#i’m playing all the Uncharted games right now and I absolutely love them so far

[troubatrain]

sober - m. barzal (pt. six)

a/n: so after the hell week we all survived in the good ol’ USA my brain finally decided to let me actually write. tbh i wrote this about four times before i forced myself to just finish it and stop tweaking it.

Five

Mat’s kitchen looked like a tornado had run through it. The usually pristine, absolutely untouched kitchen of the young bachelor was getting more use in the twenty minutes Mat had been awake than it ever had. Truthfully, Mat wasn’t a morning person. Mat slept like a rock, and he thought there was nothing besides the fear of his coach that could get him up earlier than noon, but he was wrong. You had him up before eight, hoping if he could beat you to waking up you wouldn’t have a chance to sneak out on him. He did, opening his eyes to catch you snoring softly beside him. He laid there for a moment, his eyes on you because he almost in disbelief you actually stayed. It was a moment of peace, the complete opposite of the mess you’d both gotten yourselves into. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t debating how he was going to get someone to leave, he was figuring out how he was going to get you to stay.

Mat was an absolute whore, and he didn’t care one bit. Why should he? He was young, he was at the top of his game, and his ego got a little bigger everyday. He was just as guilty as you were when it came to his lack of commitment. Mat had never been able to be a good boyfriend, no matter how hard he tried - so he just stopped trying. His schedule wasn’t made for dating, and he never wanted to put the work in. You were different. Something clicked in Mat when he realized how enraged his body felt hearing DeAngelo talk about you the way he did. He was going to let it go, and in hindsight maybe he should have, but he didn’t want to. That protective feeling took over his body because it was too strong for him to shove back down before it got out.

Mat would have told you he loved you after that game, because he does, but he knew he was playing a dangerous game. The reality of what would happen if this was real scared him, but not nearly as much as he knew it had to scare you. You had something to lose, a life that Mat just wouldn’t be apart of. Mat wasn’t in a position to ask you to give that up, especially for someone who you weren’t even dating. Mat knew if he moved too quickly you’d get spooked and run away without giving Mat a second thought. He’d disappear from your memory like everyone before him.

Mat’s thoughts were broken by the sound of your feet padding into his kitchen, your arms wrapping around his waist while you pressed a kiss to his back, “Hi pretty girl.”

This was uncharted territory, the morning after. You’d always been an expert, leaving yourself enough time to sneak out and leave before anyone would notice you were gone. That kept your heart safe, free from the feelings that were present in this very moment. You couldn’t have left last night, slipping out of Mat’s bed and into a cab in the middle of the night, but something stopped you, “Do you actually know what you’re doing?”

“I thought I’d try to make you breakfast,” Mat admits, a smile on his face while he turned off the stove, eggs forgotten to look at you, “I’ll get better at it, I promise, breakfast can be my thing.”

“Your thing?” You muse, letting Mat gently push you onto the island, standing between your legs.

“Yeah, when we fall in love or whatever, I’ll make breakfast,” Mat chuckles, pressing a quick kiss to your lips.

“You’ve lost your damn mind Barz,” You sigh, leaning your head on Mat’s shoulder while you savored the last few moments of peace you were feeling. You were going to have leave his place, off to a four game road trip where Mat was free to fuck whoever he wanted.

Mat’s finger was gently gliding over your face, “If I’m crazy it’s because you made me crazy.”

“You were insane before I met you,” You defend not daring to open your eyes and meet Mat’s gaze, “And now you’re just annoying.”

“I don’t remember being annoying when you were begging me to fuck you last night,” Mat counters back, hands moving to your bare thighs, the warmth from his hands was a stark contrast from the cool counter, “If I’m correct it sounded something like Mat please.”

“Don’t push your luck Mat,” You threaten, his impersonation of you from the night before stopping almost immediately.

“Would I push it if I asked you to stay until my flight later?” Mat asks, eyes full of hope while he tries to hang onto the moment just a little bit longer.

“If you never talk about it again,” You nod, deciding that the damage was already done. You were so far gone a few more hours couldn’t hurt you anymore.

“We can talk about how fucking good you look in orange and blue though,” Mat teases, a grin on his face. You furrow your eyebrows, looking down and realizing just what shirt he had given you the night before. A bright white number thirteen in the corner, with an Islanders logo present on the front.

“Mat if you don’t take this off of me right this second.”

“You never have to ask me twice to take off your shirt babe.”

***

You leaned your head against the window of the private jet that definitely cost more for one flight than your entire salary, taking a deep breath and a break from the laundry list of emails you were due to answer. You were flying to St. Louis for the All Star Game, your plans of a week long vacation somewhere warm with some of the team and their significant others thrown out the door the second Chris stepped in for Panarin last minute. Not even two minutes later, Charlotte strutted over to your desk to tell you that without a need for someone to translate for Artemi, you were the new kid and that meant you had to suffer through the weekend while everyone else took their vacations. 

“At least pretend to be excited,” Chris mutters next to you, taking a break from his own reading and elbowing you in the side.

“It’s hard to be excited when everyone’s on a beach and we’re flying to Missouri in January,” You snark back, pulling your glasses off your face and rubbing your eyes.

“You either need to start sleeping or stop hanging out with that secret boyfriend of yours,” Chris jokes, but it struck a nerve with you.

Mat wasn’t your boyfriend. Mat. Wasn’t. Your. Boyfriend. He didn’t get to have all of you, because he didn’t deserve it - no man does. Nothing about the very small amount of vulnerability that he got to see after that game meant anything. You left that morning and he went on a four game road trip and the world spun on. You could stop whenever you wanted to, move on with some other dumb boy who didn’t care more about you in clothes than without. But did you want to? That was a debate you’d been having with yourself for days.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” You grumble, gritting through your teeth. Technically, it wasn’t a total lie.

“So you are seeing someone!” Chris points out, as if your deliberate words were going to make it past him. Chris held most of the intelligence on the entire Rangers roster, and there was nothing that he didn’t pick up, “So, What's the deal? He doesn’t want anyone to know about you or you don’t want anyone to know about him.”

“It’s mutual,” You hum, sipping the coffee that had gone cold.

“Are you a sugar baby?” Chris questions, a cautious tone to his voice, “Not that I think there’s anything wrong with it or anything-”

“No I haven’t found a sugar daddy,” You roll your eyes, waiving Chris and sparing him the lecture that there’s nothing wrong with the idea at all, “We’re just in a limbo.”

“For what it’s worth,” Chris says, taking a deep breath before he finished his thought, “You seem happy, you haven’t snapped on Tony in almost a week.”

“Thanks Chris,” You laugh softly, popping a headphone back into your ear so you could finish up some work.

***

Mat was in absolute disbelief the moment he saw you step into the hotel lobby. You weren’t supposed to be in St. Louis, you were supposed to be on some island in a bikini making him wish he wasn’t good enough to be selected for the All Star game at all. Mat scratched his head for an answer as to why you didn’t mention the change of plans, but then the thing that he spent his entire roadie before he left for St. Louis entered his brain at full speed.

You’re not her boyfriend.

Mat owed you nothing, and you didn’t have to tell him anything you didn’t want to. Mat honestly knew about four things about you and all of them related to your job. He was dying to know everything, even the stuff that didn’t matter that much. Hell, Mat would’ve killed to see the inside of your apartment at this point. He just needed one thing, one thing that he could hold onto that you showed him that no one else got to see. He was sure he’d find it, especially after he finally got you to stay at his place, but now he was starting to think maybe he’d never crack you.

You were going to just avoid Mat like the plague. The hotel was swamped with players, their families, and any staff that had tagged along for the weekend. The city was still buzzing from last season’s Stanley Cup win and there was not a chance Mat wasn’t going to be busy all weekend, because Mat Barzal was an amazing hockey player. You hated to be reminded of it, because if you could have Mat feed you stupid compliments and never remind you of his job you’d be happy forever.

hotel sex is on the table

and you look fucking hot today

You roll your eyes, checking your phone while you were standing in line to check in. You look around the room, trying not to draw any attention to Mat who was giving you a shit eating grin from across the lobby. He looked good, a white button up tucked into suit pants that were doing his ass justice. You look at Chris, who was too engrossed in his own phone to even look back at you.

pretend like i don’t exist right now and we’ll talk

wanna play a game?

that didn’t go well for you last time Barzy

if i beat your buddy kreids tomorrow night you give me one night

you won’t

is that a yes?

fine

You turn around, giving Mat one last death stare to remind him you weren’t kidding on your plea to pretend you didn’t exist. Your job was important to you because you weren’t Mat. You weren’t going to get paid millions of dollars to play and then retire with a pretty penny in your pocket. You worked, and the stress of losing your job would definitely break you. Charlotte instilled fear in you like no other boss you ever had could, and if you got caught messing around with someone who played for another team while you were working she’d probably just fire you on the spot. Not to mention the heartbroken faces of your chosen family. Mat somehow existed in both a different and the same world as you. He understood your work life because it was so close to his, but he had his own work family and you had yours. No matter what, there would always be some sort of weird divide caused by that stupid rivalry. For now, it was just going to have to be something you’d worry about later.

***

You turned in the mirror of your hotel room, the lacy black lingerie set fit your body like a glove, and you were impressed with Mat’s taste given all he ever wore was sweatpants. You look in the corner of the room, the last piece of his little gift sitting in the box. Mat dropped it off earlier, a note on top telling you that when he inevitably smokes Chris in the faster skater competition he had something in mind. You weren’t surprised by his confidence, but you were surprised by the gift itself. Folded neatly in the box wasn’t just the lingerie, a bright blue and orange jersey was right underneath it, a shiny white number thirteen stitched into the back. You knew you didn’t have to wear it, because Mat wasn’t going to force you to do anything, but you were wet at just the thought of how animalistic Mat would probably get. You tossed on the jersey, throwing an even bigger sweatshirt and sweats over it before you snuck up to Mat’s floor- hoping Chris wouldn’t catch you leaving from the room across the hall.

You pull out the room key Mat gave you, sneaking into the door and locking it shut behind you. You slipped off your sweats, leaving you in nothing but the jersey and your panties.

“Fuck,” Mat dropped his phone from his hand the second you came into his view, “I didn’t think you’d wear it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” You muse, your confidence boosting while you strutted over to Mat. He had that effect on you, the ability to always make you feel like the sexiest woman in the world - even if you didn’t feel like were, “But then you beat McDavid.”

Mat pulled you between his legs while he sat on the edge of the bed, his hands toying with the jersey while he let the fabric slip through his fingers, “You look so fucking good in my jersey baby.”

“I’m proud of you Mat,” You purr into his ear, playing into Mat’s ego just a little bit. You were proud of him, and for the first time you wanted him to know. You pressed a kiss against his jaw, feeling his own breath hitch in his throat, “Can I show you?”

“Keep that jersey on and you can do whatever you want to me,” Mat admits, slipping his hand under the jersey and tapping your ass lightly.

“I’ll keep it on,” You giggle, pushing Mat on his back and getting to work. Your lips kissed down his chest with every button of his dress shirt you got undone, tossing it in the corner to be forgotten about until later. You unhooked his belt, leaving open mouth kisses just above his pants. You slid off his dress pants slowly, taking his boxers with them to let his cock spring free. Mat groaned at the sight, gathering your hair to pull it back for you.

“Wait,” Mat stops you, holding your hair back to stop you from putting your mouth on him. His finger traced your cheek, a look on his face you couldn’t quite read, “I just want to remember this, you look so beautiful right now.”

You could feel the heat rush your cheeks, Mat had called you to dozens of things but never once did the word beautiful ever slip through his lips, “You’re just saying that because I’m about to blow you.”

“No, baby, I mean it- fuck,” Mat groans, this thoughts halted by your mouth on his cock. His hips snapped up, hitting the back of your throat, “You’re so fucking good princess.”

You moan, hollowing your cheeks and gripping Mat’s thighs a little tighter, giving him the show you so desperately wanted. You head bobbed in a perfect rhythm, taking as much of Mat as your body could handle. Mat pushes your head back, taking a look at the line of spit that was still connected to his dick, your eyes were glassy and your throat was sore but Mat would keep you like that forever if he could, “Let me finish.”

“I’m in charge tonight,” Mat reminds you, the tone in his voice sent a chill up your spine. You knew Mat was rough, and a little demanding but he never crossed that line with you, “On your knees.”

“Like this?” You tease, sitting up on your knees to rile him up just a little bit more.

“More like this princess,” Mat stands behind you, gently pushing you down so your ass was in the air. He was quiet, bunching up his jersey so he could get a full view of the lingerie he went out and bought just for you, “Be good or I won’t let you cum pretty girl.”

Mat’s threat with a light smack to your ass, a moan escaping your lips. He slipped the black lace panties to the side, gliding one of his fingers against your folds while he pressed a kiss to your skin, “So wet for me already.”

“Only for you Mat,” The words tumbled out of your mouth, your eyes widening at your own confession.

Mat was thankful he was behind you, because if you saw the way his gaze changed from your words he’d never live it down. You looked so perfect, spread just for him. His jersey. His number. And in his own fantasy: his girl. He snapped himself back into reality, sliding into your pussy that was practically dripping in anticipation.

“Faster, fuck Mat please,” You whimpered out, trying to move yourself to get Mat to pick up the pace. He chuckled darkly, hips snapping back and forth until the only sound in the room was the string of curses leaving your mouth, “I’m close-”

Mat flipped you over before you could finish, his hand grabbing your chin and forcing you to look at him, “Tell me this pussy is mine.”

“Fuck I’m yours Mat,” You breath out, locking your eyes with his while it felt like time froze around you, “I’m yours.”

“Look at me when you cum baby,” Mat urges, his hand still gripping your chin. He picked up his place, making use of his other hand around your clit, “C’mon princess just for me.”

Your pussy fluttered around him, Mat letting out a groan while he tried to hold onto this moment for just a bit longer. He looked down at you, catching your breath from your own high. You hand snuck down to his cock, pumping it slowly, “Cum on me.”

Mat nods, letting you work on his dick with your hands while he nibbled at your neck. He was going to mark you up, make you remember who you belonged to because he so desperately wanted it to be him. He spilled onto your pussy, head pressed into your neck while he came down from his own high. You both laid there for a moment, your hand gently stroking Mat’s back while you both took a moment to think about what just happened. Mat was possessive in a way he’d never been before, and you ate it up without a second thought - that had to mean something right?

“I need to get back to my room,” you whisper, afraid to break the comfortable silence.

“I know,” Mat nods, finally picking his head up, “Keep the jersey, you might need it one day.”

“Your stupidity is honestly astounding,” You joke, brushing his hair out of his face while Mat’s face turned into a pout.

“Can I take you on a date?” Mat breathes out, hoping he wasn’t reading this the wrong way, “No games, no funny business, let me take you out.”

Say no. Say no and never call him again.

“One date,” You agree against your better judgement, pushing Mat away and looking around the room to find your sweats that you snuck into his room in, “Better make it a good one.”

Mat smiles, teeth on full display while he watched you slide your pants back on, “I’m the best at everything Y/N don’t forget that.”

“Goodnight Barz,” You tease, giving him one more look before you left his room.

The elevator ride down was quiet, most of the hotel’s occupants already asleep or still out partying the weekend away. For your sake, you hoped Chris would be fast asleep like the grandpa he was. You rushed down the hallway, Mat’s jersey still hanging loosely off your frame while you looked in your hand for your room key. Your search was stopped by a throat clearing behind you. You jump, turning around to see Chris’s eyes boring into you.

“You’ve got some explaining to do.”

#My writing #mat barzal #mat barzal imagine #nhl imagine

[dinosaurtsukki]

❀ hypothermia | “you never did love me, did you?” feat. sakusa kiyoomi

⇢ day 6 of angstcember

⇢ synopsis: sakusa knows how difficult he is to love but for you, he’ll reluctantly let down his walls

⇢ a/n: the roles for this fic were supposed to be switched at first but i got really >:( about the sakusa hate night thing and realized that we don’t deserve this beautiful man

⇢ pairing: sakusa kiyoomi x gn!reader

⇢ word count: 2.2k words

ANGSTCEMBER MASTERLIST (feat. haikyuu!! and bungou stray dogs)

━━━━━━━━✿ ━━━━━━━━

going on a date wasn’t sakusa’s idea, rather, it was a whole conspiracy created by atsumu, hinata, and bokuto, who all had the ‘good intentions’ to get sakusa to get out and mingle with more people. in other words, go on an actual date. his hair was uncomfortably slicked back, his shoes pinched too tightly, and despite how un-crowded the cafe he waited in was, sakusa could feel the discomfort of having to breathe in other people’s air.

‘if this person isn’t going to show up in ten minutes, i’m leaving,’ he ultimately decided. except, that’s exactly when you decided to show up. sakusa’s eyes automatically glanced up when you walked in, searching the cafe, before spotting him at one of the tables.

“i’m so sorry about that, traffic was terrible,” you sat down with a huff. “you must be sakusa-san, right?”

“...right,” he nodded slowly, studying you intently as you quickly checked your reflection in your compact mirror.

“atsumu-san told me about you,” you smiled, lacing your fingers together on top of the table. sakusa observed that your nails were cut short and filed down neatly, something that he approved of. he honestly didn’t understand why people purposely glued long, plastic nails on their real nails.

“yeah? what did he say?” he asked.

“some stuff but...” you shrugged. “does it matter what he thinks? i’m the one you’re dating, after all.” 

sakusa raised an eyebrow, slightly impressed at your quick judgement. with that, he tugged his mask down, folded it, and placed it neatly on the table. “you’re right about that. shall we order then?”

first impressions meant a lot to sakusa. he knew people wouldn’t normally use first dates as ‘testing grounds’ but that’s exactly how he saw it. and why shouldn’t he? people dated for a reason and if it didn’t work out, sakusa wouldn’t feel too bothered by it.

part of him did want the date to be unsuccessful because that meant he’d be back in the safe territory he knew so well. second dates, third dates, and everything after were uncharted territory for him. sakusa knew he’d only get more uncomfortable, except for the fact that your first date did go well. 

despite the fact that you were late, you made up for it by offering to buy him a coffee. you didn’t shirk away at sakusa’s bluntness, in fact, you seemed to take it in stride as just a part of him. you didn’t comment on or make fun of how he’d wipe his utensils with a clean napkin before eating with them, instead listening intently to what sakusa said about bacteria and utensil storage.

he went into the date with the expectation that he wouldn’t enjoy it as much, a prediction that he thought was fair enough for him to make. but when you asked if you could hold hands as he walked you home and sakusa looked uncomfortably at your hands, you smiled and held your hands out to him. sakusa stared at them for a moment before pulling out his pocket sanitizer and spraying your hands. he searched for any signs of slight annoyance on your face but there were none as you waved your hands to dry them.

“if you’re not too comfortable about holding my hand we can do this,” you offered, raising your pinky at him.

“isn’t this what children do?” sakusa quirked a brow.

“it can be something that we can do,” you smiled, your eyes an invitation to the uncharted waters that had started drawing sakusa in. 

it was a risk. but sakusa knew if he was careful, it could be a calculated one. so, he looped his pinky around yours and resumed walking.

as far as first dates go, this wasn’t so bad.

...

“another text omi-omi?” atsumu teased. sakusa scowled, ignoring his annoying teammate as he continued to type on his phone. the annoying part was that his annoying teammate was right and sakusa wondered if he looked too eager to check his phone right after practice

[from: y/n]

5:30 pm: hey sakusa! you’re probably still at practice but just wanted to wish you a good day. let me know if you still want to get dinner :)

it was just a short message but sakusa could still feel that uncomfortable stir in his stomach. the first time he felt that, back when you held pinkies on your first date, sakusa grew paranoid and looked up ‘strange stomach feelings’ on webMD the first chance he got. but it wasn’t anything physical, rather, it came from something else.

“shut up, atsumu,” sakusa drawled, trying to look disinterested as he typed up a quick response to your message, saying that he would be htere. 

“what did i tell you guys?” atsumu chided their fellow teammates. “i just knew y/n would be the one to capture our omi-omi’s heart.” 

“awww, they must be real special! when can we meet them!” bokuto begged, popping up beside sakusa.

“they didn’t capture anything and even if they did, i think they have better things to do,” sakusa gritted his teeth. 

although, he knew that eventually he would probably ask if you’d like to meet his teammates, probably after he’d invite you to watch one of his games. sakusa knew he wasn’t going too fast for his own liking and as he watched you enter the restaurant, once again late and slightly out of breath, he felt that slowly letting you into his life wasn’t such a bad thing. 

“sorry i’m late, again,” you sighed, smoothing down your windblown hair with a sheepish smile. 

“it’s alright,” sakusa said, removing his mask. “i took the liberty of ordering for you, if that’s alright.”

“is that so?” your bright eyes locked onto his. “well, let’s see if you’ve read my mind.”

“i could just ask the waiter to change your order,” sakusa offered.

“no, no! it could be like a game!” you shook your head. “don’t you want to play?” sakusa didn’t quite understand you, nor your game, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly apprehensive as he waited for your order to come. you took one look at the food on your plate before flashing him a smile. 

“well, what do you know? it’s exactly what i wanted.”

sakusa didn’t why hearing that made him particularly happy. “this wasn’t much of a game, to be honest,” he murmured.

“is it because there aren’t really stakes?” you asked.

“precisely.” 

there was something playful in the way you looked at him. “if you really like someone, there are always stakes.” 

...

sakusa knew just what you meant, he was in uncharted waters after all. but that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn how to sail in such places. he also came to realize that it wasn’t just him letting you into his life, but you letting him into yours. sakusa expected that you were a bit of an extrovert with how openly you talked to him, only to find that you did have a secretive side. the most you’d talk about were your co-workers who got on your nerves or how you wished there were more hours in a day. sakusa noticed that you often dodged around questions, focusing on him instead. knowing how much he valued his own privacy, sakusa let you have your own.

which was why he knew that the two of you had gone through a certain ‘dating milestone’ after you introduced him to your friends. sakusa didn’t really like how everyone focused on him being a germophobe and how the conversation seemed to revolve around just that, which was why he appreciated you being there to steer the discussion topic away. but sakusa made an effort not to be his usual self because he knew how important it was for you to bring him into your world.

“i bet you’re glad that’s over,” you chuckled after the two of you left the cafe. once again, sakusa offered to walk you home.

“it wasn’t that bad,” he murmured. 

“that’s a compliment from you,” you giggled, linking your pinky with his as you walked. sakusa would rather die than let anyone on the MSBY Jackals team see him like this, but for you he’d take that risk. 

“hey,” sakusa suddenly stopped, tugging you to look at him. curiously, you obliged. “i... know i’m not really the gentle boyfriend type but... you can ask and expect for things, you know? people tend to side-step around me knowing the kind of person i am, well except for my teammates but, you don’t have to all the time.” 

you blinked in mild surprise before asking. “so, can i be selfish then?” your eyes gave away your intentions and sakusa loved how he was able to read you and already pulled down his mask from his face. 

sakusa had always been creeped out by the thought of kissing people but as he kissed you, it didn’t feel like he was missing out. rather, it was as if it was happening at the right moment.

“can i be selfish again?” you whispered after you and sakusa parted. 

“i already have half a guess as to what you’re going to ask,” sakusa smirked.

“can i stay over at your place?”

...

sakusa knew that things would be a little different after you spent your first night together, but he didn’t think they’d be like this. for one, your messages to him dwindled into one-line sentences or phrases, before disappearing completely. sakusa wondered if he had done something wrong. no, he was absolutely sure that he had done something wrong and had no idea how to fix things. 

he wasn’t much of a social media user and sakusa didn’t want to be the type of person who’d get angry at someone for tweeting while waiting on a message from them. he thought it would be low of him to call you out in a semi-public space so he’d end up liking your tweets in the hope of getting your attention to no avail.

what had happened?

“hey, sakusa...”

“atsumu, i don’t need this right now,” sakusa grumbled, scrolling through his unanswered messages again before realizing that atsumu didn’t use his usual nickname. he looked up from his phone to find a look of regret on his teammate’s face.

“listen, i... i’ve only heard about y/n from a friend of a friend so i really didn’t know about this...”

“know about what?” sakusa asked, despite the feeling in his gut that he wouldn’t like what he was going to hear. 

“i... don’t know if it’s better for me to show it to you--”

“do it,” sakusa clenched his jaw and nodded resolutely. “i want to see.” 

atsumu took his phone out of his bag and opened what appeared to be instagram. sakusa didn’t have one and he quickly realized that it was to your advantage. 

if he had known about the things you’d post on your stories, sakusa would have broken up with you a long time ago.

...

the club where you were in was miles different from the cozy, little cafe where sakusa first met you. it felt like some sick parallel twist and this only fueled sakusa’s anger and motivation to squeeze past the moving bodies until he finally made his way to where you were.

now all his questions and suspicions had been answered and sakusa was practically beating himself up for not realizing things sooner. when he reached the bar counter where you were seated, engaged in more than just a deep conversation with another man, sakusa didn’t even hold back.

“you’re a bitch, you know that?”

“ah, sakusa,” you regarded him calmly. “what are you doing here? this doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

“yeah, and you knew that, didn’t you? you took advantage of it,” sakusa practically spat, hoping that his words would deal a blow but your face remained expressionless. 

“i’m sorry but it was just all too easy,” you chuckled, crossing your legs over each other. 

as angry as he was, sakusa couldn’t help but feel the cold reality of despair. he didn’t want to be right about his suspicions. he wanted to be optimistic after your first few dates went so well. he desperately searched your face for the person he had linked pinkies with and exchanged messages with and had his first time with.

they weren’t even real in the first place. 

“you never did love me, did you?” sakusa asked aloud. your laugh was the only response he needed.

“if it’s any comfort, you were one of my favorites,” you cocked your head at him. “oh, and maybe try not to be so guarded around the next person you’ll date. it’s a bit of a turn-off, really.”

sakusa narrowed his eyes as he looked down at you. “the next one won’t be like you.” 

“how can you be so sure?” 

sakusa scoffed and turned around. the pain was overwhelming, but the spite even more so. you were the kind of person who thrived off toying with other people and giving in to rage would only satisfy you further. sakusa wasn’t inclined to grant you that.

“because...” he stuffed his hands back in his pockets and turned around. “lowlifes like you surely are one of a kind.” 

