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bouncyballcitadel · 2 years

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(Almost) a year’s worth of Citadel!

I posted 1,613 times in 2021

1515 posts created (94%)

98 posts reblogged (6%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.1 posts.

I added 5,853 tags in 2021

#citadelwip - 1399 posts

#elliot sanford - 695 posts

#ellen sanford - 686 posts

#peter grey - 672 posts

#davy jackson - 657 posts

#ivy sloan - 635 posts

#jean liu - 608 posts

#victor uytterhoeven - 224 posts

#victoria uytterhoeven - 206 posts

#citadelafterdark - 71 posts

Longest Tag: 78 characters

#free shipping if you send it to that friend you’ve been in love with for years

My Top Posts in 2021

going off the "super chill fight" ask, how would the ROs react if the MC got hurt by a patient? like the patient lashed out or something and punched MC really, really hard

ouch

I'm going to answer this ask assuming the patient is still riled up and ready to fight.

Eli: Immediately ready to throw hands, professionalism be damned.

Davy: Would automatically step between the patient and the MC, so the MC didn't get hurt any further. “Touch them again, and you’ll regret it.”

Jean: "No!" -jabs finger at patient- "You do not behave this way. Sit the fuck down. If you so much as move, so help me--"

Vic: Would make themselves as tall and threatening as possible. "I would choose your next move very carefully."

Dr. Grey: Would say very coolly, "I highly suggest you don't try anything like that again." His tone? Absolutely terrifying.

Dr. Sloan: "We are in a hospital. You will behave like you are in a hospital. Calm down, sit down, or I will have you on your ass outside of this hospital so fast, you'll still have an IV in you."

104 notes • Posted 2021-06-04 04:03:51 GMT

If this is your MC, like this post 🤡

115 notes • Posted 2021-09-19 22:38:06 GMT

RO reactions to MC getting physically hurt trying to protect them? Like pushing them out of the way of smt

ouch

Let's go full drama and say the MC pushed them out of the way of a car.

Eli: "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. No, no, no." Would be half trying to perform first aid, half crying/sobbing hysterically. Would not leave the MC's side--the paramedics would literally have to pry them away (and, even then, probably wouldn't succeed).

Davy: Outwardly, calm and collected, trying to do damage control and keep the MC awake. But, their fingers are shaking. And there's a tremble in their voice. "Why would you do that? Why would you--"

Jean: Would be having a full-blown panic attack. All medical knowledge has left their brain. Crying, gasping for breath, calling out the MC's name. Cradling the MC's head in their hands. "MC. MC. Please. Don't--don't--"

Vic: Would go into crisis mode and immediately start first aid. While waiting for the ambulance, would be holding the MC's hand in a death-grip. "If you fucking die on me, I'll never forgive you."

Dr. Grey: Would be the calmest out of the ROs. Scarily efficient, immensely protective. Don't even think about fucking up around him right now--paramedics, he's looking at you (and, yes, he will be riding in the ambulance). "Hey, love, stay with me. You'll be all right. You'll be fine."

Dr. Sloan: Like Vic and Dr. Grey, would immediately stamp down her feelings about the matter to administer first aid. Still, her heart's racing in her ears--and, fuck, where's the ambulance? She normally has a short fuse, but watch out now--one misstep with the MC's care, and she'll be tearing into you. "You'll be okay. Just keep your eyes on me."

116 notes • Posted 2021-06-04 03:32:54 GMT

Case Two: Chapter One is here!

Enjoy y’all!

As always, comments/feedback/messages about coding errors appreciated! If you send in a coding error, please attach a screenshot with the error that pops up!

Updated demo here!

Banner courtesy of @deflatedball!

230 notes • Posted 2021-09-25 00:03:06 GMT

Thanks for Clicking!

As a healthcare professional-in-training, I’ve been working on a medical drama game with a healthy dash of romance added.

Please note, Citadel and this Tumblr may contain adult themes unsuitable for underage readers such as graphic depictions of medicine (including death), strong language, and sexual content.

Please enjoy and leave comments/suggestions/etc.! Also, feel free to leave something in the ask box!

It’s the not-so-distant future, and the landscape of medicine has been irrevocably changed. Once incurable diseases are now completely manageable. Metastatic cancer. Alzheimer’s. These patients have a new lease on life, and it’s all thanks to Citadel Health’s NINO technique. But, like all innovations in medicine, there’s more to it than meets the eye…

Play as a first-year surgery intern at Citadel Health. Will you become the star intern and curry the favor of the chief? Or will you uncover Citadel Health’s secrets and break a story or two? This will be the best and worst year of your life. Don’t forget to save lives and break some hearts along the way.

Elliot/Ellen Sanford (he/him, she/her):

Your roommate, and Citadel Health medicine intern. You and Eli have known each other since the beginning of medical school. Can come off as a bit of a slacker, but cares deeply about providing the best possible care to patients. Aspires to become a geriatrician.

