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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET

I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.

And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.

Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.

I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.

Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.

I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.

Notes

Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.

The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.

But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.

I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.

If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.

Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.

In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.

I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.

But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.

The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.

Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.

World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.

But this seems an odd idea.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.

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modlisznik · 3 years

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Dankovsky thoughts let's goooo

(judging by the shards of Discourse reaching me despite all the blocks it's literally the worst time to publish this, but well)

Now, I'm supporting this interpretation mostly on Patho 2 and Marble Nest and I'm aware that the moment the Bachelor's route sees the light of day (WHEN???) it all can turn out wildly inaccurate and frankly just my wishful thinking... but hell, it's certainly no less skewed and personal than all the other takes flying around. Besides, it's all just an interpretation of this one humble actor, Mark Immortel gave me the permit, sue me.

What I often see discussed in fan spaces is "what if Daniil wants to defeat death because (personal_reason)". What if it's supposed to prove his usefulness to the powers that be? What if he grew up as an overachieving kid with strict parents, and now he feels he's a fraud and a failure unless he literally does the impossible thing? What if he suffers from thanatophobia, so it's a fight against the source of his very real fear? What if there's a personal tragedy, someone dead who he desperately wants to bring back? Now I'm not here to bash anyone's interpretation, we're all valid here and I love seeing all these ideas, that's what the fandom is for. But what I, Mo, wish to see in this character is a little different.

First, the dying - it's about control. Danko is all about control, whether it's how quickly he jumps into action and assumes a directive role, how frustrated he is about people disregarding orders... and that lovely Latin quote in Diurnal ending; while Artemy mostly goes with the flow and trust his intuition, Daniil wants to seize control of the situation and play his most optimal scenario. With the way he talks about his work in Thanatica, I don't get the feeling that their goal was full and total immortality, complete eradication of the phenomenon of dying (think about all the folk tales about closing Death in a bottle and the mayhem that ensues), but rather understanding and, ultimately, controlling the process of dying. To give people means and tools to decide whether they *want* to die at this point or not. And... it's a good thing? And not at all selfish, mind you, he's not like a lich in D&D, he doesn't seek to stop his own death. Or even the death of someone he loves. From what we know, his goals are genuinely altruistic. To stop people from dying unless they want to is a good thing, that's a benefit to humanity as a whole. And it's a benefit not lesser than the gift of flying, of defying gravity; just like with flying, it's not about eradicating the gravity (because it has certain benefits lol) but about controlling the fall. The whole idea might sound stupid, fantastical, utopian, but hey - we made some progress in this field already since the times Patho - presumably - takes place, we now understand death as a lack of brain functions rather than lack of heartbeat; who knows what's next. We should study it, we should ask questions. But it wouldn't be interesting if Daniil was just a humble lab-dwelling scientist. Since he has all this dramatic aura of a mad scientist around him, since he speaks about his study in the terms of "fighting death", he invites questions about his motives. At one hand, I get it - people who are happy and feel fulfilled don't pick impossible fights so yeah, it's fair to speculate what kind of damage made him this way. But on the other hand... there's this idea that every time we get a character whose aim is to disrupt the status quo we're almost conditioned to assume that they are somehow damaged, hurt, broken, that under all their ideas lies some trauma that we can point our fingers at and say "aha, so that's what it was all about, see, you aren't happy in this world because you are broken. The world is fine as it is, let's get you some therapy". I just don't vibe with it, and I disagree with the idea that every attempt at the betterment of mankind must come from the place of trauma, must be fuelled by trauma; I don't want to think that the only kind of motivation is the negative one. There are beautiful stories to be told about that, but I don't want for them to be the only story.

I want Daniil who actually, genuinely loves humanity. I want him to really be exceptionally intelligent, well educated and decide that since he has these extraordinary means, it is his duty to put them to the best possible use because you can demand the most from those who have the most and what goal could be nobler for a doctor than to give people an upper hand against death? I want him to have that aura of the XIX scholars who still unironically believed in progress (and were more than a little into occultism). I want him to dream about growing apple tree gardens in the desert (to hell with sustainable agricultural practices lol) while recognizing that people still need bread, even if they need dreams more. And I want him to be a vain, petty dandy with short temper and a capability to be a tiny wee murderous, because people are allowed to be messy and contradictory

So he loves humanity, but has troubles loving, or even relating to particular people. He's self-absorbed, and his focus is at the same time too wide and too narrow, because while he fights the fight of the largest possible scope - against death, against god and nature for the betterment of all mankind - he fails to take into account all the mundane struggle of the people around him. I don't believe that he despises people, as the Death says in Marble Nest, but rather underestimates them. As many of the truly passionate, he can't believe that the people around him could NOT recognize the importance of his work, realize that he's doing it all for them and at least not get in his way. He assumes that people are, at their core, rational and will behave reasonably - or rather, the way he expects them to, the way he himself would behave, because he has trouble putting himself in someone else's shoes. And he ends up disappointed, over and over, when his ideas about what would people do clash against people being, well, people with their own agendas. When the Plague strikes, he does what's rational - orders a quarantine, forbids people from leaving their homes and so on -expecting people to recognize the level of danger the same way he does and comply for their own good; lo and behold, his safety measures are being broken left and right. When the corpses pile up, he expects people to understand the sanitary hazard the same way he does and recognize that the very real threat of *another* outbreak is more important than the words of a distressed girl living at the graveyard. He wants them to disregard their personal plans and customs because that's what he would do. At the same time yes, he is arrogant, he assumes he knows best, he immediately puts himself at the very top of the responsibility ladder - but I get the feeling that it's not because he thinks so poorly of anyone else, rather so highly of himself, expects so much from himself. And as a result of seeing himself as the most crucial person around - to fight the plague; I don't think he considers himself important because of who he is but what he does - he ends up with this patronizing attitude that he considers others his helpers, the extension of his will, or not at all. where I'm getting with this? I'm not sure; I really don't have list of themes I want to see in his route, I trust in the devs to handle it with the same care that hook me in the Artemy's route. I'm curious about what kind of story they want to tell. But in the meantime - we all know it's going to be bittersweet at best and something something about flying too close to the sun and how every miracle is paid with blood. Still, we need people dreaming about these miracles and for once, I wish that this dream was born out of love

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #ohgod what have I done #I've spent way too much time on writing this instead of playing games #it's like I'm being punished for my hubris already #anyway have a good one patho fandom

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

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In a response to a different ask you mentioned mc and Jacob having family in R, could you elaborate on that? I’ve seen posts suggesting that it’s one of their parents (although I have not seen anyone suggest that it could be both)

I have not made any one particular post about this either, having talked about it in numerous others, but as of this moment I cannot seem to locate the ones that I’d really like to reference. Tumblr’s search engine could really use some work. No matter, I say yet again that now is as good a time as any to make a long post about this. Here we go!

There is a chance that both of MC’s parents could be involved, or simply one of them. However, between the two, I’m going to say their mother is the far more likely culprit.

Family

First of all, we’ve hardly heard anything about MC’s father. There’s a good chance that he’s dead, died in some freak accident or whatnot. That there was a divorce. Or that he has otherwise abandoned the family. There is room in there for him having left to join R, but considering that Jacob has brushed shoulders with them a few times, you would think he’d have come across his Dad in that time. The father has almost no development at all, compared to the mother. Of course, everything I’m about to say about Jacob’s Mother could just be characterization of an imperfect human in it’s own right...or it could be something shiftier. But the fact remains that Jacob and MC’s Mother is...kind of a terrible parent, if you really think about.

In the Holiday TLSQs, she goes off on vacation to see extended family, and MC is never invited. This has happened at least three times. She leaves behind her last child, when as far as I can tell, it’s just the two of them at home. Which lines up with MC telling Rowan about how “distant” their parents have always been. When she discovered that MC was poking around the Cursed Vaults, she did not discipline them or even forbid this search from continuing. She gave her blessing, she encouraged it, in the hopes that MC would find Jacob. Not only is this reckless...it’s also a little inconsistent for a mother who apparently wouldn’t even let MC ride a broomstick in their youth. Unless she just shamelessly favors Jacob, which admittedly is possible, why would she ever be okay with this? Here’s another question, did she know Jacob was arrested? If so, how come she never told MC?

Inheritance.

Here’s the thing: I think it’s apparent that R has been interested in MC’s family for a very long time, and we don’t really know why, exactly. How did Jacob get mixed up with the Cursed Vaults, or with R in the first place? I find it hard to believe that it was just by chance. Considering that the events of HPHM are more or less repeating history and MC is mirroring Jacob, we can assume that the plans R has for MC were once the plans they had for Jacob. That they’ve moved onto MC for whatever reason. And what do they have planned, exactly? They want MC to join them, and perhaps lead someday. Which is...kind of ridiculous, if you think about it. MC is not only young, but they are a known enemy. Why does R want this teenager who has no reason to ever serve them, to be put in a position of power within their ranks? How long has R even wanted this? How is it already all decided for them that MC will rule, when they have no guarantee that they can even turn MC to the Dark Side? Well...given the culture of the Wizarding World, I can think of one justification: Blood. If it’s all about blood, if the title of Leader is an inherited position...then there could be a case for why R would consider it to be something that passes to MC automatically.

Which would only make sense if one of MC’s parents was the Leader right now. It would explain why R was so interested in Jacob in the first place. He is the Heir, MC is the Spare. Maybe the plan was always to rescue Jacob, but R changed their minds once they realized that Jacob was a lost cause, would never join them. Maybe they sent Rakepick to guide MC toward Jacob’s rescue and train them along the way, just in case something happened to Jacob. I’ve wondered for a long time why R seemed to switch from wanting MC dead, to announcing their plan to kill one of MC’s friends instead. Why downgrade like that? I believe Rakepick saw strong potential in MC, and over the course of her time at Hogwarts, realized that even if Jacob was salvageable, MC might be the better candidate. Hence her conducting “experiments” like destroying MC’s wand. Trying to impart “wisdom” like when she shows them the Cruciatus Curse. And her cryptic advice about how MC may need to “take the lead.” MC was always a person of interest to R, their bloodline giving them prominence, but at a certain point they seemed to change their minds about MC being a loose end. At first, they wanted to use MC’s talents to free Jacob - hence MC’s mother encouraging them to continue the search. But at a certain point, probably after an endorsement from Rakepick, R decided that MC had greater potential as a future leader, and they were unspoiled. After all, perhaps Jacob’s time in the Portrait weakened him. That would have been a possibility too. Hell, even Merula’s crush on Jacob could have just been her way of trying to lure Jacob back to R. I know it sounds crazy, but what if there was some divide in R between those who want MC to rule, and those who want Jacob? If we assume Merula’s hatred of Rakepick was not a facade, she would totally side against Rakepick for no other reason than spite.

Time to get Meta.

I’ll admit, in a patriarchal society, it makes more sense for it be the father, and his bloodline. But what if MC’s mother was always intended to just be a kind of “regent” and await one of her children to come of age? What if she’s fine with that, hence the strange idea of a Leader planning their own successor. It also comes down to the question of just how MC’s family came to power. What is it that’s so special about this bloodline? It may be the Legilimency, but that ability isn’t that hard to come by. I think it’s something deeper, and it may be connected to the Cursed Vaults. There are so many quests that have been pulled that offered ideas developing Hogwarts and this history. Remember the one where Nearly Headless Nick helped MC look for the four sigils? It was taken out. And it’s not like the devs have never done this before: Removed quests that had spoilers. The Weird Sister TLSQ gave away the location of the final vault, and Moody’s character.

The other thing is, I feel as though the Leader’s identity is going to be some sort of plot twist. It has to be, considering that one of the biggest facets of the Hogwarts “Mystery” has been the secrets of R, and what they’re up to. The Leader has to be a character who we’ve either met before as the player, or MC has met before, personally. Trouble is...most of the original characters are students. The adults are usually canon. That leaves who? Madam Villanelle? Bilton Bilmes? Lomelia Prounce? Could be one of them. Or it could be someone who means something to MC. Which again, could refer to their father...but I think the mother, being an active part of their life, would have more of an emotional impact. And given how she’s been mentioned several times, and had her character developed through these throwaway lines...it would be a bigger impact for the player and the story, as well, if it was the mother.

#HPHM Theory #HPHM R #HPHM Jacob #HPHM Jacob's Sibling #Patricia Rakepick #HPHM Analysis #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #HPHM Cabal #HPHM Spoilers #HPHM Jacob's Mother

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madam-whim · 4 years

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Okay so here are my hcs for an alternate ending for the DB questline in Oblivion, because this has been bothering me ever since I noticed how obvious the dead drop order switch actually is. So this is basically what I think would have happened if the devs had allowed the Silencer to use more than one brain cell.

When Ocheeva hands them the letter from Lucien, they read it immediately and then make their way to Fort Farragut. They already know something must be wrong if Lucien tells them to not even speak to Ocheeva, who is basically his daughter, about a letter that barely gives them any information except for the fact that he needs to talk to them.

They don’t bother with entering the fort through the front door. At this point, they’ve been with the Brotherhood long enough to know that a certain amount of paranoia comes with the job, and they know Lucien would never pick a hideout with only one way in and out when an entire party of adventurers could come stumbling in at any moment. So they just… looked around for a little while. This is also what they tell him when he asks how they knew there was a secret trap door inside the hollowed out tree. “And besides, I didn’t want to kill your guardians. They must be a pain to replace”, they add.

When Lucien tells them about the purification, they’re not entirely on board with the idea. They understand they’re the only one who definitely cannot be the traitor, but they also can’t bring themselves to believe that any of the other Cheydinhal assassins would would ever betray the Brotherhood. “Can’t the Night Mother just tell the Listener who it is?”, they ask. “Don’t you think we’ve tried that?”, Lucien replies. “She won’t tell us.” At first, it really seems as if there is no other way. They can’t possibly disobey Lucien’s orders, and if he thinks the other family members need to die, then they need to die.

… or do they? The way they see it, the others only need to be taken out for a while. If the traitor’s activities cease as soon as the Cheydinhal family is out of the picture, well, then they can still be stabbed. And if not, then there is proof the traitor must be someone else. So they come up with a plan. They return to the sanctuary, pretend that everything is fine, and convince Vicente to tell them where he gets his Languorwine. They find the alchemist who makes it and threaten him into teaching them how to create it (and the antidote).

It would be almost too easy to use it to ‘murder’ the entire family in one go. But then they would still need to hide them somewhere where no one will find and bury or burn the bodies while making sure the Black Hand is convinced they’re dead. And so they wait until the family members leave the sanctuary for one reason or another, and then they ambush them in the middle of nowhere, where the disappearance of a corpse could be blamed on a number of things. They move their brothers and sisters to safe locations, call in some favors to make sure everyone is taken care of and nobody really dies, and that’s that.