━━━━━━━━✿ ━━━━━━━━

event taglist: @himikadafangirl @swoona-rintarou @l-dokisaki-l @laure-chan @aonenthusiast @ah-kaashi @just-a-gay-bean @linyu-sees-you @alto-march-of-death @newfriendjen @shrimpypenis​ @tenyafacesquish​ @mkkhaikyuu​

taglist applications still open! just answer this form

#haikyuu!! #hq!! #hq x reader #hq!! x reader #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #angstcember #haikyuu!! angstcember #hq!! angstcember #hq angstcember #haikyuu!! angst #hq!! angst #hq angst #haikyuu!! one-shot #hq!! one-shot #hq one-shot #haikyuu!! fanfic #hq!! fanfic #hq fanfic

[dianaburnwood]

HITMAN 3: First Impressions

This post is full of SPOILERS. Also, it is LONG, so.... yeah. Be prepared lol 

HITMAN 3. Also known as: Diana’s Game. 

Dear GOD I am in love. 

I’m going to do my best to make this coherent. But. I am still freaking out. And I have SO much more to explore!!!! This won’t be very in-depth because I played each map exactly once so far. There’s so much left to see, conversations to overhear, opportunities to exploit - but, I DO have some first impressions, oh hell yes. 

Menu: 

That menu music!!! I was not expecting that at all. It was a mix of choral and classical with previous themes intertwined, and it reminded me of Blood Money. Speaking of Blood Money, this game is Blood Money. 

Dubai: 

Very, very beautiful. Kinda thought Grey made it all about himself lol of course he wanted to say “in your face” to the partners, but it was like 47 was just there to pull the trigger, like he’d not been hurt by them too. But, I really liked it. Trapping them in a room and watching them freak while Grey watched me kill them?? Helloo??? Popping off HARD from the start and I love it.

So - here’s the thing. I don’t get the timing. Diana tells them then that Edwards escaped. Did he escape just before the boys got to Dubai? Or were they unavailable to reach until then? It seems that the message Grey got at the end of HAVEN was after Olivia hacked the HAVEN servers, and then the boys were out of reach so after Diana discovered Edwards was gone, she couldn’t tell them until Dubai? And it was shown to us in a different order to leave us hanging? I dunno. Maybe? It seems weird. 

THE CUTSCENE here omg - once again establishing that 47 and Diana are ride or die. “Diana will make it right, she always does” - BABE. BABE. SWEET BOY. His little face when Grey doesn’t trust Diana. OMGGG.

Dartmoor: 

I went the murder mystery route, of course. I figured it was Emma from her conversation with her husband, but I got all the clues after just to be sure. Can’t believe Carlisle just handed 47 the file on Edwards and then went out alone on the balcony like I wasn’t gonna kill her??? Bitch????? do you forget who i am?????? Anyway, the murder mystery was SO much fun, but I can’t wait to infiltrate this manor in other ways. Lots of Beldingford vibes here.

THE CUTSCENE bdsfgafhlsjfah WAHT????? Ok so HOW did Edwards know where they were? And - ok, so it made for an amazing scene, but Grey is a badass. He is a mercenary genius that duped the ICA and brought Providence to its knees. How did he get himself surrounded in the woods by CICADA? But he did, and it was beautiful, and he literally only shot himself to save 47, and the LOOK in 47′s eyes on his balaclava face - I just bfjKSFasad. I can’t believe he died so early tho. I was very sure he’d die somehow, but SO early. WOW. 

Berlin:

fucking hell. Berlin. fuck. fucckkkk. 

I wanna shout out to Mini (not gonna tag you in case you’re avoiding spoilers) but hot damn girl if you’re reading you were BANG ON about 47 wearing Grey’s coat. I really didn’t think it was his. It was. It is such a beautiful way for 47 to express his emotions about this death without actually saying anything. Omg. It was perfection. I’m crying thinking about it.

BERLIN was where this game really upped its... game. Like WOW. 5 targets, and it’s the ICA. Clearly Edwards went to the ICA board at this stage and was like uhhhh so you need to take these ppl out. HOWEVER I am amazed that the ICA is like “oh, ok”. DO you not remember what happened in SOUTH DAKOTA. 

But going after the ICA is a fucking trip and I love it. I love how 47 says each agent’s name to himself. I love how he listens in and the team handler realises it. I love how she pulls the rest of her team out once you get 5. I love that the ICA agents use disguises too!!! This is truly APEX PREDATOR and I love that they named it that. Y’all think you have the balls to go up against 47??? bitch?????

But the fact that you have to find the targets and none of them are marked is so fantastic. I found 6, but I have no idea how many are actually available - but I’m gonna find out!!! The club is HUGE as well, and lots of throwbacks to Contracts, especially with the biker gang. Amazing. Amazing level. I’m so excited to replay it. 

Also they really addressed the elephant in the room with the ICA agents describing 47 as a caucasian male, bald, average height and ppl being like uh that’s every man here, and then he said yeah but he’s got this big tattoo lmao 

Chongqing

ok this is where I started to think this game was my fanfiction. Inside the ICA? Showing off how truly international it is, and high tech. Hidden in plain sight. Ready to dismantle in 12 hours if needed. SO perfect. This lore builds on Absolution and Blood Money ICA lore in wonderful ways. 

Also, I don’t know why the IOI and DK of the logo looked different in the trailer, they must have been just hard to make out. Cos in the game, the ICA logo is the same as all previous games. 

Also, analysts do client vetting? Intrigue. Always assumed that was part of the handlers’ job. I take it all back Diana, you have never done anything wrong in your life, ever 

I killed Royce by firing the ppl she recommended so she’d get trapped in the data core cleaning. I killed Hush (what a name I love it) as his patient. 

Working with Olivia is really fun. I missed Diana, but Olivia brought a whole fresh perspective. I also really like how neither Grey nor Olivia are as good as Diana - they both fucked up while guiding 47 at least once. 

47 saying “...I will leave you to prepare” to Olivia, I yelled fdagsfa

Also I love how 47 decided to expose the ICA exactly like Diana did in Absolution. Those two. One of a kind. My heart. And his desire to protect her. I love that the files showed their start together. Olivia saying “I can see why you...” and then she stopped herself. We all KNOW what she was gonna say. 

AND AND AND AND 

the cutscene - I screamed

“47 has one weakness. Me.” 

I swear to fucking GOD, IO has seen into my soul. I’ve said all along that Diana is 47′s weakness, and he is hers. But to hear it said, aloud, by my girl? WHAT???!!!!!

Mendoza

Ok. OK. OKKKKKK. OK. I can’t even write about this one. This was where I was pretty sure I was hallucinating the entire level. This is my Diana and 47 dreams come true. This is insane. This is EVERYTHING.

So we have OUR MOMENT IN THE SUN. She puts her HAND on HIS HAND and he looks in fucking wonderment at it. ahugarhiewEG;FEJGHEFlejlhsgfes;gjrsgt. I can’t. I can barely get through writing about this. 

Diana - the dress, the Jolie thigh slit, the jewellery, the hair (they finally fixed her fucking hair), SASS. “I have tango fever” omg. 

How do these ppl not have a pic of 47 by now lol 

I followed Diana and Vidal around cos I was entranced by my girl. Diana was fucking amazing each time. So much sass. Little did I know I interrupted them enough times for Vidal to say “ok son let’s talk”. I saw the tango and I was like omg imagine if I could dance with Diana. 

well.

WELL. 

Anyway, got to kill Vidal via her own setup for me, and that was amazing. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I snuck into the house to kill Yates, and overheard him calling Edwards’ voicemail. Also, it is April 2021?? So, yeah. My previous dates were way wrong lol. 

And then, ALL MY DREAMS CAME TRUE. Diana and 47 fucking dancing the tango? I was pissed that I was in a security guard outfit, next time I play he will be in his tuxedo baby. 

Diana’s comments to 47 when he’s in disguise tho, I was freaking. As security “you look like a true professional. I feel so much safer with you gentlemen around” aaahhhh

UH HE FELL TO THE GROUND COS OF POISON fngjfagfljgnsdfa

I am so glad I was right about my baby girl tho. She even told him “you didn’t have a choice” about her parents. Good. I’m so glad I was right about that. But omg it broke my heart to have 47 so, SO, SOOO sure of Diana all along, defending her to Grey and Olivia, knowing, KNOWING that she was on his side, and then, he eventually started to doubt it. 

I was screaming at my screen - this is BLOOD MONEY! SHe is doing what she did in BLOOD MONEY!!!!

But, for a second, 47 wasn’t sure anymore. And Diana played her part well. 

Carpathian Mountains

Ok, what I love most about Contracts was how it gave us an insight into 47′s psyche, and this game upped that tenfold. Him seeing all his targets surround him? Him imagining Diana and the Constant dancing together? Him imagining her say terrible things about him, things he’s thought about himself deep down, always, omg, but he finally snapped out of it. Ironic that thinking about Grey snapped him out of it, when in life Grey had not trusted Diana. But 47 came to the realisation on his own. Diana would never betray him. 

opening that door and finding out you’re on a fucking train?????? I screamed. 

I am a bit disappointed that it turned out Romania wasn’t significant, they just happened to be passing through. But omg the fact that you are “subject 47″ again. I freaked. This is 47′s worst nightmare. 

I love that you have a free pass to kill everyone in this level. I did it in stealth anyway, cos it felt wonderfully tense to sneak through that train. But wow. This is another BIG risk that IO took. The train was straight out of Uncharted, and crafting a silencer for your pistol??? Hello The Last of Us????? But I don’t care. They used those elements super well. 

I think some people will be angry at this game because parts of it (especially the last level) were a departure from how HITMAN and HITMAN 2 worked. But I love it. I love that they took risks to tell the story they wanted to tell, and those risks paid off. 

47′s undying loyalty to Diana, omg. Telling Edwards bye bitch, I’ll never forget who I am again, and Diana thinks you suck. <3<3<3<3<3

ENDING

OH MY GOD. ONE YEAR LATER????? 47 obviously took some time off cos he fucking needed a break. But he’s back, baby. Ending on “it’s good to be back” was wonderful. The game ended where the 2015 trailer for HITMAN started, and I’m crying. He’s ready to continue with Diana, and not because it’s what he was made to do, not because he doesn’t know what else to do, but finally, because he CHOOSES to do that. 

But one year later? What does that mean? Has Diana rebuilt the ICA like in Blood Money, or will she and 47 work together without anyone else? They’ll need the infrastructure that an organisation like the ICA has though. Diana said she would dismantle Providence from the top down once Edwards was gone, but how? Does that mean dismantling what’s left of the ICA? They were one and the same by the end of the game. All that didn’t just disappear. I’m left with so many questions. 

I was disappointed Diana wasn’t in the cabin when 47 got there. And I wonder why she wasn’t. She knew he was coming, but they are clearly still on good terms. Maybe she wasn’t sure what to expect. But does that mean they hadn’t spoken in a year since??? But she didn’t sound surprised to hear him, and he had coordinates that he was following, so I think they arranged to meet. But her phone was in there when he arrived, and she wasn’t. Maybe he was tracking her phone? Did she come back there to him after????? 

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT 

the game 

ended

with 47

smiling 

And for that I will be forever grateful. 

Ok bye, I need to play it again. RIP work tomorrow lol 

#hitman 3 first impressions #hitman3spoilers

[know-the-way]

(1/?) Talking about their fire scene.. I have seen interpretations about it being an abuse of authority from Faustus, and that he manipulated her to sleep with him. It is an interpretation and a valid one, I totally respect it. But me, personally, I have an entirely different take on that one. I actually thought it was their most genuine/spontaneous interaction. Which is a lot, considering their relationship was about how they could manipulate the other, in order to do what they wanted (while

(2/?) having an unspoken history and intense sexual desire for the other. Like, that night Faustus was in the house to talk (manipulate) Ambrose into uplifting his sentence and all that. When Faustus arrives to the Spellman’s house he doesn’t flirt with her even barely says hi. Same when she catched him in the door, he was leaving, that day he wasn’t there to see her. So everything that came afterwards wasn’t planned or calculated, uncharted territory, so to speak. True, when she ambushes him in

(3/?) the door she leans towards him in an extra close manner (which makes him to do the literal combination of this faces:🤨😏), but actually she wasn’t flirting with him at that moment, she was trying that no one in the house heard. It was clear she truly wanted to relieve her spiritual crisis. Since the begging of the show we saw that she was interested in rekindling the relationship, but she actually wasn’t aming to do that on that moment. Then, during the beginning of the confession, he

(4/?) doesn’t even look at her, and as the confession progresses, he starts to lean towards her and it can be seen how he strokes her hand somehow affectionately. And they get intimate, not physically (that one came later) but like they shared their weakness and problems with each other (sure, Faustus’ where stupid AF, but it seemed he truly was meaning what he was sharing with her). Moreover, he kinda comforted her when he said that the DL accepted weakness etc, look at her face: she wasn’t

(5/?) expecting that empathy from a/her high priest. I am sorry of this was a long af rant, but, as someone said, quarantine is not good for a shippers brain. I think that this was the literal best spellwood scene, it showed their complexity, a lot of chemestry, a glimpse into their story and emotional intimacy. That scene and that kiss are, character and story wise, winners. I can’t believe what the writers did to them afterwards. I would love to hear what do you think :)

Your question is the one I have specifically been building up my energy for, so I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, but I wanted to address it properly and with equal care to what you put into it.

First things first - I agree so hard with your analysis and that it probably was the most genuine and raw emotional exchange we saw between them the entirety of part 1.

HOWEVER, I do think there was still mutual manipulation happening in that scene. I think the scene culminated in a moment they mutually wanted at that point (and that they both saw coming from the near start of the conversation), but the dance they performed to get there wasn’t without one or another’s guiding hand at any given time.

Do I think Zelda asked for private confession only to be intimate with Faustus? No, I don’t. I think she truly did want to relieve herself of her sins and ensure she/her family still had security within the coven. But I think once the opportunity unfolded as he explained the challenge to his faith from Constance rigging the Feast of Feasts (a tradition he stated, while under the powers of Hilda’s truth cake, was divine instruction from the Dark Lord himself to reinstate), Zelda didn’t stop what she (perceivably) saw coming.

So I can only take his solemn re-telling of that event (“a challenge to my faith after my wife’s transgression”) to be genuine. Because, thanks to Sabrina’s influence, he nearly cancelled the Feast of Feasts altogether, even though - again - the truth cake had him swearing it was the Dark Lord’s will. So he nearly committed heresy, as a high priest under the impression that his faith in the Dark Lord was not as strong as Sabrina’s logic to end it. Which originated from Constance’s interference in the ritual.

But then Mildred, ya know... did the thing and proved to Faustus that the Dark Lord would always find a way. And he very nearly offended the Dark Lord greatly.

So I think when he expresses the fear he felt to Zelda, it was a genuine effort to relate to her and reassure her. And - in my interpretation - at the same Zelda realizes the conversation has become more intimate than anticipated (she now has a secret about the high priest’s insecurity), he lets slip that he’s also not getting sex from his wife.

And oh bitch, shit gets real. Again - my interpretation only here - yes, he is actively trying to manipulate Zelda into sleeping with him at that point. And he is absolutely using his “allure” as high priest (abusing his power) in the process, but I think Zelda is FULLY aware that’s what he’s doing. She is far too observant and far too intelligent to not see right through him. I personally cannot see her as unassuming prey in this situation because of how she claps her hand over his and says “No” as in “ya don’t say” about Constance refusing him in bed and leans into him with beseeching eyes like “Okay you bastard, now’s the time... enough with the bloody speech mate, we get it, we ALL get it, just get on with it.”

So I don’t think she has ANY sympathy when she whispers “Faustus” and he crumbles to his knees. I think she was just saying “green light, I would like passionate emo sex, too, and I know you’re more than capable, plus I see this as a great opportunity for me rise in the ranks of the coven, so let’s carry on, shall we?”

The bonus comes from their (at that point, unconfirmed) history together. The kiss is tentative at the first taste, but then it’s like they both remember they’ve kissed each like this before. And that it meant something once. He pulls her up tight to him, she rests a hand on his shoulder, and he breaks away to look over her face, both breathless. And the kicker, the absolute CHOICE of Richard/Miranda/whoever directed that episode to have him gently hold her face while looking at her adoringly for half a second while she hooks her hand over his forearm... that said everything it needed to.

In summary, my opinion - that scene alone displayed the complex dynamic between Sister Zelda and the high priest who both respect their faith, the power it gives them, and the Dark Lord. Zelda Spellman and Faustus Blackwood who have known each for decades upon decades and can anticipate each other’s next move with amused certainty. And finally Zelda and Faustus, who - in all their years of playing games - have never been able to quite figure out or explain the very peculiar attachment they have to one another.

It’s frustratingly saturated with subtext and I LOVE it so much.

Now. Does the fact that they were both playing some emotional games make it okay/healthy/acceptable/etc? No, of course not. They are very much still using each other here and Faustus, in a position of power, holds more responsibility for it certainly.

But I just personally feel there were more layers to the scene than that.

(I started to run out of energy towards the end, so I’m sorry if I stop making sense half-way through, but thank you for your question! It was a pleasure to dissect that scene with your interpretation to guide me. xx)

#spellwood #faustus blackwood #zelda spellman #caos #for those who don’t understand

[nerdy-bits]

Ghost of Tsushima and PlayStation Prestige Storytelling

There is an unspoken, yet constantly spoken, expectation that exists in the game industry that demands that games change over time. That they evolve. Yet, it is an expectation that is demanded hypocritically, or perhaps misguidedly. 

When I started writing about games I remember holding a firm stance that Call of Duty was actually garbage, because it was all just recycled gameplay with minimal facelift year-to-year. There is this unspoken standard in games, it seems, that demands a distinguishable improvement over time. Yet, it never seems to quantify its own qualifications. What does that improvement entail? Surely graphical and mechanical improvements, yes? Do those expectations also include things like gameplay evolution? Does Last of Us II need to feel different than its predecessor or is it possible to just build on the framework that its priors have already laid?

None of these questions seem to have answers. At least I have never seen anyone take the time to sit down and build a more specific set of guidelines with which one can view a game’s…”uniqueness”? See, I even struggle to find the right word for the concept as a whole. 

So let me start over, if not for you than for myself. 

When I sat behind my desk to start playing Ghost of Tsushima, I was immediately confronted by a feeling of familiarity. I knew how to play this game already. Combat was simple, light and heavy attack, parry, counter-attack. It all felt very Assassin’s Creed 2, or perhaps even Arkham Asylum. Truthfully, I haven’t played the game in close to three months, but the mechanics are so easy to pick up that I have no doubt it would be a breeze to return. 

Ghost of Tsushima, for the last AAA exclusive release on the PS4, is largely a summary of the genre for the last generation and a half. It’s both extremely appropriate and - in a sort of way - unavoidably disappointing. See, Sony has realized its version of what we call Prestige Television. Allow me the short diversion to explain myself. 

In 200, 2008, and 2010 AMC discovered that it could deliver a version of television that bordered on the production value of film, but also allowed its storytellers the ability to tell a story over ten or twelve hours. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead all established that television need not only be a procedural drama focused on serialized formulaity. They established that building a prolonged narrative arc could pay off, and draw record viewership in the process. Were they the first to do this? No, of course not. The Sopranos, The Wire, and before them the likes of Hill Street Blues, or Wiseguy. But see, the difference between the latter examples there and the former, is the accessibility. Hill Street Blues airing on NBC and Wiseguy on CBS. The Sopranos and The Wire continued the tradition of stellar television but on a far more exclusive stage. HBO wasn’t and still isn’t in most households. Then, at some point in the late 2000s, cable television stepped to the plate, and prestige television reemerged, and this time it propagated outward in every direction. Now nearly every network wants its own prestige show. 

But what does any of this have to do with the Ghost of Tsushima and PlayStation? I think that Sucker Punch is another studio swallowed up by this generation of Playstation Prestige Storytelling. If swallowed up sounds a bit negative, that is on purpose. Last of Us started something, and after seven years of AAA exclusives focused on telling mature stories, Tsushima feels like the perfect bookend to this generation. A generation of exclusives full of prestige storytelling but not particularly full of unique or revolutionary gameplay experiences.

Look at both Last of Us titles, God of War, Uncharted, and Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s hard to find better single player experiences over the last 8 years. Each game is well written, expertly acted, and smartly directed. I deeply enjoyed each one. But over time it was hard to not realize one similarity: PlayStation exclusives don’t really push any boundaries outside of delivering highly manicured story and stunning visuals. 

The toughest part about writing this is making clear that my opinion, despite sounding critical, isn’t. I own my PS4 for these titles. I lap them up hungrily. I feel I’ve just recognized what they are for me. Beyond a way to stay relevant, they act as a window into some of the best writing in the industry. 

Ghost of Tsushima is a beautiful game complimented by an equally beautiful story. That story resides in the most refined version of recycled gameplay mechanics I have ever seen. And what’s more? It absolutely works. Tsushima is the summation of open world games for the last decade. It does very little new, but everything it does, it does markedly better than its predecessors. Arguably its most unique feature is its navigational breeze. Removing the non-diegetic quest marker and dotted-line trail for a more diegetic system that draws the breeze to guide you. The flourish of foliage is stunning almost always, and by hour three I had forgotten that it was a mechanic completely, and felt it more as a system of the world’s design. 

But the combat is Arkham, the exploration is Assassin’s Creed, and the stealth is Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell. But the cutscenes. The attention to detail in exposition and composition is deliberate and masterful. In the opening moments Jin finds his family katana in a dark room. After a flashback, showing you his first moments learning under Lord Shimura, he unsheaths the blade over his head. The high moon shining through the torn walls casting a brilliant silver glare on across the folded steel. He positions the blade in a Jodan Kasumi stance, flaring the light of the moon across his face. This extremely good shit is painted across every scene in this game. 

As much as I found myself quietly laughing at the novelty of a game made of a generation of parts, it wasn’t long before I absolutely didn’t care anymore. 

That’s the trick. The conceit. Prestige television ostensibly didn’t change what film had been doing for decades. Rather it took that formula and drew it out, carried it over to a different medium, and used viewers’ desire for a good story to leverage their attention. God of War takes the Dark Souls formula for combat and boils it down, hones, and tunes it to its purposes. Uncharted is Tomb Raider with a heaping spoonful of Indiana Jones. Last of Us is almost literally apocalyptic Uncharted. Bloodborne is, well, Lovecraftian Dark Souls. You see the point. PlayStation’s story based exclusives, have built upon what has come before to hone something truly special for each of its games. Just not unique.

Podcasting and writing about games independently means you play a lot of games to stay relevant. A lot of games. I end up putting at least a dozen hours into most releases. When I like a game it generally means mainlining it to make way for the next game. I put 110 hours into Valhalla in the month and a half since it has been out. Playing that much means that when games are similar it can start to drag on you. It almost impacted my enjoyment of Ghost of Tsushima. 

I started extremely critical of Tsushima’s willingness to borrow. I thought it cheap and lacking imagination. The story even immediately impacted me as a bit of a general take on very mainstream ideas of Japanese culture. I saw the combat and, though thoroughly enjoying it, kept reminding myself that it is just recycled mechanics. The first five hours of the game I tried so hard to convince myself that Ghost of Tsushima was too much of a copycat to be enjoyed. I’m honestly not even sure what it was that changed my mind. All I know is, around hour six, I realized what was really going on under the hood of Tsushima, and I fell in love with the notion of paying homage to what has come before. And that brings me closer to my point.

Ghost of Tsushima is Assassin’s Creed 2 made better. Logical visual update afforded by the passage of time aside, it’s combat is smoother, systems more diagetic, design more nuanced. It’s the culmination of a generation of games striving to be more. But it’s not the end of that pursuit. While Tsushima is incredible it’s not perfect. There are small flaws. Some persistent, some one off. 

But it’s another step forward. In the journey of PlayStation Prestige Storytelling it is a logical step. An investigation of further leaning on established systems as an avenue for improvement. Expect future titles to do the same. We are definitely getting a second Tsushima game. Count on that. We also know we’re getting another God of War. 

PlayStation exclusives refined themselves this generation. They are heightened storytelling experiences with a tremendous amount of good writing, jaw dropping visuals, and reimagined mechanics. Have they been a consistent wellspring of innovation? No. But then neither has prestige television. It’s a familiar system, twisted and turned, made to look fresh. And it’s perfect, and learning. 

@LubWub ~Caleb

#ghost of tsushima #playstation #exclusive #article #readable #review #sucker punch #ps4 #games #nerdybits

[altumvidetur]

Pacific Rim: Newmann Fic Recs

So, I was thinking about the coronavirus pandemic and what I could do to help people out. I’m isolated because I’m at higher risk, so I can’t really offer to go out for my elderly neighbors or my family… but I thought I could try to help keep people entertained.

Because I don’t have an AO3 account right now, I’ve been compiling fic recs for my own amusement for a year or so. And I thought – maybe that’s the time to share these with everyone? So everyone will have plenty of things to read while they have to stay at home, or even to escape anxiety a little bit if you’re forced to go out.

Of course, these cater to my own tastes, so you may find stuff you don’t like around here. I never include works in progress. The Mature and Explicit works will be in italic. I ask you to READ THE WORK’S TAGS before continuing, so you won’t find anything that makes you uncomfortable.

I haven’t managed to read the whole Newmann tag yet (started on page 183, am now on page 77). From what I’ve gathered, most of these recs are from before Pacific Rim Uprising. I watched that movie (although I wish I hadn’t), so feel free to discuss it. I hope you like them!

“The Things That Stay” ‘verse, by singagainsoon

a collection of non-linear moments, snapshots, tiny dots on an endless timeline

i would kill to make you feel, by singagainsoon

Hermann gets really red when he’s mad - his ears, his cheeks, his stupid fucking cute nose. Even his neck gets these big red spots on it. It’s funny. It’s really, seriously funny.

i’ll be a rockin’, rollin’ bitch for you, by singagainsoon

“Don’t be foolish, Newton. I can think of a hundred better things for you to do with that mouth-“

Entomologist AU, by singagainsoon

Two weeks ago, he’d been in the midst of furiously tapping out an absolutely incensed email to the man who somehow managed to consistently infuriate him from another department, even, and what Hermann would have given then to strangle him, truly - and then Dr. Geiszler himself had appeared in Hermann’s doorway, toeing the carpet with his scuffed up Doc Martens and asking if they might try to talk things out over dinner.