Davy Jackson (they/them):

Fellow Citadel Health surgery intern. Very self-assured, very sassy. Has huge ambitions to become a leading surgeon of the NINO technique and isn’t afraid to hide them. Whether they’re your friend, frenemy, or enemy is up to you.

Jean Liu (she/her, he/him):

Resident (hah!) coffee-drinker, and Citadel Health medicine intern. Born and bred in the Bay Area, this is really their first time out of California (and they’re already regretting it…). Would love to do a fellowship in Pulmonology/Critical Care to become an ICU attending.

Victor/Victoria Uytterhoeven (he/him, she/her):

One of the chief surgery residents at Citadel Health. Strict, jacked, and full of angst.

Dr. Peter Grey (he/him):

Chief of NINO Surgery at Citadel Health, and one of the early pioneers of the NINO technique. Perfect for your McDreamy fantasies.

Dr. Ivy Sloan (she/her):

Medicine attending at Citadel Health. Smiles rarely. Compliments residents even more rarely. Perfect for your House fantasies.

DEMO || DISCORD || KO-FI || AO3 || COG FORUM PAGE

Citadel After Dark (Spicy Asks) || Citadel Ouch (Angsty Asks)

Citadel Short Snippets

DJ Citadel (Spotify Playlist)

Citadel Surgery Intern Class

Artists I’ve Commissioned

11/28/2021

Happy Sun-yay everyone!

I’m in the middle of residency interview season, so I apologize for this very delayed progress note + the sporadic posting.

1) Case 2: Chapter 2 is at 17,000+ words...and I’d say we’re about at the halfway point. Most of you indicated that you’d like the next chapter released all at once when it’s finished rather than my releasing it in two parts, so please bear with me haha!

2) Thank you for your patience regarding asks! I’m going to shoot for posting one ask per day, but no guarantees...

3) There are now 21 (!) fics on the AO3 Citadel page. Check out some amazing content written by very talented people. Link here!

4) Another shameless plug for the Discord! You can find short snippets from me, as well as amazing content in both art/writing from others. You might also occasionally find me hosting Chats with Bouncy, where I hop into voice-chat and engage in shenanigans.

5) Commissions are closed (thank you to those who bought them up!). But, if you’d like to donate to support my writing, feel free to visit my Ko-Fi link! Donations go to commissioning wonderful art, so if you’d like to see more art, click that donate button!

Cheers!

Banners made by the lovely and very, very talented @deflatedball

500 notes • Posted 2021-01-22 15:39:31 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#citadelwip #(almost) a year of citadel #why does it not shock me that the two asks with the most notes involve angst

29 notes · View notes

thicctails · 3 years

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Summer of Whump Day 11 [Whipping/Branding]

I took this one WAY farther than it was meant to be taken. I’m sorry Omega babey I promise I’ll never do something this bad again :(

It had happened at the worse possible time.

Upon waking up after her encounter with the Quill Stalker, Omega had found that she had been returned to the ship. Tech was looking her over, asking of she felt dizzy or nauseous. She hadn’t, but even after she’d told him such, he had insisted on staying with her. He had been tense, and he kept looking around, like he expected something to attack him. When Rex came around the corner holding his blaster, he twitched back a bit. She could feel the stress he was feeling, and it had made her nervous as well.

“You feeling better, kiddo?” Rex had asked.

“Y-yeah, I’m alright. Are you staying with us?” She’d questioned.

“Not for long. We’re headed to Bracca to find a Jedi cruiser. Once we’re done there, I’ll be off.” He’d explained.

“A Jedi cruiser? Why do you need to find one of those?” Omega had asked, sitting up.

“Rex is going to help us remove the inhibitor chips. They are… more of a threat than we previously thought.” Tech had said, shifting uncomfortably.

Omega had looked at Tech, than at Rex, then back at Tech. The younger clone was clearly becoming more and more stressed and uncomfortable the longer Rex was in the room, and she had realized that she could pick up prickles of fear in Tech. Her eyes had flicked to Rex’s blaster, and she had realized that Tech thought that Rex might shoot him. That hadn’t made any sense to her, Wrecker had said that Rex was their friend, and why would a friend harm them?

She hadn’t felt any warning buzzing, so she had merely put on a smile and placed a hand on Tech’s arm, causing his attention to shift to her.

“That’s good! It means that the Empire can’t ever control you.” She’d said, which had made him smile.

The air in the ship had never lost its tense feeling as they flew to a dusty, scrap-covered planet. Omega hadn’t even wanted to think about the number of ways they could all get tetanus as they made their way through the ship scrap yard. They had slunk out of view of some Scrapper Guild members, entered the ship, and started up the technology that they would need to remove the chips.

And that is where everything went to shit.

That oh so familiar shriek in the back of her mind had been her only warning. Confused, she’d looked around, trying to figure out where the sudden danger was coming from. Everything seemed fine, Tech was working on Wrecker while Rex and Hunter tried to usher her out of the room as they talked. She’d hesitated, then turned to tell Hunter about her feeling.

“W-wrecker!”

