#i wish was a little fight game sprite so people would make little edits of me saying cringe shit like ''you just got!!!! jaked [smirk cat] | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer · 5 years

Text

A Fake Mega Man ZX Game

[EDIT: Upon another look, it has occurred to me that link led to the Fanon Wiki..so this is a fanmade project, not a real one. Oops. Sorry, that’s my bad.]

Apparently, back in 2008, Capcom made a website for a new game: Mega Man ZX Axess File. Except it was an April Fools joke. But somehow, I had never heard about it over the past eleven years, until I came across this post last night which mentioned it with a link to a sparse Wiki page that linked to an archived copy of the site. I freaked out a little since this is probably the closest thing to new ZX info (and art!!) that we’ll ever get, and then dug up this site which translates text in images (thank God that’s a thing) to get to work on it.

Obviously I’m not the first person to know about it, and surely someone’s translated it before now, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one who somehow just missed it for over a decade, so I compiled everything here for easy access (heh). Even if it’s a joke, there’s still some neat stuff in here!

The text is saying it will reveal the hidden stories of these four. They’re the playable characters. Well I immediately wish this was real. The tabs read “Prologue”, “Basic Action”, “Characters”, “System”, “Movie”, and “Download”, with the last three being labeled Coming Soon (they’re not).

Starting with the Prologue.

The art shows either Vent or Aile fighting Serpent, and the text says as much. It then says that Mavericks have calmed down, since Serpent was controlling them, but then flips around and says Mavericks are becoming more intense and the damage they cause is spreading. It ends on an ominous “And one country will be attacked…” Since they’re only talking about the first game, this leads me to believe this would take place between ZX and ZXA…meaning we’re talking about the origin stories of the four enemy Mega Men, and maybe how they obtained their Biometal.

I’m not going to go over Basic Action, they’re the same controls as the other games, but there are screenshots featuring new sprites for the Mega Men!

On to the Characters page.

On the left we have our four protagonists, and on the right three groups that basically all translate to “Other”. I’m really curious about how many empty spaces there are…anyway, let’s start with Aeolus.

He uses his sword in his human form! And he can cling to ledges, which I believe is new to this series? Anyway, his quote says “I cannot forget this humiliation”. It then goes on to describe him as a boy of wealthy house, learning swordsmanship from a young age and tending to look down on other people because of his upbringing. You can then click the Rock On button to get…

Model RH! (The R stands for Replica, as we’ll discover in a later profile.) Each screenshot details a move, and they’re pretty much the same as Model H/Model HX, although it appears to have a new charged move that is a piercing strike. Two special things to note that will be present on all four Mega Men’s profiles:

-An EX Skill. I assume this is what the third gauge on the UI is for, since it mentions draining an entire gauge to use the attack. Interestingly, all four seem to be a reference to the initial four Pseudoroids of ZX, with Aeolus using Hivolt’s laser beam attack. It also mentions obtaining this after a certain boss—part of me wonders if that means those Pseudoroids are back in some capacity, but that’s purely speculation.

-An EX Chip. Each of them has one of the body chips from ZX, with Aeolus having the one that reduces weight.

On to Siarnaq. In base form he attacks with a gun and can execute a sliding maneuver. His quote is just silence, and the rest of the text…translation is rough, but I believe it’s saying he’s a former Hunter who is very loyal and leaves no openings in his movements. It then says he’s not really sure what he’s thinking. Those bandages make me wonder if this is right after he was left for dead…and calling him loyal makes me wonder if he hasn’t figured out it was on purpose just yet. So we could get to see his original personality…before he completely loses it upon learning the truth. Anyway, Rock On!

He maintains the Shadow Dash, and gets a new move…if I understand correctly, he can charge up his attacks further, but it leaves him more vulnerable while doing so. His EX Skill resembles Purprill’s spinning attack, except he uses shuriken. The text is either saying you get this skill by defeating a boss, or you get Siarnaq after defeating a boss (suggesting either you form a party as you go, or unlock new campaigns one at a time). His EX Chip reduces the speed at which he falls while clinging to a wall.

Legit thought Thetis looked older at first but I guess he just gets a haircut? Anyway, he can ledge grab too, and his base form weapon…it says it has wide range but with many gaps, and I’m not 100% sure what it is. A staff? The bio says he loves the sea and when swimming people mistake him for a mermaid.

Model RL has Ice Boots and Lurerre’s ice wall beam attack. It looks like Thetis can swing his weapon in a few different arcs, and he can also use a ranged Ice Javelin attack.

Atlas can also slide, but while hers doesn’t go as far as Siarnaq’s it can send small enemies flying. Damn. Her text doesn’t translate super well here, but she says “Strength is justice”, it talks about how she’s stronger than even the men around her, and…I think it’s trying to say she doesn’t like fancy things? And possibly that she’s bored with her military training? One line I can’t make any sense of is “A girl who is lying on the floor.” Is this saying something about Atlas? Does she find and rescue someone? Is it just a translation issue? I dunno.

Unfortunately the only new move Model RF offers is the EX Skill, “Devil Night”, which looks like Fistleo’s charging flaming grab attack. Her EX Chip reduces knockback.

Now for a new character…the katakana gives us “Toruche”. Truche? Torche? Not sure what they’re going for. It says “the hero helped her”, and that she’s our new operator character who knows a lot about Biometal. So…she helps all four of them? Do they all travel together, or is she helping them all separately? And really, it’s odd that she knows about Biometal—very few people do. Sounds just a little suspicious. Lolz suggested that maybe she has ties to the Guardians, and her outfit could fit with that.

The bio for P&P just says “The Grim Reaper and the Witch, they have frequent encounters with the main characters.” Pandora says something about an imitation, likely the Replica Biometal, and Prometheus asks “Are you satisfied with that power?” Taken together, it sounds like they’re goading these 4 into wanting the real Biometal they have in ZXA.

The Vent and Aile page doesn’t have anything new. Their quotes are about being a Mega Man who protects people and having a memento from someone important, the bio talks about Double Megamerge and the balanced capabilities of Model ZX.

Okay, now THIS PERSON. So mysterious they don’t even have a name. Their quote simply says “Do you want power?” They’re the one who gives Replica Biometal to the main characters, and seems to call themselves “a watcher.” The translation says “a man”, but I don’t think the original text actually genders them? That’s clearly Model W armor. As for what they’re holding, perhaps that’s what Replica Biometal fragments look like? It’s anyone’s guess.

And lastly, the Prairie icon leads to this page that’s titled “Guardians”, and it just gives a basic description of what they are. Nothing about Prairie specifically. That sucks, I was hoping it might give us something to better theorize why she’s absent in ZXA. Oddly, the art behind her for Vent looks more like his ZXA self while the art for Aile more closely resembles her ZX appearance…or maybe that’s just me?

So yeah! It seems the idea is that Mavericks swarm a country where the four enemy Mega Man either live or happen to be, they encounter Mystery Figure who gives them Replica Biometal, and then things escalate from there. It’s hard to say exactly what role the other Mega Men would play, but they’re here, so it looks like these four did interact with P&P at some point and also met Vent and/or Aile prior to Ouroboros. Of course…April Fools, so maybe none of this is legit. But part of me can’t help but wonder if it was an actual project that got its plug pulled and so was put up as “a joke” instead. (There’s a lot of new art and screenshots…)

Either way, this was a lot of fun to dig into! Honestly I wish this was real, it’d be nice to get more on these characters. Or, you know…anything new…on ZX…but, for now, I’m happy with this.