Hermann hadn’t known it was a date.

they did the mash!, by singagainsoon

obligatory newt-wears-a-sexy-halloween-costume-and-hermann-has-to-rail-him-because-he-can’t-help-himself ficlet!! tis the season!!

(video) call me at any time, by singagainsoon

When Newt finds himself away from Hermann for a business trip of sorts, they figure out fairly quickly that they won’t last until Newton comes home.

Good Vibrations, by singagainsoon

“Newton, are you quite certain about this?”

Newt smiles, gives the odd-shaped dildo in his hand a teasing wave and sets it aside in favor of the vibrator. His face seems to hint at something along the lines of Funny Thing To Say When You’ve Just Had A Dildo In Your Ass, but he doesn’t say it.

-

my lovely, talented friend and fellow writer gaby commissioned me to write this piece and let me tell you i had the time of my life (as did hermann, i’m sure)

A Certain Step Towards Falling In Love, by singagainsoon

“You’re terribly lucky, darling, that my father is away,” he says, voice low, smoothing his palm over Newton’s wind-tousled hair.

Eating In, by singagainsoon

It really was supposed to be just a massage.

you make me feel so young, by zach_stone

In the wake of saving the world, Hermann decided to appreciate the little things.

Or, Hermann and Newt go grocery shopping. And, because it’s Newt, shenanigans ensue.

seven minutes in heaven, by zach_stone

Hermann was enjoying a quiet, peaceful morning when Newton burst into the lab and shoved both of them into a closet.

in other words, i love you, by zach_stone

Newt is having a difficult day. Hermann has an idea to make it better.

hold me in this wild, wild world, by zach_stone

Hermann didn’t often allow himself to cry. Humanity was barreling towards the end of days, and he simply didn’t have time to fall to pieces, not when people needed him — needed his work. But four rangers had died. He decided he could allow himself one small moment of grief.

–

Or, some Hermann-centric hurt/comfort because I just want to give him a hug. Set pre-canon.

it might be over soon, by zach_stone

To celebrate a victory, Newt steals a bottle of booze and he and Hermann drink, argue, and maybe finally act on their feelings.

hey i just met you (and this is crazy), by zach_stone

Newt Geiszler accidentally texts the wrong number when trying to message his roommate Raleigh, and instead winds up texting Hermann Gottlieb, who he’s never met.

(AKA a college texting AU that I promise was absolutely necessary)

worthy of celebration, by zach_stone

It’s a well-known fact around the Shatterdome that Hermann does not like his birthday. This year, Newt’s determined to change that.

lab-appropriate decor, by zach_stone

“For god’s sake, Newton, that is wildly inappropriate,” Hermann snapped. “Those things are not cute, they are abominations. I don’t know why I’m surprised, once again you prove that you have no tact —” “Oh, give it a rest, Hermann,” Newton retorted, rolling his eyes. “It’s not an abomination, it’s two feet tall and made of plastic.”

Or, some backstory to the one of the kaiju figures in Hermann’s lab in Uprising.

The Geiszler & Gottlieb Post-Saving-the-World Lecture Tour, by zach_stone

Following Newt and Hermann as they tour universities, argue across podiums, and fall in love.

feel your heartlines, by zach_stone

Newt and Hermann cuddling on the couch at the end of a lazy summer day.

We Don’t Skip A Beat, by decadent_mousse

Summary by me: Newt, Hermann, and their heartbeat over the years. 

the lure of adventure, by zach_stone

Newt is a reckless treasure hunter. Hermann is an intrepid journalist. On their search for some long-lost treasure, they run into a little more trouble than they bargained for.

AU based loosely on the Uncharted video game series - no knowledge of the games needed to understand the fic!

wouldn’t it be nice, by zach_stone

Newt and Hermann spend a day at the beach.

take your time, make it slow, by zach_stone

Hermann was far from shy in bed, but was quick to brush off Newt’s insistent (and one hundred percent correct, Newt might add) claims that he was the sexiest person to walk the earth. Well, if Hermann wouldn’t believe his words, then maybe he’d believe his actions. And Newt was nothing if not a man of action.

–

Prompt fill for Newmann Porn Fest 2018: “Body Worship” !!

when you are close to me, i shiver, by zach_stone

When the heating goes out in the lab, Newt comes up with a great idea on how to stay warm.

–

Another fic for the Newmann Porn Fest 2018! Prompt was “huddling together for warmth” ;)

it suits you, by zach_stone

��Newton, for goodness’ sake, can we just — no.” Hermann frowned at the selections Newt held up in front of him. A pair of overalls and a red-and-black flannel shirt, both Newt’s. “I am not wearing dungarees.” “Okay, first of all, cute that you call them dungarees,” Newt said, grinning. “Second of all, you would look very cute in these, they’re seasonal, and I am not kidding when I say you’ll ruin your slacks if you wear them to a farm.” He wiggled the overalls in Hermann’s direction, the buckles on the braces jingling as he did so. Hermann let out a long-suffering sigh, mostly for show. He really did need to invest in a pair of jeans.

–

Fic for the Newmann SFW Fest! Prompts were “sharing clothes/personal items” and “pumpkin/apple picking”

ease my slumber, by zach_stone

Newt can’t sleep; luckily, Hermann’s got a really soothing voice.

–

Or, a conversation about how Hermann would have a good voice for ASMR turned into this.

pick up and start again, by zach_stone

“This,” Hermann says imperiously, glaring at Newt from the other side of the elevator, “is your fault.”

Newt whips around to face him so fast he almost loses his balance. “My fault?! How the hell is this my fault?!” He gestures wildly at the elevator door. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot it was my personal responsibility to make sure this piece of shit elevator is maintained so I don’t get trapped in it with the most annoying person in the Shatterdome —”

“You’re always trapped with yourself though, aren’t you?” Hermann sneers, and Newt lets out a hysterical bark of laughter. This cannot be happening. Of all the times for the elevator to break down between floors, it has to happen now, when he and Hermann are in the midst of a fight that’s quickly blown itself out of proportion.

–

Newt and Hermann get stuck in an elevator, and are forced to work out some of their shit.

just your touch could cure my lonesome blood, by zach_stone

Four times all Newt needed was a hug from Hermann, and one time it was the other way around.

(Or, sentimental cuddling: the fic.)

Heart and Soul, by zach_stone

A quiet day in the lab is interrupted when Newt coerces Hermann into playing piano with him.

My contribution to The Last Line of Defense Zine (spring 2019)!

Lullaby & Rain, by j_gabrielle

It still blows his mind, still makes him stop in his frenetic need to move, speak and think whenever he remembers that Hermann…

Whatever Hermann is to him these days.

Carry Me To You, by j_gabrielle

For the prompt on the kink meme that asked for; Hermann/Newton. Lab sex

the world ablaze, that’s the best for me, by postcardmystery

Summary by me: Newt and Hermann are two unstoppable forces of nature.

Please, Sir, May I Have Another, by eigengrau

It isn’t until Newt is bent over the desk, papers and glass specimen jars strewn about like the debris of a hurricane, white-knuckling the hard stainless steel with his pants around his ankles, that he realizes the gravity of the situation.

Hide and Seek, by DoubleStashed

Summary by me: Hermann Gottlieb - life and love for Newt Geiszler.

pull the trigger without thinking, by liginamite

It’s manageable for the first few days. Shared emotions, shared thoughts, words spoken in unison. But it’s only when they share a nightmare born of memories that it finally occurs to them that maybe this isn’t going to go away.

Rechtsbrecher, by Ezlebe

“If you’ve lost your key again, you’re not getting another,” Hermann says, sidestepping past Newton’s hunched form on the steps.

Darling, by BeeLove

In which Newton rides Hermann for all he’s worth. Or at least tries to.

unravelling, by kiyala

It’s been a while since Newton’s taken his meds. Hermann begins to notice.

All of Your Flaws and All of My Flaws, by CinnamonCake

Hermann is still there tomorrow and the day after and Newton tries to not break his face with the door again.

and i fell fine, by ohgod

The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide –

what history has given me, by kiyala

In which Newton is a girl and she really doesn’t have the time for your shit.

Solving For X, by griesly

No matter what opinion Doctor Gottlieb had proclaimed concerning his tattoos on numerous occasions, Newt knew the score. He’d glimpsed a heady rush of somewhat mortified appreciation, just an old memory surfacing in the Drift from the first time Newt rolled up his sleeves in the lab. He could still feel it like a taut string in Hermann’s mind, in the same way he knew his lab partner was too surly to ever admit it. It was all tangled up with his impression of the way Newt approached the world, a precisely calibrated instrument in one hand and a nail-bat in the other. Newt had to smile at the way Hermann saw him, a churlish adolescent and a half-mad genius all wrapped up in a hurricane.

…or, sometimes even the sharpest minds in the PPDC can be excused for a being a bit dense.

Towards, by orphan_account

Based vaguely off the Lemony Snicket quote: “When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”

Hermann finds Newt in the lab after the clock stops, and realizes that sometimes all you can do is wait.

Dear Diary,, by ohgod

That is way, way, WAY too close to my whole InuYasha phase. Do-over!

the night will go on, by ohgod

Mako is sheltered, Herc is old, Raleigh doesn’t want to know about any of this, and Tendo is a perpetual asshole.

I Get My Kicks Above the Waistline, Sunshine, by ambitiousbutrubbish

Summary by me: Newton’s exploration of his asexuality.

corpus callosum, by hieronyma

1 + 1 = 1.

when it’s broken, it’s perfect, by liginamite

Love is not divided up into neat little graphs and numbers and theorems, able to be charted if one only took the time and effort to do so. No, love is… it is unpredictable and volatile. Hermann doesn’t really do unpredictable and volatile, but with Newt he doesn’t have much of a say in the matter.

After the Rockets Calm, by callmejude

written for the kink meme prompt: “The morning after Newt and Hermann sleep together for the first time, Hermann comes over all ridiculously British and can’t cope with the intimacy and loss of inhibition. Newt is having none of that nonsense and tells him to quit fussing and come back to bed for snuggles.”

behind us, by kiyala

After the Breach is closed, Newt asks Hermann to go to Boston with him. Hermann doesn’t leave.

They Say It’s Your Birthday, by callmejude

for the kink meme prompt: These two have worked together for many years, and obviously have had to continue working through special occasions, including their birthdays. I know they strongly disliked each other, but deep down they are good friends and I’d love to see anything (slashy or friendshippy) showing how they acknowledge or celebrate birthdays. I’m betting Newt is secretly into baking and Hermann comes in one day on his birthday not expecting anyone to even know, only to find a Kaiju shaped cake on his desk with a sparkler or a candle stuck messily in the centre. Or or or Newt comes in on his 30th birthday and he’s like depressed and absurdly quiet for the day cause he’s not ready to be that old and Hermann realizes why he’s being all docile so he takes off at lunch only to return with pizza and stuff to cheer Newt up and celebrate his birthday. OR YOU KNOW ANYTHING YOU WANT.

within reason, by kiyala

Newt goes to the Skull Temple after the Breach is closed. Hermann goes with him.

pull you through the mirror (before you come undone), by griesly

The War is over. The war is over, and everyone else has something important to do and somewhere else to be except Newt.

shaken, by kiyala

Newton has nightmares. Sometimes, Hermann has them too. 

Imagine Sisyphus Happy, by Jenni_Snake

They’re colonists… we’ve practically terraformed it for them. -Dr. Newton Geiszler

“The thing we saw with the Europeans was that they wanted their new world enough: they didn’t care who stood in their way.” -Dr. Melanie Mountain Horse

“Do not rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive them.” -Sun Tsu

“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. … I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. … One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” -Albert Camus

How The Light Gets In, by griesly

He’d told Hermann time and time again that he didn’t love the kaiju, he studied them with a curiosity born from a life-long fascination with the giants of the earth. Newt had always been the dinosaur kid – still was, if he was being honest with himself, and the kaiju were the biggest, most awe inspiring terrors he’d ever seen.

the body is not an apology, by BeeLove

In which Hermann triggers some of Newton’s insecurities and strives to make up for it.

When Two Substances Collide, by Emileesaurus and ripkord

Doctors Geiszler and Gottlieb — the first ones in and the last ones out. Thirteen scenes from the countdown to the end of the world.

Scar, by mlle

A tiny thing written for Jaegercon Bingo.

Not every tattoo makes a scar.

I’ve got nothing to say but it’s ok, by madness_and_smiles

Newt’s burned into Hermann’s brain now, like an itch he can’t scratch. Whenever they’re in the same room together – which Newt likes to make sure is almost always – there’s the low hum at the back of his mind telling him Newt is there and Newt is feeling and breathing and sometimes they feel and breathe in unison and it makes Hermann drop his chalk.

in which kaiju guts were not part of the wedding vows, by orphan_account

“You’ve got your glower face on,” Newt remarked above him, and Hermann opened his eyes just to scowl at Newt’s concerned face.

“I am a thread away from murdering my own science team, so, yes, I suppose a glower here and there would not go amiss.”

Seeing in Color, by what_alchemy

The Dr. Geiszler Hermann had found in the publications — printed pages worn with constant handling and tucked into his briefcase for easy access — was an eloquent scientist whose work functioned at a level far above almost anyone else Hermann had ever encountered in the field, and yet he neither patronized his readers nor expressed himself in the inexplicable jargon which so infected much academic work. He was singular in his intelligence. Hermann thought this was a man he could understand — and who could understand him in turn.

More fool he.

Kämpfen, by Huntsmonsters

“The point is that Hermann loves numbers like they were his children, except that Hermann hates children. He loves them and the way they go together the way Newt loves every sample that enters his collection, the way he loves tattoo needles and his books of scribbled anatomical drawings and the harried, barely legible, 4 in the morning notes scrawled around them when the first pieces of a freshly dead Kaiju come in. These are the tools with which they carve themselves, the knives and chisels and guides, the planes on which their shapes are made. Hermann is held up by his cane, but it isn’t the reason he’s standing. They’ve both gone through the rabbit hole and come out again with something clenched in their fists. ”

In which arguments are had over equations and entrails, vivisections are banned, and Newt uses ink to prepare for the possibility of death.

I Was the Match And You Were The Rock, by griesly

Written for the Jaegercon Bingo Square: ‘The Drift’

'Hermann is strong and solid and stable even if no one else at the PPDC would ever think so, Newt knows so, and come to think of it, he always has. He just never knew the man’s mind would be so goddamn beautiful, so bright and full of purpose and satisfaction at a job well done that somehow, impossibly, included him.’

Lucky Number Seven, by griesly

'Newton?’ Hermann called out, only to hear an answering 'Shhh!’ issue from behind a moving curtain. He appeared to have cordoned off an area in the back corner of the lab with heavy screens, labeled 'Light-Sensitive Specimens – DO NOT TOUCH.’ Newton poked his head around the corner with a slightly manic grin.

'Lock the door,’ he advised before motioning Hermann enthusiastically over to a break in a thick curtain. Hermann frowned and paced across the room, wondering what could possibly be so important and so secretive that Newton would have to obfuscate its very existence.

Whatever it was, Hermann was certain he wasn’t going to like it.

autoclave, by cynicalRaconteur

Or: How the fuck is she so attractive, she dresses like my grandfather, I want to punch myself in the face: the Newt Geiszler story.

nyctophobia (into the light of the dark black night), by orphan_account

“See, the thing about birthdays is they’re totally an annual thing,” Newt explained, handing Hermann his latte. “And I’ve known you for, what, twelve years? Thirteen?”

“Fifteen,” Hermann interjected tersely. “And a half.”

Do you have Prince Albert in a can?, by mwestbelle

Newt has a Prince Albert piercing. That’s about it.

This Most Beautiful System, by rosepetalfall

Like Watson and Crick, Newton Geiszler and Hedda Gottlieb are two scientific names almost invariably thought of together.

-

Hedda Gottlieb and Newton Geiszler grow up, save the world, conquer academia, defy the odds, do some ill-advised things, do some brilliant things, and learn about love. Not necessarily in that order.

In the Midst of the Blackest Storm, by TrufflesTheMushroom

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, at the precipice of our hope, at the new beginning of our time, we can choose not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Tomorrow, there will not be a single person on our shores who shall stand alone. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow we will face the monsters that are at our door and take the fight to them. Tomorrow, we are facing the apocalypse. As one.

Or: Tendo Choi used to coerce every Jaeger Strike Team in the Hong Kong Shatterdome into boosting its dwindling funds with shady black market deals, and this is how he gets everyone to slowly become a family once more as the world faces the re-opening of the Breach and humanity’s darkest hour.

Or: How To Trust When All Seems Hopeless

i forget the difference between seduction and arson, by gyzym

Ignition and cognition.

animals trapped (the cage is full), by liginamite

Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? The world doesn’t have time for affection, for intimacy, for anything more than quickly coming and cleaning off and heading back to work like nothing ever happened.

The Mathematician’s Answer, by ConstanceComment

“Prosper our handiwork; O prosper the work of our hands.” — Psalm 90

People Might Laugh at Your Tattoos, by callmejude

It’s armor.

Conversations You Don’t Know We’re Having, by adventuring

The spleen was doing something very uncooperative now, turning colors no alien spleen was meant to turn, and oh god, was something bubbling? That could not be good. “No, baby, no, I can fix this, I can do better, just give me one more chance,” he begged it, ignoring Hermann’s baffled, “Pardon?” in his ear. He grabbed frantically at the tongs, fumbling them, realized he probably couldn’t fix this situation one-handed, and said to Hermann, “Gotta go, important work to be done.”

“Newton, I swear to you, do not hang up this phone, follow my instructions—”

“No time, man, science is happening,” he said, and then without thought tacked on, “Bye, love you,” and threw the phone in what was likely the direction of his desk, not bothering to end the call. Hermann probably kept talking, but hello, science.

California King, by notastranger

Hermann is not a sleep cuddler. Bummer.

that every man might have need of other, by lymricks

In the few hours it took to reconcile Newton’s gone with Newton left, Hermann had created an elaborate fantasy: Newton kidnapped, Newton taken, Newton needing to be saved. He had not considered that leaving had been Newton’s idea. He had not thought it would be voluntary.

You Lost, Doctor?, by hailtherandom

“The next morning, Hermine goes to work with a clear head. It sticks for all of about thirteen minutes, until Newt walks into the offices in a pair of jeans and an old, threadbare undershirt instead of her usual button-down, and numbers flicker out of Hermine’s mind like lights in a Jaeger. Newt glances up and shoots her a filthy grin, then drops her coat on her desk and pulls out a pair of gloves. Hermine loses whole equations to the kaiju rippling over the muscles in Newt’s forearms.”

Private in Public, by spirogyra

Dr. Newton Geiszler and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb get introduced to life in a shatterdome, and somehow survive showering together for ten years even when they’re on separate continents.

Nightmares, by beckettemory

“Hermann frowned, remembering the bags under Newton’s eyes and the constant bubbling of the coffee maker in the corner brewing pot after pot of strong coffee all day.” ——————- Hermann, sore after a long day, passes the laboratory and realises that, though well into the night, Newton is still working, and has been acting strangely for a few days.

Lights On, by berlynn_wohl

Hermann’s solitude and shame was an immovable object inside him. He had yet to find out that it would soon encounter an unstoppable force.

Not While I’m Around, by callmejude

written for the kinkmeme prompt: In all the years they’ve worked with each other, Hermann can’t remember ever seeing Newt angry - upset and frustrated, maybe, but never angry. Sure, they argue and raise their voices at each other all the time, but that’s just lively intellectual discourse - they’re never really mad at each other. Hermann has always just kind of assumed that Newton is so easy going that nothing can set him off.

And then someone messes with Hermann, and Newton absolutely explodes with rage.

Come Away To The Water, by funnylookingfella

The Kaiju War is over, there are no Jaegers left, the mourning period has passed… but the hive mind lingers.

A Little Friendly Challenge, by moonblossom

Newt knows how to get Hermann to cooperate.

I wear your granddad’s clothes, I look incredible., by notastranger

Newton comes up with what he thinks is a hilarious Halloween costume. Things do not go as planned.

venus in fleurs, by indications

6.7k of boring-ass white boys touchin dicks

so it goes, by liginamite

The world needs Newton Geiszler, and with that thought in mind, it’s Hermann that drifts with the Kaiju instead.

sugar, spice, and graduate programs, by classyfanperson

Newt works at a coffee shop. Hermann is studying abroad at MIT. Pumpkin lattes are good for the soul.

Good Day for Ghosts, by cryogenia

Hermann wakes into the new world, and carries the remains of the old with him.

Equality, by pickleplum

“‘Immediate family only’ is our policy and no amount of yelling at me will change it, Doctor Geiszler. Unless you are Doctor Gottlieb are long-lost brothers, you need to calm down and wait in the reception area or we’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Newt makes a very loud exasperated noise and throws his hands in the air, but turns and marches into the waiting room. He drops himself onto a couch and pulls at his hair in frustration. I’m going to behave, he tells himself firmly. I’m not going to freak out over this total bullshit and get myself tossed out of here. No way. I can do this.

no man is an island, by narcomanic

Running away from the hive mind is easier said than done, especially when you’ve been so clever all your life that you never had to learn how to ask for help.

Time Will Crawl and Our Mouths Run Dry, by hailtherandom

It was Hermann’s idea, oddly enough. Sometimes Newt never quite believes that, thinks he made it up in a dream or a drunken haze, because Hermann, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, does not suggest things like that. But he did, and Newt laughed in his face, and then blinked a few times and said, “what, really?” “Yes, really,” Hermann said. “It’s logical, Newton, if you take a moment to think about it.” — Hermann and Newt. Mutual handjobs at twenty-one hundred hours every Wednesday and Friday. Slight complications develop.

After Zero, by what_alchemy

The war is over. Hermann and Newt get on with their [sex] lives.

More Than I Can Return, by callmejude

written for the kinkmeme prompt: “Newt likes to flirt with Hermann, the fact that he never flirts back does not discourage him at all. An outsider might think that Newt is foolishly in love with someone who doesn’t care about him back at all. But one day in the lab out of nowhere, Hermann says, "Alright, what if I just bring you off with my hand? Will that make you more bearable?”

Newt’s thrilled and doesn’t miss a beat. “God, Hermann, a handy would be awesome right now! Thanks, man!”, all while he’s unzipping his fly and grabbing the surgical lube for improper use.

From then on they start hooking up whenever it pleases both of them. Sometimes handjobs, sometimes frottage, occasionally one will penetrate the other. But most importantly, Newt never stops calling Hermann “man” or “dude” during the act, and keeps talking as if Hermann was just doing him a mundane favour, or he was doing a favour for Hermann.

It isn’t until they sit on the sofa in Hermann’s room one night, cuddling up and making out after a taxing workday, with no signs of anyone unclothing or unzipping, that Newt thinks maybe affection has something to do with it.“

Jackpot, by notastranger

People say some strange things when coming out of anesthesia.

Cleaning Days, by jotc

All Hermann Gottlieb wanted was a clean lab space of his own.

Feels Like Reckless Driving, by lakehymn

“Did you just say I’m right about something?” Newton asks, feigning shock. Then he lightheartedly elbows Hermann in the ribs and adds, “I always knew you loved me.”

everyone needs a place (it shouldn’t be inside someone else), by orphan_account

His brain goes a gazillion miles an hour in loopy misdirectional circles, and when he dreams he dreams of kaiju biology, of being back in their lab, of sharp elbows in a small bed.

Chatter, by berlynn_wohl

“What do you think? Is today going to be a good day?”

Unhappy Campers (or Why You Can’t Perform CPR on Someone Who’s Still Breathing), by Jenni_Snake

A summer science camp field trip to the mountains. What could be more fun? Probably anything, especially for a group of nerdy science kids.

Hermann Gottlieb’s Stacker Pentecost Obsession Trapper Keeper, by what_alchemy

Hermann has a giant man crush on Stacker.

Newt finds it delightful. Herc, not so much.

what’s your rush, by Byacolate

Summary by me: An elaboration of Hermann and Newt’s relationship before and after the closing of the Breach.

Baby, You’re Hotter than my Bunsen Burner, by SkysongMA

They argue like they breathe—but that’s not all there is to it. Newt flirts, and it’s disgusting.

It’s not that Hermann minds flirting. The Kaidonovskies have propositioned everyone in the PPDC, or so it seems, and Tendo has intimated more than once that he wouldn’t mind spending some time in the lab, “talking numbers.” The Shatterdome is a small place. One has to practice somewhere.

It’s just that Newt is so bad at it.

Becoming History, by Scientia_Fantasia

Sure, the phrase “crotchety old man who obviously pays no attention to the current scientific community” may have snuck its way into one of the letters, but hey, that’s what you get for calling Up-And-Coming Scientific Rockstar Newton Geiszler “some kid.” Like, the guy had it coming. Really.

It Is not Heaven, It Is Home, by bravinto

Finding the love of your life is awfully anticlimactic.

Fleece, by berlynn_wohl

Newt and Hermann enjoy a day of terminally fluffy domesticity, with maybe a few minutes set aside for shenanigans on the sofa. Also, monsters (duh).

For What It’s Worth, I’d Do It Again, by callmejude

Between finding Newton seizing on the floor and running to get Pentecost, Hermann needs to make sure Newton is okay.

The Stretch and Pull of Disused Hearts, by billiethepoet

Newt notices that the move to the Anchorage Shatterdome is affecting Hermann’s leg. So Newt builds him a hot yoga studio out of spare parts and an abandoned storage closet. Obviously.

Best Cock On The Block, by hobbitdragon

They’ve been so close and yet so far for fourteen years now, but the drift is the pebble that starts the avalanche of change. (By which we mean sex)

This started out as a short ficlet and quickly grew beyond ficlet status into a full-blown fic. I guess I really wanted to write more trans smut.

The Seconds In Between, by orphan_account

Sort of a day in the life of Hermann (and Newt, always with Newt). Mostly, I had a lot of tiny little headcanons and then tried to spin them all together in a fic.

hallo mutti, hallo vati, by classyfanperson

Newt and Hermann visit the Gottlieb family after the Breach is closed. Some are happier to see them than others.