They know they don’t need to worry about the Night Mother – if she won’t even tell the Listener who really wishes to harm the Brotherhood, then she won’t talk about this either. They return to Lucien with a clear conscience, because what difference does it make whether the others are really dead or not, as long as the traitor can’t continue his work, should he be among them? If Lucien suspects something is amiss, he doesn’t say it. He names them his new Silencer and sends them to their first dead drop.

The first two contracts go well, and the Silencer is starting to worry they might have to kill the family after all, but when they pick up their third set of orders, they notice something is off. The handwriting the orders are in is completely different from the one they know. They can’t really be sure Lucien didn’t do this on purpose, but the entire letter seems different somehow. Unable to ask him directly because they’re in Skingrad and Farragut is located on the other side of Cyrodiil if Lucien is even there, they decide to seek help from someone who’s known the Speaker for a very long time and who is conveniently hidden with Count Hassildor right now.

When Vicente wakes up, he is not amused. He does give the Silencer the chance to explain themselves, though. So they tell him about the fact that there was something to the rumours about a traitor after all, and that they faked a bunch of deaths because something didn’t feel right, and that now it seems they were right not to kill the family, and they need Vicente’s advice on something. They ask if Lucien has ever changed his handwriting, and Vicente tells them no. Then, they ask whether he’s ever provided background information on a contract, because this one clearly states why the target has to die and who wants him dead. Vicente takes one look at the letter and shakes his head. “Someone has switched your orders”, he says. “I was afraid you’d say that. Well, we’d better show this to Lucien”, the Silencer answers.

They return to Fort Farragut together, the Silencer entering the hideout first. Lucien didn’t expect to see the Silencer, and he definitely didn’t expect to see Vicente following them. He does get angry, for a moment, but he allows them to explain what happened. They come to the conclusion that the traitor is still hard at work and planning to blame this entire thing on Lucien, but must believe the Silencer to be either half-blind or stupid. They promptly decide to use this to their advantage.

They agree that Vicente should go and wake Ocheeva and Teinaava, then send the two of them to scout out the next dead drop location while the Silencer leaves for Bruma and seeks out J’Ghasta, letting him know that someone is specifically targeting members of the Black Hand while pretending to be Lucien. J’Ghasta agrees to faking his own death.

While the Silencer is running around Cyrodiil convincing Speakers and Silencers to disappear for a while, Ocheeva and Teinaava are working on figuring out who is behind the switched orders. At this point, Lucien is already in hiding, just to be safe. They can’t let any members of the Black Hand know what’s going on unless they’ve been targeted, because that might alert the traitor about the fact that they’re on to him. Unfortunately, this also means that the remaining members don’t know that Lucien’s Silencer is not really murdering anyone. So Vicente stays with him, just in case the Black Hand gets the wrong idea.

It takes a while, but Ocheeva and Teinaava finally manage to uncover Bellamont’s identity. They present the evidence to the Listener, Lucien’s name is cleared, Bellamont is taken care of, and the Silencer makes another trip across Cyrodiil to collect those of their siblings who are still ‘dead’. Things almost return to how they were before… with the exception of the Silencer taking Bellamont’s place as a Speaker.

#oblivion #dark brotherhood #lucien lachance #vicente valtieri #ocheeva #teinaava #silencer #bethesda cant convince me the silencer would actually be this stupid #long post

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sheep-mc · 3 years

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As promised from yesterday...

Yesterday following my not-so-brief rant post, I stated that I’d follow up the travesty of that event with a more in-depth analysis and more collected thoughts. That is what awaits you under the cut! Be warned though, there are going to be major spoilers for the event (and possibly things that occur from lesson 20 and prior)

First I’m going to give a summary of the event and how I view it. This is mostly for those of you who haven’t played the event yet, so you can understand why the community is so angry about it. If you’ve already played, feel free to skip the next 3 paragraphs.

It starts out with Lord Diavolo suggesting a party to improve the bonds between the exchange students and the student council. Asmodeus suggests that everyone should dress up - but nothing big, just small angel wings and such. Diavolo shakes his head and says that everyone should go all out, because if you’re going to dress up, you may as well go all the way. Several of the brothers (Mammon, Lucifer, Belphegor) express disdain for this, saying that they don’t want to get dressed up, but Diavolo uses his own magic to put them into outfits anyway. Not just any outfits. Their old Celestial Realm outfits. Simeon then mentions that Michael has given him a gift to give to the brothers, as a thank you for them treating the angels so well. The gift is only for the brothers, not MC, not Diavolo, just the brothers. Simeon aware of the effect the bangles will have on the brothers. He does not tell them this until they’ve put it on. He knows fully well that the bangles will cause them to act in more “righteous ways”. The bangles then react unexpectedly with Diavolo’s magic, causing the outfits and bangles to become irremovable. That is to say, they cannot take them off. It was forced upon them when several of them clearly showed that they did not want to go along with this, and now they cannot undo it. That’s the first issue.

After this, Diavolo still decides that he wants to hold the party, and Simeon agrees. The preparations continue nonetheless. Throughout the event, we speak to the brothers as they’re preparing for the party. Here we’re shown that the brainwashing of the bangles is gradual, not immediate. Mammon is able to resist it slightly at first, claiming that he’s going to cut the clothes off of him. Once he grabs the scissors, his behavior changes. He decides that what he’s doing is dangerous and instead goes to put the scissors away. This action scares Leviathan, who fears that they’re all going to turn out like Mammon and that he doesn’t want that to happen. When we’re alone with Lucifer and Satan, the bangles have only started to affect them, but it hasn’t fully kicked in. They express that they don’t like the situation at all and that they don’t feel like themselves, ending their interactions by telling MC to leave them alone because they don’t want to be seen like this. Speaking to the rest of the brothers, the effects of the bangles have been fully realized. Leviathan has put away all of his obsessions, offering a Ruri-Chan figure to MC because he ”doesn’t need it anymore”. He goes on to say that he was hiding behind anime and manga and that from now on he will work on nurturing his relationships with his brothers and being honest with MC about his feelings. Even if MC rejects him or calls him gross, he doesn’t get upset. This is obviously out of character for our beloved otaku.

The rest of the brothers suffer a similar fate. Beelzebub no longer feels hungry, claiming that instead of feeding himself, he wishes to feed others and see them happy. He says that he wants to be kinder, implying that he wasn’t kind enough before - which is fucking bullshit because holy shit this is Beel we’re talking about are you fucking kidding me you don’t think Beel was kind enough he was literally the nicest of the brothers what the fuck are you on about - ANYWAY. Belphegor goes on to say that he was wasting his life by sleeping it away, and that all of his brothers are good and that he wants to spend more time with them. He doesn’t want to take naps anymore, unless prompted by MC, and he says that he used unfair tactics when trying to win MC’s love. He also says that he won’t be doing that anymore, and is instead going to do things “the fair way”. Asmodeus offers you all of his beauty products, claiming that he was trying too hard to be beautiful before. If you choose to kiss him, he’ll go along with it, but say that he feels like he’s betraying his brothers and being unfair and sneaky. For some reason, I can’t recall much of Mammon’s interaction for the life of me. I remember him saying that he was mean and rude and greedy and shameless before, and how he wants to change to be a better person now, but I don’t remember the second half of the interaction. I just know it was bad. The event ends with the party being held, Diavolo and Simeon smiling and laughing, Solomon and Luke being concerned, and Lucifer overcoming the power of the bangle. Well, that’s what Lucifer says, but I believe he was lying.

Here’s my actual opinions on it: It was fucked up! I left this bit out of the summary, but all of the brothers (after Lucifer and Satan) express that they don’t want to do anything unless you’re okay with it. They want to be someone good enough that you’d approve of it. They don’t want to upset their brothers. All in all, they’re prioritizing the thoughts and feelings of others over their own. They express hatred for their past selves, condemning their actions and interests as shameful and wrong. Even their most harmless actions. They got rid of every single bit of their own personality in order to “purify” themselves. This ideology is the exact embodiment of toxic positivity and it’s revolting. I would also like to focus more on how all of the brothers (except for Asmodeus and Beelzebub) showed that they didn’t like this idea. for the most part, they were strongly against it. Satan, who according to this event, has never been an angel, says that he doesn’t feel like himself at all. He shows the most fear towards the effects of the bangle and quite frankly it’s just. Disturbing to see someone like Satan so afraid. Lucifer tries to hide his worry, but his thoughts are similar to Satan’s, since he also says that he can’t rest because he doesn’t feel like himself.

Some of you might think that the changes were good or harmless or whatever, and you might have appreciated the fact that they’re trying to change for the better, but realize this: their change was forced. They didn’t do it of their own free will, they didn’t have any experiences that caused them to think or feel this way. It was all forced. They’ve been brainwashed. They are not doing this of their own accord. It’s not them. They are not themselves.

And this is not a side effect of the Celestial Realm or being an angel! If you’ve played through certain cards devilgram story (Belphegor’s “Hatred” or Lucifer’s “Glory Days”) you can see that the brothers are still themselves even though they are angels. They still have their personality and are not completely “holy” or “pure” or “righteous”. This is specifically a result of the bangles. If this had been part of the main story it would have been interesting. It could have been more thought out and well written and had a conclusive ending. So where am I going with this?

I believe that the devs had good intentions but executed them poorly. This is an event, meaning it’s non-canon and not related to the main story. I think that the devs wanted to show how toxic the beliefs of the angels can be, and they did good on that. That was genuinely disturbing to play through. What they’re missing is criticism. If the brother’s had returned to their normal selves and said “what the fuck was that”, then it would have been okay. If they had focused more on how wrong and weird the changes were, and how it’s actually bad, then that would have been a satisfying conclusion. But they didn’t. Well, there was one brother that supposedly returned to his normal self, right? Lucifer.

At the party, Lucifer tells MC that he’s returned to his normal self, but admittedly the clothes still cannot be removed. He shows that he didn’t enjoy the experience, but as he’s watching the rest of his brothers still controlled by the bangles, he...doesn’t do anything. He says that it’s interesting and that they should let it play out a bit more, just to watch them. Now, I am not a Lucifer simp. My MC has copious issues with him. However. This characterization is just PLAIN FUCKING WRONG! WHAT?! What were the devs thinking?! That’s Lucifer! He cares about his brothers above all else in this world! He was strongly against the angel outfit and bangle idea! He said that it made him feel unlike himself! Lucifer has experienced the brainwashing of the bangle first hand! He would never, EVER say something like that when he KNOWS how serious it is. Yes, he is a sadist. Yes, he likes to joke sometimes. But this? He would be way more concerned for them. Which is why I believe he was still under the effects of the bangle. I don’t have a full theory for how much it was affecting him at that point in time, but that will probably come about later.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the event thus far! It’s possible that the next event will have a callback to this one (considering how this one mentioned TSL: The Musical) but I highly doubt it. I also don’t think that there’s going to be continuation of this in the main story. I doubt we’ll ever get our resolution, but if you want one, I plan on rewriting the entire event on my Wattpad. I’ll announce it when I finish posting it, so feel free to follow for that or just check it out later. My dms should be open and obv you can comment/reblog on this post so if you want to discuss this more, feel free to intract!

#obey me #obey me swd #mod talks #long post #haha sorry ive got many thoughts head full #ive scripted a whole animatic for this event with mind electric from hawaii part two but i dont animate so idk how that's gonna work out #hope you enjoyed!#this took like an hour and a half to write jkefhgjk

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100: 7x09 The Flock

And finally, the end of my and @jeanie205‘s little rewatch, and the last review I still have to post before the show’s return. And for once, I can write a shorter review than usual, because this episode isn’t all that interesting. It’s my least favorite episode at least since mid-season 5.

I have liked season 7 more than most people seem to - even though I miss Bellamy and want to see more focus on Clarke, and I’ve mostly been patient about waiting for the story to really kick into gear. I understand that BTS issues have affected the season and caused a lot of rewrites, that the first half of the season was mostly setup or it focused on developing stories for other characters (and I have enjoyed many of them, especially for Octavia, Murphy, Emori, Diyoza and Indra).

But the pacing hasn’t been the greatest, and that particularly became obvious with this episode. There was no reason to stall the action and go back and waste this entire episode on flashbacks to the 3 months that Echo, Hope, Octavia and Diyoza spent training to become Disciples. Some of this could have been included in 7x07, and this episode could have featured maybe 5-10 minutes of flashbacks and then returned to the present day action, instead of leaving Clarke, Raven, Miller, Jordan and Niylah in that same Stone Room where they have been for 3 (soon to be 4) episodes, and completely leaving them out of this episode.

I’m not even speaking from the perspective of a Clarke fan here - I enjoyed the Skyring storyline in 7x02 and 7x04. But these extended flashbacks strike me as unnecessary and far more predictable than the writers seemed to think. It’s not like we needed to see why they agreed to join the Disciples - we know it, they had no choice and that was the best solution at the moment. Clarke may be wondering whose side they are on and if they have been brainwashed, but we know better. It was never a mystery for the viewers. And this episode’s Bardo scenes are no “1984″, we aren’t wondering “oh no, are they really brainwashed?” There is little ambiguity - except maybe for Echo, the only one we could maybe wonder about “is she really going to be loyal to the Disciples now?” - but even that isn’t because she seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid, but because she may just think there isn’t anything better to do and no one else to follow. And that is probably not what’s going on, though it would probably be more interesting than the more probable and predictable plot about Echo pretending to be loyal to the Disciples while planning revenge on them.

Maybe it would be different if this episode had the Disciples deliver some important new info that would convince both the characters and the viewers that the “last war” is really something worth fighting. But the show keeps withholding information about what these concepts are - who is the Last War to be fought against? What is transcendence? And no one seems to ask about it - or they do, but off-screen.

In the meantime, the Sanctum storyline reached its climax - Sheidheda revealing himself, killing a bunch of people and staking his claim to the throne, so to speak - but it’s a climax that pretty much everyone has been expecting since Sheidheda took over Russell’s body in the season premiere. What’s worse is that this was made to happen through an incredibly OOC action by Indra. And I don’t think many will miss the Faithful - an incredibly annoying bunch of minor characters. (They are, of course, some of the titular “flock”, together with the Disciples. We get it! It’s all about blind faith and worshiping false gods! The entire season has been hammering it home!)