#Mega Man ZX #long post #I'm legit psyched by an April Fools joke from over a decade ago #that's how desperate I am for new ZX content

33 notes · View notes

homesception · 6 years

Text

May 31, 2013 - part 1: wherein Lobac eats a cookie.

To be fair, it has been like two hundred years since my last update. That’s a pretty good nap. Just means I’m all the more rested to work on new stuff, right? I mean, I need to keep a spritely pace up if I still plan on catching up to Lobac’s liveblog before said liveblog catches up to the comic. Which for sure is still an actual thing at all, and not a bit of exclusive humor between friends.

Last time Lobac was getting into some theory crafting and analysis of the classpect system. I didn’t have much to say about that at the time, particularly not much that wouldn’t qualify as spoilers, so iirc I was mostly just responding with random thoughts and video links, half of which are dead now. There was a bit left over looking at the troll’s perster names, which was also good stuff, but lacking anything coherent to say about it, I’ll just gloss past the rest of that post, apart from:

Lobac said:

Thank you all for sticking around °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

As if you could ever get rid of me. ~{@PQ}~

Moving on, we rejoin the comic with PM visiting the Black Queen to retrieve the mysterious GREEN PACKAGE, which had been impounded by agents of the Black Court as a result of a traffic violation. The Black Queen cuts an imposing figure, and Lobac is, of course, duly imposed.

later, Lobac said:

Are those… tentacles ( ´ _ ｀) I thought only the imps were affected by the prototypings?

OH SHIT OH SHIT THAT LOOKS SO COOL HOT DAMN (゜▽゜) Wowow look at her joints! Look at all the carapace-y stuff going on there!

These days, Lobac’s soft spot for this particular sort of shiny, black, possibly betentacled monster-type aesthetic is well documented. I’m pretty sure she would have loved the black queen’s design even if it wasn’t just objectively cool as hell, but that certainly doesn’t hurt. I’m kind of sad that we never got a proper fight scene out of this particular version of her.

That’s not a spoiler is it? I’m pretty sure that’s not a spoiler.

Yeah, the random objects the kids threw in the general directions of their seizuresprites are directly affecting the final boss. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG HERE EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE

I don’t see the problem here. Nothing the kids could possibly put in those sprites could be at all unsettling or dangerous.

haa haa. hee hee. hoo hoo.

Her face is so weird though It’s Jaspers-shaped, and her eyes are constantly narrowed, I can’t even tell whether it’s in distaste or amusement

Why not both?

Andrew sure is proud of that hand’s close-up She’s not even dramatically pointing she’s literally just saying “yeah I dunno anything about that kinda shit you best go down there and ask my pretty princess, I mean, subordinate”

It is a pretty great hand, honestly. I think this particular image gets called back to a few more times yet.

Yeah Rose! You go and fulfill your as of yet unclear vaguely Seering-related destiny

Yeah, Rose! Get on that, maybe!

ROSE NO YOU ARE 13 THAT IS GONNA TASTE AWFUL TO YOU Heh I legitimately don’t know whether her mom would be proud of or disappointed in her if she could see her now Is this an act of defiance or emulation Just silly teenage antics, probably, but I’d like to think she misses her

Rooooooose Rose nooooooooooooooooo （ ´ω｀） Ehehe I love how the artstyle turns super silly to reflect how upset/surprised she is

These two panels constitute one of the most iconic funny moments in the comic. It works really well. Shoot, I should have done the post topper-edit based on these, huh? Oh, well. The one I already did took like four hours, mostly due to my extreme rustiness, so I’m not going back now.

Otherwise, I also like to think of Rose missing her mom here. Maybe not admitting it to herself, but still. I also still ascribe to the “everything Mom ever did was 110% unironic, Rose made up the whole passive aggressive conflict between them in her head, her mom wasn’t passive agressive she was just a bonkers drunk rich lady” headcannon that I think I spoke about ages ago in this very liveblog.

Anyway, yeah, this is both a hilarious joke and a fantastic little character moment for Rose. Another contributing factor to Rose being my big early favorite with a seemingly insurmountable head start in the ‘best character’ race.

Actually, lately, since the end of the comic, she’s been gaining ground again for me? I mean, one of the trolls definitely surpassed her for most of my Homestuck fan life, but... eh, whatever. There’s no way I can getting into how my feelings about those characters developed over the comics life without being way more spoilery than even I’ve already been, so that kind of talk will have to wait for later. Even if later means ‘years from now’ or ‘never’.

BOO FUCKING YAH, IT’S THE WHITE QUEEN Or Windswept Questant, for now She’s also as of yet uncorrupted by the kids’ silly sprite shenanigans

Lobac had been waiting for this reveal for a while, I think.

PM: Command John to put the carved tablet into a pyxis.

You follow the command telling you to command John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis and type, “John, put the carved tablet into the pyxis.” You successfully do that, and he successfully does that too. Everyone is friendly and cooperative.

Ah yes, you so rarely get this kind of friendly cooperation from narrators these days

It was a rather uncommonly tidy sequence, for this comic.

Shit I just remembered those typing hands we saw when trying to name Jack, the reader is like a physically present entity??? Maybe???

What prompted this thought? The earlier black queen hand image hanging in your head, then a bit about narrators entering text, and that old bit just pops up? It’s cool how brains work, making intuitive connections and all that.

What if we eventually zoom out to reveal a human exile commanding everyone. We’ve only been watching that human mess around up until now. The real story begins when they just suddenly go “whelp that was kinda fun. gotta look for food tho” at an incredibly dramatic moment.They turn away from the console. And then we watch them slump through the desert for thousands of pages and their journey of introspective self-discovery is the actual story. Yes.

Shit, Lobac just predicted the whole narrative! No point in continuing this liveblog, I guess. “[#P%]t

Well, obviously this means that WV has an uncanny knack for distances and PM has one for sounds AR can probably track down crimes by their scent He’s like McGruff the Crime Dog, but a little less fluffy

I used to love McGruff the Crime Dog. Until I grew up and realized he was a tool of THE MAN.

dear gOD SHE REALLY IS PUTTING JACK IN DRESSES (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ He and Slick are basically the same person, right? Oh man he is gonna stab the shit out of her one of these days

~{%|%}~

Jack Noir, more like JACK NO. NO YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT THERE MURDERING PEOPLE AND FROLICKING THROUGH THE STREETS WITH YOUR ASSHOLE CREW. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS IS PATHETIC o(`д´ ｡)

I’d say this is a “be careful what you wish for” moment, but I think Lobac knew exactly what she was doing here.

Ticket? Oh, this thing. Ha, ha, look at that, you are holding a ticket. How did that get in your hand? It belongs on the desk with the others. No, you are not here to pay a parking ticket. You explain to the frightening man that you are here to pick up that green parcel.

GIVE ME A C! GIVE ME A U! GIVE ME A T AND I AND E! sheeEEEE’S A CUTIE!!!!

Honestly, they’re all cuties. the cuteness of the entire cast, even the villains mostly, in both visual depiction and personality, really is a big selling point of the whole comic.