Omega spun, her eyes going wide at the impossible sight before her. Wrecker had Tech by the throat, lifting the man off the ground as he struggled for air.

“You’re in direct violation of Order 66.” Wrecker’s voice was cold, so unlike his usual chipper tone. Omega became cold all over as Wrecker threw Tech against the wall, the younger clone crashing to the ground in a heap. His blaster slid across the floor, right in front of Wrecker.

The events following that moment went by in a blur. Hunter had grabbed her, pulling her behind cover as the sound of blaster fire exploded into the room. Her ears rang as her heart began to beat wildly. She couldn’t understand. Wrecker’s chip wasn’t supposed to activate!

Hunter had told her to stay with Tech, and while she was glad she had managed to save Hunter from being killed by his own brother, she was now finding herself in the most terrifying chase of her life.

Omega panted, slinking back farther into the shadows. She shivered, griping the blaster with more force than what was necessary. Somehow, she’d managed to dodge Wrecker long enough to end up in the cruiser’s lower levels. Sweat poured down her face and neck, and she took a second to wipe some of the liquid out of her eyes. It was hot down here, steam bursting out through cracks in the floor. It seemed that this ship laid atop some sort of steam vent, and Omega took care to avoid the places that the steam hissed through. She knew that steam was water that was very, very hot, and so that touching it would hurt.

Wrecker’s heavy footsteps echoed out into the open space, the degrading metal floor groaning a bit under his weight. Omega cowered back, holding her breath as he passed by. Luckily, she was on his blind side, so he didn’t see her. His face was pulled into a serious frown, his brown eyes void of any light as he scanned the room. Wrecker had always been a fun, reliable protector to Omega, and despite his size, she’d always felt completely safe with him. That feeling of security was gone now, shot dead point blank. Terror replaced it, and she felt something unfamiliar sitting heavily in her chest. The emotion was a mix of shock, anger, and deep sadness. She hated it.

A burst of steam broke through a crack in the floor in front of her, causing her to yelp and stumble back. Omega scrambled to her feet, tears that had been steadily building spilling out as the hulking clone turned towards her.

“Wrecker,” She started, quickly darting to the side as Wrecker stomped towards her, “Wrecker please stop! This isn’t you!”

“All rouge clones will be terminated.” Wrecker snarled, reaching out to grab her.

Omega raised the blaster, her hands shaking as she pointed it at Wrecker. Tears blurred her vision, and her voice broke as she pleaded with the man.

“Just- just stop! I don’t wanna have to hurt you!” She kept backing up, not sure if she would actually be able to take the shot. This was Wrecker, he was family.

The choice was violently ripped away from her as the enhanced clone gripped the blaster and threw it aside. Omega stared up at Wrecker, her shiny brown eyes wide and pleading. Her previous words had no effect on the clone, however, and she quickly found herself unable to breathe. Her throat muscles burned under the crushing force, and she kicked wildly, her minuscule leg muscles not allowing her to do any damage to the hulking giant. She was too panicked to try and call out to the Force, and thus was left to claw at Wrecker’s hand. She tried to speak, to once again attempt to reason with her mind-controlled guardian, but the pressure on her windpipe was too great, and she could only silently move her lips. Wrecker was still walking forward, and she could feel the air behind her getting hotter and hotter, the sound of hissing steam just barely audible over the sound of blood rushing in her ears. She thrashed, her lungs burning from the lack of oxygen.

Then, without warning, she was slammed against the metal wall. The pain was immediate, and Omega actually managed to force out a choked squeak as she screamed. The scorching metal burned through her shirt easily, leaving her back exposed to its monstrous heat. Her skin split, blistering under the touch of the boiling steam. Blood sizzled against the red-hot steel of the ship, splattering up onto her burning flesh.

Omega’s pupils were pinpricks in a sea of caramel, the black dots nearly lost to the colour. She was beyond panic at this point, beyond any form of rational thinking. Her body was in survival mode, and it screamed out to the Force, reacting as soon as the power was summoned. Wrecker flew back, the armored man smashing into the wall across the room. No longer supported, Omega dropped, her seizing body hitting the floor with a thud.

She lay there, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Her brain was having a meltdown, not sure if it could feel the pain, or if the nerves in her back had been melted away. Breathing took a great amount of effort, and Omega saw spots of black and deep cyan dance in her vision. The only sound she heard was the ringing in her ears, loud and unyielding. She couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t blink, couldn’t think.

Wrecker shifted, but she didn’t notice. Her mind was elsewhere, shutting itself down in a desperate attempt to preserve Omega’s psyche. The tank of a human shook his head, glaring at the quaking child. He got to his feet, a trail of blood dripping down over his blind eye. He stepped forward, ready to finish the job.

Bam!

Wrecker saw nothing but darkness, only just aware of the fact that he was now falling forward.