The episode started well, with Anders taking HEDO to the surface of Bardo to show them the crystallized forms of the extinct Bardoans. I guess the giant aliens story was true after all. This made Octavia realize “Gabriel saved us” (so I guess they won’t be too angry at him when they see him again, which they haven’t so far), It was supposed to show what kind of threat the humans are facing in the last war. Except that was all the info we got on that subject. No one asked: Who is the enemy? Where are they? When will they attack? Why do you need the Key to fight that war? Or, if they did, it was off-screen. (Surely they would have asked some questions during those 3 months?)

Instead, we get to hear more details about the Bardo society. They grow babies artificially, like Primes did with the other people in Sanctum. Not a huge surprise. They don’t want any family relationships, just like they don’t want any friendships or romantic relationships, no individual ties, except the worship of the Shepherd. We already knew that. We get it, they are ultra-collectivist. They want to get rid of emotions, etc.

We don’t know for sure how they feel about sex (if it is fully forbidden, or if it’s allowed if it’s supervised and people get approved sex partners they exchange on a regular basis, as in some dystopias) - so I’m not sure how they (would) feel about Octavia and Levitt getting it on, which was one of the few new developments in this episode (also easily predictable, especially after their tender face touching scene in 7x06). Echo mentions at one point that the Disciples are always watching them - so does that mean Anders also watched Octavia and Levitt having sex? Surely Anders must be aware of their relationship, or at least that Levitt is really into Octavia? I’ve always been open about my lack of enthusiasm for this romance, but I generally support the idea of Octavia getting a chance to enjoy herself with a nice hot guy who’s helpful.

But Anders even letting Levitt be involved in their training and testing, without controlling him, makes no sense, unless Anders is incredibly stupid. This has been my problem with this storyline all along. I’m never sure if Anders is really that stupid to trust Levitt, or if he has some kind of smart plan and has been using Levitt on purpose to get Octavia to join the Disciples. There has been speculation about whether Levitt himself is manipulating Octavia, and/or she is manipulating him - and a part of me would want some of that to be true: this relationship and this entire plot would be a lot more interesting if they were manipulating each other (while also liking each other), but I don’t think that’s the case. Levitt is probably exactly what he seems to be, and I don’t think the writing here is that smart. But I can at least hope that Anders is not a total idiot and that he’s figured out Levitt is helping Octavia, but decided to use him anyway.

Now, I did have a tiny flicker of hope that Levitt may be intended to be seen as a more ambiguous figure - when he was rating HEDO for “participation, stamina, strength and speed” (he rated Hope 1 for participation) - and Diyoza was suspicious of him and asked him: "You always have so many jobs?"

Another “are the Disciples really that stupid?” moment was when Levitt randomly told HEDO that they keep samples of the same Gem 9 that killed the native Bardoans, and that could kill everyone on Bardo. Why the heck would they be keeping it, let alone telling people about it? Does Levitt want HEDO to kill everyone on Bardo? I hope this is fake info and another test - but I fear this is just bad writing and a clumsy exposition to set up the Chekov’s Gun that our protagonists will be tempted to use.

We also learn Anders was Orlando's mentor, It’s weird that Hope mentions him as a way to try to get Anders upset (you’d think she would also be upset, since she made him think she was his friend and betrayed him). But Anders remain calm and cold, and Hope only gets upset when he mentions Dev.

If there is any ambiguity, it’s only with regard to Echo - she is probably just pretending, too, but there’s a tiny possibility that she really has decided to join them because she needs to be a soldier and have a war to fight and someone to follow. which has been established as her trait. And Echo does point out that the brainwashed Disciples children have it much better than she ever did with Azgeda. Hope throws that into her face here when she says “You just like someone to give you orders”. But that’s probably just a red herring.

The Disciples breed a limited number due to the limited resources, Why don’t they all instead just go to Sanctum, or Skyring?

The simulations were somewhat interesting, but it was pretty clear that Diyoza, Octavia and Echo were pretending to be able to kill Hope because they were threatened they would be sent to Skyring individually to die alone. Diyoza even straight up told Hope it’s what they need to do, and Echo noted “they are watching us all the time” before starting to talk about how the Disciples have convinced her to believe in their goal. Hope was acting like a child and was unable to pretend - because she is still inexperienced, she has spent most of her life on Skyring with just a few people. Now, I did gasp at first when I saw Echo killing Hope, and to be fair, I can see Echo killing Hope in real life, but Diyoza and Octavia killing Hope? Hell no.

The only thing that made me think a little bit was - is every detail in the fear simulations planned by the Disciples (probably Levitt) - or do their own minds fill in the blanks? In Echo's simulation, Hope told her "they took Bellamy from you" and called her out “I thought Bellamy meant something to you". If that was a product of Echo’s own mind, it’s a bit like Clarke calling herself out through Blodreina in her mindspace in season 6 - “I thought you cared about Bellamy” - which was the embodiment of her guilt. That would support the idea that Echo is not planning revenge, because why would she be calling herself out in her subconsciousness? But that’s a moot point if it’s all designed by Levitt.

Speaking of which, has Levitt seen Echo’s, Diyoza’s and Hope’s memories, and has he seen anything past Octavia’s season 3 memories? That has never been clear - the Disciples don’t know Clarke doesn’t still have the Flame, but they knew what Gabriel looked like (in 7x01), which they could have only learned from Octavia... and Octavia here says “You’ve seen me at my worst”, which seems to imply he saw her as Blodreina.

But while Echo may have wanted to save Hope from a worse fate when she sentenced her to 5 years on Skyring, that’s cold comfort since 5 years all alone would be terrible and drive anyone insane. (It did with Orlando.) Somehow I doubt Hope will get to be sent there - something will happen and she will probably be saved from that.

The highlight of this episode for me ended up being the mention of Etherea- because it confirms some of my theories and it’s a new planet we will be seeing soon and where Bellamy probably is.

On Sanctum, Emori is put in danger again, as Nikki’s hostage - and Murphy is worried and trying to save her. Which has been a recurring theme - it’s the only way to make people care about this plot. I doubt that many people care about the Faithful, a bunch of stupid a-holes who have so recently planned to burn their own children out of their misguided faith. I did feel a little tinge of sympathy for Jeremiah, the guy who keeps thanking Murphy for saving his son - because the guy is so clueless that he doesn’t seem to understand that he himself had the agency to decide what happens to his son. But this is probably why Madi’s friend is shown here with Madi (his name is Rex, according to the credits - he is the Sanctum boy who clearly doesn’t follow in his parents’ footsteps and invited the null boy from CoG to play soccer with him) - we need to see someone who will be hurt by what happens when Sheidheda kills these people. (The trailer shows Rex grieving one of the victims in the next episode.)(Trey, the “adjustor” who brainwashed Jordan and acted as the leader of the Faithful in earlier episodes, was not in this episode, so I’m afraid that a-hole is still around.)

But Murphy and Emori did have good moments in this episode. Both were very brave - Emori did not allow Nikki to use her to blackmail Murphy, and Murphy, this time, wasn’t just desperately worried about Emori’s life - but he offered his own life for hers. (He claimed to be the one responsible for Hatch’s death by saying it was his idea to use the prisoners - which is true; the part he left out is that it was Raven’s idea to lie to them.) This is huge - he has been willing to do a lot to save Emori, but has never offered to sacrifice himself for someone before, not even for her. The closest he had come to it before was telling her and Monty to leave him to save themselves in 5x13.

And Murphy's line to Jackson "I'm 150 pounds wet and you can’t fight to save your life” was one of the highlights of the episode.

Another development is that Indra and the others finally know that Clarke, Raven, Gaia, Miller and others are missing - but they still don’t seem to have any idea where they may be.

Sheidheda quoting Casablanca is one of the weirder moments of this season. I suppose he may have know about it from Becca or some of the other early Grounders.

Apart from being kind of boring, this episode’s biggest problem is what Indra does at the end. Of course Indra wants Sheidheda dead, but it would be a lot more in character if she killed him herself. She could have pulled a gun and shot him in the head the moment they had resolved the situation. She should be aware of what a good fighter Shady is, and that everyone in Sanctum sucks at fighting (especially when they’re not high on red toxin).

On rewatch, I realized that, while Knight (the Sangedakru who stans Shady) and another Grounder knelt immediately, Penn (who is Trikru) and another Grounder just stood there - so we’ll see how divided or not the Grounders will be about him in 7x10.

Rating: 4/10

#the 100 #the 100 7x09 #the flock #the 100 season 7

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thesmalltowngal · 4 years

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Snowbaz 31- Our Purpose

OTP Prompt #31: The night after Simon shows Baz the stars, Baz can't help but ask for it one more time.

~ So I was having some major troubles writing the current request that I'm working on, so I decided to get the creative juices flowing by writing a paragraph of something I couldn't get out of my head. This what that paragraph turned into. I'm very unsure about this one, and I've been having a bit of a rough go of it lately, so some love in the comments would be really appreciated, if you wouldn't mind. I hope you guys enjoy! :) ~

*Simon's POV*

"Sim- er, uh, Snow. Well I was wondering. I was wondering, if, perhaps, maybe-" I dunno what I've done. I think I've broken him. Baz stumbled in our room early this morning, while I was getting ready for breakfast. He came in, and started rambling about Crowley knows what, and Baz never rambles. He's too bloody perfect for that. But now it seems like he can't stop rambling, which I don't know what to make of. I'm making an utter mess of my tie, and although he'd usually make a remark about my oafishness, he just continues to bluster.

It's my turn to be an insufferable prat, I s'pose. "Spit it out, Basil." He flushes (he must've just fed) and looks down at his feet. The tosser isn't even looking me in the eyes. (We used to never make eye contact when we fought, really. Started only just fifth year, and then I realized his eyes made him right fit, so why ignore them?) Baz moves to sit on his bed and he seems... nervous. Like he might just go off at any second, so I change tactics and move to sit next to him. (Another sure sign of him being off? He's letting me sit on his bed.)

He takes in a breath and composes himself. He still doesn't bloody look at me, but I look at him. Which is right weird, innit? Don't care. "When I was younger, my mum-" He stammers and looks somewhere near my face briefly, before continuing. "She used to tell me about how bright the stars were. Always said she'd take me to see them one day." He lets out a small, pitiful laugh, which is wrong for many reasons. Baz doesn't laugh. And Baz most certainly is not pitiful. I'd said so once, and he nearly shoved me into the floor right there, anathema and all. (I s'pose he could be telling me this to get sympathy. For his plotting. Why else would he tell me about his mum?)

"I'm sorry... about your mum, Baz." Even if he's plotting, it's the least I can say. I know he must miss her, though I've never had a mum, so I dunno what that'd feel like. Right sad, I s'pose.

He waves me off. "Anyway... obviously, she never got to stick to her word," He looks up at me then, right in the eyes, before looking away. He doesn't want to be telling me all this, I can tell. But... maybe he needs to. (He's plotting, my brain reminds me. Right. Plotting. Of course.) "But last night, Snow. Last night I got to see the stars, if only for a moment." I've got no idea where the loon is going with this. We saw the stars last night yes, but what does that have to do with my missing a spot of brekkie? (The scones are calling me.)

"Okay? But I don't-"

"Hush up a minute, Snow." He sneers, back to himself a bit. Some part of me is relieved, seeing him back to his snarky self, even if he is a complete prat. "So I was wondering, if we are on a... truce, of sorts... would you- er - could you-" He groans and runs a hand through his hair. (It's not slicked today. He should wear it like this more- it's less posh. Makes him look more fit than usual, which is hard to do. For a bloke, anyway.) He sets his jaw, and whatever's coming, I know I won't be able to say no. (Unless I think it's part of his plot.) He looks at me, and with resolution I've not heard from him before, he says, "Just this once, Snow, could you take me to see the stars again?"

I dunno what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. He wants me to take him back to the stars. Part of me knows it's a bad idea. He's my enemy, and more than likely he's taking notes for his bloody plot. He'd have full access and ability to catch me off guard and kill me at any moment. And, to top it all off, I'd be missing food! All so he can... see the stars with me? (Not with me. Because of me. I'm his only resource. Not with me.)

Which is why what comes out of my mouth next seems to surprise us both. "Of course I will, Baz." And I take his hands. (It's like they move with minds of their own.) I s'pose breakfast can wait a bit.

*Baz's POV*

I don't know why I thought this was a good idea for even a moment. I should have thought it through- I always think these things through. Maybe it was the way the stars reminded me of mother, or the way Simon's hand felt in mine - or even the intoxication of his magic - but something made me ask him to do it again. And even more surprisingly; he is. He's taken my hands and started filling me with his magic. Leave it to Snow to make me feel like an empty vast of nothing, waiting to be filled. (By him.)

"Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star." I cast. I only have to cast about two lines of the rhyme before the room around us falls away and we're floating in space. All around us, thousands and thousands of stars. But the only thing I can focus on is Simon. He's got his eyes closed and he's sat cross-legged, and his tie is haphazardly slung around his neck. His shirt is unbuttoned part way (he's always trying to kill me, the tosser) and his curls, as always, are tousled and bloody chaotic. But the thing that mesmerizes me most about him is the way he glows. He always glows (to me, anyway), but surrounded by these stars, he shines even brighter.

When I finally wrench my eyes from him (what a sad thing to do) to look at the stars, I feel Simon looking at me. His gaze is burning, as always, and I can only simply ignore it. All around us are supernovas, and stars light years and light years away. (And he's still watching me. Why is that?)

I turn my head back toward him. (It's a bit awkward, holding his hands while I plan on being rude to him. Even after all he's done... I can't help it.) "Can I help you, Snow?" He flushes red (I do wish I could see how far done the blush goes) and only shakes his head.

He thinks for a moment (unusual for him) before saying, softly, "Your mum really promised you that she'd do this for you?" I nod in response. We're quiet for a long while before he tugs my hands and I nearly sprawl on top of him. (It's hard to remember there's a bed under us. If I think about it for too long, the stars fade.) (He's a bloody wreck, he is.)

After a moment of adjusting, we're laying down, side by side, hand in hand. Looking up at the stars. I hear Simon say "There was something else your mum said..." I don't know what he's on about, but if it involves him keeping something about my mum from me, we're going to have larger issues. "She said to- to um, give you something." I'm focused on making sure the stars don't fade. I don't want to leave. I feel safe, here next to my enemy. (Merlin. Funny how that works, yeah?)

"Well? What is it? Come on then, Snow." He turns his head to look at me, and I do the same. (It's all I can do to keep the stars from fading and being replaced by blue eyes and bronze curls around us.) He leans forward and presses a soft kiss to my forehead. My stomach twists (in a pleasant way or not, I'm not quite sure. In a way.) I can feel my hand shaking slightly in Simon's. Luckily, I don't sweat. I run cold, thank Merlin.