There was a time when I wasn’t super into cute things. I was never viscerally opposed to cuteness, never when through a virulently anti-girly-stuff phase, but these days I’m MUCH more into things being cute. I just like cute characters! Sure, I like things that are somber and spooky, but the best is when they’re somber and spooky AND super cute!

Like, Hollow Knight. That whole game is like exactly my favorite aesthetic these days. Sad and morose and dark and adorable.

But more often than not homestuck still comes pretty close to that ideal. You just want to hug the shit out of all of these doofuses, a few stab wounds here or there be damned. Speaking of stab wounds...

WHOOPS TENSION. THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT. I DO NOT ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO START KILLING PEOPLE OK

Maybe Lobac didn’t know what she was asking for earlier.

Wait, the crowns, what the fuck, he wants her to KILL THE KING AND QUEEN??? SHE’S JUST A MAIL LADY ヾ(´･-･｀)ノ”

How does he even know she’s desperate enough to kill people just to get one package?

The PARCEL MISTRESS departs with her mission of double agency. You wonder if she’ll actually be so foolish as to attempt to uphold her end of the lopsided bargain. You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office. But you never think anyone’s actually going to GO THROUGH with it.

What a phenomenal asshole That explains that

pretty much. As for the box itself...

Yeeeeah you’re not actually gonna show me so, go ahead, taunt me, get it over with

PFFFFPFPFPFPFFF WHAT SOMETHING COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS APPARENTLY? NOT AS RIDICULOUS AS HIS FACE THO. Magnificent asshole cutie

Hahah, \[&P%]/

Anyway, at this point the action cuts back to the kids, and that seems a good a time as any to take a break. I could just save this as a draft and finish the rest of lobac’s post later? I mean, then I wouldn’t have to take extra time for another panel edit? But I kind of want to post something now, so I guess well do this one in parts again. part 2 scheduled for, let’s be ambitious and say may 2022

How did I ever use to have the time for this blogging shit? I’ve been working on this for like six hours, and only got like a third of the way through one update? I guess I was just younger then.

I’m so old now. Time just gets away from me.

And my back hurts all the time.

#homestuck #homestuck liveblog #homestuck liveblog liveblog #lobac #chaos chaos #i can do anything #apparently tumblr mobile displays #this neatly and cleanly formatted post #as a nightmare mishmash of different font sizes #and text styles #with no particular marcation for quotes #oh well #if you're 'reading' this on mible #i'm sorry #it looks fine on desktop I promise you

16 notes · View notes

startaryat · 3 years

Text

So, I just finished Cyberpunk 2077.

A lot of folks are riffing on this game because of the bugs, so I may as well get that out of the way. Yes, there are bugs. Yes, they are frustrating. Yes, I've had to reload once or twice because of one. Finally, yes, there were some quests I was unable to finish because of them. In the end, it reminded me of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. You know what people don't talk about from VtM: B? The bugs. They'll get a passing mention, but more people go on to talk about how the game's story riveted them... So... The story... Cyberpunk 2077 made me realize something rather harsh about the Cyberpunk genre as a whole: It is VERY racist against the Japanese. The core of the genre was built when the Japanese looked like an economic powerhouse. The TV Trope for it is called "Japan Takes Over the World." In the late 70s, throughout the 80s and early 90s, it really looked like Japan was going to buy everything. Despite that not looking like the case anymore, the fear people had of a world like that, that global society would be forcefully regressed to having to endure the society of Edo Period for some strange reason, inundates every facet of the Cyberpunk genre. You can see it in Cyberpunk 2020, the tabletop RPG 2077 is based on. You can see it in the game's contemporaries, like Shadowrun. You can see it in the writing of William Gibson, such as Johnny Mnemonic, and even hints of it crop up in The Matrix or Strange Days. Cyberpunk 2077 hits you with it full-force, as one of the major factions is a Megacorporation that, according to the game's backstory, has largely taken over the world and is very, VERY Japanese, replete with their founder being a WW2 veteran with a chip on his shoulder about the Nuclear Bombs and likes to wear traditional Japanese clothing, adhere to Japanese traditions and looks down his nose at everybody who isn't Japanese. *sigh*. You wind up having to deal with his bodyguard some and he's constantly complaining about people's lack of honor or that the food sucks and how much he wishes he was back in Japan, where people are civilized... Never mind that's not how Japan was at the time the genre got its feet under it... Never mind that's not how Japan is now... But I digress. The first bulk of the game is the sidequests. There are all sorts of random fights you can get into, sometimes even saving the random passersby. The city's police wire you bounties for the thugs you kill and bonuses for resolving the issues ("resolving" here meaning "Loot the bag everybody was fighting over."). Some also involve a little more searching to find out where the rest of the loot is. Read the little notes you pick up while doing these, and they help paint the picture of what you just interrupted. Sometimes you're stopping a mugging, sometimes you arrive just after one. Sometimes you're avenging a labor union that just got slaughtered, sometimes you're diving into a nearby harbor to pull the loot from a van the bad guys accidentally remote-controlled over the side of the pier. The second bulk of the game is the contracts and gigs, stuff your fixers (people who find you work) hire you to do. These are dotted all over the map like the random fights. These missions are often just more hardcore versions of the sidequests, but a few stand out for encouraging better tactical and strategic thinking. Usually, these will exercise your stealth skills, or your out-of-the-box thinking (such as liberally exploiting your ability to hack the nearby electronics). Most, though, have a much more decent story attached to them. A few stand out in my memory... One, you have to get a recording from a location. The people who have it are editing it, and others, into essentially a high-tech snuff film. Worse, it's a father-son operation doing this, and the more you dig into what's going on, the more horrifying the situation. I normally don't inflict violence on these digital sprites when I'm playing these games, but this time I could tell the old man was clearly stalling for time... So I shot him. Reading the note I picked up off of him... I have no regrets. Dude contracts a gang to protect him while he edits recordings and distribute the product. Said gang is a group of people so heavily mechanized, you can barely tell where the body ends and the machine begins. The note is a recorded conversation between him and one of the gang's leaders, with the gangleader being thoroughly disgusted with the old man's behavior. Somebody who WANTED to be inhuman was disturbed by this guy's inhumanity. Chilling. Finally, the game's main stories provide some of the more interesting moments in the game, but then, they should. Like most games, the main story is where the most effort has gone. Some of the most fun I have is working with the nomads, helping one get her stuff back (and some revenge on the guy who took it from her), rescuing their leader from a rival gang, even pulling a heist and driving a hover tank. The other main quests involve getting revenge for a killed contact on behalf of one of her friends and trying to clear the air about the botched job that kicks the whole game off, with each one having its own share of difficult choices and a staggering reminder of the consequences of engaging in such actions. It's stuff that can actually make you stop and think. There are a couple odd "social" missions that are mostly you talking to some of the people. The two I found were a doomsayer out near the first Ripperdoc the game introduces you to ("Ripperdoc" read: surgeon who installs your cybernetic upgrades, like a blend of cosmetic surgeon, physician and mechanic) and a talking vending machine that's a little too smart for its own good. The doomsayer is an interesting interpretation of such a character, with him eventually pointing out that one of his implants has been picking up transmissions, leaving you to infer that he has trouble parsing the information he's getting, so he rants it out to people in what seems like conspiracy theory nonsense. However, he does send you somewhere to deal with one of the things he's heard... And you find he's not entirely bonkers... The talking vending machine, on the other hand, is probably a statement on where talk bots and data collection algorithms are going to lead future advertising, and it's creepy and unusually heartwarming. |And all the while you've got Keanu Reeves talking in your ear, his low tone reminding you of Johnny Mnemonic, his clothing a dark reprise of Ted Logan, his cybernetic arm a reminder of Neo... Though his pistol handling in the segments where you play through his memories would probably make John Wick shake his head in irritation. Seriously, could anybody ELSE have played this character? This was absolutely perfect casting, and Reeves does an excellent job of playing this rocker-turned-mercenary-turned-revolutionary-turned-digital ghost. All in all, it's a fun game. It's not a massive, revolutionary thing, no, but I enjoyed it all the same. It had its moments, like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines did, like Fallout 3 did, like Fallout New Vegas did, like a lot of our favorites do, and like any good piece of media does. It's not perfect, but I had fun.

