today.

If he can find him.

Alec fights his way around another corner and finally hears Jace’s voice.

“I’m not going to let you go through with this!”

And then a bright flash whites out everything in Alec’s vision.

#mhbs #malec #malec fic #love me a cliffhanger #gonna make everyone angry with this one #and with chapter 12 as well 😞#😈#my writing

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haleigh-sloth · 3 years

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So afo got NO but its attacking his other quirks and he needs to get rid of them. Hmm shouldn't he keep the healing one. Does the rule apply to decay since it's Shigaraki’s body. Sorry I only got bits of what's happening. Either way he will die, afo not Shigaraki. I agree that it will be Shigaraki to defeat afo but if he doesn't have quirks ? Won't he have to take care of the vestige AND the real afo. I 100% see Shig saved no question. I'm just confused on the NO thing.

We won't really know until this chapter fully drops tomorrow or until next week's chapter. I'll be honest, what's going on right now could very easily have zero purpose and not matter by the end of next chapter.

Whatever is going on right now is one of two things:

drawing out this battle for suspense, making you wonder if Shig will make it out alive (he will)

or seriously nerfing ShigAFO (for whatever reason, because I don't know what would have been the point of introducing this god-tier quirk if it wasn't going to be used in some impactful way later on so idk if this is the case)

I really hope it's just the first one, and I had some inkling that the battle was gonna be "suspenseful" (it's really more annoying at this point), but at the end of it all I still think AFO is gonna end up with the quirk. He can put all the quirks he's got on the nomu flying over to him to get control over New Order (once there's no quirks for it to revolt against), then take all his quirks back and go back to being the massively OP villain we were all expecting, and that the story actually needs rn so Shigaraki can be saved from this mess. Like idk, it's pretty laid out to me but Hori may end up doing something different with this New Order stuff.

Based on the spoilers though we did kinda get some more info on things. AFO thinking back to his little brother and the comic books was interesting. And this chapter kinda solidified my belief that shit WILL be going down in the vestige between Deku and Shigaraki. I am still convinced that's what's gonna happen, and this chapter kinda made it seem more likely.

#bnha #bnha asks #anonymous #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #bnha 333 #shigaraki tomura #afo #bnha afo #all for one #bnha all for one

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class1akids · 4 years

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All I know is that if Deku gets hit by a quirk-erasing bullet and OfA somehow overcomes it with the ~power of the vestiges~ or some shit I will scream. OfA's power creep and increasingly BORING level of OPness is why a lot of us are way more interested in the side characters and side stories - Deku gets less interesting to me the stronger he gets, and DEFINITELY with the more powers he gets. AfO is honestly boring, too. Superlatively strong powers don't make for good story tension! (1/2)

(cont) Things like quirk matchups don't matter when you've got All The Quirks, and everything gets increasingly deus ex machina'd - it started with Shinsou and I'm worried OfA's just going to exponentially creep now that new quirks are cropping up. Also, more and more it feels like Hori is running as hard in the OPPOSITE direction as he can from the question of whether quirks determine someone's value by making everything revolve around the characters with the strongest, flashiest quirks. (2/2)

It is the curse of the shonen protagonist. Deku started out already very noble and heroic, so his main thing was the underdog schtick, but he hasn’t been that for a long, long time which really stilted his character progression.

I’m not a big fan of the power creep either - this is why I try not to overthink OFA/AFO.

Like now, I fully expected Shigaraki to come with a pre-loaded collection of quirks, but it feels very cheap that he can just use them without any drawbacks. We have spent many many chapters watching the kids try to overcome the basic weakness that came with their quirks or to perfect their use. Even if Shigaraki gets the base ability - it makes no sense that he’d also get experience level 60 right off the bat. (I imagine Search initially must have come with debilitating headaches, until Ragdoll trained enough to manage to keep track of 100s people at the same time.)