"She told me to give you that." He settles back against the bed and if it weren't for my superior hearing, I might not have heard him.

"Right, well. That's... thank you Snow." He looks over at me, but I don't look back at him, for fear of making the stars disappear. I know we can't stay here forever, but... I'd like to stay as long as I can. As long as he'll let me.

*Simon's POV*

I wonder how long he'll let me look at the stars with him. (Well. I'm more looking at him, but 's the same thing, innit?) This has been nicer than we've ever bloody been to each other, and it's... well it's not terrible, I reckon. He's not snapped at me, and he didn't make a move to kill me when I... well, when I gave him what his mother gave me. And he hasn't made a move to leave yet. Not that I like holding hands with my enemy looking at the stars, but, well. I s'pose it's better than having him plot.

When I look over, he's gazing up at the thousands - millions - of stars above us. He looks sad almost, but that can't be right. Baz is never sad. A complete arsehole, and maybe sometimes lonely, yes, but not sad. I never really thought him lonely, either. He has Dev and Niall, and in some fucked up way, he almost has me, too. I'm not saying I wouldn't kill him given the chance- but p'raps if he were in mortal danger I wouldn't just stand around. But I think that's what any decent person would do, even if the bloke was their enemy. (I think briefly about the fact that I'm missing breakfast, and my stomach's started to rumble, but I don't want to move. I'll think about why, later.)

I've been thinking a lot, lately. (Baz'd snort if I told him that. Well that's a first, Snow he'd say. Prat.) A lot meaning more than usual, and lately meaning since last night. Since we saw the stars the first time. I've been thinking about the stars, and Watford, and the Old Families, and him. Baz, I mean. About how all the stars have a reason, so we do, too. They're up there with a purpose, and I think that maybe we are too. What it is, I dunno, but... well I'm thinking maybe I don't want to kill Baz. And not because he seems to have gone a bit soft. Because I don't really want to. Why take away someone who has a purpose here? Who's a star? I'm not saying I want a bloody cuppa with him, and it doesn't mean I like him all the sudden. Just that maybe I want something new.

But I dunno. I think 's just me who wants that, anyway. Baz turns to me, and I've only just now realized I've been staring at him. (He's about to bite my bloody head off, I just know it.) "Thank you, Snow. Really... thank you." I dunno what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. I can only nod in response.

...

I miss brekkie... and teatime... and lunch, and dinner while I'm in the stars with Baz. It didn't really matter because whenever I thought of food, it appeared, anyway. My magic hasn't been exhausted yet, odd enough. The few times I conjured food for Baz, he wouldn't eat it, the stubborn prick. S'pose he'll just bloody starve. But instead of fighting him on it, I just frowned and he pretended not to notice.

We haven't talked all that much. I think it's because I don't wanna fuck anything up and have him pulling away. I like watching the stars. It's been so peaceful here with him, for the first time... ever, and for as long as he'll stay, I want him to. I know we'll have to leave this bubble of safety eventually. I just. Well, I don't want to do it now. (Crowley I wish it could last longer.)

But far too soon for my liking (I still put that into my box of things not to think about), Baz looks at me, and I feel the stars blinking out, one by one. "Snow, I think perhaps it's time we come down to Earth." Something twists in my gut, but I ignore it and pull my magic back in all the same. As fast as the stars had come, they disappear, and we're left in our very bland, but very familiar and safe room in Mummers. Nothing changed, everything untouched. (I wondered briefly if the stars were his plot to have someone come in while we were gone and steal my things. I didn't think about it for long.)

I'm faintly aware that we're still holding hands, and even though I pulled back, they still feel like magic.

*Baz's POV*

We're still holding hands, and true to supernovas, I think I may combust. This day has been wonderful, and I curse at myself for telling him to end it. But I realized that I got so much of Snow today - more than I ever could have asked for - that it wasn't fair to him. He bloody did it out of pity. He was lovely today- offering me food, letting me see the stars for my mum, kissing me, and staying with me the whole day. But I can't let myself be fooled by it; we're still enemies, and nothing more. He did this because he felt bad for the poor, motherless vampire who just wanted to see the stars for her. Well the toff can just bugger off. (I dreadfully wish he wouldn't, though.)

But he's looking at me now, and instead of telling him that he's dead from the neck up, I say, "Thank you again, Simon. For everything. For the stars," Even in the dark, I can see him flush. "I'm sorry I kept you-"

"Don't be, Baz. Wasn't any trouble. 'Course I helped." He sits up, dragging me up with him. He realizes that we're still holding hands and quickly pulls away, despite my (silent) protestations. (I suppose he's still repulsed by me. Figures.)

"It's just that..." It's all too much. Him doing this for me a second time. The whole day. It's too much and I'm still high off his magic, and he's right here saying that I shouldn't be sorry. I don't know whether to blame him, the magic, or the stars for what I say next. (Granted, they're all basically the same thing.) "Simon, you were the brightest thing in my day. And we spent it amongst the stars." He looks taken aback, and almost instantly I regret what I said. You're the brightest thing in my day? And we spent it amongst the stars?! It's a load of poetic tosh is what it is, and not even good poetic tosh. It's not even poetic! (Never mind the fact that I just confessed my largest secret to the one straight person that it's about.)

He doesn't react for a long moment, in which I spend sufferingly staring at his Adam's apple. "Listen Snow, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... it's just that-" I'm cut off by his lips on mine and his hands in my hair. I'm most definitely combusting, now.

I suppose it was a bit poetic then... wasn't it?

*Simon's POV*

I've found it. It's this. This is my purpose. My star.

#Snowbaz #Simon #Simon snow #baz #baz pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #snowbaz fanfic #fanficiton #mlm #watford #stars #carry on #spells #magic #Watford School of Magicks #rainbow rowell

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rantceratops · 3 years

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Just gonna get some of my Little Nightmares 2 thoughts out and under a spoiler tag. Need to get it out of my system. SPOILERS BELOW CUT.

First, a Fun Fact: I went into Little Nightmares 2 fully expecting Mono to die. Yet I still got attached to him. I was expecting him to die, but I was NOT expecting him to get the fate that he did. I knew that Six was a morally questionable character from the first game, but tbh it never crossed my mind that she’d be responsible for his demise. At least, not until the bridge collapsed between Mono and Six in the Signal Tower. I immediately knew that either Mono was going down with the bridge, or that Six would drop him. But it still hurt like a bitch.

1) My least favorite theory is one of the more popular ones I keep seeing, which is that the Secret Ending somehow proves that Six dropped Mono because she “knew she was just going to eat him anyway”, so she dropped him to “save” him from herself.

This one is a big NO from me. That is not at all what I gathered from the Secret Ending. First of all, I’m not sure in what universe that dropping your friend into a flesh void to rot in hatred and betrayal for decades is somehow “saving” them, even if you were planning to cannibalize them. If you really wanted to “save” them, pull them up and then just run away from them or tell them to stay away from you, etc.

Secondly, it was clear that Six’s stomach growling at the end of the Secret Ending was meant to be the FIRST time she ever felt the Hunger. Six goes the entirety of Little Nightmares 2 without once feeling the Hunger, whereas in the first game she seems to barely be able to go a couple hours (or in game terms, she can’t go a single chapter without it happening) without having to eat, so I highly doubt she could go the entire second game without eating.

This theory is just not sound to me, and I refuse to subscribe to it. I obviously like to hear most theories because it’s always interesting, but this one straight up makes me roll my eyes every single time I read it.

2) I also don’t much like the theory that because Six saw Mono without his paper bag on for the first time when holding him on the edge, she was able to study his face for several seconds and realized that he was the Thin Man. Unfortunately, I as much as I don’t like the idea of this, I can’t exactly debunk it, as Six does indeed spend several seconds just holding him there for some reason or other. Whether it was in pure indecision, or pure malice as she relished his helpless state before she dropped him(I hope not), or whether she was absorbing his power to leave through the TV*, or whether it was in fact because she was somehow able to put two and two together... idk.

My main issue is that Mono and Six are like 9 years-old, how could she look at a 9 year-olds face and tell that it matched a man that appears to be in his 40s? Just seems a bit far-fetched. But again, as much as I’d like to, I cannot debunk this one.

*This is something that confuses me. Six was able to leave through the TV, but Six was never able to travel through TVs. That was Mono and the Thin Man’s power. Six was not there for the defeat of the Thin Man and so couldn’t have taken his powers, so was she absorbing Mono’s powers before she dropped him? Usually she seems to need to eat her victims to gain their powers. The lack of visual cue that she’s taking his power is also strange. I’m starting to think it was just a weird oversight on the Devs part. There is no logical reason Six should have been able to leave the Tower unless she somehow stole Mono’s powers. (earlier in the game we even see Six pressing against a TV trying to escape from the Thin Man, but she cannot, and it’s not until Mono reaches in and grabs her hands that she is able to start phasing through.

3) Mono = Thin Man = Hanging Man is also a strange theory. Though there is a certain uncanny resemblance with not only the door with the eye on it and the chair, but the pants and shoes and long-limbedness of the Hanged Man himself. However, as far as I recall there are several doors with eyes on The Maw(correct me if I’m wrong please!), so I don’t really consider the door that big of a deal unless I’m wrong. Eyes are kind of a big motif in these games.

My biggest question with this theory is why or how would Mono be on The Maw? How did he get there? Why was he there? Which version of Mono is this? I have so many fucking questions with this one it’s not funny.

4) Time-loop theory is the most popular. I’m on the fence. There is evidence to support it’s a Time-loop, but my initial reaction to the ending was that Mono was replacing the Thin Man, not that he was the Thin Man the entire time. I largely just accept Time-loop as it does seem more likely at this point... I’m not sure how Mono being a replacement would change the narrative... hrm.

5) I really just want Mono to be okay. :’(

6) I already reblogged another post and ranted about this but: People are overthinking why Six dropped Mono. There are one of two reasons that she dropped him, and imo it’s not hard to pick up on.

Reason One (Least Likely): Six was perhaps using Mono the entire time, and simply decided to drop him at the end once he’d served his purpose. To me, this seems less likely of the two, even though Six can be very selfish and sadistic, this just doesn’t add up to me. If this one is true, then the question becomes what was Six’s goal? What was her purpose, and what means to what end did Mono serve? Because imo I am not seeing a dark purpose here with Six... which leads me to the second and more likely reason Six dropped Mono--

Reason Two (Far More Likely): Six felt betrayed by Mono. This was my FIRST thought when I realized Six was going to drop Mono. My immediate thought was that it was out of pure spite from Mono not helping her when the Thin Man grabbed her. To me this is so painfully obviously her motive.

Six and Mono spend the majority of the game helping each other; opening doors, boosting each other, catching each other across gaps. There are so many times Six could have been selfish and left Mono to his fate, but she didn’t. She pulls him out of the TV again and again because she knows something is wrong.

Mono saves Six so many times; she gets captured or separated from him and every single time without fail, Mono comes back for her, he does everything in his power to save her. When Mono finally unintentionally lets the Thin Man lose, Six tries to get Mono to run with her. She stays next to him trying her damnedest to get him to grab her hand and run with her, before she runs off alone because Mono isn’t listening to her. Then, she trips and reaches out for Mono, but Mono is scared and cowering under the bed and does not grab Six in her most vital, vulnerable moment.

Six sees this as a betrayal of trust. Despite the fact that if Mono had come out to help her they might have likely both been caught, and despite the fact that the Thin Man’s presence generally seems to hurt and slow down Mono, and despite the fact that Mono STILL comes after her to save her. Mono tries to pull Six out through the TV, and even after he defeats the Thin Man, he goes to the Signal Tower to save her. He NEVER EVER gave up on her.

But for Six that obviously wasn’t good enough. Mono, however unfairly, lost her faith when he didn’t grab her hand in that room. And to add icing on that cake, Monster Six tries to let Mono play with her music box because she obviously has some memory that she trusted and liked him, and then he smashes it with a hammer. In her twisted state, that was another heinous betrayal stacked on top of the previous one, and I think even after she was reverted back to normal the resentment of Mono smashing her music box remained. Six began to see Mono as the cause for all her problems and a betrayer at that. Regardless of whether the theory that she also saw in his face that he was Thin Man before she dropped him, I still very much think the main catalyst here was the perceived trust betrayal.

Mono never really did anything wrong; in fact, he did everything right, but in the end he still got his undeserved fate.

There is no world or theory which makes Six dropping Mono justified in my eyes, but it is interesting to see how things got all twisted and dark for her to the point that she felt dropping him was in her interest.

I’ve never hated Six, but I’ve also never been fond of Six even before LN2. But I do honestly hate her in that moment that she lets go of Mono. It was fucked up. It was disgusting to be frank. Mono got one of the most horrible fates I’ve ever witnessed such a pure-hearted character get. It was fucking heartbreaking, I get sad all over again just listening to End of the Hall on the soundtrack and remembering the scene and what happened to him.

I teeter back and forth on whether or not Six is even meant to be a true protag or not. She certainly feels rather anti-hero. I also sometimes can’t decide whether she truly did care about Mono or not, but I do feel like there’s a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that she did at some point.

IDK. All I know is Mono was just a good boy and I really wish he could somehow get a happy ending at the end of all this. T_T

#little nightmares 2 spoilers #ln2 spoilers #mono #six #thoughts on theories #mono was a good boy #ranty's thoughts #littlenightmares2spoilers

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angelsfalling16 · 4 years

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Chapter 5 of Friends Don’t Engaged

Read it on ao3

Previous Chapter

Word Count: 2587

Summary: Simon puts his plan into motion.

A/N: Thank you @wo2ash for beta reading! <3

***

Simon

When I return to the flat after talking to Ebb, Penny still isn’t there, but I go into her room anyway.

I know the container has to be in here. The hall closet is stuffed to bursting, so there’s no way that it’s in there, and there’s nowhere else for it to be except somewhere in her room.

Unless she threw it all away. Which is doubtful. They put hours of work into planning this fake wedding, and Penny has kept every notebook she’s ever written notes in, so there is no way that she threw this out.

I flip on the light and look around. There aren’t many places that it could be hiding. The most obvious place would be under the bed, so that’s where I look first, and sure enough, it’s there, filled with all the magazines and papers that a few days ago, I was hoping to never see again.

Right now, though, I’m relieved to see them because I have a plan.

I pull the container closer to me, pop the lid off, and start pulling things out.

All the stuff in here is a symbol of everything that I will never have unless I find a way to show Baz that I’m serious about him.

As I flip through the notebooks, looking over guest lists and seating plans, a rush of emotions flows over me, hitting me from all sides.

This box is full of so many possibilities, and I couldn’t see it until now.