The Cost of Craving Dark Instead of Light, by sonnie

Summary by me: Monica Schwartz and her son, Newton. 

The Two Weirdos Who Work In The Lab, by berlynn_wohl

Two vignettes about the worst kept secret in the Shatterdome.

he’s thunderstorms, by mundaneanarchy

Wherein Newt maybe possibly has a teeny tiny itsy bitsy almost microscopic crush on a certain grumpy old mathematician and Hermann falls and can’t get up. Angsty pining ensues. (explicit for chapter 2)

Never Done with Killing Time, by orphan_account

In between one day and the next, there’s always some time for some loving.

Quantum Degeneracy, by trell

Newt makes a sound from where he’s hidden behind his kaiju, behind his arms, and then he croaks, "I can’t play anymore.”

Hermann’s eyes flick to the electric keyboard sitting near Newt’s desk—a paper-covered, disorganized disaster of a thing—and he says, quietly, “Ah.”

the best laid plans, by liginamite

The plan, you see, was to totally sex Hermann up immediately after the world was saved. But you know that old saying about well-laid plans.

Generated Affects, by trell

Twelve is you washing your hands ten times up to the elbow in the space of the half an hour you spend prepping kaiju entrails for long-term cryo. It’s him that stops you, him that struggles over to the sink on his cane and grabs you by the wrists, hands fitting perfectly over the open maws of Hundun and Yamarashi, and he says “Stop,” and “Newton, think, this isn’t like you, it is like—” and the me hangs unspoken but you get it, let him guide you over to a bench in the lab and force you to sit still long enough to tone down the compulsion.

five times newt proposed to hermann and the one time he said yes, by mundaneanarchy

title is self explanatory.

alternate title: the fear of falling apart

warning: cheesy and kinda dumb

macho dudes in lace undies, by mundaneanarchy

Summary by me: Newt, Hermann and a lingerie kink.

one last kiss while we’re far too young to die, by mundaneanarchy

Newt and Hermann meet, fall in love, hate each other, lose each other, find each other, kiss drunkenly, save/destroy the world, and get married. All in that order.

it is one way to live, by fuckener

Newt would stay stuck in the wartime if nobody tried pulling him out of it.

Black Velvet Rabbits rockstar AU, by spirogyra

Summary by me: In which Hermann is the number one fan of Newt’s rock band, The Black Velvet Rabbits.

Sea Swept, by cypress_tree

A high seas fantasy AU in which Hermann is a ship’s navigator and Newton is found washed up among flotsam.

there are no atheists in foxholes, by liginamite

Newt and Hermann have been feeling off since they helped to cancel the apocalypse. They’re losing time, long black-outs, periods of aggression. The feeling that there’s something else, something they can’t pin down.

The thing is, the Kaiju drift left something behind in the both of them, and it’s determined to get out.

Can’t Wait for You to Shut Me Up, by callmejude

written for the kink meme prompt: “Hermann tells Newt to shut up, Newt tells Hermann to make him. They make out. That’s the prompt.”

(That may have been the prompt but I admit to it going much further than that.)

Dead Letter Chorus, by QuokkaFoxtrot

It’s if you’ve never heard anything true. But we will try 'til the next time or the last time. Dead Letter Chorus - You Am I

Newt owns a coffee shop. Hermann is a tenured professor at the local university. Their relationship has its ups and downs.

Also: Chuck is a champion barista, Mako is a world travelling Direct Trade negotiator, Stacker and Herc play a lot of chess, and Tendo owns Shatterdome Records.

Much coffee is consumed. (Except by Hermann who is a priss about how his tea should be prepared.)

bones, sinking like stones, by mundaneanarchy

You don’t love him. You don’t love him even though you do, you know you do, you know you do so much it hurts, but you don’t.

have yourself a merry little christmas, by classyfanperson

Hermann isn’t going home for Hanukkah, so Newt insists they both visit his family back home. They continue to not talk about their feelings.

Or: A Very Geiszler Christmas.

Newton Geiszler’s 11 Ways to Save the World, by kaijukonjou

Keep to yourself, keep your chin up, and maybe you’ll make it out in one piece.

Five Times Newt And Hermann Kiss While They Are Drunk, by luceluceluceluce

A brief timeline of the apocalypse from the perspective of a pair of nerds: a story of science, alcohol, and love.

Become What We’ve Always Been, by irisbleufic

Hermann doesn’t have enough time to experience a crisis over Newton’s response to his unvoiced request; he’s drifting into that self-same lethargy, eyelids heavy, his arm across the cane gone slack.

it wouldn’t be make believe, by infinituity

“By the way, dude,” he says, and he reaches down both to grab his notepad as well as to avoid looking at Hermann, “my parents think we’re dating.”

Instead of the expected angry yelling, he gets only silence in response, so he looks up to see Hermann opening his mouth to speak, reconsidering, closing it, and repeating. After several more repeats than strictly necessary, he sighs and slumps down in his seat.

“Of course they do,” he says.

sweet as anything, by classyfanperson

Newt is embarrassed about certain aspects of her body. Hermine is considerably more enthusiastic.

The Statistics of Touch, by WheresPeebs

Alternate Title: If You Would Just Stop Interrupting Each Other, Everything Would Be Worked Out in the First Friggin’ Paragraph.

Hermann is uncomfortable with public displays of… well, anything. It causes problems.

First, by cypress_tree

Newt and Hermann’s first time is Newt’s first first time.

Roses are red, and if that’s kaiju blue so help me Newton, by unnecessary

Summary by me: Newton and Hermann have some communication problems. 

point me in the direction of the last setting sun, by orphan_account

They were two women standing against the end of the world.

Urine Trouble, by kinkitsecretkinkitsafe

Hermann has a thing for watersports. Newt finds out.

breathing free and even, by classyfanperson

He’s working on it. They’re working on it.

High-Five for Hatesex, by kinkitsecretkinkitsafe

Summary by me: Newton has a thing for Hermann and justifies it as hate!sex. He might be wrong.

Counterpoint, by kinkitsecretkinkitsafe

Summary by me: Sequel to High-Five for Hatesex.

a thousand spiders down the drain, by Byacolate

Children can be so cruel to boys who pick flowers.

Secret Agent Scientist, by Malteaser

Written for the prompt: Hermann, secret badass; He has something cool like a fencing saber installed in his cane and when someone fucks with them he kicks their ass and keeps talking like nothing happened.

A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way, by patster223

Newt liked to purposefully annoy Hermann in order to get rough sex. Which worked out great, until Hermann found out about it and decided to punish Newt by giving him excruciatingly nice sex.

cross my heart and take me with you, by drashian

The first time Hermann meets Newton Geiszler, they are pleasant with each other for about 10 minutes until suddenly they’re duking it out about Hermann’s theories of transdimensional transport.

The second time Hermann meets Newton Geiszler, they just start yelling.

The third time Hermann meets Newton Geiszler, it is in the toxic blue haze of the Drift.

Anthology ‘Verse (& Related Errata), by irisbleufic

Summary by me: a study of the relationship between Hermann and Newt, from the beginning to the future.

Parallax / Perihelion, by irisbleufic 

Parallax—the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in the position of the observer; from the Greek, παράλλαξις (“alteration”). / Perihelion—the point in the orbit of an asteroid, comet, planet, or other celestial body where it is nearest to the sun (again from the Greek, περιήλιο).

One-Week Rule, by irisbleufic

Somebody’s got a stick up his theoretical vortex. Starting this off with a bang?

We’re Revolutionaries Now, by AxolotlQueen

One really shouldn’t attempt to cut one’s own hair.

(Or, Hermione Gottlieb gives herself a bad haircut and Newton Geiszler helps out.)

Newton Geiszler and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Interns, by cambion and casdere

“I know, it’s all a bit silly,” he admits.

“You always get a bit silly about your crushes, yeah?” She teases easily, and Hermann nearly spits out his mouthful of soup. Jasmine gives him another concerned look, but he waves her away.

“Vanessa, can you please not,” he hisses under his breath, and she laughs with the phone pulled away from her face, sounding like distant bells, and he feels taken back to high school, and remembers the fumbling idiocy of his crush on her, and knows immediately she is right, and he ought to give up the fight. He has a crush, an honest to God crush, and at his age! He knows, surely, it started with his fascination of the man’s intellect, but he also knows how quickly and easily he was drawn into his off-kilter charisma, as well.

or: hermann and newt are college professors, newt is working on his sixth doctorate, hermann is nursing a nasty crush, and i fit way too much into one chapter

scene after scene, by drashian

Everything had been banking on the world ending.

It doesn’t end, though, and that leaves everyone with this big hole where the future they didn’t plan for suddenly stretches ahead of them.

Newt struggles and reaches to fill that hole, and comes up with two things: Hermann Gottlieb and a cross-country road trip.

Chalk It Up To Love, by patster223

Newt replaced all of Hermann’s white pieces of chalk with pink ones. Or: the one in which chalk is a form of courtship, Hermann is head-over-heels, and somehow the entire Shatterdome gets involved.

The Apple In Our Hands, by irisbleufic

Summary: 1950!AU in which Newt is a cryptozoologist trying to find the Loch Ness monster, Hermann is more or less the same, and they have to share a cabin in Scotland.

Ice to Meet You, by patster223

Hermann is eating a rather phallic-looking popsicle and Newt is pretty sure he might actually die from sexual frustration.

In Sweden, and Elsewhere, by rillrill

Newt had just thrown down his end of the half-assembled bookshelf and shouted, “Whatever! It still makes no sense that two acclaimed and accomplished scientists with the combined brainpower of four average adults can’t put together a goddamn shelf!” Because, seriously, he can build an improvised neural bridge out of old lab machinery and an ancient Mr. Coffee, but he’s undone by three missing pegs? Fuck this.

Newt and Hermann rebuild, relocate, accept the Nobel Prize for Physics, fight over furniture, and strive to carve out a space for themselves in a world where they’re inextricably linked - in the the press, in their personal lives, and in their own heads.

Magic and Progress, by patster223

The Hogwarts AU in which Newt is a wizard, Hermann is a Muggle, and somehow they manage to save the world and love each other anyway.

Self-Destruct, by pinkmoon

“He learns how to never be wrong. He learns how to be indispensable. He realizes it makes him unstoppable.

Newton Geiszler is one tick away from self-destructing for the rest of his life.”

A character study of Newt’s lifetime of risky behavior and predilection for taking risks of the “rock star” sort. (Spanning many years, continents, arguments, and accidents, but landing, unexpectedly, in a happy ending.)

Today Your Barista Is: Hella Fucking Gay, by unnecessary

Hermann is a professor. The barista at the coffee shop across the street is cute and very, very single.

It is inevitable, really.

Predictable, by cypress_tree

It’s a movie date, but they’re not really watching the movie.

Adventures In Knitting, by decadent_mousse

Newt decides to knit Hermann a sweater, with… mixed results.

You’ve Taken A Pizza My Heart, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt are so busy with work, they don’t get much time to go out to dinner, so Newt decides to improvise.

Fear of a Name, by uhnonniemiss

Newt and Hermann never could decide on how to define what they are to each other. It takes several years, thousands of kisses, a vat of acid, a big fight, and a sunny Boston evening to help them choose.

every day I fight a war against the mirror, by thekaidonovskys

“It came at a price,” he says. “To understand them, I had to learn how to fear them.”

Cut to the Chase, by patster223

Hermann needs a haircut. He does not need the cute hairdresser to flirt with him, he does not need a scalp massage, and he does not need anything trendy or stylish done to his hair.

Thankfully, these are things that happen anyway. Barbershop AU, featuring hairdresser!Newt and smitten!Hermann.

The Sublime, by Lucretius

The waves are coming closer to them now, and yes, the tide is coming to them with crescendo crashes.

The white fringe of sea is mere fathoms away.

“Can we?” Hermann asks.

And it is the question that one asks because, the choice having been made in what feels like another lifetime, now, for the first time, there is someone here, here, right here—who can see a way of being and seeing long dormant under so many layers of performing and seeming.

Recover, by irisbleufic

You’re my new favorite blanket. Come inside?

Untoward, by LemonScience33

Newton licks his bottom lip. “Maybe, um…” he says.

Newton doesn’t continue. Hermann wills his breathing to remain steady. “Yes?”

Newton shrugs casually. “Maybe we could give each other a hand,” he says. “Just two friends… you know, helping each other out.”

Knocking Socks, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt go sock-shopping.

Listening, by cypress_tree

Newt has a dirty talk kink, and Hermann has a really nice voice.

Act Together, by irisbleufic

“You know I’m only a liar when it matters, right?”

You + Me = Happiness ², by steviekat

The thing is, Newt had never really put much thought into the future. The future of K-Science? Sure! Her own? To be fair, this probably better than anything she could have imagined.

Got Your Back, by Doooooooom

The workload is taking its toll on Hermann’s shoulders. Luckily, Newt is a dab hand at shoulder massages.

That’s one way to shut you up, by offensiveagentpie

Based on this fanart by pixiepunch.

Hermann tries a new tactic to get Newt to be quiet for once.

wash us away, by thekaidonovskys

Thank god Hermann undresses after he’s entered the bathroom, or else walking in to find Newt sitting on the bench top would have been much much worse.

visions are seldom what they seem, by mundaneanarchy

Hermann likes Tchaikovsky. Newt likes Hermann.

The Sun On Your Face (I’m Freezing That Frame), by irisbleufic

“Hate to break it to you,” Newton whispers, kissing Hermann’s neck with a happy sigh before letting his head drop to rest against Hermann’s shoulder, “but we’re busted in five, four, three—”

“Your ass is mine, Geiszler!” shouts Officer Hak, barging into the lab. “You too, Doctor Gottlieb. If you think you can get off so easy—”

The Good Old Days, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt go scavenging for supplies during a blackout and get more than they bargained for.

A Proper Family Christmas, by uhnonniemiss

When Hermann ends up in the medical wing, he looks all set to spend Christmas by himself. Not if Newt gets a say in it, though.

Or, in which adopted and blood family save the Holidays

The Friendmas Ficlet Collection, by cypress_tree

A collection of five unrelated ficlets written as Christmas gifts for friends:

geniusbee: Hermann hurt/comfort patster223: Hermann wearing nail polish thehorrorinsymmetry: Hermann in lingerie bravinto: belly rubs decadentmousse: Harvest Moon AU

Aftershocks, by tastewithouttalent

“Hermann has to stumble away because the Drift is still too fresh and he can’t tell the heat of Newton’s body apart from his own anymore.” The impact of the Drift hits Hermann, and he and Newt don’t make it back to the laboratory.

Au Naturel, by decadent_mousse

Newt gives Hermann a wake up call during a very boring meeting.

Fortune’s Favor, by tamerofdarkstars

In which there is kissing, the end of the world, the subsequent salvation of the world, and more kissing.

Fills Trope_Bingo: Round 4 - Celebratory Kiss

Bump in the Night, by unicornsandbutane

Newt’s made a mistake, and it’s really a subjective matter whether it was a poor decision altogether or just a mere miscalculation. Regardless, he is forced to phone Hermann in the middle of the night, to deal with the consequences.

But the Gesture is Ruined, by cypress_tree

Five times Hermann tried to be romantic, one time he succeeded without even meaning to. A K-Sci romcom, basically.

Strange Bedfellows, by decadent_mousse

When Hermann and Newt first arrive at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, a paperwork mix-up forces them to share a room for awhile.

followed your ashes into outer space, by parpar

The numbers of the War Clock ticked down to zero, and the resulting euphoria was thick as smoke in the air. The assortment of PPDC members and civilian contractors were in an uproar, and Hermann and Newton made their way down the LOCCENT steps to stand in the midst of it.

When Tendo had finally managed to get Mako and Raleigh to stop hugging and cooperate with the rescue team, Newton had leaned his forehead into the curve of Hermann’s shoulder.

“We actually pulled it off,” he had whispered. “We did it, holy shit, it’s over.” Hermann had gracefully ignored the tears soaking into his collar and patted his colleague on the back while he pulled himself together.

Occupational Hazard, by decadent_mousse

Hermann overworks himself and gets a migraine.

In Space No One Can Hear You Mop, by decadent_mousse

Hermann and Newt are janitors sent to a derelict ship to clean things up after a group of aliens massacred the entire crew… but are they the only ones on board?

Liminality, by what_alchemy

What we know, after.

Fortuna Favet, by Mipeltaja

Newton seemed to think one could invoke good fortune simply by being bold enough or loud enough, a notion Hermann found utterly ridiculous.

It wasn’t that Hermann didn’t believe chance could on occasion work in his favour, it was just that life had taught him not to rely on it.

Brainspace and Kinkspace, by Emmalyn

Summary by me: Newt and Hermann exploring some of the delights of kinky sex.

Desperate Times, by decadent_mousse

Newt finds Hermann in a terrible state.

Matchsnaking, by patster223

There is a snake in Hermann’s apartment. This is not how he wanted to start his day.

Apartment neighbors AU where Newt’s snake keeps sneaking into Hermann’s apartment.

Put a Pin in That, by unicornsandbutane

Newt tries to convince Hermann to participate in a charity event. What ensues might be classed as ‘hijinks’, ‘shenanigans’, or ‘hilarity’, depending upon your perspective.

Remains, by berlynn_wohl

Newt and Hermann wrap Christmas presents and talk about death.

You Love Me Not, by mundaneanarchy

A story of love and coping with love told from the second-person perspective of Newt.

Newt loves Hermann and Hermann loves Newt but sometimes it’s not that easy.

Statiscally Significant Other, by unicornsandbutane

Flattery will get you everywhere.

Or, the fic computerbaby on tumblr requested, in which Newt compliments Hermann and Hermann is really really into it.

Pasta Aisle, by cypress_tree

Hermann and Newt meet for the first time in a grocery store. Hermann helps Newt grab something off a high shelf. Newt takes offense.

Disconnect, Connect Again, by cypress_tree

Raising Newt Geiszler has never been easy. Seeing him fall in love can be harder.

The development of Newt and Hermann’s relationship, from Jacob Geiszler’s point-of-view.

Spaces Between, by adropofred

Newt had not realised, somehow, that the world not ending would mean it would stubbornly keep on turning without waiting for him to catch up.

So what? He’s a scientist. He’ll do some catching up of his own and lose himself in the labyrinth of his and Hermann’s brains and their bodies.

This is absolutely not to be considered hiding, not that they can hide much anymore.

The Six Million Pillows Man, by adropofred

As it turns out, Hermann’s room is nothing special. His bed, on the other end, is very, very special.

Of course, Newt wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t find a way to turn this revelation into a situation where he could put his foot in his mouth.

Time For You and Time For Me, by patster223

A collection of Newmann prompts that I’ve filled on my tumblr. Contains: AUs, pining, flirting, bickering, several chapters of Hermann’s filthy exhibitionist kink, and two nerds learning to love each other in as many ways as possible.

The Beholder, by ItsClydeBitches

Written for the Newmann-uendo Hurt/Comfort challenge.

Hermann is feeling pretty insecure about his body. He’s unattractive. That’s a fact. Luckily Newton Geiszler’s number one law is still in place:

Hermann Gottlieb is ALWAYS wrong.

we’ll leave our tracks untraceable, by confused_android

When she steps off the plane in Logan International, something tight in her shoulders cracks, loosens, and she shakes free the last barb the PPDC had through her spine, through her brain, keeping her tense and wary for most of a decade. She yanks her heavy suitcase off of the carousel, identifiable by the years of layered duct tape repairing a seam that could once have been stitched, and flags the first taxi that will stop for her.

Permanent Ink, by mundaneanarchy

Inspired by this piece of fanart (http://rockstar-ologist.tumblr.com/post/126950663313) by rockstar-ologist

Newt gets Hermann’s initials tattooed on his hand. A month into their relationship. Hermann isn’t too happy about it.

Castaways’ Window, by Chancy_Lurking

“There are no words for the thoughts he has in that moment, because they are not his thoughts.”

Rings, by perniciousLizard

Three scenes, post movie. They’re happy.

Right Hand: Heart, by QuokkaFoxtrot

Two beers. That was all it took these days.

Dance In The Graveyards, by LemonScience33

As they round the next corner and lights come on, Newt’s first thought is, This had better be worth it, because we’re definitely gonna get caught.

His second thought is, That is the skull of Otachi’s baby, with lights strung over it.

His third thought is, This is definitely worth it.

Sweater Wars, by paenteom

Hermann takes his fashion illiteracy to new, festive levels. Newt is forced to retaliate.

Die Musik Kommt, by romangold

Maybe everyone’s drowning in the day, the night, memories and regrets and guilts, in relief, in pure, unadulterated happiness. Maybe they’re all dying.

Hermann finds Newt after the apocalypse is cancelled, and the two realize that perhaps they aren’t so toxic together after all.

Nigel, by uhnonniemiss

A particularly harsh snowstorm has brought the boiler- and Hermann- to a standstill.

(My piece for the 2015 Pacrim Holiday Swap!)

Etude, Op. 25 No. 12, by romangold

The climax always resolves to major, no matter how many times you play the piece. And the heroes always win, despite the amount of times you rewind to the beginning or fast-forward to the end.

sharing half our genes, and nothing in between, by getmean

“Christ, Hermann, is this a letterman jacket?” Newt cried, spinning and holding it up with a level of glee he hadn’t reached since he got that salivary gland from Mutavore. “How cliché can you get?”

Plausible Possibility, by cissues

Newt and Hermann experience some odd post-drift effects.

mountains sunk below the sea, by getmean

Newton has been, and always will be, what his father calls a ‘tough nut to crack’, but has an element of horrifying vulnerability that makes Hermann’s skin crawl. He selfishly likes Newton best when all his walls are intact.

netflix and chill, by w0rm

Hermann does the Netflix, Newt does the chill.

How to Deal with Accidental Neural Oversharing and Other Scientific Conundrums, by yourguardianangel

The world has not ended. Operation Pitfall is successful. Celebrations are had. But how are two snarky scientists meant to cope with having way too much of each others internal monologues retroactively overlaid with their own memories?

(with smut, that’s how.)

It’s All Good, by spirogyra

Thoughtless words, hurt feelings, cryptic statements, the drift makes things easier and more difficult, but in the end… it’s all good.

追伸, by lamphouse

“If I recall correctly, this is the man who confessed to wanting a pet Godzilla for his twentieth birthday, is it not? Glass houses, Dr. Geiszler.”

It takes two months for Newton Geiszler to fall in love. It takes thirty months, around two hundred letters, several time zones, and two missed-ish connections for him to actually admit it.

it’s alright, don’t you let it inside, by areunasty

They’re taking Gipsy Danger out for a trial run, and Newt watches with mild interest as the mech slices cleanly through the ocean. He thinks that if he was that big anything would be easy. Loving someone difficult, being loved, the quiet and painful twist of Hermann’s mouth whenever he looks at Newt recently.

The Price of Ghost Drifting, by confettiinmyhair

Newt is home early. Hermann has a surprise.

concentric circles, by lamphouse

It’s times like these that Hermann finds himself checking and double-checking his list of reasons why he works at the library. It’s also times like these that prove why nowhere on said list does it mention the people he works with.

The Boyfriend Experience, by berylnn_wohl

In the Shatterdome, Hermann confesses his disappointment that his and Newt’s relationship lacks romance. After the war is over, Newt vows to spend one year righting this wrong as they travel the world together on a lecture tour.

Everything We Never Said, by JennaCupcakes

Newt has a few regrets about his drift with Hermann. Namely, that he’s had a crush on the guy for a while and really doesn’t want him to find out.

Echoes in the Well of Silence, by unicornsandbutane

Hermann can hear Newton through the ducts.

Wishbone, by cypress_tree

Hermann doesn’t have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving, so Newt invites him over for food, family, and a little bit of flirting. Just a warm, fuzzy college AU to get you through the holidays.

Do Scientists Dream of Cloned Sheep?, by paenteom

Newt fumbles with the key card before he finally manages to swipe it, throws the door open and freezes.

There’s only one bed.

It’s massive, and covered in the fluffiest blanket he has ever seen, but it’s undeniably singular.

“Uh,” he says. “Awkward.”

Laughter, Confession, by cypress_tree

He’s nervous and awkward and he’s afraid he’ll mess up, but god, he wants this so bad.

Proving a Point, by steampunkepsilon

Newt thinks Hermann is a shy, reserved, vanilla kind of guy. Newt is wrong, and Hermann has sources.

Slumber Sequence, by strigine

Summary by me: Newton and Hermann’s sleeping habits.

Clean Clock, by cissues

'“So, you’re that guy, huh?” The man says, finally. He has his back to the newly emptied and even more newly dirtied sink and Hermann’s gaze is fixated on the encrusted plates and wine-stained glassware.’

Or, where Hermann is a hermit and also a clean freak with messy roommates.

Linguistics, by cypress_tree

Literally just a thousand words of Newt masturbating while listening to Hermann give an interview on a podcast.

i ain’t holy, i ain’t close, by queenofthestarrrs

The end of the world feels like home.

tell me you’ll love me for a million years, by buckgaybarnes

Hermann is working late, so Newt decides to be a great husband and tackle their chores. He mostly succeeds.

lost connection, by orphan_account

When the Shatterdome stays open for continuing research, the K-Science team realizes they’ll actually have to deal with the after-effects of their Drift.

Trial and Error, by cypress_tree

A romantic comedy of errors in which Newt and Hermann try to spice things up….and fail spectacularly.

Mixed Signals, by SkysongMA

After the Drift, Hermann starts having sex dreams.

Newt’s sex dreams.

That are all about Hermann.

Oh Mein Me, by junkiechurch

You wonder how a heart like his could ever love a man like you.

clothes (or a lack thereof), by orphan_account

Once the war is over, Hermann and Newt move in together. Newt realizes how little clothing they actually own.