At least Deku’s “All My Quirks” come with some requirement that he trains / unlocks them - even if I agree that giving him all this stuff makes him less interesting, as one of his big strengths was really figuring out how to use powers to do things they weren’t originally meant to do or how to combine them into unexpected combos.

Also, it feels like Shigaraki’s exponential decay power makes everyone who has no flight capability completely irrelevant. That means, other that Deku (once he gets float), Bakugou, Uraraka and Tokoyami (and I still have faith that Shouto will have air mobility like Endeavor and Dabi), the rest of the class is relegated to ushering people on buses in the evacuation zone, unless Momo can figure out how to make flying broomsticks for everyone.

That makes me very sad, because I’m invested in their growth and I’d really like to see all of their hard work pay off, not just Deku’s.

So at the moment, I don’t see how we get out of that corner the story went in - unless there is some big bad prison-break where all the evil of Tartarus is unleashed and united around Shigaraki (which takes away the depth from the villains, but whatever) and there are battles happening in different places, sort of a large-scale replay of the USJ incident.

Another issue is that now after seeing the destruction Shigaraki can cause, after all this immense loss of life and the rabbit being out of the bag on OFA, narratively, it makes zero sense to keep the power with Deku. It’s not his personal problem - millions of lives are at risk -and it is society’s best interest to give it to someone who is strong enough to wield it at 100% right now and has a lot of battle experience and training to be at their peak. They don’t have the luxury to wait for a 15-year old to train and get stronger and gain experience and even if Deku were at 100%, it’s just cruel and absurd to send a child into battle on behalf of everyone.

So that’s going to be something that will have to be solved - either by basically taking out all the possible candidates who could take OFA (which means killing / maiming all the top pro-heroes, which is already happening), or making it so that OFA cannot be transferred anymore and Deku is the last holder no matter what and their only hope either through some “OFA singularity thing” or having it erased/taken by Shigaraki, but the only thing he manages to take is the transfer part of the quirk, while the stockpiled power remains with Deku.

It’s also possible that Shigaraki’s 75% will come into play, and his system will be overwhelmed in this fight, landing him in the prison or a hospital or thinking he’s dead (like AFO the first time around) lulling people into a false sense of security.

#bnha #bnha meta #bnha manga spoilers #power creep #ofa #afo #war arc

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sptrashcan · 7 years

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Some thoughts on politics

One thing I haven't been seeing in the various discussions about "how did we get here" is the pragmatic strategic angle.

As far as I can tell, a big part of how we got here is that the Republicans realized that our system of government lets you get ahold of all the political power despite being a demographic minority - and then they did that. Our system of government has identifiable structural failings that make it specifically vulnerable to strategic takeover, if you have no moral compunctions about ignoring the preferences of the majority and can get your people to fall in line. Republicans meet both those prerequisites.

Meanwhile on the left I see two strains of thought. The idealist strain goes "a democracy should reflect the will of the majority of people, and I want to believe we live in a democracy, therefore since we lost we don't have that level of support". The cynical strain goes "all systems are corrupt, so it's no surprise the plutocrats rule despite our best efforts."

But the truth is that it's a false dichotomy. Our system is a democracy, but a flawed democracy, and the linkage between what people want and what government does is more than nothing but less than we want it to be. First-past-the-post ballots and legislative districting combine to create a situation where strategic voting by a demographic minority can consistently barely win a majority of districts while overwhelmingly losing the remainder, thus pushing the support requirements for the opposition to gain any power to well past the halfway mark. These are fixable problems, but it's not in the interest of those currently in power to fix them.

I think liberal ideas are already preferred by the majority of people, and the problem lies in transmission between that grassroots support and the wheels of power. If I were the Boss of Liberals, I would take into account the reality of our current system. I would make my agenda to 1) reacquire power using strategic maneuvers without hand-wringing about representation and then 2) immediately switch to preference or ranked ballots (not IRV, here's why) and nonpartisan algorithmic districting. If liberals lose after that, at least it actually is a problem of popular support.