Before, I only saw all of these things as an impossible future, something that would hurt me, but now, I look at it and wonder. I wonder whether Baz and I could actually do this. Could we celebrate our love for each other and spend the rest of our lives together?

It only takes me a couple of seconds to decide that yes, that is definitely something that I would want. I would want to commit myself to him, to a lifetime of showing him how much he means to me.

I would do anything to be with him for the rest of our lives.

Towards the bottom of the box, I find what I’m looking for. Wedding invitations and save-the-date cards.

They’re blank and only meant as samples, but as I look at them, I think that they will work perfectly for my plan. I grab a notebook, the one still open to the guest list, which Penny has already added addresses to, and a few of the cards and start filling out a few of them with a date for over a year from now and one of the two venues that Baz was pretty keen on.

He was trying to get me to choose one last week, and even though I knew which one I preferred, I never told him.

Now is my chance to try to change things.

I only fill out three invitations: one to Penny, one to Dev and Niall, and one to Baz.

None of them will go to someone that will make this hard to undo. Only to the people to whom this can be somewhat easily explained to.

I slide them into the envelopes before packing everything else back into the box and slipping out the door again, this time headed to the post office.

It is a little strange to send mail to my own flat, but I need them to all arrive on the same day for this to work.

This at least gives me a couple of more days to figure out the rest of my plan.

This probably isn’t quite the romantic gesture that Ebb had in mind, but this will just be the beginning. It’s my way to show him that I’m serious about us, that I’d be willing to marry him today if he’d let me.

I know that there are better ways of going about this, but I need to do something big, something meaningful, and really, what else do I have to lose? I’ve already lost his friendship. The worst Baz can do to me at this point is never talk to me again, which is going to happen if I don’t do something.

The next part is going to be a little more difficult. I’m going to have to get him to be in the same room with me so that we can hash everything out. There are so many feelings that have built up between us, good and bad, and so much that has gone unsaid. It’s going to take a while to work through all of that.

I just hope that Baz will be open to it.

***

Not long after I’ve returned from the post office, I find myself sitting across from Penny and Dev at the small kitchen table.

Penny got back from wherever she has been all day about an hour after I got back. I was sitting in my room, a welcome change from the living room, when she knocked lightly on my bedroom door before letting herself in.

She was wearing a serious expression, and I began to worry that she had somehow found that I had gone through the box and sent those cards, and when she spoke, I began to worry a little more.

“Hey, Simon,” she said softly. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, gesturing for her to join me on my bed.

“Actually, Dev is here, too, so I thought we could sit at the table instead.

“Oh,” I say, furling my brow in confusion. “Okay.

I knew that it was impossible that he could have received the save-the-date card that I sent out earlier, but I was struggling to come up with any other reason for why he would be here or why they would both want to talk to me about something.

But now here I am, sitting across from them, and I begin to wonder when they became a team — and when they decided to start plotting together.

They take turns speaking, explaining how they’ve been meeting up and what they’ve been talking about for a few days (so that’s where she’s been all day.) It’s almost like they wrote a script, switching off talking about different points in such an organized manner that I decide not to speak until they’re done so as not to break the flow that they’ve going.

It takes me a while to realize that their plan is to get me and Baz together. It’s surprising because I didn’t think either of them cared so much about whether Baz and I were together. What’s more surprising is they honestly believe that their plan will work.

It could be a good thing, though, because their plan will be a good second part to what I was trying to do. It might even be a better idea than what I would have come up with.

Although, I still have my doubts about it.

“Do you honestly think that he’ll talk to me after all of this?” I ask. “I got mad at him and ignored his calls. I haven’t even seen him since…” I shake my head, not wanting to think about that day anymore. I need to focus on the future and trying to make Baz a part of it. “I’m worried that I’m going to show up and have him immediately reject me without hearing me out.”

“You won’t know unless you try, Simon,” Penny says gently.

“You don’t get it. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t want to be with me. From day one, that’s all he ever said to me. That it wouldn’t work between us. That we couldn’t be together. Maybe it’s time that I accept that.”

Instead of making me feel better about my plan to talk to Baz, talking all of this through with them is making it clearer that this isn’t going to work. Why would Baz agree to date me after all of this?

“Why don’t you just take a chance and see what happens?”

“I don’t want to face his rejection.” I don’t know that I can take it anymore. I’m already in enough pain. Why would I want to cause myself more of it?

“You don’t know that that will happen,” she says.

I shake my head. “I can’t risk it. It’s better this way.”

“How?”

“He likes you.” It’s the first time that Dev has spoken in a while now, and it catches me so off guard that I freeze, mouth open, the rest of my argument slipping away.

“Dev,” Penny says, giving him a warning look that I am personally very familiar with. “We agreed.”

“It’s the only way. We have to tell him the truth.”

“About what?” I ask.

“Baz has liked you for years,” Dev says, almost matter-of-factly. “He’d never admit it to you because he’s just as worried about rejection as you are, but he’s liked you for a long time.”

“Why should I believe you?” I ask. Even if we’ve grown friendlier, how do I know that Baz didn’t put him up to this so that he could break my heart even further?

But I know Penny would never go along with something like that. She wouldn’t intentionally hurt me, so either Dev lied to her, too, or there is some truth to what he’s saying.

“I’m one of his best friends. He told me how he felt, and I want him to be happy. If that means setting him up with the boy that we fought for years, so be it. As long as it gets him out of his flat.”

“Why wouldn’t he just tell me?” I wonder, not sure if I’m asking them or myself.

“For the same reason you wouldn’t tell him how you felt,” Penny says. “He was afraid to lose you.”

“How long have you known?” I ask her. “How he feels, I mean.”

“I suspected while you were fake dating, but I didn’t know for sure until after you proposed.”

I think about it for a long moment. I want to believe them. I want it to be true. But it’s difficult to believe that Baz could think of me that way. I have to at least try to find out if it’s true. I’ll regret it if I don’t.

“You really think that he’ll forgive me?” I ask warily, starting to give into that small bit of hope. “That he’ll give me a real chance?”

“You might have to apologize and talk through it with him,” Penny says, “but I’m fairly confident that he’ll come around.”

“I’ll do it. I-I’ll try to at least.”

“That’s all we’re asking you to do. We just want you to try.”

“Not now, though, right?” I ask. I need a couple of days to prepare myself. “Could we do it the day after tomorrow?”

“Of course. Whenever you’re ready. Just, don’t wait too long or he may be gone.”

“Right.”

They go over the details of their plan with me one more time, and once Dev has gone, I return to my room to try to figure out how I can make this right, what I can say to Baz to fix this.

I really screwed up, especially since I never returned his calls, but I really hope that I can make things right with him.

I want to be with Baz, and that won’t happen unless I fight for him.

I spend the night staring at my ceiling and remembering all of the good moments that I’ve had with Baz over the past several months. It’s like a montage of every moment where we forgot that what we were doing was a competition, and we just let our feelings rule us.

Those were my favorite moments with him.

We’d give in and forget for a while that it wasn’t real.

There was a lot of kissing involved in those moments.

It wasn’t just for show because most of it happened in our room or dark halls or any other secluded areas that we found ourselves in. It was like we couldn’t stay away from each other - and didn’t want to either.

When I was on my own again, I would blame it all on the fact that I was letting my feelings for him lead me to do this, but I wasn’t the only person pulling the other away from the crowd to kiss them.

We wouldn’t even say anything to each other. We didn’t need to. There would be a light tug on an arm, and then I’d find my lips pressed to his, out of the view of other people.

As we grew closer as friends, I found that I couldn’t stay away from him. The line blurred between what we were doing for the sake of competition and what we were doing simply because we wanted to.

I’d see him on the way to the class, and I felt like I had to be near him. Occasionally, I gave into that urge and moved closer to him, my fingers wrapping around his wrist and tugging him away from prying eyes. I’d soon have him pushed against the wall, covered by shadows, and I’d be kissing him before he could protest.

There were other times when it was me who was suddenly pulled away from the crowd, Baz’s mouth on mine before I realized what was happening.

We’d pull away much too soon, avoiding each other’s eyes, and be on our way again, never saying a word about what happened.

It has continued to happen recently, even now that we’ve left school. Baz comes over to hang out, and we end up in my room, my fingers tangled in his hair and our tongues wrapped sensuously around each other.

There was one time that we got a little carried away in the kitchen, which Penny did not appreciate too much when she walked in and found me sitting on the countertop with Baz standing between my legs.

I thought that she would demand to know why we were doing that, but she seemed more concerned that we were doing it out in the open rather than in the privacy of my room.

Remembering it now, I can’t help but smile.

I loved those moments.

I loved being with Baz and not caring what anyone thought. I loved thinking that maybe there was a chance.

I want to experience that with him again, which is why I have to make things right with him. And soon.

Hopefully before those save-the-date cards arrive.

I can’t believe I actually sent those out. It was a stupid idea, and it is likely to have the opposite effect of what I wanted.

Rather than show Baz that I’m serious about the way that I feel about him, he will most likely see it as an attempt to continue the competition, much like what I did with the fake proposal.

I just have to hope that talking to him will help him see that it is absolutely serious, that I care about him and want more than this. I have to hope that he has grown to know me well enough not to think that I would do something like this to hurt him or continue a competition that I’ve despised for a long time now.

I need him to give me a chance to explain.

Otherwise, there may be no going back from this.

#snowbaz #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #baz pitch #carry on #wayward son #rainbow rowell #snowbaz fic #snowbaz fanfiction #fdf2 #friends don't get engaged #fake dating fic #my writing

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spaedia · 4 years

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PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO READ.

alrighty dudes, dudettes, and everything in between. this is the last post i intend to ever make on tumblr, so listen up. in regards to the bullshit “callout” posted the other day:

CALLOUT, I GUESS, FOR DEVIL AND CO, BUT MOSTLY DEVIL BC LET’S FACE IT, WITHOUT THE SCREENSHOTS YOU PROVIDED, YOUR ARGUMENT FOR WHY WART IS A BAD PERSON IS “HE DAMAGED MY EGO OWO”. YOU SAID THIS WASN’T YOUR PROBLEM? WELL I’M MAKING IT YOUR PROBLEM, ASSHAT.

so let’s start w/ the screenshots in question. i haven’t read the callout, so idk what was used, but considering i had upwards of 5 people come to me and ask me if i was okay, i can take a guess. let the record show that all of the messages i sent to dev and norgie regarding wart was in the midst of our breakup, which was messy enough as is. when wart and i first broke up, i had dev and co blocked bc of personal reasons. devil then decided to HUNT DOWN ONE OF MY BLOGS and follow me (after i assume staking it out, bc he’s known for stalking people). i confronted him, and he gave me some shtick about how he’ll “always care about me” and i’m “still his little sister”, blah blah blah other manipulative bullcrap. against my better judgement, i let him back in.

wart was my first boyfriend. i adored him with everything i had, so naturally, this breakup left me in a bad emotional state. devil and norgie took COMPLETE ADVANTAGE OF THIS, and when i told them what happened between wart and i, immediately began twisting it to make wart out to be the bad guy. it was norgie who originally suggested that i had been emotionally abused, and in my vulnerable state, i began to see things that way.

not that it’s anyone’s business, but if you wanna know how the breakup went, it was something like this: wart’s mental state was deteriorating, i suggested maybe we take a break, immediately went back on that statement, wart broke things off the next morning. there was no emotional abuse, no threatening of suicide, no physical violence - it was a breakup. things didn’t work out. it happens. but of course, this didn’t fit dev and co’s narrative, so they needed to get me to admit things were much worse than they were. when i later came to my senses and realized this was all bullshit, devil and norgie then decided to GUILT TRIP ME by pointing out how they spent “two hours” on call with me while i cried. after i had just had my heart broken. no shit i was upset. newsflash: wart spent a lot longer with me on call while i was breaking down. hell, he broke up with me and still let me cry on his shoulder. and unlike dev and norgie, he never once acted like i owed him, because that’s what friends do. but hey, go on and talk about how wart’s the abusive one.

devil has spent years abusing my trust. every time i tell him i don’t want so speak with him, he comes back awhile later with some new apology and reasoning for his behavior. and like most toxic relationships, it was hard to let him ago, especially after losing the person i cared most about. he blatantly took advantage of my situation to fuel his vendetta. the only reason i told him anything was because he promised me he wouldn’t make a post unless wart “stepped out of line” (which, looking back, is a huge red flag: what gives him the right to police other people?). and had i not begun to confront him about all the bullshit he made me say, he probably would have held off. in fact, he told me that one of the “main reasons” he felt this “needed to come out” was because i was starting to defend wart. when i realized that dev was serious about making this callout, i told him i wanted no part of it. he asked me for screenshots of some of my and wart’s conversations, to which i gave him a hard no. did that stop him from using our personal messages in his sorry excuse for a callout? of course not. these are the type of people who don’t care about anyone except themselves, dev has made that perfectly clear. MY PRIVACY AND AN INNOCENT MAN’S WELL BEING MEANT NOTHING TO HIM. all he and his friends cared about was spurring along their vendetta. and honestly, if i was wart, i would have sued y’all for harassment and defamation of character ages ago.

with the matter of those messages out of the way, let’s move on to dev’s actual claims. this is where the defamation gets real, because he had the nerve to call wart a predator. seriously? what, because he dated someone a few years younger than him?

dev loves to throw the word pedo.phile around, despite the fact that he obviously doesn’t know what it means. pedo.philia “is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children”. i started puberty when i was twelve, and wart and i didn’t even meet until i was fifteen. so immediately, he doesn’t fit the bill for a pedo.phile. #sorrynotsorry.

but let’s work around that. let’s say, that because he was romantically attracted to me, that automatically makes him a pedo.phile. i’m going to remind everyone of something devil would love to leave buried: the fact that, when i was thirteen, and again at fourteen, devil tried to coerce me into writing smut with him, along with a sixteen year old girl. he used my trust of him to assure me that it would be fine. his excuse? “my (ex)girlfriend made me do it.” cause that’s a solid argument alright. so fine, label wart a pedo.phile. i sure hope dev’s planning on giving himself the same label, because what he did is a lot worse lmao.

i don’t have screenshots from dev and my conversations, i think he deleted that account, but here’s him w/ the other girl.

so yeah long story short: dev knew this girl was underage, still tried to smut with her. take my word that he tried with me, i guess. i don’t think he’s ever denied it.

now, admittedly, i didn’t need to bring this up, but according to devil it’s important that predators get called out, so...he brought this on himself.