#Cyberpunk2077

0 notes

elfstuck · 6 years

Text

War in the Chessfields

I have realized that, no matter how busy my life gets (guys, guuuuuyzzz, it’s Night of the Nocturne right now and I could be searching for Strange Chests that might contain the new Smirch gene!), I really need to get farther along in Homestuck because it’s starting to creep into mainstream politics. (He was told about Homestuck, and then he started reading it.) Also, Chibipaw says there is “good stuff’ coming up soon (that’s as much detail as my anti-spoiler policy allows) and I need to hurry up and get to it.

So... where did I leave off? Oh yeah. NinjaJade had taken out the wearer of my future cosplay project, but had missed PM sailing off into the sunset (moonset? Prospitset? Do they even have a sun on these planet-things?), so she’ll have to get the ring back to her later. To expediate that, Jade marries herself.

Oh wait. The four dots. Agh. I mean, aside from being equally spaced in a way that would make them endlessly annoying to wear, they... they may signify the four fingers. Homestuckians have four-fingered hands. I’m not sure if I’ve noticed this before.

Jade is immediately overwhelmed with the Spirit of the Ring: she gains wings, a tri-pointy hat with horns, tentacles, and a fake through-the-body sword. So... an amalgam of all the sprite encodings so far.

Next panel, turns out she was only thinking that happened. It doesn’t work that way on humans.

Elsewhere (dammit, I should’ve stuck with the last post a few more panels so the POV shift happened at the beginning) we have yet another WV. This one is WARWEARY VILLEIN who is either an animated stick-man, or is waving a stick on a banner: crossed beams, ragged red-and-purple robes and a white sash. He/it has a bucket on its head with the familiar Sburb spirograph.

Next up (aagh) is something with flash and sound. This is probably the Cool Thing Coming Up Soon that Chibi told me about. eep. Flash takes forever.

WV is being told to “Rise Up,” which is probably not supposed to make me think of Hamilton as this was written several years ago. But those words are gonna be attached to that song for a long time.

I click to the next screen. I am faced with this:

And I remember two things: (1) Firefox always thinks Flash is out of date, because every time Firefox updates ANYTHING, it decides Flash is out of date. My Firefox is a couple of editions behind (I’m not “updating” to Quantum that will kill several of my beloved extensions), so I’m going to see this A LOT. Sigh.

And (2) aaaaagh my laptop does not have a “print screen” button. It had a “print screen” macro that stopped working. (I have an Alienware laptop. WHODAFUK decided that a gaming laptop didn’t need a “print screen” button? Like, is that now an obscure and rare function? I STILL HAVE A CAPSLOCK BUTTON. I DO NOT NEED A CAPSLOCK BUTTON; CAN I REPLACE IT WITH PRTSCRN? (I typed that without using the capslock button, because remembering to un-capslock is always worse than just holding the shift button with my left pinky and using the wrong finger for “A”, and I guess “q” and “z” but those don’t come up as often.)

Quick check to the Alien “TactX” command center... huh. Print Screen is working now. It wasn’t last week. Yay, I guess? (Someday, I will once again have a boyfriend who speaks fluent Linux, and this time, I will get him to TEACH IT TO ME and I will defenestrate my laptop.) Anyway. Here we go.

3x3 chessboard; the kings move a bit, and then run into each other and the whole thing turns white silhouette. This means this is a meta-story-thing, related to the previous Grand Chessboard event, which I have mostly forgotten. (I have the link saved, though, so I can watch it again anytime. It’s on my schedule. “1. Run out of Stucky and Stony fanfic. 2. Rewatch Homestuck chess scene.” Blame dsudis for the delay.)

Clownsprite image appears. Chess pieces keep moving in the background. I have to screencap several times to get a good picture of the chess pieces (sometimes there’s only one visible) and the sprite with the pretty shade of aqua in the middle instead of white. I’m sure you’re all thrilled that I’m focused on the important parts of the story.

Next, he flickers and I fail to s’cap the transition between that and the full-layout chess set.

Please, someone tell me that someone makes these chess sets. That several people make these chess sets. Tell me the are sold with the label, “This Is A Chess Set, Not A Collection Of Marital Aids. We Promise.”

Birdsprite appears. (At least, I think that’s birdsprite.) Oh wait, no, that’s catsprite in the princess outfit. It is lavender, Rose’s color. Or one of them. Does that mean the davesprite will be red? (Do I really need to screencap all of these? Probably not, but this is as much for my entertainment as anything else. Also, I want to be able to reread them and figure out what I was thinking.) I considered re-trying to catch one with a darker purple circle or other higher contrast, and decided not to bother.

The music seems nice enough, what I can hear of it before I hit stop so I can screencap. (If you’re new - various suggestions have been made on how to deal with the Flash bits in ways that aren’t “stop & screengrab every couple of seconds.” I have nixed all of them. I enjoy doing this one fragmented piece at a time.)

And then the scene changes: the board is replaced with a WHOLE PLANET BOARD.

Rose and John’s sprites are in the upper corners, starting with top right and moving widdershins. Widdershins is a destructive direction; they are unmaking the world. (Erm. As obscure as Hussie gets sometimes, I have doubts that that particular bit of symbolism applies here.)

Aaaand here comes the davebirdswordsprite. Orange, not red.

Davesprite tucks away into the bottom left corner, continuing widdershins, and the cubeworld backs off or is replaced by a round world, very bright and faint, with VERY BRIGHT FLASHING blue lines around it. (Same blue lines as above. They just got brighter.) Then the planet darkens (this is what happens when you stop the Flash every second or two; you wind up giving far too much import to transition scenes.)

Imma make a prediction: Jadesprite is due to make an appearance. (Does Jade have a sprite yet? Something with a pumpkin?)

BUT NO! The world gets bigger, moves closer, until it FILLS THE WHOLE SCREEN! Then it fades out to white, and gradually (well, gradually if you’re stopping every time something moves or flickers), we get a new scene:

Aww, the rolling hills of Chesslandia, with its famed pixeltrees. We float over the landscape until we reach the castle. (Or maybe, “a castle.” I dunno. Maybe there are hundreds of castles in Chesslandia.) The pixelgrass fields bring color to the landscape, and a couple of pixelfolk play hide-and-seek in the tall grass near the aqua river.