But I'm not the Boss of Liberals, and no such person exists, and if they did they wouldn't be followed. And what worries me is that, while demographic trends narrow the Republican base and the Republican party itself is vulnerable to takeover by an unpopular radical minority for many of the same reasons the American government is vulnerable to takeover by Republicans, the Republican-controlled government may just use the power they have acquired to shrink the degree of democratic control of government to an ineffectual vestige, as they arguably already have in North Carolina.

Anyway, as a liberal optimist I still have hope that making more people aware of this stuff will be useful.

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gamerszone2019-blog · 5 years

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Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/wolfenstein-youngblood-review/

Wolfenstein: Youngblood Review

Most parents hope that their kids will one day surpass them, but failing that we’ll settle for staying out of prison and not asking for money too often. So if I were in the shoes of legendary run-and-gun shooter protagonist William “BJ” Blazkowicz, I wouldn’t be mad about my twin daughters’ debut performance in Wolfenstein: Youngblood

, but I would be disappointed. The young Blazkowiczs’ approach to co-op is, on the whole, serviceable but does cramp the style of its inherited trust fund of combat and stealth gameplay. Without a similarly outlandish cast of characters to liven up the alternate-history setting in which Nazis won WWII with the help of fire-breathing robot dogs, it’s perfunctory compared to the extremely high standard set by Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus.Nearly everything about Youngblood feels like a step down from Wolfenstein 2’s distinctively zany plot and satisfyingly energetic Nazi-slaughter action. Outside of a single reveal, this story – the daughters’ search for an MIA BJ in Paris, which is still lousy with Nazis about 20 years later – has nothing surprising up its sleeve to add to the Machinegames Wolfenstein reboot series’ collection of WTF moments. That’s partially due to the minimal number of story cutscenes within the main missions, but really it’s because of a stark lack of interesting characters to fill the shoes of batshit insane companions like Super Spesh or Set, to name a few. Abby, the daughter of Wolfenstein 2’s Grace Walker, is about as bland a hacker helper character as you’ll ever find, and the monotonously cackling villain isn’t fit to shine Irene Engle’s jackboots. Admittedly, Wolfenstein 2 is a tough act to follow in those departments, but Youngblood barely seems to try.

BJ himself is among the weaker characters in the previous two games (aside from those flashbacks to his childhood), and in that respect his apples haven’t fallen far from the tree. Soph and Jess’ defining character trait is being snort-laughing dorks together, who would be at least a little adorable except for their constant use of fist-bumping and horrible ‘80s slang (read: “tubular!”) like gender-swapped frat bros. They’re not unlikeable when they’re chatting about memories of hunting with their dad or novelist aspirations in heavy Texan accents, but they’re not exactly breakout stars I want to see more of, either. They’re… fine.

The sisters, who have identical abilities thanks to their power armor suits, start with at least a few of the key moves BJ has to work for in Wolfenstein 2 – most notably the double-jump – and earn plenty of upgrades from there. To Youngblood’s credit, there are too many upgrades to get them all without playing exhaustively, so specialization does matter, though not to the extent where I see opportunities for a lot of synergy between abilities. You can focus on buffing up your health and armor maximums, intensify your melee damage, gain the ability to pick up and upgrade heavy weapons, and more. We also get pretty much all the same arsenal of pistols, shotguns, SMGs, rifles, etc. that the twins’ father wielded two decades earlier (though annoyingly, only pistols can be dual-wielded), and they can all be upgraded with modifiers like muzzles, sights, and stocks that increase their power as you go. It’s the most visible representation of progression because those changes are reflected on the gun models you’re holding. Seeing the stock SMG become a tricked-out version is a satisfying transformation.

The Blazkowicz twins aren’t exactly breakout stars I want to see more of. They’re… fine.