#pacific rim #newmann #newton geiszler #hermann gottlieb #fic recs #please warn me if any links are broken #and reblog it if you can so more people will see it #otp: the favors of fortune

[suspiriu-m]

About Me

Hello! My name is Sal and welcome to my blog, Suspirium! Suspirium is a word that originates from one of my favorite movies, Luca Guadagnino’s 2019 remake of Dario Argento’s classic italian horror movie Suspiria. According to World of Dictionary, Suspirium is a Latin word meaning “Deep breath, sigh”. It’s also the title of one of my favorite songs from the soundtrack to the movie produced by Thom Yorke of Radiohead. I’m a huge horror movie buff so expect to see a lot of that sort of content on my blog if I can incorporate it into any of my work. I chose this as the title of my blog because of how well the word fits into the movie, and I just love the way it sounds. Anybody who’s watched the movie will understand, but I won’t go into detail as to not spoil it for anybody who hasn’t yet seen it.

Throughout my highschool years I technically went to two schools. My main and home school was Middletown High School, and my secondary school was Orange Ulster Boces in Florida New York. In high school I was always in media production and art classes. For example, photography, video editing, drawing & painting classes and my favorite was an Elements of Horror class I took my senior year. Horror being my favorite genre, I absolutely had to take a class that’s dove into the origins of classic horror novels, films and short stories. Leading to me finding my favorite classic horror story Dracula by Bram Stoker, and a multitude of stories by H.P. Lovecraft. Continuing on now to college i’m now majoring in Media Production while also still taking some classes in Marketing and Design! I really enjoy both a lot so it’s hard to kind of pick exactly which I want to do, but it’s nice knowing that no matter what path I finally choose I'll still have some experience in the other!

Aside from my education, I love to watch horror movies and read stories in my own free time. Movies in general are a huge hobby of mine and I watch at least 3-4 a week given I have the time. Some of my favaroties of all time concerning classics have got to be the Halloween series, The Evil Dead series and all four of the Scream movies. Other hobbies of mine that take up a huge part of my life and time are video games and music. I have a pretty big record collection that’s continuously growing with at least 80-90 albums and counting. I just recently purchased a few more to add being Sade’s Diamond Life, Whitney Houston’s Whitney and Whitney Houston albums, Lazaretto by Jack White, Texas Sun by Khruangbin & Leon Bridges and Petals for Armor by Hayley Williams. Hopefully my next additions will be What’s Your Pleasure? by Jessie Ware and The Baby by Samia. I’ve been collecting them for years, but especially now since even CD’s are starting to go out of style. I’m the kind of person who still likes to have physical copies of all my music and movies and games so having such big collection is super special to me.

In terms of video games, I try and play as wide of a variety that I can because I believe I can find something I like in any genre. Strategy, shooters, brawlers, online competitive games etc, but I think my favorite style of game is single-player, narrative driven experiences. Most recently I played The Last of Us Part II and was absolutely enthralled with it. I loved the first game so much so getting a sequel was something I was extremely grateful for. I don’t think video games get enough credit for what they do for storytelling. TLOU 1 and 2 are some of my favorite stories that I have experienced in any form of media. The heartbreak, pain, love, fear and excitement those games have succeeded in giving me while just sitting in front of my TV is something no other form of entertainment has brought me. Some of the most touching moments, but also the most excruciating. They also had a queer women front and center throughout the games which is something that isn’t very common in video games so seeing that was really nice to me. Other than The Last of Us, some other solid narrative driven games I’ve played are God of War, Uncharted 1-4, Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Tomb Raider Reboots, Ghost of Tsushima, the Batman Arkham series and Control.

Although story based games are my favorites that doesn’t mean I don’t have a place in my heart for some good old fashioned fun as well! I also really enjoy a lot of the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda games as well. My biggest pet peeve that I have with the gaming industry right now though is Fortnite. I think it’s literally the most annoying game ever created. People spend hundreds and thousands of dollars just to buy skins and weapon packs and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. The fact that I work at a major video game retailer and constantly have kids running through my store screaming about the damn game at least once a day could also contribute to my hatred. Either way, I want no part and absolutely nothing to do with it.

Going back to queer representation though. I recently watched Pose over the summer. Not only was the show heavily based during the AIDS epidemic in New York City, almost the entirety of the main cast was comprised of Transgender Black women. On prime time television! This is the first show to ever achieve such a feat. Not only was the cast extremely talented, I thought the writing and production of the show as a whole was brilliant. It definitely has its flaws and I could point out a few of them, but I believe all of the good of the show far outweighs the bad. It’s not afraid to tackle extremely real and difficult subjects the Transgender and Black communities have faced in this country and all over the world. It’s so important to see content like this on television as well because EVERYBODY deserves representation. Not only was the cast Trans, but one of the lead writers of the series Janet Mock is also a Black Trans woman! Pose was filled with heartfelt moments that truly had me sobbing in my bed as I watched. I think I actually cried at pretty much every single episode for both seasons. The cast is brilliant, the realism and talent and star power they bring to the show is like nothing that I’ve ever seen before and I’m so glad to be able to see them up on my television. I so badly one day hope that I can be behind the scenes of producing a show of this caliber some day.

While I have yet to help in the production of a show like this, I have had my fair share of of making short films, music videos and even assisting on a friend of mine’s first full length movie that he submitted to festivals. Last year, I had the opportunity to shoot a short horror film with my classmates for our final project. The film was based around a young woman getting trapped at her school in the middle of a blizzard, and slowly beginning to realize that she may not be alone. In a fight for her life, she has to survive till morning while going up against a mysterious killer who lurks the halls of her small town college. Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to produce a full and finalized cut of the film but coming together and working with a few other classmates was still a really fun experience. Not only was I able to play the role of the killer, I aided in audio, music selection, location scouting, props department, shot planning and writing the movie and it was a great time. I also had the pleasure of helping out my friend Matt Vincini in shooting his short film The Cattle Farmer. A horror/thriller film about a boy who is adopted into a family, only to realize that his life might have been planned from the start. It featured a mysterious woodland family who may or may not have had cannibalistic tendencies that included their adopted children. It was a super cool experience to be on a set with a bunch of actors and seeing my friend in action in the role of director. Collaborating on projects like this with friends is always a fun time, even it does get stressful at some points. At one point in the film, one of the characters realizes that the dinner he is currently eating could quite possible be his last meal ever. Which kinda let me to thinking what my last meal would be. After some thinking, I think i’d definitely have to choose my families homemade pasta and meatballs. I know, pretty stereotypical for an Italian family but it’s just so good. We make our own sauce every september and it’s a huge family event. Everybody comes together and one of our houses and it’s literally a whole days worth of work. The best part? At the end of the night, we all have a huge feast and make pasta and meatballs with all of the sauce we just made. It’s one of my favorite things to do with my family and always one of my favorite meals. Not only is it delicious, but also sentimental.

This is all for now! Thanks for stopping by my blog and reading a little bit about me. I could probably keep rambling on for hours but I don’t think that’s the smartest idea. I can’t wait to fill this blog with more content this year and hope to hear from you guys as well! Until then, i’ll be watching more movies and DEFINITELY playing some more games. At this point i’ve been playing the new Marvel’s Avengers video game so, let me get back to kicking some AIM ass!

[engagemachine]

Anonymous submitted:

I really enjoy all the content you share on this blog! It’s so beautiful! So thank you for that in these gloomy times. I am always inspired by your ability to produce and curate art so movingly.

My question: do you think that the Joker is capable of being seduced? By Taylor? I don’t see Taylor ever deliberately manipulating the Joker (who knows though, almost every girl has used their feminine wiles at some point in their life, push comes to shove), butً I could certainly envision Taylor catching the Joker off guard and putting him under her spell (if just for a moment or two). Perhaps unconsciously pressing that advantage?

The Joker is no gullible, green boy, but he is still (albeit far, far less than the rest of us) vulnerable to human needs and desires. And so, while I can see lust and power warping into one and the same in the Joker’s mind, I guess I’m fascinated by the idea of the Joker experiencing an attraction to Taylor that isn’t just an extension of the thrill of dominating/possessing her. Maybe a moment when the tables turn, and he’s the one who stumbles, who is consumed by his want for her.

I don’t know why I’m so interested in this concept. I think it might be because most girls can remember the moment when they first were the target of unwanted sexual attention (Taylor certainly does), but an equally significant milestone in female adolescence is the realization that you, in turn, can also wield your sexuality to have some power over others.

All this being said, I think that if the Joker suspected any level of artifice from Taylor, or perceived any such weakness in himself, he would NOT respond kindly. But I’d like to think that the Joker isn’t a god, isn’t always two steps ahead of all the rest of us, isn’t beyond having his strings pulled. What do you think?

First of all, thank you so, so much for this incredible message. I love this sort of detailed analysis and I was giddy the whole time I was reading it. I really enjoy other people’s take on this dynamic as I find the relationship between these two characters endlessly fascinating.

Secondly, you posed some excellent questions that I am eager to sink my teeth into, but in doing so, I have to be careful and try not to reveal too much of what I have planned for the coming chapters.

Do I think the Joker is capable of being seduced? Absolutely. He’s a man, and men aren’t immune to their vices, even if the Joker probably tends to indulge (at least in this specific vice) fewer than most. Do I think a stripper or some random person off the street has the ability to seduce the Joker? …probably not. We’re talking about seduction in the sense that it’s going to result in some form of loss of control for him, the idea that he’s giving into his wants/needs to the point where he can’t control himself—so some stranger off the street isn’t exactly going to do it for him, nor would he allow them that power to begin with. And it isn’t about them not being “talented” enough or not pretty enough, either, which I think goes without being said, but is still an important distinction to note. He doesn’t care about those things, and it’s never been about that.  

No, I think what would ultimately seduce the Joker is the knowledge that some deeper form of connection exists between him and his “partner” (I almost feel like I should say “victim” here). Which brings me to your next question: is Taylor capable of seduction? I definitely think she could be (and, spoiler: she later will be) but what’s more is that the Joker’s attraction to her has less to do with her physicality and almost entirely to do with this relationship he has cultivated with her over the years, how he’s had the distinct pleasure of witnessing the all-consuming power of his influence, how he’s been able to exert and fine-tune the level of his control, manipulate her and shape her into exactly how he wants her. He practically has it down to a science. His attraction to her lies in the knowledge that she is his creation, he built her, has shaped her, and he continues to manipulate her and bend her to his will. The leash he keeps her on is relatively long, right now, but it’ll have to pull taut eventually; he can only let her go so far before he runs out rope and is forced to pull her back.

As much as there definitely is an overarching element of control/domination/power to their dynamic and that’s ultimately what gets his blood pumping (remember when he has her pinned to the mattress and tells her she’s ‘so easy’ in chapter four? the way she melts under his touch, almost needing no coaxing whatsoever) there’s also most certainly an element of pure fascination towards her on his part. He’s intrigued by her. She puzzles him, I would even go so far to say—and he loves studying the frayed edges of all her pieces, trying to figure out exactly how they all fit together, and how he can manipulate the shapes to create his own unique design. Next to Batman, it’s his second favorite game to play. He’s captivated by her goodness, her unflinching loyalty, her resilience. How he can push her to the edge over and over again and yet she always finds a way to hang on, and, not only that, but she always comes crawling back to him—and she does so willingly.

What you said about there being “a moment when the tables turn, and he’s the one who stumbles, who is consumed by his want for her” –I’d love to see this too. In fact, we already have, a little bit, in chapter five, in the scene after he’s just gifted her with the cell phone and Taylor kisses him on the cheek instead of the mouth, as he had requested. One of my readers summarized it brilliantly when she said, “I think the Joker severely underestimated how much HE wanted that kiss. All that high-powered perception and he didn’t account for being the temptress, the tempted, and the “slut” in this story line. A little jaw peck had him lit, and when he realizes Taylor’s not yet on the same page as him - when she apologizes - that rattles him.” This is a brilliant analysis and it’s also spot on in its accuracy. This is the first time we get to see the Joker really rattled, the one who “stumbles”, as you said, and I like to think there is definitely more of this to come as their relationship takes a nosedive in chapter six into previously uncharted waters. It’s going to be intense.

Of course, you brilliantly noted that any attempt at artifice—for example, if Taylor were to try to “tempt” the Joker for nefarious reasons (maybe she’s gunning for something in particular, maybe she just wants her leash loosened up) the Joker would be able to see right through it, and, as you so gently put it, “would not respond kindly.”

I think it’s tantalizing to imagine the Joker losing his control and just giving into his baser desires, really letting loose and allowing himself to indulge in the fantasies that have clearly been playing on loop in his head for so long—but the caveat is that he wants Taylor to initiate it first. She has to want it. She has to come to him—this is the power he craves, her giving into him. Finally. That’s why the scene where she kisses his cheek is so poignant—his sudden outburst and lack of control brought on by her kiss threatens to upheave the carefully-woven threads of his master plan.

As for Taylor, it might take her a little while, but I do think you’ll slowly see her begin to blossom into something that is more of her own. She is going to start wielding some more power over the Joker as they enter this new phase of their relationship. Who is to say seduction isn’t in the cards? ;)  

Last but not least, thank you for saying you enjoy my blog. It makes me so happy knowing that you enjoy the (often times) random stuff I post on here. Some of it is kind of silly, but it’s what makes me laugh. I also love being able to answer direct questions from you guys and share sneak peaks of upcoming chapters. Thank you for enjoying my content and also for reading my work. Messages like these really provide me with the fuel I need to keep going, and I can’t thank you enough for it.

#anonymous #asks #submission #Burn

[vroenis]

Lost Legacy Exemplifies Naughty Dog’s Cultural Crisis

There’s a discussion about Ocean’s 8 that positions its existence around whether or not it's necessary as a counterpoint to the Ocean’s reboot - the Ocean’s Cinematic Universe - if you will (what a world we live in) - that it was only made as a gender flip of the reboot that spawned two sequels, three films in total cast almost entirely with men.

My perspective is that as much as I generally enjoyed the Ocean’s reboots for what they were, Ocean’s Eleven should have been a cast entirely with women in the first place.

The heroes we both need and deserve.

Massive spoilers for the original 1960 Lewis Milestone version and the Steven Soderbergh one in 2001 of Ocean’s Eleven - Soderbergh’s flip is of-course that they get to keep the money at the end so that they have to potentially give it back in the sequel he knew he’d be able to make, whereas I doubt Milestone knew he’d ever get a sequel back in the early 60′s so the rub for film-making back then is to burn the money at the end. Nevertheless even for the early 2000′s, the boldest of moves would have been to cast it with women, not to be progressive but also to be progressive, tho that’s still an absurd thought that to cast women is progressive - but to be smart. Ocean’s 8 is a fantastic film, deftly written, paced, acted, shot and edited. Would the world have responded to it in like-kind? I know how *I* would have responded to it, I think you can answer for yourself how societal cultures may have responded at any point from 2001 thru to now. In any case, I have Ocean’s 8 on blu-ray. I love it.

A reader asked me whether I’d played Uncharted: The Lost Legacy after kindly reading through my bludgeoning of Uncharted 4, and seeing as they were patient enough to endure that blood-letting, I felt I owed them and probably Naughty Dog the time of day to give Uncharted-And-A-Half a chance, and I’m really glad I did. Fair warning, there’s a lot I didn’t like about Lost Legacy, and there’s going to be some more pain - a lot of pain. I don’t think any of my tumblr audience is quite on the rest of my socials, but anyone who’s connected to me anywhere else on the Wire was subject to my frustrations as I played thru the game on Saturday, including the blurred image of my Google Keep notes I took while playing the game in preparation for this journal. I keep notes now.

Nevertheless, I can say that on the assumption that the Uncharted series is wrapped, or at least in the narrative arc with these characters as we know them, that Lost Legacy is easily without question my favourite Uncharted game by far.

On that assumption that Uncharted is more or less done, now’s as good a time as any to take a top-down look at the franchise as a whole. I know I already did a fair bit of that in the last piece, but some broader thoughts on what the series does and says have solidified while playing Lost Legacy, and I’ll discuss them as a lead-in to my thoughts on the game.

Again - this is going to be riddled with spoilers for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and most likely the entire Uncharted series, so if you’ve not played them and are interested in doing so, or don’t want to see them heavily critiqued, please stop here.

The first game was released in 2007 and was apparently in development for roughly three years. What was happening up to and around 2004 to 2007? September 11 had happened in 2001, the world was at war in the Middle East in Afghanistan and second invasion of Iraq had begun in 2003, Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005 - the same year the IRA ended armed conflict in Northern Ireland, 2005 saw the outbreak of H5N1 Avian Flu - topical right now. There are so many more, I can’t list them all here - lots of momentous events that in some way or another highlight community awareness in some way - that’s probably a bit of an obtuse statement but hopefully it’ll string together in a sec. What struck me and a bunch of my friends odd about the first, then the second and then somehow every Uncharted game since, is that Naughty Dog seem to choose an ethnicity for their antagonists and scratch the surface of “what if this element of their cultural violence is bad”, but then leave it so shallow that it remains a caricature and comes off as casually and carelessly racist. The first game frames the theme around Nazis, but the actual enemies are anything but. Yes, they’re intended to be mercenaries, but they’re hardly nondescript, they’re absolutely of very specific ethnicity.

From the second game onward, Naughty Dog seem to want to make use of real world settings and do some nuanced research on actual sociopolitical conflict and I always feel uneasy about how its presented. Lost Legacy begins much the same way and I worried about the tone going in. An active war-zone in India as gravitas to your setting that is then almost completely abandoned until the very end? This is my problem with how the writers treat setting in Uncharted. They use very real conflicts that have real-world consequences for people in which actual lives are lost to inject gravity into their narrative and then quickly discard it for the sake of shenanigans once the wise-cracking starts when the tone shifts gear and the characters themselves take centre-stage in the foreground.

Here’s the thing.

The character’s are enough. I *love* these characters. Their story is fantastic. Nadine’s and Chloe’s story was the best and most cohesive of the entire series. Also it only took me roughly six hours to play thru and I only feel like half of that was wasted! That’s still probably being too generous but I’m grasping for positives, here. Still - I don’t know why the senior production team has never had confidence in the core of their product which is the charm of their characters and the play dynamic - Uncharted is primarily about *seeing* and *doing* - for the most part, unfortunately, separately.

The dialogue between Chloe and Nadine is extremely interesting, it is absolutely the best thing in the game, yet it keeps getting interrupted by stupid gameplay beats due to poor timing of rolling up on level locations. Uncharted 4 was supposed to have locations hidden around levels where you could engage in dialogue between characters but I barely found them - why hide such interesting content in your game?? It’s completely absurd. Then the only few I did find were between Elena and Nathan altho I really don’t think those were meant to be hidden, and they were so poorly written and I hated them so much, I didn’t care to discover any more. Again - no disrespect at all to Nolan North and Troy Baker whom I absolutely adore and respect, but I didn’t find anything engaging or interesting *at all* about the brother narrative. I didn’t care one bit what that nonsense was about. What about Sully? Where’s Sully’s story?? I’m just so - so glad we got a story for Chloe, and that at least Nadine got some great screen time too as a part of it and that it all presented so well.

Before I continue to praise what went well, there are a few things I can’t let pass. While the driving has thankfully improved and controls quite well now, the exclusion of a minimap or GPS HUD element is interesting. I’m fairly certain it’s intentional as to not detract from the game’s clean, cinematic look, to not break immersion, but this just generates a horrific breakdown in actual player experience for me. Without any navigational assists, I constantly got lost and stopped every 20 meters to check the map, frequently driving into dead-ends, off cliffs and past where I wanted or needed to go. The game isn’t a 30 hour open-world experience with distinct and varied landmarks the player will familiarise themselves with and learn to navigate by, for the most part the level is fairly homogeneous in object geometry.

Some of the puzzles take far too long to mechanically execute, in particular the smashy-slashy statue block jumpy stupid whatever it’s called one and the sliding shadow motif. It doesn’t matter that neither actually takes too long once you know the solution, it’s that they feel long and then are actually over-long and also not interesting to mechanically execute. This is due mostly to clunky character animation and animation smoothing, and part of Naughty Dog’s overall obsession with being cinematic which is something I’ll return to towards the end of this piece, something which has been a strength but will ultimately be to their detriment. While cinematic visuals might be a benefit for traversal, it’s something that absolutely does not suit puzzle-solving. In the example of the statue-block puzzle, the hard reset each time the player is hit means laboriously jogging all the way back to the beginning and starting again - it’s just poor puzzle design having to begin again from a full reset. There’s no satisfaction in having to remember the whole thing and while I didn’t look up the solution online, I’m willing to bet many people will have just dialled up a clip on YouTube and copied it without figuring it out themselves. This is a failure of connecting what’s satisfying about moving in your game and what’s satisfying about solving puzzles, something Crystal Dynamics understood far better in the Tomb Raider reboots, in particular the second outing (Rise of) with their much more environment-centric puzzling.

The sliding shadow puzzle just simply takes way too long to jog around the space, then clip onto the hot-zone for each lever, wait for the animation to lift it, wait for the animation for the pieces to slide, rinse, repeat. Once you know what you have to do, it’s overly frustrating actually having to do it.

It brings me to a weird quirk of design where the puzzle designers perhaps don’t understand something that the environmental designers do. Maybe they didn’t get the same little notes in the Slack channel, or Trello board or Teams pin or whatever. Uncharted level-design has almost no back-tracking, less in each successive game, and it’s almost entirely absent from Lost Legacy - you’d have to look closely to realise you’re navigating the same area you came in thru and almost always moving over it in a different way that’s been modified - now it’s flooded, now there’s a bridge, now you’re swinging or leaping or climbing where you weren’t etc. I feel like this is the Hidetaka Miyazaki Souls/Borne effect of level design in which environments are designed to be both realistic and practical.

Great! Good for the level designers. Did the puzzle designers not get that note? Maybe they did. I need to stop thinking that every poor optimisation is a symptom of ignorance - that’s bad form on my part. What’s more likely is it’s a symptom of either bad leadership, poor tool implementation, lack of time or too narrow or strict an observation of representative vision - by which I mean - they can’t change the way the characters move or animate just for puzzles, because it has to be consistent with the cinematic representation of the game as a whole - and that sucks lemons. It means the overall play experience suffers for the sake of the overall cinematic experience except executing a puzzle isn’t cinematic unless it’s expansive...

Like the positive example I’ll give of the light reflector room. Shoplifted from Uncharted 2′s giant knife that has Nathan climb all over a giant knife, Lost Legacy’s light reflector room has slightly less climbing but is a much larger space, more impressive and a much better example of good puzzling in Uncharted. It’s not difficult to solve but again (I think again?) I’ll argue that you don’t come to Uncharted for difficult puzzles - you don’t come to Tomb Raider for difficult puzzles, either. 

The puzzles in these games should be mostly environmental because they feel good solving them, and solving them should be more about the doing - the playing - and the playing should be moving - running, jumping, climbing etc.

Both the giant knife and the reflector room are a joy to execute because they’re fantastically realised - large cavernous environments that aren’t annoying to navigate, that give you time to appreciate both the scale of the spaces and the details the designers and artists have put into them. Lost Legacy’s is more impressive because you do a lot more puzzling and spend much more time in its vastly larger space, culminating in combat that usually I would be ho-hum about, but I guess exhibits more animation and destruction tech which while scripted, is still impressive nonetheless given how extremely difficult it is to have interactivity still occurring.

I have a few things I want to mention before I begin to wrap up, given it’s going to be a very long wrap - I’d say I’m taking cues from Joseph Anderson but I’ve always been this verbose.

The medallion puzzles were excellent, in part perhaps because they felt like the closest thing to the Tomb Raider reboots’ challenge tombs. Some of them were silly and lazily implemented, the worst offender being you just had to shoot mans and get the medallion from the lock-box that the mans had put it in (pfft), but the best ones were integrated into the environment such that you may well have walked past or thru areas that were puzzles before you knew what they were. This brings up one of the most interesting things I’ve been turning over for quite some time now. Ben Croshaw aka Yahtzee aka Zero Punctuation may have first mentioned “chest high walls” in his first Gears of War video, but it may well have been an Uncharted game. I don’t remember but he will have thrown in mentions of all the generic cover-shooters as a catch-all for how the environments immediately telegraph that Combat™ will happen. It’s a particularly astute remark and speaks volumes of video game design - developers always seem to have very specific design language to separate traversal, combat and puzzling. While I clearly don’t care for combat most days, and yes - I do acknowledge there are some practical concerns for combat that can’t be avoided, I always envisaged design that blurred the lines between puzzle and environment so that you never quite knew what was and wasn’t a puzzle. Everything should be the puzzle. In some senses, Cyan’s old Myst games were a bit like this but in a very rudimentary and crude way - sure, they’re quite old now, but even those had very clear not puzzle areas. It’s a complex and subtle subject, but something of a study of games like Fireproof Games’ The Room would be in order. Understandably smaller scale, but the thinking behind it is definitely adjacent.

Final notes - the young Indian girl in the prologue has amazing animations that you’ll miss entirely unless you swing the camera yourself. A whole team of people or a single animator has spent hours on those animations - that a director or team leader hasn’t forced the player to see and appreciate them is a disservice.

Every section where you have to do something under pressure like run from mans shooting at you or dash through a lengthy section of crumbling cave network etc. is a horrible play experience of not knowing where to go. They’re trying to inject excitement by applying pressure but there’s no clear guidance and no dependence on player skill, so you end in bizarre fail-states due to going in completely the wrong direction that glitches cameras or scene time-outs resulting in check-points and the whole thing just doesn’t scan as a cinematic experience. I hate hate hate them - you’re subject to the same musical swell that’s supposed to be like a movie only to fail again and it comes off as b-grade and pathetic. Every game has had this problem and it is just straight bad design.

Three? Four? Games in a row, Naughty Dog have recycled; 

being pursued on foot by an armoured vehicle crashing through level geometry while you have to run and occasionally shoot/fight mans, 

driving down a shanty-town on a hill pursued by an armoured vehicle - perhaps the same one as previous scene

a big chase scene of lots of vehicles jumping from vehicle to vehicle shooting and/or punching mans that may or may not include...

a train combat sequence where you start at the back of the train and work your way to the front of it shooting mans as you go

This lacks creativity at this point. I think duplicating these once each - so you do them twice total across the franchise is fine, but they hit the same beats in the same way - exactly - every time they appear. It just strikes me as Naughty Dog just not knowing what else to do. At one point, I think it was in Uncharted 4, when driving down the shanty-town on the hill, I literally had a brain-fart not knowing which game I was playing because I swear we did it in 2 and 3. Did we do it in 3?? Look, I don’t know. But it’s getting old. At least we didn’t do it in Lost Legacy, but we did the train and I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of doing the same things in the same way. It could have been a train but it should have been in a way that just wasn’t just another Uncharted train. It hasn’t worn thin, it’s worn out.