Rex stood in the doorway, freezing up in shock at the sight of Omega. He dropped his blaster and ran over to her, hands hovering above her broken form. There was blood everywhere, the floor beneath the girl stained red. What parts of her back that weren’t covered in blisters were burnt black or pulsing an angry red. The smell of burnt flesh made him want to vomit, but he swallowed his gorge as he tried to figure out how to help. Disturbingly, Omega was still awake, her eyes blown wide as she shuddered uncontrollably.

“Oh kriff, oh kriff.” He said, his hands shaking as he gently touched Omega’s shoulder. The sight of a young child being so brutally injured made him feel sick. For a brief second, he saw another young girl laying on the metal floor, one that he knew far better than Omega. He shook his head. No. She was safe, and Omega needed his full attention.

It was the middle of her back that was the most damaged, with the area just below her neck and her most lower back being mostly untouched, minor burns spotting the skin around the edges. Carefully, Rex positioned his arms so that he was only touching the unburned skin. He lifted Omega up, holding the injured child as gently as possible.

“It’s okay, ad'ika. You’re safe now, I promise.” He soothed, quickly moving out of the room. Wrecker wouldn’t be stunned forever, so he needed to get Omega somewhere safe so that he could administer the sedative. Glancing down, he saw that Omega had, thankfully, passed out. Whether it was from pain, shock, or pure exhaustion, he didn’t know, but it was better that she wasn’t awake right now.

Hunter groaned, bringing a hand to his head. His neck felt like it had been stepped on by an obese bantha on all sides, and he rubbed the sore muscles. How had-

He shot up. Wrecker’s chip had activated, he’d drawn his brother away, he’d been choking, then Omega had…!

“OMEGA!” He yelled, jumping off the medical cot he’d been lying on. He whipped his head around, searching for the little girl. Panic seized him when he couldn’t find her, his mind automatically assuming the worst.

‘Oh, Maker. Oh, Maker NO! She’s dead! She’s dead and it’s my fault! I couldn’t protect her! I-’

“Hunter!”

Rex’s voice broke him out of his hysteria. The commander raised his hands, speaking to Hunter like one would a wounded animal.

“Easy, soldier. Omega’s alive. Wrecker too.” He said calmly.

Hunter breathed, his panic ebbing away for a moment, before he realized that Rex had worded his statement oddly.

“Is Omega alright?” He asked immediately, narrowing his eyes when Rex didn’t respond right away. “You said that she was alive, but is she alright, Rex?”

The blonde clone looked away. Hunter’s stomach dropped.

“No.” He said, his eyes widening. “No, no,no,no! She’s just- Wrecker wouldn’t- where is she?! What happened?!”

“Easy, Hunter.” Rex said. “Calm down.”

“NO!” He roared, protective instincts surging through him. “Where is she?!”

“I’m not telling you anything until you calm down! Don’t make me stun you, Hunter!” Rex shouted right back.

Fuming, Hunter reluctantly sat down. He growled under his breath, his gaze sharp as he eyed Rex. While the man was one of his vode, he was withholding information regarding Omega’s well being, which pissed him off to no end.

“Thank you. I’m sorry, Hunter, but I had to be sure that your fight with Wrecker didn’t activate your chip.” Rex’s face softened, like he understood Hunter’s anger and anxiety. “Omega is in a safe room nearby. She needed to be treated with bacta as soon as possible. Luckily, some of the medical cabinets still had supplies.”

“Bacta? Why the hell would she need that?” Hunter asked, worry making his brow wrinkle.

“Omega managed to get all the way down to the cruiser’s lower levels before Wrecker caught up to her. I got there before he could kill her, but not before he managed to… to…” Rex shook his head, and Hunter felt his blood turn to ice. “Hunter, you have to understand. The chip takes away all of your control. You can’t stop it, no matter how hard you try.”

“Before he managed to what?” Hunter growled.

“Before he managed to shove her against burning metal. The steam and hot steel caused severe damage to her back. We’re looking at third, maybe forth degree burns.” Rex finished.

Hunter blanched, suddenly feeling nauseous and cold. He’d been burned before, the blaster bolt scars on his back and arms were there to prove it. However, those were only second degree burns, and he had been put into a bacta tank as soon as possible. To imagine Omega going through even greater pain made him burn with anger. If he ever managed to get his hands on the people that had put the chips in their heads, he’d make sure they died a slow, painful death.

“Oh, Maker.” He said, pinching the space between his eyes. “Oh, Maker why? Why is it always her?”

“Do you want to see her? I need to stay here until Tech and Echo wake up, but I’ll take you to her.” Rex asked, his voice quiet.

“Yes. Yes, please.” Hunter said quickly, following Rex as he led him towards a little medical bay. He moved inside immediately, pausing when he saw a curled up Omega. Most of the back of her shirt had been cut away, and a generous helping of bacta had been applied to an ugly burn. Hunter couldn’t bare to look at the injury for long, and instead moved to drag a chair close to the medical cot Omega was lying on. As Rex returned to his brothers, Hunter ran a hand through Omega’s hair.

“Oh, ik'aad. Fate owes you an apology and a break.” He rasped, touching his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

He pulled back slightly, his hand still petting her head soothingly. He felt his eyes mist slightly, and he quickly rubbed the tears away. No. He couldn’t break down now, not when Omega needed him. When his aliit needed him.