Well, it’s got a turret and banners, and that kinda says “castle,” along with the whole, y’know, chess kings & queens motif, but that looks kinda small for a castle. Also rather isolated. Why build a castle if there’s nothing near it to defend? I see that there are people, but no town. Is the castle all that remains? Am I looking upon the desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland of Chesslandia?

We pass the people and zoom in, seeing the yellow banner waving madly in the gale-force breezes near the castle turret. This is, apparently, to introduce the army of Chesslandia, because the scene whites out again, and then switches to the marching hordes.

I am probably not supposed to think their little ± symbol reminds me of a leviathan cross, a.k.a. the Satanic cross. (Hey, if I make a CD cosplay outfit, can I have a purple banner with a pentagonal ± symbol on it? Or is he not part of this army?)

Then we pull back to see the huge crowd of them, and they fade, and a different banner fades in: this one is purple - and behind it is a yellow-clad army.

AAAH! The yellow flag is for Prospit, and that’s the Dersian army marching on it. And the purple banner here is Derse, and the Prospit army - complete with the same ± symbol - is marching. Here, have some Prospit army:

This isn’t because you need the picture, but because I captured the flash at that point so I can watch them marching and waving weapons, with the sky flickering in the background. It’s very soothing. Wish I could capture it as a gif.

And then... FIGHT! Armies meet on the battlefield! Sparks fly from their blades, which are apparently made from different metals. They both wear stripey shirts and chessboard tabards, of different color combos.

Guys. Gals. Whatever. Readers. I have been cheated. I thought Homestuck cosplay was limited to “t-shirts with a zodiac symbol + horns & weird sunglasses,” or “one of these four kids (also t-shirt with symbol).” There is AWESOME cosplay opportunities in this series. Nobody told me.

I mean, they told me about the tentibulges, because my friends know where my interests lie (or squirm, as the case may be), but even the friends who knew I’d done 6+ years of RenFaire didn’t bother telling me, “omg you should see the amazing costume options, and also, they wouldn’t be impossible to make!”

(I mean, I’ve looked into WV’s costume, but it looks difficult and too hot to wear at most conventions.) (See how I focus on the important parts of the story?)

Spaceship takedown attempt. Or maybe this is a drop ship. Looks like there are many such ships. Anyway, we see battles, and it pulls back to show the larger scene, and the horrors of war:

Well, the horrors of neon, purple-vs-yellow war. ... Is that a giant horse shadow with tentacles on its back?

Why, yes it is. Knight vs... King? Queen? We’re back to the chessboard, with only a tiny hint of a pixeltree in the corner to let you know this is the large-scale war happening above the ground. Then we get this:

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but they’re too cute to pass up. There are 9 little fellows, so they’re not “pawns.” Then a giant black chesspiece stomps into the center of them and they fall aside, scattering (I didn’t catch that picture), and then... the WV banner thingie is raised again.

That makes it seem like we’re wrapping up this storything, because that’s the image that we started on. It slowly pulls back to show an empty Chesslandia with a flower stand, waving a red banner.

The pixelgrass has return to the fields, although the pixeltrees have not. Or maybe they just don’t grow here.

AAuugghhh nooo... that was a picture of the past. Now, the lovely flowerstand is in ruins; fire everywhere, and a lone derseling wanders the war-ravaged fields of Chesslandia. :( We pull in tight to his grief-stricken, bleak expression (don’t ask how I can identify that from two white dots on a black circle; I just can) and then he (or she) oversees the huge battle on the fields below.

Woe. Woe has come to Chesslandia. Woe, and fire. Woe, and fire, and pixels.

Zir face is shadowed by woe and fire and pixels.

Zie is not looking nearly as woeful in this image. Hrrm. Then we see the Black Queen rise...

Then we zoom in again, this time to the scepter, which is full of clouds and the spirography thing:

This is all getting a little too “Men in Black,” with the world in a marble and all that. Are we going to zoom into the scepter again, to the center of the spirography symbol, and find ourselves moving into John’s balcony?

Well, no. We do zoom in, into the world and the cubeworld and such, but we get a black-and-white image of something shadowy flying over Chesslandia.

We zoom in again, and we see... not Spades Slick, despite the cut on the eye. That other character with the same appearance.

It flies with malice (don’t ask me how I can identify malice from that), but is faced with a lone Dersian defender:

We cut back to the war on the ground, the clashing swords and all that, but the combatants move aside. And this had better wrap up pretty quickly, because my printscreen macro just stopped working. (WTF? If anyone knows how to give advice on this, plz contact me.) Anyway. They move aside, and then snap into line.

Our lone Dersite with the tattered red banner leads them through the pixeltrees toward a set of checkered ruins.

Elsewhere, PM lands, and notices the missing ring. White Queen is not happy. There’s another huge scepter waving. White Queen flashes white all over, and shrinks - and hands the scepter to PM.

Looks like PM is in line to be the new WQ. However, the handoff is spotted by someone who is Definitely Not A Member Of The Midnight Crew.

Meanwhile, the Dersite hordes march to confront the Black Queen. Our purple-robed hero(ine) glares, and then looks upward, sees the flying not-a-bird person overhead. The Spadesy-person waves a swords and slices through the black scepter.

(I think I figured out the screencap problem. It won’t work if I have the Flash selected. Which is stupid. Really stupid.)

Black queen, missing her scepter and its four spinny baubles, also shrinks.

Heartsy spy leaps out and attacks the new white queen. (Gonna knock her into next week. This is a problem, because next week is a massive international holiday and it’ll be hard to find time to liveblog.) White scepter goes flying over a waterfall.

We see, inside the white scepter, the purple-robed defender, and it pulls back to see the world, and then the scepter itself, which lands by the banks of the aqua river surrounded by pixelgrass.

(That picture’s superfluous; it’s not relevant to the story. It’s here becaue I think it’s pretty.)

Aaand now I should watch it again and get a sense of the whole story instead of stopping every two seconds to ponder the meaning of each cut scene.

***

Two minutes and 15 seconds of flash that takes me an hour and a half to write about, all the while worrying that Tumblr’s going to have some weird hiccup and lose the whole thing.

So: back queen dead; white queen deposed by losing her marbles; new manager of each; war possibly stopped at the moment. White scepter maybe recoverable and could be combined with Jade’s ring to fix it. Black scepter broken; would need something else to fix. (Superglue?)

Jade has not yet entered the chessgame at the macro level. Jade needs to install Sburb and get into the game.

#homestuck #homestuck liveblog #prospit v derse #white queen #black queen #elf meets trolls #act 4

7 notes · View notes

thegamingjunkie-blog · 7 years

Text

Sonic Chaos/Sonic & Tails Review

Back in the year 1993 Sega's own blue mascot was a big hit. With his debut in the year 1991, Sega needed to release some new Sonic games for the '93 holiday season. While the biggest title of the year 1993 was Sonic CD, Sega needed to also release a new title for their color handheld known as the Game Gear. Since Sega had released a 8-bit game for their Master System in Brazil, they had Aspect port the game to the handheld to be released worldwide. So let's take a look at one of Sonic's 8-bit titles!