now i’m going to tell y’all the story of how wart and i started dating, because it really puts a hole in this “predator” story. see, for wart to be a predator, he would have had to target me in some way (come to think of it, much like devil did to me). when wart and i got together, dev and i weren’t talking, and i never got around to telling him how this happened, only that it did. (if i did tell him, i forgot about it, and that makes it even worse bc he knows this already lmao.)

it was may sixth. i was fifteen, wart was nineteen. we had been talking for awhile, and sometime in the past week or so, i had talked to my mom about liking this guy who was older than me. she told me about her own relationships with older guys when she was my age, and that so long as he didn’t try anything, she was fine with it. so on that spring day, i confessed my feelings to wart. and y’know the first thing he said to me? “wait a few years.” a logical statement, one i probably should have taken to heart, but i was a fool in love, so i didn’t. i spent the next hour or so convincing wart to go out with me, and he eventually pitied me enough (he’d admit to something along those lines not long after) to agree. neither of us expected this to become an actual relationship, but hey, a year and a half’s not a bad run.

to make a long story short: i asked wart out, not the other way around. i begged him to date me, not the other way around. and this wasn’t some secret relationship. my parents knew from the beginning, and gave it the okay.

i think i addressed everything in that lameass “callout”, but because dev’s The Worst, i know he’s going to pull at threads to try and get his “predator” accusations to stick. i’m going to post this, and devil will immediately reply “but wait!! he is a predator: you said you two slept together!!” and then post the message where i said exactly that, added some details to make it realistic, whatever, but then fail to post the message a few days later where i told him IT WAS A HALF-BAKED STORY.

see, after wart and i broke up, i heard rumors that he and i had been sleeping together when he was up here. i’m gonna shoot those rumors down right now. a) i’m asexual and sex repulsed. i wouldn’t sleep with someone if they paid me. devil and norgie know this, but they chose to ignore it in favor of a juicy story. b) the story i gave them was incredibly inconsistent. to the point where even devil pointed out my inconsistencies, but then conveniently forgot that ever happened, then, when i told him it was bullshit, TRIED TO INSIST IT WAS TRUE. as if he knows better than i do what happened lmao. c) wart and i were never alone for more than a few minutes. my bedroom walls aren’t exactly soundproof. my bed frame is metal, it squeaks whenever i sit on it. so yeah, obviously we got away with having sex. dumbass.

now, when i heard these rumors, i decided to roll with them. what did i have to lose, right? so yeah, i spiced it up, gave devil and norgie some random details to make it realistic, and told them not to tell anyone (which as far as i know, they haven’t, so thanks for not spreading rumors i guess). when devil brought it up to me during his rant about how this callout “needed to happen”, i pretty much laughed in his face and told him it never happened. and then he tried insisting it did and i rolled my eyes so hard i think i gave myself a headache.

tl;dr: someone started rumors that wart and i slept together, i confirmed them for shits and giggles, but no, it never happened, for all the reasons stated above.

oh, and as for dev’s reason for this vendetta? he’s told wart that it was because he (wart) wrote a character that dev wanted to write. i’m still convinced it’s over a fragile ego. either way, Real Mature, dude.

NOW i think i covered anything. phew, that’s a doozy. as i said, this is the last post i intend to ever make on this hellsite, but i encourage everyone who sees this to reblog it so that we can clear a (mostly) innocent man’s name. did wart hurt me? yes. was it enough to warrant this abuse?? not in the slightest.

my discord is still on my blog if anyone wants it (unless you’re friends with devil, norgie, kirby, or anyone else involved in this. if that’s the case, i’ll see you in hell). as for my legacy on this hellsite, let it be known that i tried to fight the good fight. i hope it’s good enough.

el psy kongroo.

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mattgambler · 4 years

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Phoenix Point and why I want it to live

No TLDR this time. I said in the past that I could write pages over pages about this. I guess its time to see how many pages we are actually talking about here. Phoenix Point is currently rather mediocre. From the soundtrack to the many bugs and rather rough implementations, the missing features that were envisioned in the kickstarter campaign, the 5 scheduled DLCS, the epic store exclusivity, the inferior graphical polish in comparison to Firaxis’ XCOM reboot, the inferior complexity in comparison to Longwar, probably even the inferior Idontknow in comparison to the very first XCOM games from way back when, I didnt play those. If you are looking for something to hate in this game, you dont have to look too hard, there is something here for everyone. The reason Ive been a determined defender of Phoenix Point is not simply because I have a different taste in games than the mainstream however, but because I feel there is a way deeper underlying problem at work here. I’ll come back to that later. Btw starting now, when I say XCOM, I mean Firaxis’ XCOM. Personally I want more games like XCOM. More games like Battlebrothers, Mordheim: City of the Damned, Invisible Inc, hell, even Bloodbowl, even though I dont dig the sports angle. Games with permadeath, nameable characters, dynamic overworld systems and missions and situations that are created ideally by circumstance, not by simply playing mission 1, then mission 2, until you reach what the devs decided to be the last one they would make for the game. I thoroughly enjoy that concept of progression and many turnbased strategy titles just dont do it for me because they are too linear, even when they are otherwise nicely crafted experiences. Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest is a nice example of this, the game looks nice, sounds nice and is very well made, but it lacks the one thing I enjoy most in all the games I mentioned earlier. Along comes Phoenix Point and the moment I look at this game I know that it is all about scratching that specific itch. Not only that, it also brings with it a variety of creative features to even improve the established turnbased squad tactics formula. I didnt lie when I said I think that it is in many ways better than XCOM. Just that... WHAT?!?! ...the overall game doesnt compare well if we look at the sum of their parts at the moment. YOU CANT BE SERIOUS!!!!! About Phoenix Point being better in many ways? Sure, let me make a list. 1) Aiming In XCOM you aim, you have an x% chance to hit, you either hit or you dont. While widely accepted because of the quality of the overall games, its a pretty simple system that becomes especially frustrating when your guns model on screen is touching the enemies forehead and you still manage to miss. Or when a flashbanged and suppressed sectoid crits you in full cover after rolling a natural 20. In Phoenix Point bullets get simulated and trace a path from the barrel of your gun to a target that they then either hit or miss. Smaller enemies in Phoenix Point are hard to hit not because the game designers arbitrarily decided so, but because smaller enemies are simply smaller. In comparison, in XCOM you roll dice. 2) Modular enemies Similar to Battlebrothers, Phoenix Point has you encounter the same brigand thug (crabmen) over and over again. The enemy itself doesnt matter as much, its more about the number of different variations you can encounter. Brigant thugs can come equipped with simple helmets and/or armor as well as different weapons that have different abilities. They also have different faces on top of that. They are by far not the only enemy in the game, but even if they were, by the time you encounter the exact same thug a second time you wont be able to tell anymore because you have seen so many others inbetween. The same goes for most enemies in Battlebrothers (with a few exceptions), it becomes way more about your opponents equipment than about his actual type or class. Phoenix Point goes for the very same approach, but falls short because of a variety of reasons. To name just one, the first time you encounter New Jericho as a faction, you fight four New Jericho soldiers and all four of them have the same armor, the same weapon and even the same face. To hammer it home the mission also always takes place on a variation of the exact same map. It is an absolute travesty. The ambition is there and in random encounters on the map you can see where it is supposed to go, with every enemy type in the game being designed in a way that allows for as many variations as the devs can think of, from paralysis tentacles and bloodsucking arms to mist generators and everything inbetween. The possibilities are endless and from the standard crab to the giant bosses every enemy is designed with this modularity in mind. In XCOM in comparison, you have a variety of different enemies, but for the entirety of the first month (what is that, 3-7 missions?) you only fight the sectoid. Or maybe the drone too, I havent played vanilla in forever. Longwar tries to spice that up by using preexisting models and assigning new abilities to them, making some models bigger and giving others new abilities, but at the end of the day the sectoid looks the way the sectoid looks. I love what it looks like btw. But modular enemies are decidedly cooler. 3) Scale In XCOM you control 4, later up to 6 soldiers at the same time. In Longwar it goes up to 8, or 12 in that one mission. In Phoenix Point you start out the same way, but to my knowledge you can bring as many soldiers to any mission as you can get there via aircraft. Meaning that as soon as you get a second manticore you can theoretically have up to 12 soldiers in a mission, or 18 with a third. Naturally you would probably want to split your forces instead and be in 3 places at the same time (and you can), but this sort of thing being possible, both the 18 soldiers in one mission as well as the 3 different squads doing missions in 3 different places of the planet, is something XCOM simply does not offer. 4) Other features Be it vehicles, giant enemies, diplomacy or the amount of control you get on the overworld map, Phoenix Point does (or attempts to do) a huge number of things that in XCOM are simply nonexistant. In XCOM you dont get to decide were to fly, missions are simply spawned in popup fashion, the skyranger is on autopilot, “diplomacy” is managed by talking to top secret bald guy representing the council and by sometimes fulfilling a councilrequest. The only opposing faction apart from the aliens is EXALT which can be regarded as more of a separate mission type with human enemies and not really as a faction that contributes in any diplomatic way. Dont get me wrong, I dont think XCOM needs diplomacy in order to be good. XCOM is already good, fantastic in fact. But if we compare based on features alone and not the quality of their implementation, then Phoenix Point is doing A LOT of things that XCOM never even touched. This is in no way me trying to trash XCOM. I love XCOM, especially Longwar. However for the sake of an at least somewhat fair comparison the only games we should compare Phoenix Point to at this Point are XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2, both at launch. Bringing Longwar into the mix is something I do for the sake of providing a third angle, not because I am blind to the fact of how ludacris it would be to compare a newly launched game with an extensive overhaul mod that was in the making for years after the vanilla game and even its expansion were already released. As I was saying, along comes Phoenix Point doing all those very ambitious things. And it gets DESTROYED. To quote Beaglerush, the probably best known XCOM streamer out there: “But honestly, for anyone with experience in the XCOM genre, anyone who likes XCOM games, and anyone particularly who likes XCOM games at a harder difficulty or likes to obviously, like, play well, I do not think it is possible to enjoy this game unless you are getting a big paycheck and you are a good actor.” To be clear, I didnt watch the entire footage that made him come to that conclusion and I dont want to comment too much on what “playing well” means, but i have played Longwar on the highest difficulty in ironmanmode for 2000 hours (without beating it, but also always with Training Roulette active) and I have beaten XCOM 2 on highest difficulty in ironman mode. I do consider Longwar as one of my favourite games of all time and I do consider myself as someone who has experience with the genre, likes games and likes to play them “well”, or at least on highest difficulty. I dont agree with Beagle (duh), but I can of course see where he might be coming from. In its current state Phoenix Point is not finished. Playable, but even for an early access game its still pretty rough, with many mechanics not or only sometimes working (leanout, aim and aimsnapping, end turn, details, you get the point), features missing, performance issues, lackluster soldier customization, lackluster diplomacy options, a rather simple skilltree, questionable balance, etc. Don’t look at me like that, if I wanted to I could jump that hatetrain any time! But if I was to do that, where would that leave us? The XCOM genre, as Beagle calls it, is a niche genre at the best of times. Not only regarding the playerbase but also regarding game developers willing to invest time and money into creating something new. Xenonauts 2 is a year or more behind its originally panned release date with not much news to speak of, Terra Invicta is a distant memory of a game that will maybe one day still be released and Im still waiting for the XCOM 3 announcement and who knows if it will even come. Especially after we, the players, completely demolish Phoenix Point to the point where I would just cancel the 5 planned DLCS right now if I was in charge of the devteam. The main reason I defended Phoenix Point was not because of what the game currently is but because of what the game could be after 5 more DLCs. Ive played every backerbuild of the game and statements like “the game is still what it was 2 years ago” are simply and factually false. Especially between backerbuild 4 and 5 there was a huge jump in quality and between 5 and the release version that same jump has ocurred again - with an entire game that is now playable and completable. Yes, it could have more voiced lines instead of text, yes, it doesnt have the sexy “alerted sectoid” animation sequence when you run into a new enemy pod (pods dont exist in PP but you get me) and sure, the epic exclusive sucks I guess and I dont care much for the soundtrack. But after Backerbuild 5, who knows where the game will be after the next DLC? And the next? If you compare XCOM Enemy Unknown with XCOM Enemy Within, the difference was breathtaking. And here we have a game that has so much work already done, so many assets created, so much code already in place, and we, the players, punch them in the face and shout “NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”. You wanna go back to the drawing board, have somebody else start fresh on something that could be better in a year or two if we are lucky? Ive been looking for a game like XCOM for literally years. Battle Brothers was the closest I found. Tens, if not hundreds of others inbetween failed hard, from “Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus” to “Legends: Viking” to “Wildermyth” and basically everything inbetween. And here we have a game that seems to have the right idea, the right amount of ambition and a good amount of the work already done and we are bitchslapping them left and right just so we can go back to getting hyped about the next mediocre linear story experience. Sure, them releasing already is a shame. But if I was the one to decide, I would give them the same amount of money again and triple it and tell them to finish the job instead of spitting in their face when they come to us and lowkey tell us that they ran out of money. And I would send them flowers and tell them that Im sorry. Anybody can polish a game with extra cash, but getting the core idea right is something that even Firaxis almost failed to do with XCOM 2, as far as Im concerned. I said earlier, that there was a deeper underlying problem here and that I would come back to it and here it is, ladies and gentlemen. Modernday gamers are an ungrateful, hateful bunch of whiny spoiled brats, who think they are entitled to only the best of the best while in fact they “deserve” nothing. The entire concept of a kickstarter campaign is that you provide funds and trust so a bunch of people can try to realize their vision. If you dont like the outcome, then that doesnt mean they betrayed you, it means you have poor judgement. Notice how I say judgement and not taste. You dont have poor judgement because you dont like the outcome, but because you gave them money in the first place. I should maybe add at this point that my anger is mostly directed towards the public reaction and the phoenix point subreddit and not towards my own viewership. (hello) Phoenix Point is not the first game that has had me feel like the entire gaming landscape is slowly spiraling out of control. 5 years ago I thought quality means sales. At this point Im worried that a high marketing budget means sales. And I dread the possibility that 5 years from now I might be convinced that a high marketing budget means quality. Some of the best games this year were literally destroyed by players. Artifact wasn’t only boykotted, but actively brutalized, with people at some point purposefully streaming porn and torture under the Artifact tag on Twitch. Pathologic 2 had the devteam almost go bankrupt after poor sales and unfavourable reviews by people that barely grasped the basics of the game. All the while people feed money to the ginormous immortal that is Magic The Gathering and praise Hideo Kojima for his “unique vision” for Death Stranding. I didnt play Death Stranding and Magic can be pretty fun, but does nobody see the smothering double standards in play here? Im not saying that Phoenix Point has no problems right now in terms of quality. Some of the issues player encounter are in fact inexcusable, at least longterm. But XCOM 2 also had a bumpy launch with long loading times and tons of bugs and then they were fixed and today there are people that think XCOM 2 is better than Longwar. Incomprehensible to me how anyone could think that, but time and some postlaunch fixes did clearly change peoples minds. I think the main reason Phoenix Point got so much hate on launch in comparison to XCOM 2 (which also released 3 DLCs ,or was it more) is because its drastically different and more ambitious in many ways, not because it is half as bad as people make it out to be. XCOM is just like Phoenix Point, just dumbed down I guess. Kappa. (I hate it when people use the term “dumbed down”. This is a joke. Ffs why do I have to explain this)

#XCOM #Phoenix Point

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lateviews · 5 years

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Lateview: Absolver

If you've heard the expression, “Biting off more than you can chew”, then you'll understand how I feel about Absolver. Fans of third-person fighter games like “Dark Souls”, “Devil May Cry” and “God of War” know that these types of games require high levels of love and polish to do well. Despite the starved market, there’s a lot of room for mediocrity. Surprisingly, Absolver doesn't pull any punches and goes toe to toe with the best... until it runs out of steam.