He racked his memory for some idea of what he should do to provide Omega with some form of comfort. He recalled seeing parents sing to their children sometimes, so he tried to think of a song. He didn’t know many, so he simply hummed one that he had heard a dad sing to his three children on one of his missions. His throat rumbled as he hummed, aching as he made it vibrate. He ignored it, willing to be in a bit of pain if it meant that there was a chance that Omega would find some comfort from it.

Hunter remained there until Rex came to get him for is chip removal, quietly humming any tune that he could make up. He hesitated, not wanting to leave Omega alone.

“Come on, buir. She’ll be okay, Tech is going to stay with her.” Rex’s voice held a note of teasing, and Hunter flushed a bit.

“I’m not-” He started, but paused when Rex rolled his eyes.

“Don’t try and deny it. You acted like a mother narglatch who’s baby had been threatened a few hours ago.” He said.

Hunter sputtered, but Rex just jerked his thumb towards the space behind him. “Come on, let’s get that chip out.”

Crosshair lowered his rifle, watching as the two Scrapper Guild members fell into a pit of jagged, twisted metal. Making his way up a fallen wire, he climbed up into the Jedi cruiser. He’d been sent here when a sudden chip activation had been reported.

It seemed his brothers weren’t as immune as they had previously thought.

24 notes · View notes

rubyspearsmegamanproject · 3 years

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28. Song Of The Siren

The episode begins with a view of a beach at night. Some police bots are walking by the edge of the harbor. They pass by a rock in the shallow waters of the beach. Something is moving in the water and towards the rock. Splash Woman jumps up onto a rock. She takes a deep breath, and begins singing. The police bots turn around and look at Splash Woman. Splash Woman waves to them as she is singing. She then points them towards some robots sitting down on the sand. The police robots begin shooting at the robots and destroy them in the process. Splash Woman laughs evilly as she watches the carnage. Meanwhile, Mega Man and Rush are walking down the city sidewalk. Some lady robots are walking up to them. They flirt with Mega Man and tell him how handsome and muscular he is. Rush groans in embarassment at the spectacle. Mega Man tells the lady robots that he and Rush have to go. They quickly walk past them as the lady robots seductively bid Mega Man goodbye. Mega Man is red in the face with sheer humiliation. Rush licks his face as a way comforting him. "Thanks Rush." Mega Man says to him "I needed that."

As they walk to the corner sidewalk, they see someone running towards them. Three large

military robots come charging towards them. They begin firing at them. "Sufferin' Cyborgs! An ambush!" Mega Man cries out. He jumps out of the line of fire and shoots at the military robots. Rush jumps out of the way also. One of the military robots fires a grenade at Mega Man. The grenade lands in front of Mega Man. Mega Man picks it up and says "Here! Have a taste of your own medicine!" He throws it at them. Two of the military robots are instantly blown up into parts. The remaining military robot fires his gatling gun at Mega Man in the hopes of destroying him. Mega Man dodges the bullets and charges up his cannon. Rush jumps on top of the military robot's head and covers its eyes with his paws. Mega Man fires a fully charged shot at the robot's legs. Mega Man cries out to Rush "Rush! Jump!" Rush jumps off of the robot's head as the robot falls to the ground and smashes its head upon the

pavement. Rush runs back to Mega Man. "What was that all about?" Mega Man asks Rush. A call comes up on his arm cannon. Mega Man presses a button on his arm cannon to receive the call. It's Dr. Light. "What is it, Dr. light?" Mega Man asks him. Dr. Light responds "Mega Man! Construction robots appear to have glitched and are wrecking nearby buildings! You need to get over there right now before they put human lives in danger!" Mega Man says "I'll be right there!" and hangs up the call. "Looks like there's another emergency, Rush!" Mega Man says to Rush. Rush barks and then turns into his Jet mode. Mega Man gets on Rush and they fly over to the construction site.

Elsewhere, some garbage disposal robots are picking up garbage cans and dumping their contents into the garbage truck. Splash Woman pops out of the fountain nearby and says "Yoo hoo!" to the garbage disposal robots. They look at her and then look back and continue on with their work. Splash Woman says "I knew you wouldn't pay attention to me..." and then begins singing. The garbage robots, instead of dumping the trash cans into the garbage truck, begin throwing the trash cans through the windows of nearby buildings and throw the garbage in the garbage truck all over the place. Splash Woman laughs evilly at the spectacle before her. She gets a call on her arm cannon and answers the call. She asks in a singsong voice "Who is it?" Dr. Wily sighs and says "It's Dr. Wily. Is your singing reprogramming them as I expect it to do?" "But of course!" Splash Woman says with glee "And they're causing chaos like you wanted them to do!" Dr. Wily says "Excellent! With your help, Splash Woman, I will have a massive army of robots in no time! Now make your way to the Robo Commando headquarters and give them a concert they'll never forget! Mwa ha ha ha ha!" "Oh Wily!" Splash Woman says "You're such a card!" and hangs up the call. She dives into the fountain and swims away to her next target.