This game isn't the first 8-bit title released in the Sonic franchise of course. There was Sonic 1 and even Sonic 2, which I'll go over in other future reviews. So what makes this game different from the two other prior games? Well first off Sonic Chaos runs on a modified Sonic 2 engine, known as the "Aspect Engine", while Sonic 1 runs on a completely different engine made by Ancient. Next, you can play as Sonic or Tails and both of them have their own gameplay style. Sonic can now spindash, and Tails can fly which he wasn't able to do so in Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive. Sonic also has his signature new move known as the Strike Dash, or otherwise known as the Super Peel-Out in Sonic CD. However, he can become invincible if the player holds down the up button on the game pad. He is also invulnerable if you release the up button for a few seconds. Tails can fly as I mentioned above, however instead of double jumping to perform the move the player must hold up and then press either button 1 or 2. With the addition of the new moves, you can now enter special stages as you would in the 16-bit titles to collect the chaos emeralds, however unfortunately only if you play as Sonic and not Tails. In order to enter Special Stages, you'll need to collect 100 rings and you're automatically granted access as well as a extra life. Prior builds have been shown that Tails was at one point able to enter Special Stages, but was most likely cut since they wanted to showcase another new power-up for Sonic. What is that power up you may be asking? It's the Rocket Shoes! These allow him to glide in the air for a short period of time, and they are monitor power-ups that show up in normal stages as well as Special Stages. Because these monitors don't show up for Tails, and the fact that he flies slower than Sonic glides with the shoes means that Tails wouldn't be able to collect the first chaos emerald, because the first special stage is designed for the Rocket Shoes. It is indeed possible for Tails to appear in Special Stages if one was to edit the line of code that checks to see if the player is playing as Tails, but you'll run out of time before you're able to collect the first chaos emerald... This is a bit of a let down, but Tails is meant to be the "easy" mode of the game. He also starts with 5 lives as oppose to 3 like Sonic does. However the game is pretty short and easy even if you play as Sonic, which is a little bit of a let down.

There's not much of a story to the game itself. Like in Sonic 2, most of the bosses you fight are Dr. Eggman's creations and once you are able to make it to Electric Egg Zone you take on the Dr. himself rather than one of his creations. The game has a intro that shows Sonic chasing after Dr. Eggman with Tails trailing behind. Interesting enough though Tails only walks in the intro, there are some unused running sprites that can be found in VRAM for the intro. So at some point he was to be able to keep up with Sonic, but perhaps due to the fact that he wasn't a playable character in Sonic 2 8-bit they wanted to keep his inclusion in the game a bit of a secret? Anyways just like most Sonic games you traverse through a few different levels and in order to get the good ending you need to collect all the chaos emeralds. You automatically get a good ending if you play as Tails.

The music is my favorite part of the game. The game gear version has some slightly different song arrangements, and Gigalopolis (known as Gigapolis in the Game Gear version) has a completely different track in the Game Gear version as opposed to the Master System version. (I personally prefer the Master System version track over the Game Gear.) Some songs such as Sleeping Egg and Aqua Planet have slightly different arrangements, but overall uses the same melody. The tunes are very catchy in both versions, definitely the best out of all the 8-bit titles in my own personal opinion. There's some hidden unused tracks in the Game Gear version as well, Sunset Park Act 3 from Triple Trouble, another 8-bit title actually can be found in the game, though arranged in the Sonic Chaos style. I find the chaos arrangement to be much better than the triple trouble arrangement. If you love catchy chiptunes, this game has it.

Overall Sonic Chaos is pretty short, and easy for a Sonic game. That doesn't mean it's a terrible game, I highly recommend it to those who seem to find the Mega Drive titles or Sonic 2 8-bit to be difficult to give this game a go. With it's catchy soundtrack, you'll be humming the tunes for years to come. I personally think the game is more entertaining than the other 8-bit titles, and I feel it to be a underrated gem on the Game Gear as well as Master System. This was the game that helped the 8-bit titles to mimic the 16-bit titles for the first time in Sonic history. With some cool new abilities for Sonic, and the ability to fly as Tails for the first time Sonic Chaos is a fun game. I only wish it was a bit more difficult than it is, being a veteran Sonic player. I can see why the game was easy, coming after the 8-bit Sonic 2 which many people found difficult to complete perhaps it was Sega's own idea to tell Aspect to sort of dumb down the game play. Anyways I give the game a 6 out of 10.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic chaos #game gear #master system #miles tails prower #retrogaming #review #sega #8-bit #chiptune

2 notes · View notes

cc-crossover-collision-rpg · 4 years

Text

// readme.doc from RPfighter version 1.02 [23/4/2012]

will edit colours into post later (like with the doc), dark red for features that don’t work yet, and dark blue for features that are new (compared to the last version)

Hi, you who is reading this. You should know me from online messengers such as MSN ([email protected]), and AIM (SpeedPhantom7) under the display name of ‘Vizard’. // I had a Bleach phase back then, okay? lmao

Anyway, welcome to the late RPfighter version 1.02 (23/4/2012). I am a big fan of anime/manga, and video games, in particular crossover games like Marvel vs. Capcom, Super Smash Bros Brawl and Jump Ultimate Stars, which is where the basic goal of this aims at: to simulate crossover matches! Much like in MUGEN where you could put any kind of character sprite sets into one of its gaming engines, you can put in a canon or original character of your own into this simple (for now) turn based 1 on 1 fighter.

Things in dark red do not work yet… so try to avoid using them in the game for now to avoid the game from crashing or you taking damage.

Things in dark blue are new features/changes added since the last update/version.

THE FILES

RPfighter.exe: Open this to start the game. If you have the data.txt file open, an error message will pop up, so then close data.txt and try again.

data.txt: This is where all the character and move data are stored. data.xls: You can rename this however you want, this is just a spreadsheet for you to keep all your data nice and neat. Here will also the explanations in this readme and such to help you while character creating. Through multiple spreadsheets I will be adding ‘character batches’ of my own in them as I keep on upgrading the battle system (a way to test things and create characters of my own), all you got to do is simply copy and paste it all under each other in data.txt. This way you can add/have as little or many characters in there as you please at any one time and exchange characters from other people too!

(folder/directory) pix: All the pictures and icons are stored here.

How the battle system works

1. Player’s Attack Phase: You select a move and use it by clicking the button (at the top centre) or by pressing the enter/return key 2. Opponent’s Defence Phase: The opponent then randomly selects one of the following defensive actions (which later you can manually choose for yourself) - Do Nothing: Really doubt anyone would want to choose this, but if you got a big enough ego, go for it bro.

- Block: Deducts/lessens damage taken by up to 50%

- Dodge: There’s a 50/50 chance of taking the full damage or not taking damage, it is dependent on your luck, chances can be increased with evasive techs.

- Counter (with selected move) This depends on the type of move it is: - - Physical/Energy Attack: You hit the attack coming at you with one of your own, effectively blocking some to all of the move damage depending on its power. If it is stronger, it will do the overpowered damage back at your opponent. - - Evasive: The base dodge chance of any move is 50% for fairness, you can change this to be greater than 50. It is set at 75% in the example characters as a baseline. .Be careful though this does use the same amount of energy as if attacking, so make sure it counts,

3. Opponent’s Attack Phase: Opponent randomly selects one of its moves 4. Player’s Defence Phase: You choose a defensive move to react with. Note that using a transformation/energy recovery tech in this phase will not work, you will be hit instead. 5. Back to step 1 Fight ends when you or your opponent’s HP reaches 0 (if it is 1 vs 1).