Overall, the games look great... but playing them feels like they’re stuck in PS2 and early PS3 era philosophies, like Naughty Dog haven’t evolved and don’t realise that people’s brains function much quicker and can process more, or that the media we consume, the games we play function at a higher level and we can digest more, we’re capable of processing higher functions. I’ve been playing Ubisoft’s The Division 2 and enjoying it more the more I play, much to my surprise. I understand the intent behind the gameplay is extremely different to the single-player experience of Uncharted, however there are some parallels in what it achieves animation wise;

The Division is also a cover shooter but of-course as a multiplayer, open-world live-service game, its intent is to telegraph to the player that the entire environment is a permanent play-space in which to always be playing. It utilises an information-rich GUI that is an always-on system with button icons telling the player what button to press over what surfaces to snap to, vault over, climb up, run to (and snap to cover), open and loot, interact with etc. I don’t know if these can be turned off but I like them on. It’s a pretty amazing feat that almost every environmental object has been mapped as a snap-to-cover and/or climbable object. For this reason, the character movement in Division is pretty quick and snappy, however it still manages to have a decent degree of natural human kinetics in the character rigging which is amazing. This means if you move-off from standing still, there’s a slight delay as your “weight” shifts, same if you change direction. When I say “snap” to cover, it’s not actually instantaneous, your character makes a movement and takes time to do so, yet it’s still not sluggish. Somehow the developers have worked at fine-tuning a balance between not-instant, but not too slow.

This is something that even in Lost Legacy, I feel Naughty Dog simply can’t do. The animations are decent during play - they’re outstanding during cutscenes (we’re getting there), but character models have a really awkward relationship with the environment. They clip awkwardly with ladders and buttons and wheels - with puzzles and levers - getting the grappling hook to prompt is again better than Uncharted 4 but still not ideal. I had far fewer glitch-outs than 4 too, which was a significant improvement, but I still had to animate back and forth a few times to get into hot-zones appropriately and with character kinetics not quite right, it wasn’t exactly easy.

And again to be fair, this stuff is suuuuuper difficult. I don’t mean to talk about this stuff like it’s cooking instant ramen. It’s so freaking tough. Rigging and mapping interactive character models has to be one of the most stupendously difficult things a developer has to do - making it work with all that scripting, getting it to play nice with all those assets and lines and lines of coding for the full experience. I have so much respect for game developers and what an astronomical task it is. So when I say I prefer one development team’s product over another’s, I don’t mean to say that the other team is absolute garbage - there are so many things that might contribute to that final product and we have no idea what’s been going on at Naughty Dog. If the team leaders and producers say they’re happy or even if they don’t, and the decision is made to ship, there’s nothing more they can say or do.

If there was one thing I absolutely loved about this game, it was the two main characters and the story that was told about them. I can excuse the main text as the catalyst that brought them together - even to the point that it’s a story about Chloe ultimately deciding what’s important to her. My issue with this comes full circle with the setting being in a real world conflict. There’s a bit of white savour complex in there in that Asav might be the narrative’s antagonist, but he at least is local. It’s not clear exactly what Chloe’s ethnicity is and I’m not here to judge what her stakes are in it because clearly her character has a sense of home and place in India, but she certainly also has a complex sense of being an outsider. So the point is not to judge, but the game also is unclear on its positioning other than she’s the heroic vehicle of deliverance. See what I mean about theme? This is what I mean by you could have just as easily written almost an identical story about Nadine and Chloe, with very similar interactions, tension, redemption and resolve - even with an antagonist, conflict and a happy ending, but either treated real sociopolitical issues with better care or not set your game in them at all. I’m all for setting games in the real world, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. I’m not the person to ask.

I need to be careful not to direct that criticism at the base-level developers nor at Claudia Black who is the manifestation of Chloe’s voice because she does an amazing job of bringing her to life. The casting of Laura Bailey voicing a black South African Nadine was much more awkward given Nadine’s ethnicity wasn’t decided when she was cast - again that’s on Naughty Dog’s leadership, but I won’t knock Laura Bailey for it. It’s easy to say she should have resigned, perhaps she should have, that’s an economical question only Laura can answer and I’m sure it’s not an easy one. Suffice to say, VO work isn’t lucrative.

What a side-track.

I don’t think I ever cared about Nathan. I think I always cared about Elena, and not because WAIFU and also not because WHITE KNIGHT or whatever other bullshit reasons stupid alphagamerz will spit from their frontheads. Elena’s just more interesting, probably because Nathan is written like a design document and Elena’s written like a human being. Naughty Dog want to create a game about adventuring with lush expansive environments, shooty mcshooting and light puzzling. They want it to be cinematic and unrivalled in its quality and they have the smarts to build the tech around it, with Sony’s help. Backed by Sony money, they take VO seriously and do a great job at creating that cinematic experience, coupled with some above-par for video games narrative writing. The problem this introduces for me is Nathan’s raison d'être has to justify everything - action, tension, stupidity...

Nathan Drake really is the design document.

I feel like he’s just the unfortunate side-effect of being central to the game, and it’s typical of my character to just not dig the focus of things and get into subtexts a whole lot more. Often I get into things in the periphery, things adjacent - I don’t love or hate Shakespeare or for that matter Baz Luhrmann but Romeo + Juliet ‘96 is an amazing film and not at all because of the eponymous Romeo and Juliet and again, not for Leonardo di Caprio (spit!) or for Claire Danes (she can stay) but the absolutely divine cast of supporting characters (John Leguizamo will live in my heart forever oh baby).

That Nathan makes stupid decisions is already something that turns me off. That he makes poor decisions because... he’s an orphan? Because... he was bullied? Because... his brother left him? This is why he’s not transparent with his wife? Actually, he’s quite realistic. Except the people like him I’ve known in my life aren’t heroes - they’re pathetic or unreliable or abusive or dangerous. Elena is an adult. She’s not perfect either and that’s also great because neither am I. As a side character she has the conceit of being more nuanced, but as the contra to Nathan, she’s also mature versus his childishness. OOOOAAAAH EVERYONE LOVES A LOVEABLE MANBABY OOAAAH COMEON LIVE A LITTLE EVERYONE’S GOT A LITTLE CHILD STILL IN THEM SOMEWHERE yea fine, I get it, like I’ve said before, yes - he embodies the recklessness and playfulness in us, but that’s a confusing position for a game that frequently tries to ground itself in real world conflict to be taking. You’re reducing him to that but injecting complex and nuanced characters like Elena and now eventually both Chloe and Nadine? I’m telling you now - any male that doesn’t know when it’s appropriate to grow-up, when the time to set aside the playfulness and be TRUTHFUL AND TRANSPARENT WITH HIS PARTNER is a dangerous person and FUCK THAT NOISE. Nathan, as much as I do absolutely - make no mistake - adore Nolan North’s voicing - ends up being another Homer Simpson - as long as you laugh at his stupidity, you’ll excuse it, and you’ll excuse the hurt that’s done by it, and that shit doesn’t fly with me. His redemption was not earned. I say again - Elena should throw him into the sea.

Nadine ends up being a fantastic character, even if she’s given less narrative time, she’s a great example of her behaviour telling more story in contrast to Chloe getting to reveal her past and it’s nice to see them play off one another. I feel Nadine and Chloe as characters hit great story beats in ways Nathan didn’t get to with pretty much any of the other characters in four games - not Sully, not Elena, not his brother, not even Chloe - all told, we never actually get any back-story on Nathan and Chloe and I think we’re better off for it because I don’t care.

Having a quick squiz around tumblr reveals the obvious and rampant shipping of Nadine and Chloe and I couldn’t be happier. I think Naughty Dog knew what they were doing. There were so many moments. Those moments were for us. I think they were subtle enough that the fragile manbabies would have missed them but there’s no fooling us. Some of the babyboiz would have been seething thru their mouthbreething hairmouths and I’m sure probably took to the internet but that’s OK, they can remain unfucked incels for the rest of their lives or worse, serviced by whatever unwashed creatures want to dare fondle them in the dark. The elephant ride and that whole conversation was almost enough for me to forgive the absolute disaster that was Uncharted 4. It was given enough time to breathe, it was absolutely beautiful, and just when you thought they were going to terminate it and apologise for making things too awks, it concludes just perfectly and you get a phone picture that doesn’t have Nadine in frame, yet her presence in that picture is definite, pervasive and emotional. Again, some people may have completely missed it and maybe it chalks up to life experience, but as completely contrived as an artefact of complete fiction as that whole sequence might be, it was one of the most wonderfully tender moments ever created in a video game and I wonder if it makes the whole affair worth it.

In the Uncharted 4 piece, I threw in a few barbs about the most meaningful interactions, and in Lost Legacy, what I really loved was Chloe taking photos of things she thinks are beautiful and interesting on her phone, and feeding the elephant - these were the most meaningful interactions in the game. I love that the photos on the phone didn’t serve any gameplay utility at all, they were there because her character wanted to document her travels, because she thought what she was seeing was cool, and any time in the game, you could pull out your phone and look at what you’d seen. It was such a good and important decision to have the very first picture to be the Indian girl in the market, as that rather than the local conflict, does more to ground you and Chloe as a character in the setting. The game never forces you to look at it as a reminder, but you know it’s there.

I did steal these from the internet, sorry - so if they’re yours, let me know and I’ll be happy to take them down - this one in particular, seeing as it’s a photomode capture. I should have taken my own but I don’t do photomode caps on my first play-thru and there’s no-way I’m replaying this ever again.

It took five games for Naughty Dog to finally get some decent character writing, but a part of me still feels they couldn’t have existed without all the dross of the other games. There’s this immense amount of back-story and labour both the developers and the players had to slog thru to get to this point, and I feel as tho we get here and there’s just too little to show for it. I still really enjoyed the story that was told, the sense of character I felt, but a lot of that was contingent on the Uncharted universe in situ. Lost Legacy feels like a combining of all of Naughty Dog’s narrative motifs - the earnest redemption, the moment of tenderness and connection centred around peaceful animals - it’s a greatest hits of Naughty Dog in the best way possible because each narrative beat hits perfectly. I’m glad I played it with two characters who endeared themselves so much to me, that I truly cared about.

I’ve spend a lot of time praising the strengths of writing for at least Lost Legacy, but for each thing I’ve enjoyed about at least these two characters, there have been so many things I’ve been critical of. I feel like in order to get to the tiniest bit of enjoyment, I had to suffer thru so much. Honestly I don’t know if it really was worth it. It’s hard to know given that who I am now and where my tastes are and have developed as a consequence of my experiences, and I definitely would not replay any of those games again - so where does that leave me? I can’t go back and play The Last Of Us and I absolutely won’t play the second game, I just can’t do Naughty Dog games now, I don’t have it in me.

Naughty Dog have spent the better part of two decades developing tech for visual fidelity specifically for the Playstation hardware platforms (PS3 and 4). They’ve also been doing it by overworking their staff, many of which have left out of frustration or necessity. The problem they face is that as industry tools in general improve, there will no gap between games developed by Naughty Dog and any other contemporary studio from a visual perspective. Make no mistake - the Uncharted games are absolutely chock-full of objects, geometry and animation - somehow miraculously so on the Playstation platform in comparison to other games with the exception of other first-party and exclusive games receiving similar support from Sony such as Guerilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn and Sucker Punch’s forthcoming Ghost of Tsushima. There are probably other similar examples for the previous generation on PS3.

Yes, there’s a certain style of game Naughty Dog create as far as narrative goes but because it’s becoming more cinematic, that style is judged more and more by cinematic standards and at best it’s barely semi-professional aside from the outstanding voice work. There are few striking visual motifs that set Naughty Dog games apart from a design perspective, and the gameplay and mechanical constructions that once distinguished them at least a little from others are ever diminishing at increasing rates - more-so as their work practices make the level of quality they set out to achieve ever more unsustainable.

Lost Legacy encapsulates a lot of what I feel about video games as a whole at the moment - as an industry and as a culture. It’s a snapshot of a culture that’s achieving wonderful, beautiful things that are in ways huge - immense, yet somehow can feel so small in comparison to some of the challenges it faces. It’s an industry and culture experiencing a period of great upheaval, where after years upon years of malpractice, terrible things somehow still endure. It’s a space where sometimes it feels like a battle to find the tiniest shred of beauty buried in the dirt and ash, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the frustration that working thru it brings about while grass-roots labourers continue to be burned.

Like many things in life, both at my age and at the level I guess a person gets to at the exposure rate of a thing, I’ve cut back a great deal on my engagement time with video games, so I’m a lot less patient with the functions and mechanisms of a game. There’s a labour element of video games that I feel developers might think is somehow necessary and there’s a component of that which is true, just not quite in the way they think it is, and it takes a unique frame of thinking to break out of traditional design to understand it. Again I’m not saying there’s anything special about how I understand games - there’s nothing at all original in my thoughts - I’ve shoplifted them wholesale from a hundred other people back from when I used to read Gamasutra and even now when I read designers and the people I follow and talk to on Twitter etc. There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with traditions and the people that enjoy them - just because they’re not my thing any more doesn’t mean they’re bad. It just means I’ve moved to something else and I shouldn’t engage with them.

That, I think, is what I’m waiting for. Kentucky Route Zero, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, a whole bunch of others - these are the games I feel are pushing past the boundaries of tradition. Then the moments Uncharted takes itself out of its traditions - Nadine and Chloe’s elephant ride, Chloe’s phone pictures, Elena and Nathan’s house tours especially as Cassie - that’s when I think now you’re running! Run with it! Look, I’m still playing The Division - I’m still moving and shooting and enjoying it.

But we can do so much more. Many developers are doing more. We as an audience need to play more All of us together need to do and play more.

(The epilogue is me figuring I talk a lot of shit about AAA games and nary a word about KRZ, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther and the rest and I get it, but oooooo howdy is it really difficult for me to talk pragmatically about games I actually love)

#Ocean's 8 #Ocean's Eleven #Women In Film #Women In Cinema #misogony #sexism #2020 #chrono #film #cinema #video games #writing about video games #video games writing #videogames #writing about videogames #video game design #videogame design #gamedev #game dev #Uncharted #Uncharted The Lost Legacy #Uncharted Lost Legacy #Naughy Dog

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

GEARBOX THIS IS EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED THAAAAHAHAHAANK YOUUUUU

FUCK OKAY TRAILER BREAKDOWN BECAUSE I AM LOOOOOOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS TRAILER HOOOOOLY SHIT

POSSIBLE PSOILERS??? MAYBE? GOD DDDDDAYMN WHAT A WAY TO GET BACK INTO THE THEORY SCENE LMAO

SO FIRST OF ALL I’M NOT CERTAIN THIS IS RELATED TO THE BARMAN/SECOND STARS CULT QUEST I FOUND IN THE FILES AS SOME PEOPLE SUGGESTED, BUT I WILL ADMIT IT IS SUSPICIOUSLY SPECIFIC. MAINLY ABOUT A CULT AND THE FACT WE SEE A BAR HANGING OUT IN THE TRAILER, BUT HEY, I AM NOT GOING TO MAKE ASSUMPTIONS RIGHT NOW I AM JUST GOING TO ENJOY THIS WHILE I CAN

ANd breathe in

breathe okay

okay

im okay.

i’ve watched this trailer like 15 times already oh my god it’s so good. i wasnt so hyped about the casino dlc bc, like, i already spoiled myself on it BUT THIS IS (AS FAR AS WE KNOW) UNCHARTED TERRITORY AND

IT’S TECHNICALLY A WATER PLANET

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

okay

okay

i will stop using caps

for the most part

hhhhhhh

okay.

let’s just be calm. i got this

BUT HAVE YOU SEEN THIS THOUGH????

oh ym goD

the fucking lighthouse sent me. i just. i went feral for a solid hour and a half. just wheezing on my test. i fell onto the floor at one point, don’t remember when. it was so fucking good, i couldn’t feel my goddamn hands

;-; its so beautiful i could stare at this all day hhhhhhh

i just

hhhhhhhhhhhh

oh ym godddd ;-;-;-;-;-;-;

it’s so fucking beautiful

i can’t

okay

we see the gun/health station under the lighthouse so it’s not really THAT big, and we can see a town in the distance. running across the ice sheets is giving me HUGE southern shelf vibes which i am in love with. this whole aesthetic is just ;w; so good

there’s a catch a ride in that town as well so we know this area is fairly big (which is confirmed in a later shot)

and oh my GOD can you imagine seeing some big ol beast lurking beneath the surface of the ice sheets hohhhh

MAN

okay sorry im still not oevr this its just so fckign good

inside the belly of the beast rotting Monster and OHHHHHHHHHHH THE IMPLICATION-s of that. of that. im calm.

we get a look at 2 new enemies and mmmmmm we get a better look at them later on so just look how fuckig beautiful thsi area is with its acid that’s probably rotting stomach acid and AAAAAAAA

first close up of the town, giving me really big uhhhh we happy few vibes? which im not complaining about

TENTACLES asdfghj

anywway more toen, bridge looks like like athenas which is DOPE im hype for more athenas-esque architecture

the TOWNss oh my god im so im love with this aesthetic god. damn.it i need this injected directly into my veins like right N O W

also the bridge is going over another pool of acid, which the tentacle is coming out of. i imagine this monster was sorta acid based, which is funny. since. frozen water planet. and it’s OOZY too. oozy boy means the eridians didn’t make this one! ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

hm who’s ready to face the unintended consequences of our actions?! NOT THE ERIDIANS WHOOO BOY (you cannot tlel me that there are mantakores on this planet and not say there was eridian fuckering going on nooOOPE)

also, side note, DIGGING the spike pit under the house on the bottom right. hope we get to explore that bad boy

ALSO

who are you mysterious figure whose cape billows in the wind? are you just part of the environment?? MAYBE

more town

first look at that BEAUITUFL red barrier which OOOOH I WANNA TOUCH SO BADLY

look at it

LOOK AT IT

NOODLE BOWL

EATS??? food place?? im not sure i can’t read, Jared, 19

see s-ar(?)ed??

THAT

THAT IS BEAUTIFUL

doesn’t look like a corporation shield (no corporation gunk lying around either) and we do know red glowy shit is the New Eridian Aesthetic, so im just saying.

it could be a corporation tho, mostly because uhhh later shots

hold up

that’s not uhhhhhhhhhhh

yeah it CAN’T BE lol

cursetown - something something

these red thingies are probably just rotting monster flesh but it does look very similar to the vines on nekrotefeyo

given how worried wainwright looks i imagine him and hammylocks are being coerced into the whole marriage thing in order to complete a ritual

i mean no judgement but that red background is absolutely garrish for a wedding

1. pirate ship??? please??? look at all the mist outside and the wooden bars

god PLEASE can i get a pirate ship.  CNA I PLEASE GET A PIRATE SHIP

Captain scarlett wsan’t enoughhhh

2. why the fuck does she have a tail

3.

DJ Midnight performing Saturday: The Dark Mix Deep W???? Hear The Voices (hmmm) and Let The Music Enter You

gee i wonder if this is cultist propaganda

I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU PEOPLE ARE

BUT YOUR TIMING

SUCKS

IIIII AM HERMEAUS MORAAA

no wait wrong game

BUT BRO TENTACLES COMING OUT OF THE MAGIC PORTALS???? UFCKF UEYS THIS FITS PERFECTLY INTO H2O A- i mean, damn haven’t we got enough tentacles from the destroyer?? wow gearbox... heh. hm.

SO I AM WONDERING IF MAYBE THE GREEN UNDER THE BRIDGE AND SUCH ISN’T LIKE CORROSIVE ACID BUT MAYHAPS SOME SORT OF MAGIC SLUDGE COMING OFF THE BIG OL MONSTER BOY THAT THESE CULTISTS ARE HARNESSING TO TAP INTO something. i lost steam. but i mean MAGIC PORTALS

and we all know where teleportation takes us

MANTAKORES!!! WHICH MEANS ERIDIAN INTERVENTION SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE

they seem like fire/ice boys which i absolutely adore

THIS SHOT IS SO COOL OH MY GOD

LIKE I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN IT JUST LOOKS D O P E

WHAT IS THIS??

WHAT IS THIIIS??

CAN I PLEASE HAVE YOUR JACKET

OH ALSO

I MENTIONED IT IN ANOTHER POST BUT THIS

REMINDS ME A LOT OF THIS

IM SURE THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION BUT I THOUGHTIT WAS FUNNY

ALSO REMEMBER THE BLACK EYES THING I HAVE A WHOLE THINGIE THING IMMA BRING BACK OT IT JUST HOLD TIGHT

THIS SHOT?? OH MY GOD? IT’S LIKE A MOVIE????????? I LOV EI LOVE IT LIV E OT

nND THE WOLFIE BOYS THATTHE ARTICLE MENTIONS

UCKING TENTACLES HFDGDHFGJKH THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL OH MY GOD

HE’ SGOT TENTACLE ARMS LIKE MOTHERFUCKING CHADAM

BRO IM

BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

AND A GUN THIS MOTHERFUCKER STILL HAS A GUN

WHAT A MAN

MORE TECHONOLOG Y THAT IM SURE PLAYS A ROLE IN THIS SOMEHOW

BEAUTIFUL

WE SLAM THIS DUDE UP AGAINST A WALL SO HARD SHE/HE/THEY (I ASSUME SHE BC WE CAN’T SEE HER FACE AS A COMMON TROPE) 

BREAKS THE WINDOW WHICH LOOKS SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE A WINDOW ON SANC-III BUT IM NOT MAKING ANY ASSUMPTIONS

also red SPARKS WHICH REMIND ME OF ERIDIANS AGAIN

also her whole helmet thingie??? very Guardian-like

THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE IS GIVING ME HUGE HECTOR/KEY/PLANT/ERIDIANBULLSHITTERY VIBES THEY EVEN HAVE THE GLOWING SACS OF OOOOOOOZE

which is another point to the “green sludge is magic/connected to their powers somehow” theory. hmmm i hope we mix neon green and eridium purple. purple/green is my favorite color combo. and ugh with the lovecraftian vibes? be still my beating heart!

WINNIE SHOOTING SOMOHE

i fucking LOVE the laces on this shotgun. so fucking pretty omfg

magic circle MAGIC CIRCLE MAGIC CIRCLE

also new chest it looks like

BROO??? HOLY SHIT?????????

JABBER WOLF!! SO FUCKING COOL

THAT SKULL MOUTH IS SO FUCKING DOPE IT LOOKS LIKE TROY’S TATTOO

ohhhhhhHHHHHH THE MOON IS GREEN TOO DON’T DO THI GEARBOX IM GONNA SCREAM IF THERE’S ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE ERIDIUM

THIS SHOT OHHHH

THE BAR LOOKS FUCKING FANTASTIC OH MY GOD

shots SHOT SHOTS SHOT SHOTS HTOSHSTOHSOHTS

dND the MERFOLK TAIL ON THE FAR RIGHT I DON’T GIVE A FUUUCK WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS THAT’S MER TAIL THAT’S A TAIL FUCK U

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YSEY SEYSEYSE BIGGG

THE BARTENDER OHOH

HAVE I MENTIONED THE GIANT FUCKING MUSHROOMS BTW

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IM GETTTING SUCH DRAGONBORN DLC VIBES I LOVE IT

SWEETFRUIT VILLAGE BTW THAT’S IMPORTANT

YOU ALLL LOOK SO FUCKING AMAZING OH MY GOD

the bartender!!!! his glasses!! AND THE VOICE MODULATOR???

the netch looking boys are called

slithercresses btw and THEY LOOK STUNNING

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

NEW RED CHESTS??? LOOK ERIDIAN TO ME

WHICH MIGHT MEAN------

ALSO THE DIMENSIONAL TRANSFER PROGRAM ON SANC-III WHERE BBY BOY MAUREICE MAKES US A PORTAL TO HELL??? WHICH GREEN OOZE WHICH IS “HECKTOPLASM” BUT MAYBE ACTUALLY N O T

THE STAR OF THE SHOW BABY GIRL GAIGE WHO’SACTUALLY OLDER THAN ME NOW FUUUUUUUUCK

YOU’RE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL II LOVE YOUR NEW GOGGLES

H??????????????

POSSIBLE NEW PSYCHOMASK UNLESS HE’S JUST GROWING THOSE BONE HORNS IN WHICH CASE YOU GO MAN IM PROUD OF YOU

TENTACLE GUNNNNNN WHICH BETTER LPAY A PART ERIRDIANS YOU FUCKS

THIS PLACE IS WHY I THINK THIS MIGHT BE RELATED TO S O M E CORPORAITON? BUT THEN AGAIN IT MAY JSUT BE THE CULT HEADQUARTERS OR WHATEVER, THAT RED BUBBLED MANSION LOOKS P HQ

FOOD CARTS AND ALSO WHATEVERS IN THAT SWINGING BAG LOOKS LIKE BONES HELL YEAH

this this THIS THIS THIS THIS WHAT IS THIS A NEW CIRCL  E OF SLAUGHTEr? ERIDIAN???

THEYRE PUMPING SOMETHING INTO/OUT OF THE CORPSE!!!!!!! ALSO

mutaTED FEET

[something] world! with a skull symbol on the side

both green btw

god YES I LOVE GREEN AND PURPLE IM SO HAPPY

SAILOF HOLE

hammylocks helping us with a fight by some bones and more wolfie boys!!!! i love these little dudes

FIRE MUTATED SLUGS AAAAAAAAA THEYRE SO COOL

ns tHEY CUR L UP INTO BALLS AND ROLL AT YOU LIKE KRAGGONS

AND I WONDER HOW THE SLUGS MUTATED IS IT POSSIBLY THE G R E E EN?

AND THEIR SHELLS LIKE SUCC UP LAVA?????????????