Meanwhile, Mega Man uses his plasma cannon to stun the last remaining construction robot. The robot falls to the ground with a metallic thud. Mega Man exclaims, "Well that takes care of them!" He then surveys the damage that was caused by the construction robots. "Is everyone alright?" Mega Man asks everyone. The people tell Mega Man that they are okay and unharmed. Mega Man is perplexed as to what is causing the robots to go berzerk. Mega Man calls up Dr. Light on his arm cannon to ask him if he's figured out the cause of the problem yet. Dr. Light tells him not yet, and for him and Rush to meet him and Roll at the seafood restaurant for dinner. Mega Man hangs up and tells Rush that they have a rendezvous with Dr. Light and Roll. Rush barks and turns into his Jet mode. Mega Man and Rush fly off.

At the seafood restaurant, Mega Man is discussing with Dr. Light the current situation with the berzerk robots. Across from where they're sitting, something swims into the large tubular aquarium that is in the center of the dining area of the seafood restaurant. It then swims up to the top of the tank. It is revealed to be Splash Woman. She surfaces and sees that Mega Man is over at one of the tables. She laughs to herself and says "Mega Man's going to be quite in a tizzy tonight!" She begins singing. Next to the aquarium is a table full of high-ranking police robots. Dr. Light and his robots hear singing coming from the aquarium. Dr. Light thinks that they are putting on a show for the diners. "Such beautiful singing!" Dr. Light complements "The entertainment here is simply astounding!" Mega Man says "Yeah! Whoever's singing should really sing up for-" as he turns his head to where the aquarium is, but cuts himself off when he sees that the singer is none other than Splash Woman. He is shocked and shouts out "Splash Woman!" Mega Man jumps out of his chair and runs over to the aquarium. The high-ranking police robots that are now under Splash Woman's control come up to Mega Man to stop him from confronting Splash Woman. "Stop in the name of the law!" the police robots shout at Mega Man. They aim their guns at him. "We sentence you...to death!" the police robots says as they charge up their guns. Splash Woman laughs out loud and says to Mega Man "Looks like you've been busted!" Mega Man looks up at her and then back down at the police robots. He then shouts out "Afraid not!" He jumps onto the head of the police robot in the middle and the police robot's gun points down to the floor. The gun goes off, creating enough force to launch Mega Man up onto the edge of the tank.

He stares Splash Woman right in her eyes and exclaims "You're the one that's been making robots go crazy, aren't you!" Splash Woman giggles and says "Robots like you!" She begins singing. Mega Man tries to resist her singing, but finds himself falling under her spell. Splash Woman giggles evilly and says to him "You love my singing to, don't you?" Mega Man slowly nods. Splash Woman then tells him "Now, my number one fan, go wreck your friends!" Mega Man jumps down from the tank, using the police robots as a landing. He then aims his cannon at Dr. Light and begins charging it. "Mega No!" Roll cries out. She quickly switches to her frying pan attatchment and puts the frying pan in front of Dr. Light. "But Splash Woman wants me to!" Mega Man says, clearly brainwashed by Splash Woman's siren-like singing. Mega Man fires a shot from his plasma cannon in Dr. Light's direction. Roll deflects the shot with her frying pan. The shot is deflected and hits the floor in front of Mega Man. Dust and debris and kicked up. Mega Man swipes at the dust with his hand to clear it. He accidentially hits Roll, who lets out a cry that is reminiscent of off-key singing. This, for some reason, snaps Mega Man out of Splash Woman's control. Splash Woman sees that Mega Man is no longer under the control of her singing. She has the two remaining police robots destroy Mega Man and his allies. They get up and run over to Mega Man and aim their guns at him. "So the pursuit is still on, huh?" Mega Man says to the police robots. He then shouts "Very well then!" and fires at their guns. The intense heat of the plasma blasts melts the police robots' guns, making them no longer work. The police robots put up their arms and surrender. "Now that's more like it!" Mega Man exclaims. Suddenly, Dr. Light cries out "Mega Man! Help!" Mega Man turns to see Guts Man holding up Dr. Light above his head. "You better put him down, Guts Man!" Mega Man says to Guts Man. "Or what!?" Guts Man growls. Mega Man aims his plasma cannon at him and says "Or else you're going to get a face full of plasma power!" Guts Man laughs and says "Try it! You'll end up hittin' your dear ol' doc instead! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Rush sneaks up to one of Guts Man's legs and bites it. Guts Man wobbles around in pain and yells out "Not again!" Dr. Light falls out of Guts Man's arms. Mega Man jumps up and catches Dr. Light. Meanwhile, Guts Man manages to pull Rush off of his leg. He goes over to the large