Absolver is a third-person fighter game trying to set itself apart from the crowd using two unique mechanics: stances and the combo builder. The “build your own combo” system has been done before, most notably in “Remember Me” and “God Hand” but the way they combine it with the stances really sets it apart. Each move has a speed and damage rating as well as some of the moves having unique properties like breaking guard and interrupting attacks. There are 4 combat stances, visually corresponding to the direction your torso is facing. Changing stances will result in you turning your torso to face to the left or the right of your opponent while others will leave you with your back facing towards the enemy! Each stance can be assigned an escalating number of light attacks and a heavier “alternate attack”. Most attacks transition you from one stance to another; then, since you’re in another stance, you can immediately use that stances attacks. If you build your combos correctly, you can create loops where one attack will lead into one stance before an attack in that stance returns you to the same stance you started in. The end-result is a custom-built train of attacks that you've personally engineered to confuse opponents as you flow from stance to stance. Since you’re changes stances so often, your alternate attack changes over time. Predicting what move your opponent is currently planning on doing is daunting since there is so much they can do. Oh, and did I tell you that you can pull out a sword or gloves and doing so swaps you over to a brand new page of attacks that you need to customise and memorize?

The game has RPG elements to it as well. Gear will drop from mobs as you down them and you'll also find stashes of gear hidden within piles of rocks. Most interestingly though is how you acquire new attacks. You start the game with a reasonable number of attacks but soon you’ll run into people using 'new' attacks against you and if you block that attack, you'll start learning the move. Use your right thumb-stick ability against it and you'll learn it even faster. Story wise, this is a cool concept. Get punched in a particular way a certain number of times and you should be able to know how your opponent punches like that. Unfortunately, in practice, this just results in you actively not killing your opponents. You end up standing around as they are wailing on you while try to block/dodge/parry all their moves; grinding out all the moves before you move along. There is a risk/reward system at play here wherein all the learning you've done during a fight won't be saved until you kill the opponent and exit combat, but there is a lot of moves to learn from random grunts in the world and these don’t really pose a threat once you’ve got a handle on the game. This system gets even worse when you're trying to discover sword specific moves because swords are rare, and by the time you find someone wielding one, they are normally a very strong opponent and you can't afford to grind out these moves because you won’t survive unless you actively damage them.

That's pretty much the entire game. Fight, learn moves, earn gear, equip said moves and gear, repeat. Thankfully that's not as bad as it sounds because hey, it's a fighting game. You came here to fight. So why am I so disappointed in it? Well before I get to the big one, let me just rattle off a few smaller impressions the game left on me: ● Falling off ledges is far too easy. Admittedly this is a designed mechanic; forcing someone up to a ledge and just pushing them off with attacks is a legitimate way to win a fight but it still felt like it was far too easy to just slip off. Even with nobody attacking you as you’re navigating the environment, one foot off the path might mean falling and most of the time falling is death, because when it's not instant, the insane fall damage will ensure you lose the fight that you just dropped into.

● The environment is not easy to find your way around. The “map” you're given is essentially 3 circles, and you don't know where you are unless you sit at a bonfire an energy shard thingy or kill a boss as these are the only 2 markers on the map. Many times, vital paths that you NEED to go down are not highlighted or made evident in any way and are sometimes, out-rightly obscured. As a result of this, I completely missed an entire area of the game for a long period of time simply because I couldn’t find the path AND I thought I had already entered that area of the map… There's a time and a place to do-away with the hand holding evident in modern game design but this is too far the other way.

● Maybe why the environment is so convoluted is to try to hammer in this sense of mystery that the game is so stubbornly trying to instil. The game makes a point of telling you NOTHING about where you are, who you are, what you're doing or why. Thankfully it does tell you what to do (fight people and open a door). It just comes across as entitled. There IS an interesting world here but by the end of the game, nothing is explained at all. Who am I? Why did I teleport when I put on this mask? Why do I need to kill these people? Did I travel through time? Who is this chick with a sword? Who were the people who were here before? The game makes a point in referring to the tesseract-looking particle effect that happens as you kill others, get killed yourself or even unsheathing your sword as “folding” which seems really cool! To sum up my feelings on the aesthetics and lore of the game, I have two words. Obnoxiously Mysterious

Finally, the big one. The game ends. It just ends. No big finish, no special reveal, no closure. Nothing. If you remember before, I mentioned the map being 3 circles? That's it. That's the whole game. I have FOUR HOURS in Absolver, and it's finished. The entire story-mode. That's a third of the I spent in DMC and less than a 10th of the time I spent in Sekiro. Now sure, those are AAA titles with massive budgets behind them, but I cannot help but feel starved of content, especially since the story does not wrap itself up. The game starts with you and a bunch of other initiates standing in an arctic wind before you are chosen, you don a mask and teleport to another world. You then traverse through 12 named areas (3 of which contain nothing) fighting 11 different bosses. There are probably below 50 enemies to fight in the entire game. And then you're done. After fighting the somehow important Risryn, you're teleported back to the place you started with, you graduate from being a “prospect” to become an “Absolver”, you get a neat cape and you get told, “Idk, wait around and grind a bit I guess?” before it teleports you back to the “hub”. To put this in perspective, if the game had 3 times as much content as it currently does, I would still probably call the game short. I have no idea why (besides development problems) the game ended when it felt like Act 2 should have begun.

The game tries to justify this by placing a big emphasis on PVP. There is a system to look up other players and have a tussle and the game is always online so you might find people in the world and decide to start smacking one another but if the game is dead (like it was when I got to it) then all the PVP is non-existent. That's not even mentioning the players who don't WANT to fight other people. As far as I can tell the “latest” addition to the game included the “downfall” mode. This mode (only available after you have graduated to be an absolver) is randomly generated rooms of goons to fight endlessly. The lore explanation for this area only adds questions to the already tall pile of unanswered ones. The game allows you to fight bosses again at a harder difficulty, but this is locked behind PVP progress…meaning that if you weren’t able to find a game like myself, then you just can’t

I hate having to be so negative. Other indie games cater themselves to a casual market and can have all the depth of a puddle and still receive high ratings but because the devs took on such a loved genre, all the depth they have added only makes people want more. I mean really, if my biggest complaint about the game is that I wanted more, there's got to be something good about it. In shooting for the stars, the devs came up short, but the time, skill and effort they put into trying to get there far exceeds a lot of other developers. I can say that the game was bug free and (until it ended) felt close to a AAA title and the sad thing is that it starts to get judged by those harsh standards. For a AAA title, this would be an insult; But for a fighting game? This is a worthwhile experiment; for an indie game? This is one heck of an accomplishment and for your time? This is worth it.

Overall, I'd look to pay $15 to $25 for Absolver, despite its $42 default price tag. It depends on how much you love the third person fighter genre; how much you enjoy PVP (and if you're lucky enough to be in a locale with players online) and how much you want to support the studio. If you can make a trio of yourselves, maybe you can get some mileage out of the co-op enabled Downfall mode, but I wouldn't want to pay much more for that.

#Absolver #lateview #lateviews #fighting games #spectaclefighter

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ptw30 · 5 years

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New Content ≠ New Information

- or why you might have been underwhelmed by the recent Voltron: Legendary Defender trailer.

A few people dropped into my messages yesterday and said the exact same thing, “But Dev, we got new content in the Season 8 trailer. How did we not learn anything new?”

I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but the intent was all the same - we got new content, so we know more about Season 8, right?

Not really, no.

Below the cut - what trailers should tell us, how Season 2′s trailer rocked, what we didn’t learn from the Season 8 trailer, and - okay, I give. There are two new things we learned about Season 8 from yesterday’s meatless burger.

(I can do food metaphors, too.)

A trailer is supposed to do a few things, but its main purpose to explain what plot is coming up and give relevance to the new content.

Let me put this in a food metaphor for you. Let’s say the Voltron Twitter handle promises you food. You assume a burger. Now a good trailer is just about half the burger because a season has two main obstacles - the first problem the heroes must overcome and then a second, harder issue at the season’s end.

So a trailer should explain the initial problem and foreshadow to the final problem. That means you’re still hungry at the end of the trailer, and that’s a good thing. You now need to eat the rest of the burger - or see the season.

Do me a favor - rewatch the Season 2 trailer on Netflix. I’ll wait.

...

You didn’t, did you? *mock glare*

Within the first 31 seconds, you know the “lions of lore” have returned. You know Zarkon, the villain, can only be defeated by these lions, and you know that Zarkon is actively hunting Voltron PLUS to raise the stakes, Zarkon can find Voltron anywhere.

...that’s pretty much, in 30 seconds, is a recap of Season 1 and the entire plot of Season 2.

Then we get - New Worlds, New Allies, New Villains - which rounds out the new places we visit, the Blades, and the Robeasts. The trailer ends with the defacto showdown you’ve been waiting for since the end of the previous scene.

Now, we don’t know if Shiro will win this battle verse Zarkon, so we’re not hungry but ravenous for the rest of this burger. And double points to the creator of this trailer because the scene above in “Space Mall” also foreshadows the second showdown between Zarkon and Shiro in “Blackout,” the second problem of the season.

You essentially have S2 wrapped up in a 1:45 trailer.

Then, when we watched Season 2 - not only did Voltron deliver the rest of the burger, they also threw in some fries and a milkshake.

Good job, VLD Season 2.

Season 8 Trailer - where’s the beef?

The issue with the Season 8 trailer is that it gave us a salad, not even the burger, and I’m not hungry after eating the salad. But I’m also not satiated. In fact, I think the tomatoes weren’t good, and I’m just...not...feeling right.

The trailer starts with a longer version of the teaser trailer from October. I wasn’t thrilled with the original teaser trailer, but I understood it. The paladins have changed over the last two years. Now, we’ve arrived at the final season.

No need to redo that in the first 30 seconds of the new trailer and certainly no need to just take random quotes that don’t really reflect where we are now. But - I’ll give. Okay. You want to set the scene, Voltron. Got it.

But then once the new stuff is supposed to show, you cut to a scene from “The White Lion,” an episode from Season 6.

And okay - the paladins are heading back into Oriande, but...we knew that from the NYCC trailer. Show us something we don’t know.

Then we see Hunk firing his bayard -

- which was great in the Season 7 trailer, too. How about something new? ...sure, okay. He’s in a forest. That... doesn’t thrill me - unless I know the forest is the Forest of Life or something. ...more on that in a moment.

Next, the trailer cuts to Lance who is going into the Void - an old scene from “Postmorteum,” Season 5.

Then we see Allura making a tree glow.

So? Allura can make Voltron glow. She did it in Season 4 - “A New Defender,” so why is this tree important? I have no attachment to this tree - or Hunk’s forest adventure. You gotta give me a reason to care about this forest, Voltron.

Then we see Hunk and Lance flying through the forest, so...again, we’re in the forest. Good. We know Pidge is also in this forest from the NYCC trailer, so...I’m glad the paladins decided to go for a picnic.

Then we see an explosion with the lions - which we’ve seen explosions with the lions before. Why should I care about this particular explosion? (I have a point! I’m getting there...)

Then we see Matt from the NYCC trailer. Not new. Green comes for Pidge. That happened in the first season, “Return of the Gladiator.”

And here - 49 seconds in - is when we get our first new information of the trailer!

We didn’t know that Haggar fired on the original paladins, possibly killing them. Yes! FINALLY. After all, we knew the original paladins were going to show up from the Voltron Tumblr Questions after SDCC. So good. Now we have context. (More on to that in one moment. I have to put Keef in cuz it’s Keef.)

Then Keith uses his Blade of Marmora blade -

- which he’s been wielding since Season 2.

My point is - none of these things mean ANYTHING without context, which the trailer does not give us.

Who is Keith attacking? Why is he using his BoM blade and not his bayard? Without the context, as far as I know is - he decided he likes to use his BoM blade, which he did in “The Black Paladins.”

The forest! Why is that forest important? Give me a reason to care about this forest - that it holds the Tree of Life and the universe grew from that tree. Something! Anything!

Even Allura’s end remarks -

- are a lie because there was an episode called, “Defenders of All Universes” in Season 6.

Voltron, DreamWorks, been there, done that. Move on.

The trailer needed to explain what is actually happening in Season 8 and what makes it special, the final dark night, what are we facing? Haggar? And what? What is she really trying to do and how is it different from what Lotor did in Season 6?

That’s the beef.

Instead of having Shiro promise the team is going to come home triumphant - it’s Voltron. Of course they are going to win. If you actually have them lose and the universe be destroyed, then at least that’d be a true plot twist. Ultimately - the Defenders of the Universe fail to defend the universe. -

- tell us Haggar’s plan. Have Allura say, “Haggar wants to go back in time and change what happened to Altea and Daibazaal. She wants to rewrite history using the Tree of Life.”

What’s the hook here? The reality that we know might never exist. The Voltron Paladins may never have existed, and more over - should the paladins try to stop her - or help her? Is it wrong for them to wipe out the last 10k years of Galra conquering, and if so - why?

And then the lions are also in the middle of this - because they are the reason Altea and Daibazaal ultimately destroyed each other.

Then, show us context or delete context and show us new aspects of the show. Don’t show me Lance and Keith plugging in their bayards to create the big thrusters on Voltron again.

We watched Season 7. We know!