“

But the addition of a leveling system for both the girls and the Nazis they fight doesn’t do the combat any favors. For one thing, as a veteran of the first two games in this series it was jarring to see a name and number pop up over the head of an enemy when I aimed at them to indicate how their power level compared to mine. More importantly, it messed up the balance of about two thirds of the fights: when you’re going up against techno-fascists who are right at your level, combat feels just about how it should, but enemies that are beneath your level are mere fodder and those above are annoying bullet sponges that reward you with only a little more XP. When you’re dealing with heavily armored super-soldiers, that’s not much fun.

This leveling system clashes with Wolfenstein’s design: unlike in Fallout or Borderlands, there’s no loot to make the potential reward worth the risk of taking on a bad guy several levels out of your league. Seeing one just means you should turn around and come back later, and defeats the purpose of the non-linear structure of Youngblood’s missions. Sure, I can travel to zones in any order I want, but if they have a big burly bouncer at the door they can’t exactly be done in whatever order I choose anyway.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Those zones are adequate but similarly pale shadows of what’s come before. The best example is seeing vestiges of a parade that immediately reminded me of Wolfenstein 2’s Nazi parade scene in New Mexico – which has to be a deliberate callback – but without any of the liveliness. Beyond that it’s largely a collection of high-tech Nazi facilities and war-torn city blocks, distinguished mostly by good use of multi-story structures to double-jump around on and the lightest of Metroidvania design touches, asking you to use one of the three heavy weapons – a laser, an electric zapper, and a sticky grenade launcher – to blast open new areas.

No Quiet on the Western Front

Of course, shooting Nazis until their faces fall off is only two thirds of the magic of Wolfenstein’s previous success. The other is stabbing them repeatedly, occasionally while cupping a hand over their mouth and whispering “Ssssh, it’ll be over soon, you goose-stepping douche” into their ear – then doing the same to about a dozen of their friends before you get around to the shooting part. Naturally, Youngblood messes this up, too. Its level and enemy layouts simply aren’t designed with stealth in mind, and attempting to play it in the way I’d had success with previously almost always went poorly. Either you’re spotted by a flying drone or there’s no way to separate and pick off a group of enemies, forcing you into noisy combat.

Instead, you’re supposed to use the blatant design Band-Aid of the cloaking device, an ability so essential it’s one of two you choose from when initially creating a character (and quickly unlockable if you choose the Crash ramming ability instead). Even before you upgrade it to last longer and let you move faster, it lets you walk right up to an economically anxious German, step around him, and stealthily ventilate his spleen. It feels like a cheat, probably because it absolutely is a cheat. The designers cheated not only the game, but themselves. They didn’t grow. They didn’t improve. They took a shortcut and gained nothing. They experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.

The cloaking device feels like a cheat, probably because it absolutely is a cheat.

“

Co-op does get a fair amount right. From the start, it’s conveniently and seamlessly drop-in and drop-out because your sister is always with you, controlled by either a friend, an internet rando via quickmatch, or a mostly competent (because it cheats and warps around bigtime) AI when you’re playing solo. Youngblood also does a good job of letting you play with anybody you want regardless of your respective levels – when I was level 25 someone joined me with a brand-new character and was able to hold his own, just with fewer abilities unlocked. His character even got to carry their progress back to single-player, which is always appreciated. That said, I had more than once incident where my co-op partner would experience an annoying lag between when they pulled the trigger and when the enemy they shot would actually take damage – and this even happened on a LAN, so it’s unlikely to be connection-related.

The co-op-first nature of Youngblood’s design does take its toll on the single-player experience, as you’d expect. The first problem I noticed was that you can’t pause, even while playing by yourself. You can go to the menu screen, yes, but then you just get to listen as the Nazis and their suicide-bomber dogs (yes, those are a thing) murder you. Also, every level has annoyingly common doors that require both players to heave them open, no doubt intended to keep you from wandering too far from your partner.

But whether you play with a buddy or solo, death is a lot harder to come by in Youngblood than in previous Wolfensteins because, as is standard in the co-op shooter world, it has a down-but-not-out system where you can revive each other endlessly, as long as you get to the injured person within about a minute. This one is actually unusually generous, because even if you’re both downed you have a pool of up to three “shared lives” that let one of you self-revive to get back on your feet before it’s game over.