If you or the opponent team have more than one character (thus ‘team’ battle)

1. You can freely switch characters by selecting them during the attack phase 2. Opponent is unable to switch in and out for now during the defence phase. 3. Opponent is unable to switch in and out for now during the attack phase 4. You can freely switch characters by selecting them during the defence phase, enabling ally actions.

Any character with HP down to 0 or less, they will be unusable in battle. Once you KO one of your opponent’s characters, the next character in line will replace them. Fight ends when all members of the opposing team are KOed.

How to add a character into the game (also in the ‘data.xls’ comments at the top)

Within data.txt, the first row has character info: Character: Name of the Character however you want, just make sure you can recognise it. Series: If they’re from a particular series, name it here. Race: So, ‘what’ are they exactly? Affiliation: Even those of the same race can have different loyalties Rank: Within certain affiliations, statuses and races, there are ranks in them, name it here if applicable Intro: What your character would say/do at the beginning of the battle

Win: What your character would say/do when they win the battle Lose: What your character would say/do when they lose the battle Info: This is where you put in more detailed information not covered above, such as who made this character/what it is for, etc.

The rest that follow (until the next character row) are moves for that character above Move: Name of the move Type: These are split into multiple categories, series examples will follow for clarification Physical Attack: An attack that is of a physical nature, usually requiring little or no energy to use. e.g. punches, kicks, weapon/sword attacks, tool like projectiles, etc. Energy Attack: An attack of a non-physical nature, usually some form of energy/element which usually uses up energy. e.g. Ki Blast, Hado, Rasengan, Fire Dragon’s Roar, Firaga, etc.

At the moment, there is no difference between the two, but they will be as attack effects/additional move types are introduced.

Transformation: A move that changes the character’s attributes, appearance and moves set. e.g. Super Saiyan, Bankai, Gear Second, Dragon Force, Sage Mode, etc.

Healing: Regaining of HP. e.g. Medical Ninjutsu, High Speed Regeneration, Recover, etc Energy Recovery: Regaining of energy. e.g. Ki Charge, Mask Regeneration, Chakra Recovery etc Evasive: A move used to dodge other moves. e.g. After Image Technique, Substitution Jutsu, Flash Step, Double Team, etc

Defensive: A move used to block other moves. e.g. Danku, Ki Shield, Mud Wall Jutsu, Barrier etc Offensive Technique: These do indirect damage or assist with it, includes blinds, binds, weakening and such, e.g. Solar Flare, Sealing Jutsu, Binding Arts, Screech, Slow etc.

Power: How powerful the move is at what is does, specific for each move category: Physical/Energy Attack: How much damage the attack does

Transformation: What the character transforms into (Ichigo Kurosaki ‘Shikai’ => Ichigo Kurosaki ‘Bankai’) Healing/Energy Regen/Absorption: How much HP/energy would be regained once used. Evasive: Dodge chance to changed to (50+), if you use it to evade a move, dodge chance will be increased beyond the base. This also reduces the dodge chance of your own moves (if you used it before an attack) if the opponent tries to dodge them.

Note that using it multiple times in the attack phase will not make it stackable, you’ll be just wasting energy.. Defensive: The maximum amount of possible blocked damage (75 => up to 75% damage blocked)

Offensive Technique: Stuns (stun\3 => stuns for 3 turns, attack\50 => Attack damage is halved)

Energy: How much energy the move costs With the introduction of transformations, the last move (if there is no attack that uses no energy) should be a ‘revert’ move that transforms the user into a form that does have an attack that has requires no energy tp ise, usually a base form. See the sample characters for examples.

RP: Describe or RP the move out however you want, make it dialog, do a quick text action, do a long ass RP, it’s up to you. The AI will choose a RP randomly to represent this particular move if you so choose. You will notice that intro, win, lose and RP have the character ‘|’ in between lots of text in the example characters. Your character can have as many of these as they want, anzd all you have to do is put a ‘|’ to start a new one.

How to add pictures to your own/any character and their moves into the game

You got your character and their moves set up, have some pics? 1. Go into the ‘pix’ folder 2. Create a new folder and name it as your character’s name 3. Now inside the folder is where you will put your pictures 4. The picture names must be exactly the same as your move names (otherwise it’ll just be the ‘no image’ one instead in error), and should be saved as ‘.jpg’ for them to work

5. In the game, move pictures are split into ‘charging’ and ‘attacking’ types, the ‘attacking’ picture will have a ‘2’ at the end while the ‘charging’ one will just be the move nam e.

eg. Folder name in the ‘pix’ folder: Naruto Uzumaki Charging move pic => Rasengan.jpg Attacking move pic => Rasengan2.jpg

Now if you don’t have 2 pictures then you can just use the same one (copy and paste it and rename it with a 2 at the end) if you wish.

Now aside from moves there are some other pictures as well that will be specific to your character: icon.jpg: This represents your character like any icon would hit.jpg: Picture used when you are hit by a move, this includes failed defensive attempts. dodge.jpg: Picture used when you successfully dodge block.jpg: Picture used when you block trans.jpg: Picture used when the user transforms/reverts into the form preview.jpg: Picture for when you are selecting that particular character (form) win.jpg: Battle victory picture lose.jpg: Battle loss/KOed picture

Doesn’t matter how big or small the image is, it will stretch or shrink to the game’s size, which is for now 160x120 pixels. Note that Player 2’s pictures will be flipped horizontally, so you might want the character facing the left if possible so things look better.

NEW FEATURES SINCE THE LAST VERSION (1.01) - Character select screen - Image shakes when you get hit/block - Added numbers for block./dodging so user can see how close/far they were at dong it, especially when using evasive moves - Working Transformations (switch to another character form, or even another character if it makes sense) - Team Battles (switch ins/outs on attack/defending, team attacks are being worked on) - ‘Turns’ have been added for convenience for those reading the battle logs

THINGS BEING WORKED UPON FOR THE NEXT VERSION (1.03) - Stat System - Defensive/Offensive Techniques - Targeting System (for attacking other opponents/assisting other allies)

#tw : long post

0 notes

gulescamisade · 7 years

Text

Minnesota: Day 27

JADE: -She's on the roof of the Crocker headquarters, pawing slowly through her mobile device. No updates since last night on the bulletin board... she imagines that group is travelling now. It's only a matter of time. Everything is going exactly as they thought.-

DAVESPRITE: -dutifully silent. Until he decides to shuffle and peek from his designated hiding place. Still the size of a canary.- do you often brood on rooftops

DAVESPRITE: i ask while also kicking it on the rooftop

DAVESPRITE: blame the bird part of me

DAVESPRITE: theyre pretty fond of heights i am anyway

DAVESPRITE: i am they and they are me

DAVESPRITE: (caw)

JADE: -squints down at him-

JADE: i mostly brood on rooftops when i know a little bird is watching

JADE: except consider this less brooding and more plotting J

ADE: just in case you forgot youre being held hostage

JADE: -he may or may not be in one of her coat pockets....-

DAVESPRITE: -it's a comfy coat pocket. He hangs and chills, sprite tail hanging out the opposite end.- youre one big bad jade

DAVESPRITE: a mega bad upsized to just plain Big (tm) served with a complimentary side of kickass

DAVESPRITE: cuz lets face it

DAVESPRITE: the irrefutable fact is you were always kickass(edited)

JADE: telling me things i already know isnt going to win you any points

JADE: i figured that out no thanks to you

DAVESPRITE: its no thanks to anyone

DAVESPRITE: not even gpa huh

JADE: of course not

JADE: i had to figure out everything on my own because it wasnt like anyone else was going to be there or honest

JADE: i spent way too much time taking care of everyone else instead of figuring out what i can do

JADE: its no wonder i got so depressed

DAVESPRITE: are you depressed right now

JADE: why would i be??