And explosions don’t thrill us anymore without the context. So either show that this is Earth being destroyed - OR better yet - show me the Blue Bayard being plugged into its slot by Allura or Lance. Show me the Blue Bayard and the Red Bayard. Show me the Yellow Bayard and the Green Bayard. Show me the Black Bayard and Yellow Bayard. Show me Black and Green, Red and Yellow, Black and Blue - these are all combinations that have never been done!

Give me something to look forward to finding out, not things we have already seen.

...Okay, there are two places where the trailer achieves this. The first place was above with Haggar and the original paladins, and the second was here -

Sincline or Haggar attacking Atlas, which arguably isn’t new content because we just saw them on different sides of the battlefield in the NYCC trailer - but I’m making an exception because we didn’t know that Sincline and Atlas would actually meet up.

TL;DR - Where’s my burger, Voltron? You’re dropping thirteen episodes two weeks from today, and yet - we’ve only seen 53 seconds of new content. What gives?

I’m not asking you to feed me like YJ, with the entire Dollar Menu. They gave me a five-minute trailer six months before the drop, then a scene three months before the drop, and then a full trailer a month and change out.

I’m just asking you for a solid two-minute trailer. That’s it.

#voltron #vld season 8 #trailer #it's a marketing thing #voltron critical #haggar #vld season 2 #zarkon #shiro #keith

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onegirllis · 5 years

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Have you really gone through episode 2 of LIS2? I really wonder what you think about it. Better, of course, the full answer.

I finished it indeed. The episode is about 3-4h long, depending on how much you want to explore and how much time it would take for you to find a way out. I was battling with the idea of sharing my thoughts because it’s very hard to judge just a slice of the story, instead of the whole season, but why the hell not. Maybe I will read it when episode 5 comes out and see how wrong I was.

So, without further ado, here’s my review of episode 2, but please be aware it includes a lot of spoilers. It’s also as honest as possible, although it’s my personal opinion only. And yes, it may be harsh, not sugarcoated, but sincere.

MY REVIEW OF EPISODE 2 OF LIFE IS STRANGE 2

Call me naive, but I really had hopes. I really did. I didn’t like ep1, it was way too slow for my taste, with some dramatic moments that felt off, but overall I assumed that it might be just an exposition, an introduction to the world, the characters and their problems, and that the game would elaborate on everything else later. Sometimes the beginnings feel off and it gets better later, so that’s why I had some hopes (not super high) that ep2 of LIS2 will remind me of why this game even belongs to LIS franchise and why I should play the whole season.

Well, it didn’t work out.

Characters

Again, It’s my opinion only but I don’t feel that there are any character developments whatsoever. Daniel and Sean didn’t learn anything freezing their asses off in the mountains. They didn’t change their ways, not learning patience nor being careful. There is no tension between them or any quarrel about the events. The acceptance of their fate is understandable, but not helping with the lack of overall tension. The moments of calm, that usually gave the player the opportunity to know more about the main character’s inner thoughts, instead serve the purpose of a summary of the few previous scenes and nothing more. It almost feels like the writers don’t like the PC and don’t want to tell us more about Sean, because there is absolutely nothing worth telling. Remember the girl Sean was in love with in ep1? Never mentioned again. Remember his friends, his boss, his job, school, or sports he was interested in? He doesn’t mention them either. There is nothing in the journal or in the dialogues that would show us anything we don’t already know or wouldn’t assume by ourselves, and Sean’s insights seem more like repetitive whinings than anything impactful. In episode 1 I could wave off the fact that they decided to walk to Mexico being shocked, traumatized and lost. In episode 2, when they notoriously risk their lives or reject any other solution not learning from experience just to run away, you start questioning their sanity. I know the reason behind it - “oh plot” but “oh plot” is not good enough.

The boys miss their dad, but don’t feel much upset or don’t present any sign of emotional trauma. There are no breakdowns and the brothers are more or less in good spirits staying optimistic, not asking themselves a single question about the future. Comparing to Chloe who was repeating “I wish Rachel was here” over and over and was living in this trauma the whole time, they don’t seem very much impacted by the events, but on the other hand, they place the dad’s photo on the table, so his death can be conveniently mentioned. The dog died (yes, it’s true, Mushroom is killed off in the first 20 minutes), and even if Daniel is supposedly devastated, it takes him only 5 minutes to shake it off and never mentions this dog again (oh ok, maybe once). If the characters don’t freaking care about this animal, why should I?

It also seems that the characters keep forgetting what the objective is here. Maybe it’s on purpose, but they recall certain friends only when it’s convenient for the plot. “I’m gonna call Lyla” says Sean towards the end of the episode, even if he hadn’t mentioned her for 2 hours of gameplay. And even when getting devastating news about her, he is not really concerned, shrugs and sighs deeply. Yeah, we sigh with him.

When it comes to Sean himself, I really don’t mind the PC being a guy, really. If I had a problem with it, I wouldn’t be able to play 90% of video games. The thing I do have a problem with though, is Sean being an utter asshole. Yeah, he takes care of his brother and all, but he is freaking mean to his grandparents, showing lack of empathy and acceptance of a different point of view. Calling the grandma, a woman who opened her house to them “an old bat” is just a bit too much, especially after a month spent in an abandoned house without food or heating. There is no reason for him to judge those people so much and if there is a reason, we don’t know the details. How can I emotionally invest in a character that is not opening up to me, the player? Or maybe there is nothing more about Sean, and that’s even worse.

There is a big mystery regarding why their mother left her sons but if you expect any answer while the boys are visiting their grandparents and can snoop around in Karen’s old room, you’d be mistaken. The devs are building the mystery in the typical David Cage style, that one of the characters is about to tell you something “Oh, I will tell you what your mother did..~” and then something happens and we’re left in the dark again. At this point, I expect some explosive explanation of why their mother left the family, but it’s ether drugs, a religious cult or some relationship stuff.

Tragedy Porn

Dear devs, the fact that a lot of people in the fandom are familiar with this term and use it regularly, doesn’t mean you should take it literally. I know that the LIS franchise is about hard choices or difficult situations, but killing kids and small animals left and right is just cheap and really unnecessary. It quickly gets old, just like “the boy who cried wolf” (pun intended) that as some point I don’t even blink when witnessing another digital death. I can’t be devastated by Mushroom’s death, because the dog had less screen time than Sean’s skateboard. I can’t feel sorry for every character (human or not) that you didn’t even give me a chance to feel connected to. I know that you want me to “feel something” but at this point the “feel” changes into “yawn”. Chris AKA Captain Spirit being dead (or almost dead) AGAIN - so I helped the boy just to see him die 1 hour later (I know it’s optional but still)? Lyla in the hospital, the family from the abandoned house being wiped out of the face of the earth because of cancer (at least not a car accident this time), Chris’s mom dead, the boys’ father dead, grandpa almost dying because of the accident… It’s too much. It feels cheap and not impactful. At this point, I will be surprised if you won’t just kill everybody. Who needs people on the West Coast anyway, huh?

I don’t even know if I want to learn more about the boys’ mother since you probably will kill her too.

Politics and Religion

In this episode, politics have been toned down, still visible though and there are a few moments when I literally rolled my eyes. This time the devs decided to say something more about religion since it’s a significant part of life if you live in a small town in America. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the power of prayer is being mocked rather than actually shown as somebody’s way of life. Acceptance and tolerance go both ways though.

The boys surprisingly identify themselves as Mexicans, even though they are half Irish and have never been to their father’s homeland. There are a few moments when you are wondering whether they had ever really liked to live in the US, questioning everything around them. Sean, who spent a decent amount of time with his dad on “the road trips” as stated in ep1, seems genuinely surprised that in his country people keep the Bible by their beds, as if he had never been in any motel whatsoever where the Bible is always present, placed on the nightstand or in a drawer. If being religious bothers him, boy, oh boy, you will be hella surprised in Mexico. They also don’t know how to pray, which I find extremely hard to believe. It almost feels like a scene from “Anne of Green Gables” but damn, the girl had a valid reason not to know. They don’t, especially if they identify themselves as Mexicans. We could assume that they were also part of Mexican-American communities and I cannot believe that in THIS WORLD the immigrants from this particular part of the world don’t know how to pray. Although if you expect some deep conversation about God or religion in general, forget it. It’s just there to be there and that’s it.

I don’t want to discuss the articles in the newspaper about “the gentle police officer” that was killed by immigrants because it makes my blood boil.

Against the logic, the brothers are still planning to escape to Mexico and no grown-up is really trying to talk them out of this idea. There are no alternatives provided or discussed except a pat on the back and an offer for a quick stop if even. Even the grandparents are a bit concerned but no one really gives them any real advice, which I find unlikely. The problem is that if anybody would actually give them a piece of real advice, we wouldn’t have a game.

And that’s a problem, isn’t it?

Gameplay

We have a few mini-games and fetch quests like finding bottles in the abandoned house (why always freaking bottles?), the pirate version of dice poker (never brought back again) and drawing. None of those serve any purpose except a filler that you might enjoy but it doesn’t matter if you succeed in them or not, unless the game forces you to succeed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware that this particular genre doesn’t usually provide a set of complex challenges in its gameplay, but it seriously looks like LIS2 is throwing us a bone, remembering from time to time that uh, it’s a game, not a movie. Those mini games are not really engaging, not really connected to the plot, but just for… whatever reason, as part of the daily chores.

But it’s a game about choices, you say! Yes, it is, but only some of them really matter and I’m not sure for how long. If you give me a choice to do something or NOT to do it, please consider that I might pick the latter and don’t force me into your favorite path. It happens from time to time and it’s utterly annoying. If you want me to do something, just don’t give me the illusion that I can refuse.

It almost seems that LIS2 turned into a dark alley where you are rewarded for picking the “good, canonical path” and punished for playing it differently than the devs indented. I loved LIS1 for ambiguous choices that I might pick, depending on my personal preferences, not to mention that those choices are made during an emotional moment. I don’t feel I have that opportunity here, just as if somebody who constructed it forgot why LIS was so great and is so loved.

When it comes to dialogue, it is way better than LIS1, regarding how people actually speak. On the other hand, the lines are just there to be there and I can’t recall a single line that would be worth quoting.

And one more thing. Cutscenes. So many cutscenes. The moment when I actually could do something with my controller was a celebration. I don’t mind cutscenes in general, but it almost feels like a movie. A long, boring, super slow movie.

Superpower

 The superpower is mentioned, mostly in rules that Sean is lecturing Daniel about, but it’s non-existent in the gameplay almost at all. It’s drastically different comparing to LIS1, when Max was using her power almost all the time or was a challenge not to use it. Here we know that Daniel can do things but most of the time he conveniently forgets about it or uses it in the wrong moment. I know the game is about education but the superpower itself seems like a plot device, an additional reason to run to Mexico than anything else. They talk more about it than use it. It sounds like a good idea in general and it probably looked great on paper, but at some point I didn’t care about the superpower at all, forgetting that this secret even exists.

Season 1

When it comes to references to season 1, Arcadia Bay, or any character that we know from LIS1, there is almost nothing. Yes, you can find a drawing of ”door to another world” instead of hole to another universe, or graffiti on the wall that Sean and Daniel were here, similar to the famous junkyard thing, but it won’t give you any insight about what had happened to the favorite characters or any glimpse of their fate. There was more about Arcadia Bay in Captain Spirit than the whole LIS2 so far. The devs were damn serious, showing us Arcadia Bay in episode 1, destroyed or not, saying that this is the past. It seems that they don’t want to even refer to this past much and it’s fine, but if you’re hoping for anything, just anything related to LIS1, forget it.

Technical problems

Oh, boy. I’m aware that creating games is not an easy job and a team sport. I know that it’s almost a miracle that some of the titles even got shipped, but episode 2 of LIS2 is probably the MOST BUGGED EPISODE in the history of this franchise. Glitches, problems with sound, teleportation of objects, animations that didn’t work or songs being cut off… I’m not talking about a few mistakes here and there, but it happens all the time. It’s so common it’s an epidemic and you face some technical challenge almost in every scene as if Bethesda was putting this episode together. This episode looks like advanced beta, not a finished product that had been delayed for months. It seems ironic when recalling the posts from the Life is Strange blog about QA teams, one in France and one in Canada, carefully checking every detail and describing how quality was important. Especially in that context, this is really a disaster, however, I didn’t face any technical problem that would make this episode impossible to finish.

What worked

So what’s great about this episode? Does everything suck? Well, of course not. On the upside, the locations are absolutely stunning. You want to explore the town, the houses, play in the snow, dive into the world, even if you don’t expect anything groundbreaking to happen. The level design, in my opinion, is better than in LIS1, more consistent and intriguing. I know a lot of people might disagree with me but somebody put their heart and soul building this environment, creating something really beautiful. Except for the locations, I liked some songs and the music, way more than in ep1, but it’s not as good as in LIS1 or BTS. Better, but not great.

Cassidy

Oh, somebody was reading “Preacher”, weren’t ya? Or is ia reference to “On the road”? A lot of people seem excited about her finally showing up. I have mixed feelings about this character since I’m not sure if I want to discover the world from her perspective. A stoned, hippie-rasta girl, who takes pride in being free and “not owned by any corporation” (except Square Enix hehehe), is maybe a realistic character and I’m not saying that people like her don’t exist here, but I’m on the fence, to be honest. It seems that the devs are trying to establish the next canon ship or something with her being interested in Sean and him actually “liking her” after exchanging 3 sentences, but that really feels off. She seems more like Chloe 2.0 than anything else, but we shall see (in the next 6 months or whenever they will fucking publish the next ep). Plus for fuck’s sake, Sean was into Jenn (I don’t remember her name exactly), and there was Lyla, and then this girl. Dude!

Summary

It was boring. It was extremely freaking boring to the point that I lost my patience to check every single detail or examine every object. I don’t feel any need to replay it, even if the consequences of my choices weren’t great. I’m not curious about different outcomes nor do I want to check if I missed anything. There is not a single scene I want to see or experience again. In my game, Chris died and I don’t really feel the need to replay it and change the outcome since I will never meet him again or even deal with the consequences of his death. The whole road trip setting is intriguing but drastically different to what I loved about Life is Strange - learning more about each character, dwelling deeper into the situation, uncovering a hidden mystery. We won’t learn more about most of those characters (or it doesn’t seem possible) since we just pass them and move on, exchanging a dialogue or two like with a pedestrian on the street. There is a charm to the road trip idea, but then I would have to be extremely interested in the main characters, including the PC, to actually follow their journey closely. In LIS1 I didn’t have to like Max to play the whole thing, curious about Chloe or Rachels’ disappearance. In a road trip setting the two brothers are the core of the story and if you’re not fond of them, it won’t work.

So far it’s not working for me.

#life is strange 2 #review #sean diaz #daniel diaz #life is strange

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