Once that generous system runs out, however, the consequences of death can be, as they say in Germany, uber stupid. For example, the final battle in the Brother 2 Tower mission (there are three of these that make up the bulk of the 15-ish hours of story) killed me several times – thanks for nothing, AI-controlled Jess. Each time, it booted me so far back that it took me about 15 minutes just to get back to the boss fight, including battling through or sprinting past several miniboss mechs and running through the longest jumping puzzle section in the entire campaign. Just as bad, Youngblood restarts you at the nearest checkpoint with the amount of ammo you died with, not what you had when you first reached it. And if you didn’t go down without a fight, that usually means your good stuff is depleted. That makes you spend a bunch of extra time scrounging for ammo, and it’s actually worse when the checkpoint starts you right in the thick of the action effectively unarmed – as it does in the tedious final boss battle.

There’s plenty to do in Youngblood beyond the story missions, including dynamic “actions” that pop up and invite you to plant bombs or listening devices or straight-up murder some dudes “when you have a moment” en route to your larger objective, and tons of side missions you can take on by talking to a handful of completely forgettable characters idoly standing around the hub area. That’s arguably the meat of Youngblood and could carry you forward for another dozen or so hours of cathartic, justifiable homicide, but frankly I’d rather spend that time replaying The New Order and The New Colossus.

Source : IGN

#Game News #Game Reviews

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morninginamerica · 7 years

Text

A look at the Democrats in 2020

Like most voters, I figured there would be a divided Republican field seeking the Presidential nomination in 2020. While there may still be, it is the Democrats who face the onus of proving themselves in the next general election.

Elizabeth Warren is interesting, yet she may fall due to the same faults as Hillary Clinton. Warren’s actions this past week were particularly interesting; she began reading a letter in opposition to Jeff Sessions’ nomination as Attorney General when Sen. McConnell “silenced” her for disrespecting rules. His words; “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” The immediate fallout led to a Democratic rallying cry. That last sentence was being echoed by every other D Senator in tweets, statements, and (mostly) fundraising letters, though Warren’s personal social media accounts stayed conspicuously silent. It suggests that Warren will let those words speak for themselves, and she will let the other, lesser Democrats speak for her. It’s smart to let these things simmer, after all, a smart politician will fight a battle someone else can fight for them. Yet, Warren’s chief trait: bookish policy-orientation, technocratic wonkiness, is directly opposite to what most Americans seem interested in. Look at the last few Presidents; none seemed to particularly care about the finer points of policy, opting instead for the type of grand, sweeping themes that most Americans think in terms of. Where Mitt Romney ran on power points and policy proposals, Barack Obama ran on Hope and Change. Where Hillary Clinton ran on ten-point-plans and reintroducing herself, Trump ran on Making America Great Again. Which one sounded better to the average person? The results show the answer, and Warren’s approach seems to be closer to the intelligentsia’s.

Cory Booker could be interesting, but his by-the-book lead up may as well disqualify him. Booker will have a book out in the next year, and he’ll make sure to include Des Moines and Nashua on the tour. Booker will give speeches to state Democratic party functions in the early primary states and write op-eds including buzzwords like “comprehensive strategy” and “equality” and start sentences with “No one should have to choose between...” That’s all well and good but as Clinton proved, the sterile approach does nothing for the general election voter. Those people already know who they’re voting for, and Booker won’t be it. Remember Christie, and his Hamlet act in 2012? That New Jersey pol thought he could afford a four-year wait, thinking the fervor would simmer to a boiling point just in time for the next election. Instead, Christie’s Presidential hopes disappeared the second he closed the door in 2012. No one remembered him the next time. Booker is probably in the same boat. He might have been able to capitalize on the progressives and distrust in Clinton to win the nomination, though it probably would have turned out the same way then, And it will in 2020.