lobster tank. Rush whimpers as Guts Man prepares to drop him into the lobster tank. "Here lobsters! Lunchtime! Ha ha ha ha!" Guts Man yells out with sadistic glee in his tone. Rush yowls out for Mega Man. Mega Man runs over to the lobster tank. While he is running to the lobster tank, Mega Man yells out "Oh great! Now it's Rush's turn to be rescued!" Splash Woman is getting upset at Guts Man's tomfoolery and yells out to him "Guts Man! What do you think you're doing!" Guts Man groans and says "Ohhh! I was getting rid of the robo dog!" Splash Woman yells out "The others are getting away!" Just then, Mega Man snatches Rush

out of Guts Man's grasp and pushes the lobster tank over, dumping water and lobsters all over Guts Man. The lobster crawl over Guts Man and pinch various parts of his head. Guts Man flails around in pain and ends up slipping and crashing onto the floor. Splash Woman facepalm and says to herself "Looks like I'll have to spear them myself!" She fires her Laser Trident at Dr. Light and Roll. Mega Man and Rush run over to save them. Roll uses her vacuum attatchment to suck up the projectiles, but as the Laser Tridents are sucked up, they damage her arm. Mega Man fires some shots at Splash Woman, knocking her Laser Trident out of her hands. Splash Woman yells out "This is just the beginning, Mega Man!" and dives into the aquarium. Mega Man tries to jump into the aquarium to pursue her, but just as he is about to dive into the aquarium, he sees that she has already swam away. He splashes the water in disappointment. "Robo Rats!" he cries out.

Back at Dr. Light's Lab, Dr. Light is trying to find out how to reverse the effects of Splash Woman's singing. He laments how he had built her and seven other robots to help humanity. He thought that he had created them in a way that would make it difficult for them to be reprogrammed, but Dr. Wily somehow managed to find a way to reprogram them. Mega Man remembers the first time he confronted them. Dr. Light and Mega Man hope that they can save the robots that he had created and get them onto the good side once again. Dr. Light tells Mega Man that he can't seem to find a way to reverse Splash Woman's singing by himself. He tells Mega Man that only Splash Woman herself would know how to reverse her own singing. Mega Man wonders how they are going to find out a way to gather information on how her singing works on male robots. Dr. Light tells Mega Man "It's looks like you're going to have to seduce her into finding a way to reverse the effects of her singing." Mega Man looks at Dr. Light with disbelief. "Are you serious!?" he says to his creator. "I'm afraid so." Dr. Light replies. Roll places a half ring-shaped device on one of Mega Man's "ears". She tells him that if he needs her help to just press the button on the device. Mega Man tells her "Okay. I'll remember that for if I need any of your advice during this little misadventure." Mega Man gets into the Air Raider and flies out of the lab and off to the Skull Ship.

Mega Man arrives at the Skull Ship. He gets out of the Air Raider and walks over to the Skull Ship. Bubble Man comes up on the ship's intercom and asks him angrily what he is doing near the Skull Ship. Mega Man tells him that he wants to join Splash Woman's side. In the Skull Ship's main room, Bubble Man talks into the microphone. He says to Mega Man "This isn't some sort of clever trick, is it!?" Mega Man says to him "Of course not!". As he straightens his bowtie he says "I love Splash Woman so much I want to join her and fight by her side!" Bubble Man responds "Hmmm...fair enough!" He presses a button on the control panel in front of him. A bridge extends out of the Skull Ship and plops down in front of Mega Man. Roll tells Mega Man "Just go up the bridge and make a good entrance!" Mega Man walks up the bridge and onto the Skull Ship. He walks by some security cameras that are following his every move. He goes up to what he thinks is the main entrance. He knocks on the door. On the intercom, Bubble Man snaps "Just go in, Mega Ditz!" "Oh! Okay!" Mega Man responds. The door slides open and Mega Man enters. He walks around looking for the room that Splash Woman is in. He hears Splash Woman saying "Come in, Mega Babe!" Mega Man asks out loud "Where are you, Splash Woman?" Splash Woman simply giggles and replies "Over here!" Mega Man looks around and yells out "Where?!" Splash Woman cries out "In the room next to you, silly!" Mega Man looks to his side and sees a door there. He slowly opens the door. He goes into the room. The room is dark. Mega Man hears water swishing. A single light turns on in the room. The light shines on Splash Woman. She lightly waves at him and says with a coy tone in her voice "Why hello there, Mega Man!" Mega Man is taken aback for a second, but regains his composure and replies "H-Hello there, Splash Woman! It's real nice to m-meet you!" Splash Woman giggles and says "It's nice to meet you too!" She swishes her tail seductively. Mega Man outstretches his hand to give her the bouquet. "Oh for me!" she says to him. She takes the bouquet and holds it close to her chest and says "That was real sweet of you!" "T-thank you!" Mega Man nervously replies. He is unsure of what to do next. He tells Splash Woman "W-will you e-excuse for a moment, please?" She replies "Sure thing, Mega Man!" Mega Man does over near the entrance and presses the button on his device. He asks Roll what he should do next after offering her the bouquet. She suggests to him asking her out on an outing. Mega Man tells Roll that he and Splash Woman are in the Skull Ship. Roll suggests that he bring her out onto the deck so that they could view the scenery together. Splash Woman looks over at Mega man and is suspicious of his behavior. Mega Man goes back to Splash Woman and asks her if she would like to join him in watching the scenery from the front deck of the Skull Ship. She answers "Why I would love to do that! Only one problem, I kinda need someone to carry me up on deck!" She points with her hand to her slowly swishing tail. Mega Man goes over to where she is. He treads through the water and picks her up in his arms. "No problem!" Mega man says to her as he carries her out of the room. We see Splash Woman looking back with a sinister look on her face. As he is walking out with Splash Woman in her arms and down the hallway, Guts Man stops him when he gets to the end of the hallway. "Just where do ya think yer goin' with her!?" Guts Man asks Mega Man. Splash Woman interrupts Mega Man before he can say anything to Guts Man. "I have given him permission to take me out onto the front deck to watch the stars with him, isn't that right Mega Man?" Splash Woman says to Guts Man. Mega Man nervously replies "Uh, yes! That's right! That's what she told me!" Splash Woman looks at Guts Man in a stern way and