THESE BRAIN-Y BOYS 

SO BLUE I LOVE THEM

AND MORE GREEN MIST BY THE WAY OWOWOWOWOWO

another look at a baddie with STUDS THIS TIME

A MAGIC WARLOCK TYPE BADDIE THIS TIME AND HE SUMMONS A STAFF AND ALSO I THINK THAT’S ERIDIUM CANNISTER BEHIND HIM

AND IT HAS SIMMILAR TENTACLESTO THE GUNS DO YOU THINK WE’RE FINALLY GOING TO GET ANA NSWER ASA TO WHY OUR GUNS ARE A L I V E

MORE SNAIL DUDES AND THE GREEN STUFF IN THE BACKGROUND M A N I LOVE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA SNAILS

OOOOOZE

BACK AT IT AGAIN IN MY CYCLONES

GREEN FUCKING PUDDLES

B O N E S FUCKING I HOPE THIS EXPLAINS HOW THE SKAGS ON PANDORA GOT SO FUCKIN LARGGO OUTSIDE OF JUST ‘YEAH THE SEASONS’

MORE

this

THIS

ONE

THIS LOOKS LIKE A SAURIAN THE ARMORED ONES THE BASHY ARMORED ONES THAT START WITH ‘C’

TWO THAT GUN IS KICKASS

IT’S GLOWING G R E E N AND IT HAS ***THE TENTACLE BARREL***

OHHHH IM SO READY FOR AN EXPLANATION GEARBO X PL E ASE

GIVE IT TO ME

ALSO THIS

IM EXCITED ABOUT

PROBABLY RELATED TO SWEETFRUIT VILLAGE BC THE MUSHROOMS MAYBE THEY USE IT TO MAKE BOOZE MUSHROOM BOOZE EW

WHY IS HE GRAY?????? HE’S NOT WEARING A JACKET MAYBE HES CRYO-FLAVORED

more sluggus THESE ARE GREEN FLAVORED :O

also, side note

PLEASE TLEL ME THIS WAS INTENTIONAL GEARBOX

LEMME SLAP BLANE’S ASS

YOU *GUYS* PLEASE

BUBBLE MANSION??? GREEN OOZY VILLAIN THAT GOT SLMAMED INTO A WALL??? BABY BABY GIRL

THE R E D

and she’s USING A TENTACLE GUN TOO

THAT’S GOTTA MEAN SOMETHING RIGHT

hhhhhhHHHHH

also ther’e sa fridge on the left lol

also the consoles look similar to that one shot with zane which is why i believe this is part of that bubbled-y mansion.

YES ES YES YES YES YESY SYEYSE 

I WANNA RIDE THE SKY TRAM SO BAD PLEASE

I WANNA REENACT UNTIL DAWN

I HAVE A MIGHTY NEEEEEEED

ALSO NOTE THE EYES

AND THE PURPLE HOW IT LOOKS LIKE AN ERIDIUM PURPLE

ANYWAY I HA[VE TO GO EAT FOOD NOW BUT GO LOOK AT THIS LINKN

I LOOKED UP THE NAME OF THE PLANET AND MYTHOLOGY AND NOTHING CAME UP, BUT GOOGLE RECOMMENDED ME 

T H I S

https://pantheon.org/articles/l/lycurgus.html

AND MAN OH MAN

“FAMOUS FOR HIS PERSECUTION OF DIONYSUS” THE GOD OF P A R T I E S LIKE IDK A WEDDING PARTY, WHICH FORCED YA MAIN MAN DIONYSUS TO <JUMP INTO THE OCEAN> WHICH COULD HAVE SOME RELATION TO THE TENTACLES

OH AND ALSO LYCURGUS WAS THEN <<<BLINDED>>>  WHICH COULD PLAY A PART IN THE BLACK OOZY EYES EVERYONE HAS

DIONYSUS ALSO ENDS UP PUNISHING LYCURGUS WITH MADASS AND WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT RELATES

OKAY BYE 

#borderlands #bl3 #borderlands 3 #borderlands spoilers #IM SORRY I POSTED THIS EARLY IT WAS ANA CCIDENCT

[pathogenic]

Y’all are getting tunes whether you ask for them or not

1. A song that reminds you of your childhood

Orinoco Flow - Enya

One of my favorite songs as a kid. I still listen to it because I love the otherworldly feel it has to it. Plus now I associate it with Myst because the instrumentals are a lot like the Myst classic soundtrack. That matters because the Myst series is the only video game my mom plays and I have fond memories watching her play.

2. A song to sleep to

Bad Wings - The Glitch Mob

The Glitch Mob has a lot of tracks I find to be rather soothing. This one especially because it is slower than most of their other tracks. I actually found this one when I was playing my bed time Pandora radio like back in ohhhh 2014 I believe? So it works.

3. A song that your best friend loves

We’ll roll with Isa over @ aiiizawa 

Pay No Mind (Feat. Passion Pit) - Madeon

Feeling is pretty mutual on how much this song rocks. It is nice, bouncy, and the song just makes you feel warm all over.

4. A song that hypes you the fuck up

Never Gonna Stop (The Red, Red Kroovy) - Rob Zombie

I will not be surprised when I get a speeding ticket due to this song. It’s just that good and I will never not go apeshit to it. I also love the bass in the intro, it sounds fucking killer in almost every car/truck I’ve been in.

5. A song you like to daydream to

Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics

It’s soothing, it has a sweet vibe to it, it also has a longing feel to it. It works for almost every ship of mine, it instantly puts me in a mood. What else could I want from it?

6. A song that’s on at least 3 of your playlists

Bite Me! (Chrom Remix) - Hocico

This one was recommended to me by a very dear friend and I just love it. It’s on my personal playlist, a playlist for a friend’s character, and my general VtM playlist. It’s just a really cool song.

7. A song that you love from a genre you don’t usually like

Train, Train - Blackfoot

Rockabilly is something I want to get more into, but I really am so choosy. This was one given to me by my Dad and he was absolutely right to. The song fucking slaps.

8. A song that you liked when you where 10 that still slaps

Imaginary - Evanescence

I’ve loved Evanescence since I was a little one and I’m still right on that. Amy Lee’s voice is amazing and I still listen to her very often. This one was my favorite as a kid because on the Fallen album, you go from Tourniquet with it’s full orchestra ending and then it drops to this single violin in the intro and that rocked. I was always so excited to hear it as a kid. I also loved shouting “FLOWERS”. Didn’t really know any of the other lyrics until much later.

9. A song that makes you want to go on an adventure

Uncharted Worlds - Sam Hulick

Is it cheating to pull from a game OST? Either way, this song always makes me want to explore the galaxy. Lucky bastards in ME.

10. A song you’d want to dance with your partner to ( or future partner )

Ragtime Cat (Ft. Lilja Bloom) - Parov Stelar

I’ll take my L on this one, but I do genuinely love electro swing, I love swing dancing, and this one feels like the perfect one to dance with. It has a fun tempo and I also love the jump between new and old in this song.

11. A song to stomp around and pout to

Happy? - Mudvayne

I mean really, what else do you need beyond a passive-aggressive nu metal song to be angry to?

12. A song to listen to whilst you lie in a meadow

Wheel in the Sky - Journey

Sounds like the perfect place to contemplate, and Wheel in the Sky is the perfect song to do that with. Think about the future and fate while enjoying a good tune by Journey.

13. A song that reflects your views on love

Sparks - Faith and the Muse

Kind of my go to love song? There is a reverence and a hesitance in this song that really speaks to me. Love is scary, but it’s alive and well.

14. A song to sing to the sun

I could have been cheeky and picked The Sun by Gothminister, but I won’t

Honestly, I’m not sure how to read this, so take something that is definitely a daytime tune with Song 2 - Blur

Not a “sun” song, but I always associate it with the kind of sports I like and that as close as I can get.

15. A song you like that sounds like its on the soundtrack to an indie coming of age film

Volcanic Jig - Natalie MacMaster

Feels like the kind of light, bouncy stuff they would play in an opening scene to me.

16. A song that you like that romanticises being a teenager

Electricity - Red City Radio

At least part of it. It has a growing up with someone you like kind of feel to it and part of that would have to be being a teen. Beyond that, evidently nothing I listen to matches this either.

17. A song that makes you want to grab your friends jump up and down dancing and screaming the lyrics

Devil’s Dance Floor - Flogging Molly

Mostly because it’s just the song stuck in my head really bad, but that chorus, it sounds so fun to sing!!

18. A song that you like that the lyrics are just so beautiful they’re practically poetry

Oh I regret using Sparks already

Love You To Life - Grace Jones

Might as well be a poem really! Just take a listen and enjoy.

19. A song that you can imagine listening to in an abandoned church ( if it isn’t hozier im judging you, but whatever )

Listen to more artists

Sunday Morning - The Bolshoi

I would pick this one for a number of reasons - first off, it has a good sort of distant feeling to me that matches an abandoned place, second it has to deal with negative feelings with Christianity, which would match my mood best while standing in a church, abandoned or not.

20. A song from the soundtrack of a film that you like so much after the film finished you immediately looked for it

Warrior Falls -  Ludwig Göransson

Yes, it is a Marvel movie soundtrack, but consider - The drums in the Black Panther Soundtrack rock. Now to be honest, this is like one of the only movie soundtracks I have saved. If we went video game, then god it might have to be

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag Main Theme - Brian Tyler

AC soundtracks in general tend to fucking rock, but this theme is so powerful every time I hear it, I’m fuckin ready to be a pirate.

21. A song for when the sun has gone down and you are feeling absolutely buck-wild with exhilaration!

Augen Auf - Oomph!

I have so many songs that work for this. This is normally when I listen to music so I have many Manic Energy Songs. 

22. A song that makes you feel like you’re strolling through Ancient Greece living your best life

Very specific indeed, but perhaps Antvmnos - Eluveite ?

Tell me it wouldn’t be perfect to stroll a Greek shoreline with.

23. A song that when you listen to it you’re transported to a liminal space, time is pointless and you must sit and wallow in the void that remains

Black Car - Beach House

I listen to this song and my mind is instantly somewhere indescribable and unknowable and all I can do is listen, relax, and go through it. It’s very pleasant to me.

24. A song to listen to on a long drive when you have the really strong urge to keep driving until you find somewhere to start a new life (preferably a europian city whose language you don’t speak)

Perhaps not that exactly, but a song that makes me want to be a weary traveler seeing sights most can only dream of is Far Horizons - Jeremy Soule

[jakeh2987]

We Found Each Other In The Dark: The Last of Us Retrospective

On Christmas Day in 2012, I was gifted two games by my cousin; I had just gotten my PS3 over that summer, and while I had a few games, my library was pretty limited at that time. Those two games were the first two Uncharted games, Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves. I played those games in very quick succession over the next month or so into 2013, and bought and finished the third game, Drake's Deception. To this day, the Uncharted series remains my favorite in gaming, but little did I know just how impactful that Christmas gift would end up being in my life, even nearly eight years later. At this time, I didn't really follow specific game developers or studios; I kinda just saw a game I was interested in, kept up with that particular game, and eventually bought it when I could. However, I knew I had to see what Naughty Dog, the company who developed the Uncharted series, was going to do next. It turns out they were working on a little game called The Last of Us that was going to be releasing later that year. I was all in on the marketing and diving into any coverage I could, and the anticipation kept building unlike any game I could really remember. Then, right before the game's June 14th release, the reviews hit, and my excitement hit its peak, because the reception was absolutely glowing in a way I hadn't really seen for a video game. I knew The Last of Us was going to be special, but I don't think I was prepared for how much impact it would have. A couple days after the game came out, I was able to go out and pick up a copy. I don't remember how long it took me to finish the game, but I do remember rolling credits on it at like 3 or 4 in the morning one day, just letting them play while I sat there in total awe at what I just played. The Last of Us is a game that truly blew me away in so many different ways, but the thing that has always stuck with me is the story and its characters. The Uncharted games had really fun stories and memorable characters, but Naughty Dog brought it to another level with this game. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson as Joel and Ellie remain some of the most powerful performances I've ever seen in not just gaming, but in any medium. The storytelling, while on the surface a fairly typical post-apocalypse, zombie-like survival story, was told in a really grounded way that made it resonate more than a lot of other stories in the genre. Everything was centered around Joel and Ellie's journey and how their relationship progresses, and there are some truly poignant moments throughout the story that I still get emotional watching when I replay it or watch someone else play it. This was a story about love and how far you're willing to go to protect it, or find it again, and it's also a story about resilience and finding hope in a world that doesn't have much of it, to say the least. I often find something new to take away from it every time I play it again, which I've done every year since I got my PS4 and the Remastered version in 2015. I can certainly say that playing it this year to get ready for its sequel in the midst of a global pandemic in real life added another layer in the back of my mind. But ultimately, The Last of Us is a game that's about two people finding each other in darkness and helping each other navigate it into, hopefully, the light, and that has stuck with me from day one. There's a reason this piece is named after the song by City & Colour, but more on that in a bit. The Last of Us is an amazing game on its own, but there's also a personal reason this game means even more to me now than it did even when I first played it. One of my very best friends Patches and I met on Twitter in December 2017 because of our mutual love of the game. Funny thing is, it was totally by chance; she had attended that year's Playstation Experience, and she got the opportunity to meet Neil Druckmann, creative director/writer for the games and now-Vice President of Naughty Dog, basically the creative face of the game. Neil had retweeted photos of a tattoo Patches had gotten and a photo of the two of them meeting, and I happened to see them and decided to give her a follow. I was just starting to get my footing in online gaming communities after listening to the Kinda Funny crew and other places throughout that year, and I was looking for more people to follow who were in the same spaces. The tattoo, which is a replica of Ellie's tattoo from Part II, was also just really cool. Anyway, Patches and I interacted a bit throughout the next year or so, but it wasn't until late summer/early fall last year that we actually became friends and grew to be really close. I won't go into personal details here, obviously, but we were both in some rather dark places, and I think we were able to dust each other off and help pull each other out of that darkness. We became life-long friends because of that experience, and now we have a really strong bond over this game, and I'm just so eternally grateful for that. Like I said earlier, this game is about two people who find each other in the darkness and helped pull each other out of it, and because of this game, Patches and I were able to do that for each other. And for a video game to have an impact like that is truly special. As I write this, we're just about a week away from the release of The Last of Us Part II. I know this game is going to destroy me emotionally, but I couldn't be any more excited for it. The first game changed the way I looked at video games and it led me to a life-long friendship I'll cherish forever, so I cannot wait to see what Part II has in store. 

#the last of us #the last of us part 2 #naughty dog #playstation #ps4 #video games

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Princess Tutu, Episodes 10-13

In which we cross this story’s conclusion at its halfway point, I note an important influence, and we dance our way into the uncertain future.

Cardcaptor Tutu

Well, folks, it happened again. Once more, I’ve been struck with a realization that recontextualizes how I’ve been viewing the entire goddamn show up until this point. I suppose that’s only fair; we’ve finally reached the halfway point of Princess Tutu, which means things are primed to get even crazier than they’ve been up until this point. And in a show this ever-changing, it only makes sense that my thoughts on it should keep changing right alongside it. But in this case, it’s not so much that something fundamental has shifted in the core of the show as it is that with thirteen episodes under our belt, I’ve finally got a much clearer understanding of that core and what game plan it’s going for. As bizarre and unique a show as Princess Tutu is, it’s also playing by a rulebook that I’m very intimately familiar with.

Simply put, Princess Tutu thus far feels a hell of a lot like Cardcaptor Sakura.

It’s been a long-ass time since I watched Cardcaptor Sakura for this blog; hell, it’s been over a year since I finished it. I’ll link my binge-watch of it here, but to give the short version for those of you who don’t have time to read through 20+ big-ass posts from me, it remains one of my favorite shows of all time to this day, not just the best kid’s show I’ve seen, but genuinely the best show about childhood I’ve seen. Few stories have made the hardships and pains of being a kid feel so palpably real, with so much overwhelming empathy and kindness in helping its young audience face those fears with a strong heart. And while Princess Tutu is about as far tonally from Cardcaptor Sakura as it could possibly be- hell, it’s pretty much a deconstruction of the genre that Sakura played straight- these two magical girl shows thus far have followed a very similar story structure. Our heroine has powers thrust upon her unexpectedly, but rises to match them, and we spend the first half of the story collecting a series of themed collectibles, usually with a specific message conveyed by the particulars of the collectible in question. But instead of that journey encompassing the entirety of the show, all the collectibles are found right around the halfway mark, and after one last battle, our hero is victorious. Except there’s still an entire other half of the story to get through, and suddenly, the story structure we could rely on crumbles beneath our feet and plunges us into completely uncharted waters. Now, nothing is certain, nothing can be taken for granted, and the future is both a lot more terrifying and a lot more exciting. Oh, and just for good measure, both shows also share a love triangle in which the clumsy lead heroine and grumpy bad boy both crush on an ethereal, silver-haired gentile, only to eventually develop feelings for each other instead.

Yeah, even as someone not too familiar with the magical girl genre as a whole, the similarities here are really striking. I suspect Tutu’s creators were drawing inspiration from Sakura when writing this story up, and that only makes sense; after all, when you’re seeking to flip genre conventions on their head, what better place to start from than the most widely respected exemplar of that genre? And now that I’ve made that comparison, I’m even more excited to see what else this show has in store. The final leg of Cardcaptor Sakura was what ultimately propelled it to one of my favorites, paying off all its long-gestating subplots with so much raw emotional impact it was almost scary. If Tutu’s using the same playbook, there’s every reason to believe its own grand finale might end up just as stirring. They’ve certainly got the buildup right, if nothing else; Fakir’s flustered reaction to realizing he’d let Duck see his softer side was an absolute delight to behold. From such an unlikable dipstick, he’s grown into a truly endearing character, and his epic tsundere blush instantly wipes away all the remaining doubts I had towards him. He’s no Li Xiaolong, but watching his stern facade start to crack more regularly with worry and appreciation for Duck’s antics is welcome all the same. If Princess Tutu can keep pace with its inspiration all the way to the end, I’m going to have very little to complain about.

Spinning Wheels of Fate

That being said, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t one area where the Cardcaptor comparisons don’t do Tutu any favors. The problem with reminding me so much of another show of this ilk is that Tutu is explicitly a story about breaking free of the confines of these kinds of stories, not just following in their footsteps. Which means if it can’t still throw you for a loop in the process of how it gets to where it’s going, that meta aspect is going to suffer.

Thankfully, Tutu has for the most part been able to keep that unpredictable streak alive, and watching its cast slowly begin bracing against the confines of their story is never anything less than exhilarating. In what other show would a character simply asking questions about the things he’s been told to take for granted land with such impact? Seriously, watching Mytho slowly take a more active role in his story, shaping the direction he wants it to go in and the knowledge he can draw from, is really damn dramatically satisfying. And the information we learn about Fakir in these episodes really contextualizes the flawed beliefs that have driven him all this time. He was pretty much raised on the belief that he would fulfill the role of the story’s knight, without ever taking into account the sacrifices that role supposedly entails. He blindly followed his role in the story and grew angry when Mytho seemed to reject his, always believing more in Princess Tutu than him (And side note, I totally feel Mytho here, because I’m also the kind of fan who’ll get overly attached to that one minor character the author never put much thought into). But the more he discovered about his role in the story, the more he realized how foolish blindly following it may actually be. Drosselmeyer wants so desperately for everyone to dance to his tune, but the more they find out about their situation, the more that defiance spreads.

Swan Puddle

But there’s one place where that strong meta storytelling does falter a bit, and unfortunately, it’s at a really critical moment: the epic mid-show climax on the illusionary lake. This is the grand finale, the triumph that will eventually descend into an even deeper darkness, the moment where we finally reach Happily Ever After and start to see what lies beyond that stopping point. And it’s here, sadly, that Princess Tutu becomes its most conventional, least breathtaking self yet. In sharp contrast to how the entire show has played up until this point, Tutu’s intense ballet duel with Kraehe is so frustratingly... standard. It’s good vs evil, the pure of heart saving the prince from the evil seductress, the white swan defeating the black swan, and everyone just plays their parts in such typical fashion. The conflict is basic, the emotions are basic, the flow of the battle is too predictable- the moment of self-doubt, the sneering monologue from the villain, the victory by sheer force of goodness- and it all contributes to this moment that should be the grand culmination to end all culminations instead coming off with an “Oh, is that it?” This is Swan Goddamn Lake, for Christ’s sake. This is arguably the most famous ballet in a show that’s done nothing but repurpose ballet signifiers to its benefit (side note, I bet if I had any more knowledge of famous ballet pieces, these episode names would make their episodic plots even cooler). In a show this brave and brazen, where nothing goes as you expect and the pieces constantly surprise you in the directions they take, such a moment of critical mass shouldn’t feel this predictable and safe.

After Ever After

But perhaps that’s the point. This is, after all, all just part of Drosselmeyer’s increasingly desperate attempts to keep control of these narrative strings. If nothing else, this mid-season finale feels like exactly the kind of washed-up pablum he would delight in. He wants everyone in this story to know their place, to play their assigned roles as lifelessly as Edel on her puppet strings. There’s an interesting detail that Mytho’s apparently always been as old as he is now; it’s like losing his heart made him frozen in time, and he’s been in status until Tutu’s spurred him back into motion. And that seems to be exactly what Old Drossy wants; for this story to continue on its assigned path, no matter what happens. He wants to finish the narrative he died before completing in life, to bring this tale to a close even if he has to make it play out in pantomime on the fabric of reality itself. But try as he might, those strings just keep getting further and further cut. Mytho keeps questioning his feelings and making active efforts to understand where he stands and what he wants (”Oh no, he’s probing us!” “What do we do?”). Edel, despite being a lifeless doll, chooses to immolate herself to light the way for everyone’s safe return rather than be a perfect pawn of Drosselmeyer’s scheme. And despite being the most constrained by her role in the story, Rue commits the single most badass move anyone in this show has pulled off yet: she breaks the fourth wall from inside the narrative itself. She reaches out to Drosselmeyer from beyond the veil and exerts her will over where she wants this story to turn. My god, watching this punk get called out so perfectly has me giddy to see his entire damn scheme get torn down. I can’t wait to see what his face looks like then.

But we are far from free yet. Because this supposedly bright and happy ending we’ve arrived at is, after all, nowhere near the end of this story. And Old Drossy’s not exactly looking downbeat about the direction things are going in. He’s still got his grubby little hands in this narrative, he’s still controlling its trajectory, and he still knows exactly where he wants it all to go. Try as everyone might to escape their fates, they don’t even know the full extent of what those fates are. And something tells me things are about to get really damn terrifying when they finally discover the full extent of this twisted tale they’re all trapped in. The storybook has reached its conclusion; now, it’s time for the sequel to show what happens after Happily Ever After. Bring it on, Princess Tutu. I’m ready for you.

Odds and Ends

-”Quick, before she recovers!” Somebody stop her

-”In particular, during puberty, self-control is important!” Mr. Cat’s giving out good advice? Somebody get my doomsday survival kit.

-”Go, my son.” Nope. Nope. Not getting emotional over Fakir. NOPE.

-Duck the disaster klutz is never not gonna get me.

-That is... a lot of sweat. You might wanna get that checked out, Fakir.

-”Oh my, that thought is truly dangerous.” For once, I’m in agreement with WuffleHumps here. You are Princess Tutu, girl, don’t shortchange yourself.

-You fucked up a perfectly good prince is what you did. Look at him, he’s got anxiety.

-”Okay, eyes forward!” askjdahskdhasd kaput

-”Can ducks even drown?” OH NOW YOU CARE ABOUT HER YOU BIG SOFTIE

-Not gonna lie, I would pay good money to see this as an actual ballet. Swordfights with crow-faced lunatics on an ice skating rink? Yes, please.

And so, the journey continues. See you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #princess tutu

[achronologyofbits]

GOTY 2019

I wanted to write a personal Game of the Year list, but I realized I really didn’t play that many games that were new in 2019. So I’m ranking them, but it’s less a “top 10” and more a “10 games I played and how I felt about them.”  

10. Kingdom Hearts III

Kingdom Hearts III plays like a game from 2005.

I’m not sure I can fully articulate what I mean by that. Maybe I mean its combat is largely simplistic and button-mashy. Maybe I mean its rhythms of level traversal and cutscene exposition dumps are archaic and outdated. Maybe feeling like this game is a relic from another time is unavoidable, given how many years have passed since its first series entry.  

But there’s also something joyful and celebratory about it all — something kind of refreshing about a work that knows only a tiny portion of its players will understand all its references and lore and world-building, and just doesn’t care.

Despite all the mockery and memery surrounding its fiction, Kingdom Hearts’ strongest storytelling moments are actually pretty simple. They’re about the struggle to exist, to belong, and to define what those things mean for yourself. I think that’s why the series reaches the people it does.

Those moments make Kingdom Hearts III worth defending, if not worth recommending.

9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Admittedly, I only played about 10-15 hours of this in 2019. Perhaps fittingly, that’s about the amount of time I originally spent on Dark Souls when it released in 2011. I bounced off, hard, because I didn’t understand what it was asking of me. Once I did — though, it has to be said, I needed other people to explain those expectations to me, because the game sure as hell didn’t — Dark Souls became an all-time favorite. And I’ve played every FromSoft game since then, and enjoyed them all. Until Sekiro.

Part of it is, again, down to expectation. Dark Souls trained its players on a certain style of combat: cautious movements, careful attention to spacing, committing to weighty attacks, waiting for counterattacks. In every game since then, FromSoft have iterated on those expectations in the same direction in an attempt to encourage players to be less cautious and more aggressive. The series moved from tank-heavy play in Dark Souls, to dual-wielding in DS2, to weapon arts and reworking poise in DS3, to the system of regaining health by attacking in Bloodborne.

In some ways, Sekiro is a natural continuation of this trend toward aggression, but in others, it’s a complete U-turn. Bloodborne eschewed blocking and prioritized dodging as the quickest, most effective defensive option. Sekiro does exactly the opposite. Blocking is always your first choice, parrying is essential instead of largely optional, and dodging is near useless except in special cases. FromSoft spent five games teaching me my habits, and it was just too hard for me to break them for Sekiro.

I have other issues, too — health/damage upgrades are gated behind boss fights, so grinding is pointless; the setting and story lack some of the creativity of the game’s predecessors; there’s no variety of builds or playstyles — but the FromSoft magic is still there, too. Nothing can match the feeling of beating a Souls-series boss. And the addition of a grappling hook makes the verticality of Sekiro’s level design fascinating.