Bill de Blasio is fascinating to watch. If Christie was Hamlet, de Blasio is Prospero, stuck alone in a foreign land, grabbing at straws for relevance. Like the character, de Blasio summoned a brief storm last year when he declined to endorse Clinton’s Presidential campaign, waffling for no apparent reason other than to flex political muscles. The Mayor of New York seems to have spent more time giving talks on climate change and Trump’s executive orders than making sure the NY Metro runs on time, or that his city is clean for the tourists. The train is getting dirtier and the streets are filling with trash and his constituents longingly remember the days of Giuliani or Bloomberg. Watch de Blasio, since he will almost surely run, but even if he doesn’t, watch as the straws keep escaping from his grasp.

New York hasn't had much luck in Presidential offerings, though it won’t be for Andrew Cuomo’s lack of trying. Cuomo’s efforts barely merit more than a few words; if he had half the charisma of his father, or of his former boss Bill Clinton, maybe he could be something. But Cuomo hasn't ever had an easy path, and 2020 won’t be any different. He will have to fight the nuts in his party, like he always has, and he will struggle to appeal to the conservative midwestern or southern Democrats due to his geography. in other words, the Clinton Democrats will probably make him their second choice.

Martin O’Malley will probably run again. Playing the guitar in parks seemed to be more lucrative for him. A John Hickenlooper or a Deval Patrick would offer the same “book tour” rational. Any of those three guys could make a nice play for the Morning Joe crowd, and that’s about it.

More intriguing is the idea of an actual conservative Democrat vying for the office. John Bel Edwards, Louisiana’s pro-life, pro-gun Democrat Governor, has succeeded in laying low for the past couple of months. He has stayed out of scandals and laser-focused on infrastructure and jobs. But is there a national market for that type of Democrat anymore? Jim Webb’s sputtering 2016 campaign might mean no, but the fact that Webb ran at all means something. An Edwards campaign would be a nice attempt to center out a leftward drift. Edwards certainly wouldn’t win, but it may be a nice counterbalance to a far-left nominee, or it might be enough to put his good name in some conservative publications ahead of another run at higher office.

Joe Biden is a field-clearing option. Biden is the only Democrat with the ability to enter the race without any wing of the party dead-set against him, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he would be anyone’s first choice. Biden’s blue-collar roots had no small part to play in the midwest success of the Obama ticket, and his clash with Trump would be the stuff of legend. He voiced his regret over not running in 2016, and hasn’t ruled out 2020. Moreover, Biden has been in the public eye, braving personal heartbreak and political success, for the better part of forty years. There’s no reason to think he would opt to end a streak that has lasted that long in favor of sitting on the sidelines.

Bernie Sanders would never have been the story that he was had the Hillary Clinton machine been what it was made out to be. The DNC hacked his emails, ripped him up in opinion pages and berated him at fundraisers. Yet they never talked to him. At his core, Sanders is a career politician who would have happily shrugged out of the 2016 bloodbath, if only Hillary had bought him lunch. Instead, they decided to wait, and the slow bleed Sanders created was enough to foment distrust in her. Sanders seemed like a dead man walking in the last vestiges of 2016. He had run up against the clock of time, made mortal enemies with half his party, and not even gotten enough interest for a book deal before Hillary Clinton lost the election. Suddenly, Sanders’ message is getting a second look. Going for Sanders: half the party, including he union Democrat and the young person voted for him. Should he decide to run again, and it seems that he’s at least interested in doing so, watch for how much of his vote was just going against Hillary.

And what of Hillary herself? She hasn’t exactly said no. Shermanesque statements rarely do much to dampen speculation anymore, but Clinton’s machine hasn’t clicked the “off” switch quite yet. Her concession since has been rumination on herself and her campaign, offering little toward the victor beside agreeing to attend his crowing moment. On a deeper level, Hillary Clinton has wanted to be the first female President for a long time. Is one loss enough to kill her chances? Or is one loss just enough to make her want the grand prize even more?

#2020 #politics

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