JADE: im not being held back anymore

DAVESPRITE: dunno

DAVESPRITE: doves gone a month without her mom

DAVESPRITE: kind of sucks someone else is having to watch out for her

JADE: and things will be better for her once i take care of this

JADE: thats what you dont get

JADE: its not enough to just say something

JADE: you have to actually do it

DAVESPRITE: i get it

DAVESPRITE: ive seen it

DAVESPRITE: im still seeing it

DAVESPRITE: im in the moment with you right now

DAVESPRITE: nothing else exists outside just the two of us having a chat

DAVESPRITE: thats how time works in your head anyones head

DAVESPRITE: small real moments that add up to something bigger than yourself

DAVESPRITE: without it were just frozen wonderin whether it was always supposed to be this way

DAVESPRITE: thats how i see it anyway

DAVESPRITE: what are you going to look like tomorrow

JADE: like someone who knows what she's doing

JADE: and stops listening to people who hurt her

DAVESPRITE: -he's quiet a long, long moment. Just listening.- did i hurt you

JADE: -Now she's quiet, too, though she shouldn't be. The mere cause of her silence just angers her more.- you lied to me

JADE: you say you think im strong but even you just think im a stupid little girl

JADE: that you have to hide everything from me

JADE: that i cant handle it or maybe just that you can get away with it

JADE: you dont trust me so why i should i trust you????

DAVESPRITE: you got a point gg

DAVESPRITE: i did hide a lot from you

DAVESPRITE: its more a reflection on my own weak game ass ass assholery than anything lets be real

DAVESPRITE: i dont deserve your trust i aint earned it

DAVESPRITE: but hey

DAVESPRITE: i never lied about why im doing this for

DAVESPRITE: cause that was always you

DAVESPRITE: and jade harleys a better reason to get my ass in gear than literally anything else that was going for me in the old au hah -The laughs sounds so dry. But it's there.-

DAVESPRITE: paradox space can go fuck itself it wasnt going to stop me

DAVESPRITE: this is what second chances are all about

DAVESPRITE: its just...

DAVESPRITE: you

JADE: ...

JADE: grrr...!!!

JADE: you cant just explain away everything like that! thats such bullshit

DAVESPRITE: how do you want me to explain it

DAVESPRITE: you want me to say we were a thing in the other universe

DAVESPRITE: me and jade

DAVESPRITE: and we were the only ones who had each other seeing as john fucked off somewhere in the peace corps

DAVESPRITE: his dad died dave was dead you never got in contact with him again

DAVESPRITE: real soon after that rose went missing didnt know what to do about that

DAVESPRITE: it was just me and you at skaianet trying to keep shit together for the rest of the world

DAVESPRITE: all until fish bitch took over

DAVESPRITE: and then

DAVESPRITE: you were gone too

DAVESPRITE: and there wasnt a single fucking thing i could about it(edited)

JADE: ...

JADE: or maybe you just decided im not good enough for you anymore

JADE: now that i know what i want

DAVESPRITE: thats a whole lot of assumptions to make

DAVESPRITE: point is

DAVESPRITE: i wasnt going to let it happen again

DAVESPRITE: i came here to try again

DAVESPRITE: and ill keep tryin

DAVESPRITE: til theres nothing left of me to try for you anymore

DAVESPRITE: so hey i guess that makes two of us

DAVESPRITE: knowing what we want

JADE: g...rrr... JADE: rrrrRrRrRRrrr!!!

JADE: -her hands rise, clasping the sides of her head and fistfuls of wild dark hair, her growls almost pained in her throat before they rise, furious.-

JADE: BARK!!!!!

DAVESPRITE: -hangs onto the coat pocket as she bark. Then reaches up to pat at her with a bird claw.-

DAVESPRITE: can i come up

JADE: you...!!!

JADE: -She can't stop growling, and all the things in her say OBEY, and her hand twitches until it's abruptly in her pocket, and because it's Jade, because it's still her, the first thing she thinks to do is wrap her hand around the tiny sprite and throw him.-

DAVESPRITE: -promptly flung and none too gently. Gravity isn't a thing he should worry about and with his equalibrium balancing out... he hovers back up in the air. A small ball of light some good distance away, eyes trained on her.-

DAVESPRITE: cant fight it on your own jade even i cant tell you to do that

DAVESPRITE: but i still want to stay with you

DAVESPRITE: til we see this to the end

JADE: RRRRRRRRR...!

JADE: -she's flashing and surging bright rays of green, and she thinks about things she hasn't for a while. SUBMIT, says her brain.-

JADE: im going to find a way to kill you

DAVESPRITE: i know what i signed up for jade -in a small pulse of orange light, Davesprite's form shifts back to his former height. Wings raised and watchful of her movements.-

DAVESPRITE: im here til then

DAVESPRITE: eye on the prize

DAVESPRITE: not for anyone but you

DAVESPRITE: lets go

JADE: rrr stop kidding yourself davesprite!!

JADE: youre not my dave and im NOT your jade!!!

DAVESPRITE: -his heart seems to pound, high with emotion he couldn't articulate. But still DS presses on, despite the way she snaps and snarls at him.- youre the jade im here for no matter how you slice it

DAVESPRITE: my jades gone shes not coming back and i never saw that coming

DAVESPRITE: she didnt

DAVESPRITE: she never got to say what she wanted

DAVESPRITE: but i do

DAVESPRITE: im not letting that happen to you again

JADE: i!! dont!! CARE!!!!!!

JADE: -Despite the words, the emotion is clearly high in her as well -- conflict, rage... but something more beneath it all. She lunges for him from the rooftop, like there isn't stories between them and the ground.-

DAVESPRITE: -lunges if she wants, Davesprite swings in the air only to fly at her. Fully intending to collide with her midair.-

JADE: -WELL SHE CERTAINLY CAN'T STOP THEIR MOMENTUM. She's going to straight up tackle him in the air.-

JADE: -DOOF!!! It would almost be hilarious if it weren't so terrible.-

DAVESPRITE: -secures arms around her as they spin in the air. All squawks and feathers and barks. DOOF IS CORRECT. Even with the force, Davesprite holds her. Burying himself with her as if he's truely afraid she'll fall. Wings flap.-

JADE: -But she doesn't. For just a moment or two, they cling together in the air, and then the bright green shocks back to life.-

JADE: -All around them is blackness and the scattered brightness of stars.-

JADE: -And then she shoves him away from her, disappearing in the same glimmer of light they came through together and leaving him in the void alone.-

DAVESPRITE: -a million miles away from Earth, he can still feel the thread of connection. She had the pendant. He would find his way back to her when she needed him to. But until then, Davesprite lets himself float. Wishing he could close his eyes and sleep.-

#growingGradience #ebrionicCrest

0 notes