I dunno. I feel like there’s more here I’d enjoy, if I ever manage to push through the barriers. Maybe — as I finally did with the first Dark Souls, over a year after its release — someday I will.

8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

In December, my wife and I traveled to Newport Beach for a family wedding, and we stayed an extra day to visit Disneyland. As an early birthday present, Aubrey bought me the experience of building a lightsaber in Galaxy’s Edge. And the experience is definitely what you’re paying for; the lightsaber itself is cool, but it’s cool because it’s made from parts I selected, with a blade color I chose, and I got to riff and banter with in-character park employees while doing it. (“Can you actually read those?” one asked me in an awed voice, when I selected a lightsaber hilt portion adorned with ancient Jedi runes. “Not yet,” I told her. “We’ll see if the Force can teach me.”)

Maybe it’s because I just had that experience, but by far my favorite moment in Jedi: Fallen Order is when main character Cal Kestis overcomes his own fears and memories to forge his own lightsaber, using a kyber crystal that calls to him personally. It’s maybe the only part of the game that made me feel like a Jedi, in a way the hours of Souls-inspired lightsaber slashing didn’t.

I think that’s telling. And I think it’s because so much of Fallen Order is derivative of other works, both in the current canon of gaming and of Star Wars. That’s not to say it’s bad — the mélange of Uncharted/Tomb Raider traversal, combat that evokes Souls and God of War, and vaguely Metroid-y power acquisition and exploration mostly works — but it’s just a titch less than the sum of those parts.

Similarly, as a Star Wars story, it feels under-baked. There’s potential in exploring the period immediately after Order 66 and the Jedi purge, but you only see glimpses of that. And I understand the difficulty of telling a story where the characters succeed but in a way that doesn’t affect established canon, but it still seemed like there were a couple of missed opportunities at touching base with the larger Star Wars universe. (And the one big reference that does pop up at the end feels forced and unrealistic.)

When I got home from California, I took my lightsaber apart just to see how it all worked. Outside of the hushed tones and glowing lights of Savi’s Workshop, it seems a little less special. It’s still really cool…but I sort of wish I had had a wider variety of parts to choose from. And that I had bought some of the other crystal colors. Just in case.

That’s how I feel about Jedi: Fallen Order. I had fun with it. But it’s easier now to see the parts for what they are.

7. Untitled Goose Game

Aubrey and I first saw this game at PAX, at a booth which charmingly recreated the garden of the game’s first level. We were instantly smitten, and as I’ve introduced it to family and friends, they’ve all had the same reaction. When we visited my brother’s family in Florida over the holidays, my eight-year-old niece and nephew peppered me with questions about some of the more complex puzzles. Even my father, whose gaming experience basically topped out at NES Open Tournament Golf in 1991, gave it a shot.

I’m not sure I have a lot more to say here, other than a few bullet points:

1) I love that Untitled Goose Game is completely nonviolent. It would’ve been easy to add a “peck” option as another gameplay verb, another means of mischief. (And, from what I understand, it would be entirely appropriate, given the aggression of actual geese.) That the developers resisted this is refreshing.

2) I’m glad a game this size can have such a wide reach, and that it doesn’t have to be a platform exclusive.

3) Honk.

6. Tetris 99

Despite the number of hours I’ve spent playing games, and the variety of genres that time has spanned, I’m not much for competitive gaming. This is partially because the competitive aspect of my personality has waned with age, and partially because I am extremely bad at most multiplayer games.

The one exception to this is Tetris.

I am a Tetris GOD.

Of course, that’s an incredible overstatement. Now that I’ve seen real Ecstasy of Order, Grandmaster-level Tetris players, I realize how mediocre I am. But in my real, actual life, I have never found anyone near my skill level. In high school, I would bring two Game Boys, two copies of Tetris, and a link cable on long bus rides to marching band competitions, hoping to find willing challengers. The Game Boys themselves became very popular. Playing me did not.

Prior to Tetris 99, the only version of the game that gave me any shred of humility in a competitive sense was Tetris DS, where Japanese players I found online routinely handed me my ass. I held my own, too, but that was the first time in my life when I wasn’t light-years beyond any opponent.

As time passed and internet gaming and culture became more accessible, I soon realized I was nowhere near the true best Tetris players in the world. Which was okay by me. I’m happy to be a big fish in a small pond, in pretty much all aspects of my life.

Tetris 99 has given me a perfectly sized pond. I feel like I’m a favorite to win every round I play, and I usually finish in the top 10 or higher. But it’s also always a challenge, because there’s just enough metagame to navigate. Have I targeted the right enemies? Do I have enough badges to make my Tetrises hit harder? Can I stay below the radar for long enough? These aspects go beyond and combine with the fundamental piece-dropping in a way I absolutely love.

The one thing I haven’t done yet is win an Invictus match (a mode reserved only for those who have won a standard 99-player match). But it’s only a matter of time.  

5. Pokemon Sword/Shield

I don’t think I’ve played a Pokemon game through to completion since the originals. I always buy them, but I always seem to lose steam halfway through. But I finished Shield over the holidays, and I had a blast doing it.

Because I’m a mostly casual Pokeplayer, the decision to not include every ‘mon in series history didn’t bother me at all. I really enjoyed learning about new Pokemon and forcing myself to try moving away from my usual standards. (Although I did still use a Gyarados in my final team.)

As a fan of English soccer, the stadium-centric, British-flavored setting also contributed to my desire to see the game through. Changing into my uniform and walking onto a huge, grassy pitch, with tens of thousands of cheering fans looking on, really did give me a different feeling than battles in past games, which always seemed to be in weird, isolated settings.

I’m not sure I’ll push too far into the postgame; I’ve never felt the need to catch ‘em all. But I had a great time with the ones I caught.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

I have a strange relationship with the Zelda series, especially now. They are my wife’s favorite games of all time. But I don’t know if I’ve ever actually sat down and beaten one since the original Link’s Awakening. Even with Breath of the Wild, which I adore, I was content to watch Aubrey do the heavy lifting. I know the series well, I’ve played bits of all of them, but most haven’t stuck with me.

Link’s Awakening has. I wrote a piece once about its existential storytelling and how it affected me as a child. I love the way the graphics in this remake preserve that dreamlike quality. It’s pretty much a re-skin of the original game, but the cutesy, toy-set aesthetic pairs well with the heavy material. If this is all a dream, whose dream is it? And when we wake up, what happens to it?

Truthfully, some of the puzzles and design decisions haven’t held up super well. Despite the fresh coat of paint, it definitely feels like a 25-year-old game. But I’m so glad this version exists.

Oh, and that solo clarinet in the Mabe Village theme? *Chef’s kiss*

3. Control

I actually haven’t seen a lot of the influences Control wears on its sleeve. I’ve never gone completely through all the episodes of the X-Files, Fringe, and Twin Peaks; I’m only vaguely familiar with the series of “creepypasta” fiction called SCP Foundation; and I have never endeavored to sit through a broadcast of Coast to Coast AM. I’m also unfamiliar with Remedy’s best-known work in the genre, Alan Wake. But I know enough about all those works to be able to identify their inspiration on the Federal Bureau of Control, Jesse Faden, and the Oldest House.

Control is an interesting game to recommend (which I do), because I’m not sure how much I really enjoyed its combat. For most of the game, it’s a pretty standard third-person shooter. You can’t snap to cover, which indicates you’re intended to stay on the move. This becomes even more obvious when you gain the ability to air dash and fly. But you do need to use cover, because Jesse doesn’t have much health even at the end of the game. So combat encounters can get out of hand quickly, and there’s little incentive to keep fighting enemies in the late game. Yet they respawn at a frustratingly frequent rate. The game’s checkpointing system compounds this — you only respawn at “control points,” which act like Souls-style bonfires. This leads to some unfortunately tedious runbacks after boss fights.

On the other hand, Jesse’s telekinesis power always feels fantastic, and varying your attacks between gunshots, thrown objects, melee, and mind controlling enemies can be frenetic fun. That all comes to a head in the game’s combat (and perhaps aesthetic?) high point, the Ashtray Maze. To say more would be doing a disservice. It’s awesome.

The rest of the gameplay is awesome, too — and I do call it “gameplay,” though unfortunately you don’t have many options for affecting the world beyond violence. The act of exploring the Oldest House and scouring it for bureaucratic case files, audio recordings, and those unbelievably creepy “Threshold Kids” videos is pure joy. The way the case files are redacted leaves just enough to the imagination, and the idea of a federal facility being built on top of and absorbed into a sort of nexus of interdimensional weirdness is perfectly executed. And what’s up with that motel? And the alien, all-seeing, vaguely sinister Board? So cool.

With such great worldbuilding, I did wish for a little more player agency. There are no real dialogue choices — no way to imbue Jesse with any character traits beyond what’s pre-written for her — and only one ending. This kind of unchecked weird science is the perfect environment for forcing the player into difficult decisions (what do we study? How far is too far? How do we keep it all secret?), and that just isn’t part of the game at all. Which is fine — Control isn’t quite an immersive sim like Prey, and it’s not trying to be. I just see some similarities and potential, and I wish they had been explored a little.

But Control’s still a fantastic experience, and in any other year, it probably would’ve been my number one pick. That’s how good these next two games are.

2. Outer Wilds

Honestly, this is the best game of 2019. But I’m not listing it as number one because I didn’t play most of it — Aubrey did. Usually we play everything together; even if we’re not passing a controller back and forth, one of us will watch while the other one plays. And that definitely happened for a large chunk of Outer Wilds. But Aubrey did make some key discoveries while I was otherwise occupied, so while I think it’s probably the best game, it’s not the one I personally spent the most time with.

The time I did spend, though? Wow. From the moment you wake up at the campfire and set off in search of your spaceship launch codes, it’s clear that this is a game that revels in discovery. Discovery for its own sake, for the furthering of knowledge, for the protection of others, for the sheer fun of it. Some games actively discourage players from asking the question, “Hey, what’s that over there?” Outer Wilds begs you to ask it, and then rewards you not with treasure or statistical growth, but with the opportunity to ask again, about something even more wondrous and significant.

There are so many memorable moments of discovery in this game. The discovery that, hey, does that sun look redder to you than it used to? The discovery that, whoa, why did I wake up where I started after seemingly dying in space? Your first trip through a black hole. Your first trip to the quantum moon. Your first trip to the weird, bigger-on-the-inside fog-filled heart of a certain dark, brambly place. (Aubrey won’t forget that any time soon.)

They take effort, those moments. They do have to be earned, and it isn’t easy. Your spaceship flies like it looks: sketchy, taped together, powered by ingenuity and, like, marshmallows, probably. Some of the leaps you have to make — both of intuition and of jetpack — are a little too far. (We weren’t too proud to look up a couple hints when we were truly stuck.) But in the tradition of the best adventure games (which is what this is, at heart), you have everything you need right from the beginning. All you have to do is gather the knowledge to understand it and put it into action.

And beyond those moments of logical and graphical discovery, there’s real emotion and pathos, too. As you explore the remnants of the lost civilization that preceded yours, your only method of communication is reading their writing. And as you do, you start to get a picture of them not just as individuals (who fight, flirt, and work together to help each other), but as a species whose boundless thirst for discovery was their greatest asset, highest priority, undoing, and salvation, all at once.

I don’t think I can say much more without delving into spoilers, or retreading ground others have covered. (Go read Austin Walker’s beautiful and insightful review for more.) It’s an incredible game, and one everyone with even a passing interest in the medium should try.

(Last thing: Yes, I manually flew to the Sun Station and got inside. No, I don’t recommend it.)

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

If I hadn’t just started a replay of this game, I don’t think I’d be listing it in the number one slot. I started a replay because I showed it to my brother when we visited him in Florida last month, and immediately, all the old feelings came flooding back. I needed another hit.

No game this year has been as compelling for me. That’s an overused word in entertainment criticism, but I mean it literally: There have been nights where I absolutely HAVE to keep playing (much to Aubrey’s dismay). One more week of in-game time. One more study session to raise a skill rank. One more meal together so I can recruit another student. One more battle. Just a little longer.

I’m not sure I can put my finger on the source of that compulsion. Part of it is the excellence of craftsmanship on display; if any technical or creative aspect of Three Houses was less polished than it is, I probably wouldn’t feel so drawn to it. But the two big answers, I think, are the characters and their growth, both mechanically and narratively.

At the start of the game, you pick one of the titular three houses to oversee as professor. While this choice defines who you’ll have in your starting party, that can be mitigated later, as almost every other student from the other two houses can be recruited to join yours. What you’re really choosing is which perspective you’ll see the events of the story from, and through whose eyes: Edelgard of the Black Eagles, Dimitri of the Blue Lions, or Claude of the Golden Deer. (This is also why the game almost demands at least three playthroughs.)

These three narratives are deftly written so you simultaneously feel like you made the only possible canonical choice, while also sowing questions into your decision-making. Edelgard’s furious desire for change is just but perhaps not justifiable; Dimitri hides an obsession with revenge behind a façade of noblesse oblige; Claude is more conniving and pragmatic than he lets on. No matter who you side with, you’ll eventually have to face the others. And everyone can make a case that they, not you, are on the right side.

This is especially effective because almost every character in Three Houses is dealing with a legacy of war and violence. A big theme of the game’s story is how those experiences inform and influence the actions of the victims. What steps are justified to counteract such suffering? How do you break the cycle if you can’t break the power structures that perpetuate it? How do good people end up fighting for bad causes?

While you and your child soldiers (yeah, you do kind of have to just skip over that part; they’re in their late teens, at least? Still not good enough, but could be worse?) are grappling with these questions, they’re also growing in combat strength, at your direction. This is the part that really grabbed me and my lizard brain — watching those numbers get bigger was unbelievably gratifying. Each character class has certain skill requirement prerequisites, and as professor, you get to define how your students meet those requirements, and which they focus on. Each student has certain innate skills, but they also have hidden interests that only come to the surface with guidance. A character who seems a shoo-in to serve as a white mage might secretly make an incredibly effective knight; someone who seems destined for a life as a swordsman suddenly shows a talent for black magic. You can lean into their predilections, or go against them, with almost equal efficacy.

For me, this was the best part of Three Houses, and the part that kept me up long after my wife had gone to bed. Planning a student’s final battle role takes far-seeing planning and preparation, and each step along the way felt thrilling. How can you not forge a connection with characters you’ve taken such pains to help along the way? How can you not explode with joy when they reach their goals?

That’s the real draw of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I think: the joy of seeing people you care about grow, while simultaneously confronting those you once cared about, but who followed another path. No wonder I wanted to start another playthrough. I think I’ll be starting them all over again for a long time.

[hoodlessmads]

Bloom Into You Chapter 41

…is maybe the literal cutest thing I’ve ever read.

I love how that teacher’s like, “What the hell were you doing in the student council room this late?” and they’re like, “Sorry, we just needed this key so we could go have our soapy love confession scene in there but you can have it back now.”

And they’re not quite full-on holding hands on the way home, but they’re just kinda

Just

Just kinda

Screaming.

The panel layout on the page where they’re both laying in bed awake thinking about each other is so lovely. How Yuu looks like she’s looking at Touko but she’s actually not because they’re in their own rooms but she actually is because they’re on the same page literally. And Touko’s adorable “that all just happened” expression as she’s holding her hand.

I find it interesting that as the manga has gone on and as the anime has gone into production and aired, the manga itself has begun to embrace those water themes more and more. Like, I don’t remember water being such a huge deal at the beginning of the manga, but it’s a highly prevalent visual motif in the anime. We see Yuu underwater when she feels distanced from her friends in the classroom, there’s underwater lighting at some points in the opening iirc, and this all comes to a head beautifully in the actual aquarium scene where they are underwater, with Touko looking up at the fish and stuff above them and Yuu leading Touko by the hand into the light, which she had previously felt so distant from. Anyway, it’s just nice how several of the past few chapter covers have featured Yuu underwater reaching toward the surface/the light, and this title talking about sea charts reminded me of that. I guess it’s meant to be like, she’s above water now. On the ocean, which is this whole new thing to navigate.

I love how Yuu comes skipping into school all pumped about her friends’ lives and literally anything at all because she’s in such a good mood and how shy she gets when asked if anything good happened, and the fact that she immediately took that charm out of the drawer and put it on her bag. Like, Yuu in this whole chapter is a whole ass “FINALLY” mood.

I love how the panel layout and our sense of time almost makes it look like Touko has been standing at the door to the classroom for a minute trying to gather the courage to face Sayaka the same way, as though things haven’t changed between them, or at least to face her at all. She goes in looking all determined, like she’s decided she’s going to say something to Sayaka because Sayaka deserves it and it’s only right, but then stops at “Good morning,” and doesn’t end up saying anything else, kind of chickens out, just looks over pensively wondering if she should say something, and if that’s not a Touko ass thing to do I don’t know what is lol. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s still brooding about what to say after school, trying to be all responsible, determined to be the liaison between friend and girlfriend. And meanwhile Yuu and Sayaka are as functional as ever and come to an understanding and reaffirm that they are best friends for life in like two seconds before Touko can even finish thinking about it. God, I adore Yuu and Sayaka’s friendship so much.

But the main point that the classroom scene got across for me was that things aren’t the same between Touko and Sayaka now. It’s awkward. It’s different. There’s a distance between them now that wasn’t there before. And while they will still be friends after this (for a while, if we believe the second light novel to be canon), this is definitely the beginning of them slowly drifting apart. I think it’s a good thing. Sayaka especially could use the opportunity to move on. Staying as close of friends as they were just wouldn’t be a healthy scenario for either of them, especially now that so many things have come to light that they previously kept secret from each other. As much as she does know her weaknesses and still love her, it still feels like there’s a part of Touko that Sayaka never really knew. They have both changed and grown so much since the beginning of the series, and the people they are now just aren’t as compatible as they once were, as friends or otherwise. I hope Sayaka comes to realize this sooner rather than later so that it can start hurting less.

Honestly this chapter filled my heart with fluffy cuteness like a water tank about to bust from too much pressure and I almost died from it, but that ONE panel with Sayaka’s face after she sees Yuu’s charm broke me. Nakatani is a master. That facial expression was just so raw. I hate to see her hurting like that. Sayaka is truly too good for this world. God, please future girlfriend, please love her well.

But Yuu and Sayaka’s friendship waters my crops. That cheek slap and stretch routine is a blatant gesture of unbridled affection disguised as fake irritation and you cannot convince me otherwise. This whole scene. Ugh, she’s so…nice?

Touko’s flustered reaction at seeing Yuu and Sayaka being such legitimately chill friends and having worked out all their issues while she was brooding and being anxious will never cease to amuse me. I love her, I try to defend Touko so much, but it’s scenes like this that prove once again that she’s actually just the yuri equivalent of a fuckboy, god bless her heart. I do adore her.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen disaster gay Nanami Touko so I was quite glad to see her make several appearances this chapter. They’re both trying so hard to be chill during the student council meeting but they both helplessly look up at each other at the same time. Or perhaps Yuu looks up helplessly and Touko is just dead ass staring at her, smitten. And Touko is so determined to type very important things afterwards. How is Nakatani so good at drawing cute ass snapshots of cute ass people? And I love how they’re…are ya’ll holding hands with your feet now? It’s adorable. Keep doing it.

Maki is that audience insert.

Same.

Doujima’s still completely oblivious that there are lesbians in this show.

So Yuu. I am always a huge sucker for when characters who are traditionally pretty unemotional get to a point where they’re so emotional that they can’t help but display that emotion in a way that’s uncharacteristic of how they’ve been up to this point, but for that reason is so incredibly satisfying to watch. It is so satisfying to see this adorable person that we’ve come to know and love finally get to this point. Yuu is honestly the best part of all of this fluff, by far. Talk about acting experience. This whole time, she’s worn the world’s greatest poker face, and now that she can finally let herself be the absolute gay mess she actually is, she’s just barely keeping it all in and it’s so adorable and gratifying. You wouldn’t have known this girl could get so red and flustered but damn if she isn’t and it is so fucking cute.

She’s so eager to finally say Touko’s name (with senpai), and in spite of how flustered and head over heels she is, she’s still the same functional and straightforward Yuu we’ve always known. She comes right out and tries to DTR within like an hour of having the initial thought. The response: “Girlfriends? I haven’t thought about it. I guess we are.” Touko, this is why you’re a meme.

And on the flip side of Yuu being so embarrassed, Touko’s all, “Stand aside, I’m Character Development Touko now. I’m not the flustered disaster lesbian you once knew. I’m Smooth Touko now. I’m the new and improved Kiss Your Tears Touko. I troll Yuu about saying my name and not the other way around. I’m smooth as hell now.” But then as soon as “Touko-senpai” comes out she’s just like “fuck.”

Their conversation about happiness at the end is really moving to me, because they’ve moved past the “ureshii” happiness they were talking about last chapter and they’re now talking “shiawase,” which specifically refers to lasting happiness. If that isn’t the deepest most romantic shit. I also feel like bringing up the way Yuu casually mentioned the idea of girlfriends living together at some point in the future and it was just kind of glossed over as if this girl is not already playing the long game with Touko and I’m crying inside. Because I genuinely believe they’ll get there and I always thought so, but this nod from canon is glorious. (You’ve been dating for one day, Yuu, chill.) But in all seriousness, Yuu, you absolute head over heels in love sap. This talk of girlfriends living together and this repeated mention of lasting happiness (has me feeling all types of ways) tells me where Yuu’s head is at. How serious her feelings actually are. Like, that’s marriage material, bitch. She’s that happy. I’m just…so happy for her.

I find it interesting that we haven’t really been in Touko’s head since she texted Yuu on the train in chapter whatever, and not since the confession scene last chapter. We’ve mostly been with Yuu ever since. Even that one classroom scene I would argue is more from Sayaka’s point of view. I hope next chapter we get a little more from Touko’s side. I have a feeling we’ll get something like a Touko-centric chapter at some point, as I feel her personal character arc and the whole thing with her sister still need some polishing off before we can bring the story to a close. But that’s just me.

In some ways, it’s a shame that there’s so few pages left before the end of the story. Yuu and Touko’s new relationship is completely uncharted territory for them now (not to unintentionally make a pun on the chapter title). That period of excitement and uncertainty at the beginning of a new relationship is always one of the most gratifying things to explore in a story for me, so I wish we had more time. There are so many interesting things to explore with this entire cast of characters that just won’t get explored, simply because of time constraints. Still, the flip side is that ending it here in volume 8 will give Bloom Into You the succinct, satisfying conclusion it deserves to a well-structured, well-paced arc, with absolutely no excess anywhere in sight. Bloom Into You is such a brilliant exercise in telling a complete, engaging story while trimming all the fat. Some romance stories can end up feeling bloated in terms of pacing and structure, but I have a feeling this is going to be just perfect. (Unless Nakatani Nio, actual manga genius and icon, somehow manages to fuck it up. Not likely.)

Once again, I’m excited to see where Nakatani takes us and the characters next. I can’t wait to see certain characters’ reactions to the new relationship, like Akari, Koyomi, and Rei. And god, I would love to see more of Yuu and Touko navigating this new relationship, what it means, what the rules are, how they define it to themselves and others. Basically, I just want to know what happens next. Is that too much to ask? Can’t I just know what happens next? God damn it.

#bloom into you #yagate kimi ni naru #yagakimi #i like talking about yagakimi #like a lot #it got progressively later at night/early morning as i wrote this so i dont even know whats happening anymore

[hyruviandoctor]

Top Five surrogate dads in fiction

For a second I forgot what that meant and a bolt of fear went through me because I just thought “like how Kim Kardashian is having her kids now, but a pregnant man” and that was a terrifying thought.

ANYWAY, in no particular order:

1. Alfonzo (The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks)

Hes just,,,,,,, so good, y’all. He cares about Link so much AND he cares about Zelda too, and it’s just so sweet and heartwarming to see them all interact all happily. It’s a nice relationship we don’t really get to see much of during the Zelda franchise, one where Link has a father figure so clearly, and I really appreciate how much went into making it feel real. Spirit Tracks on the whole makes the character relationships feel so good, which is part of the reason it’s one of my absolute favorite Zelda games.

2. Bobby (Supernatural)

Okay so I included a Supernatural character, which I know is asking for a fight from someone somewhere eventually, but I really like the relationship between Bobby, Sam, and Dean. Their actual father was a shitbag, and Bobby clearly cares for them so much. He’s far from perfect, but he knows that and just wants those boys to turn out better than him. (Side note: I’m gonna catch up on the last few seasons because you know I can’t just skip the final season)

3. All Might (My Hero Academia)

He’s just perfect. I love All Might so damn much he feels like he’s my father figure. He cares deeply for Deku and wants him to succeed and grow strong and I just live for it. I’m not caught up in the manga yet, but I am caught up in the anime, and it’s just amazing. I live for this dynamic of “pure-hearted goof adopted by older, bigger pure-hearted goof” where they do good in the world but also are so clearly both giant dorks. All Might is one of my all time favorite characters in any fiction, and he’s definitely one of the best dads.

4. Sully (Uncharted)

Holy SHIT Sully and Nate have such a great dynamic. This is like a combined Bobby and All Might situation where Sully wants Nate to be better than him but is also just as much a little shit as Nate is. Their banter makes their relationship feel so real, like they’re an actual father and son, and I absolutely adore it. If you’ve never played any of the Uncharted games I highly recommend you do (or watch someone play them on a stream wink wink)

5. Tony Stark (MCU)

I’m starting to realize my fave dynamic is “shithead adopted by older shithead and they get up to mischief and also save the world.” Tony and Peter have such a good relationship going, and you can definitely watch how Tony grows to really care about Peter as the films go on. Peter goes from idolizing him to realizing he’s just a man who’s made mistakes and is trying to make the world right, and Tony goes from using Peter to realizing he’s a good kid who just wants to do the right thing. It’s just a good dynamic about mutual respect between a mentor and his student that turns into a really solid father/son dynamic and I am here for it.

#sorry I wrote a paragraph for each #I just wanted to explain my thoughts y'know #this was such a good ask #it made me really think about my fave relationships in media #and I know I missed a few that could've been on here #but I like this list #thanks for the ask! #asks #anon #Tyler Talks