says to him "You better be nice to us, Guts Man! Mega Man is going to be joining our side very soon!" Guts Man groans "Oh, alright! You may pass...but only this once!" Guts Man slowly steps aside and lets them through. "You're such a gentleman, Guts Man!" Splash Woman says to Guts Man as they go past him and out onto the front deck of the Skull Ship. Proto Man is watching them from the end of the hall. "This I gotta see!" Proto Man says to himself with amusement. Out on the deck of the Skull Ship, Mega Man and Splash Woman are watching the bustling city life by the harbor. Mega Man silently sneaks away from Splash Woman to contact Roll. He presses the button on the device and waits for Roll to call back. Roll asks him what he needs this time. Mega Man asks her what he should say to her as she is watching the nighttime scenery. She tells him to complement her and to comment on what is going on in the distance. Mega Man replies "Got it!" and hangs up. He goes over to Splash Woman and tells her "You're looking really pretty tonight." Splash Woman says to him "Why thank you, Mega Man!" She looks down at the water below and says "I've never had a robot of the opposite gender complement me before!" Mega Man looks down at the water with her, his reflection joining hers upon the surface. Mega Man says "You haven't had a robot complement you before!?" Splash Woman sadly responds "No...not even Dr. Wily himself!" She continues "The other robots don't even treat me with respect! They just see me as some sort of sea princess!" Mega Man looks back at Splash Woman and says to her, "I respect you." Splash Woman is suprised by what Mega Man just said to her. "You-you do?!" she asks him in order to confirm what he just told her. "Of course I do!" Mega Man replies. "You're not only an attractive robot, you're also a great fighter!" He continues "You were quite the adversary during the seige on Atlantis!" The excitement increases in his voice as he says "You're one formidible opponent!" Splash Woman blushes and says "Why thank you, Mega Man! I've never had one of my enemies complement me on my fighting prowess! You're a first!" Thinking that Splash Woman is lost in what he said to her, Mega Man goes over to the other side of the deck and contacts Roll yet again. "Any other romantic advice?" he asks her. Roll simply says "Now's a good time to hold her hand!" "What!?" Mega Man exclaims in disbelief, his exclamation attracting Splash Woman's attention. She glances at him, and sees the device around his "ear". Roll is still explaining to Mega Man why holding her hand would win her heart. As Mega Man concludes his conversation with Roll, Splash Woman suddenly grabs his hand. Mega Man looks over at Splash Woman, horrified. Splash Woman angrily asks Mega Man "Who are you talking to on that thing!?" Mega Man tries to confess that it is Roll, who is helping him out on his "date" with Splash Woman. Splash Woman angrily says "You'd rather talk with your ditzy sister than spend some quality time with me!?" Roll overhears what Splash Woman called her and begins to say "Listen here, you rusting excuse for a mermaid! I-" Splash Woman pulls the device off of Mega Man's "ear" and crushes it in her hand. Roll has now realized that her communication with Mega man has been abruptly cut off. "Oh no!" she exclaims "Mega could be in very big trouble!" She runs out of the side lab and exclaims "I've got to tell Dr. Light! Fast!" Meanwhile, Mega Man tries to explain to Splash Woman why Roll was assisting him. Splash Woman doesn't listen to him, and accuses him of romancing her as a way to find a way to stop her from controlling the male robots. Mega Man feels like he cannot make excuses and admits that the "date" was indeed an intelligence gathering mission. Splash Woman yells out "I knew it! You were just trying to sweet talk your way into finding out how to save your boy robot friends!" She presses a button on her arm cannon and yells out "Now you've made a very fatal mistake!" Mega Man extends his hand out to stop her from calling for back up and cries out "No! Don't!" While looking at him with evil intent, Splash Woman says into her arm cannon "It's a set up! Mega Man's trying to destroy me! Help! Help!" Mega Man hears the robot masters about to go out of the door. He looks back to

Splash Woman and says "Sorry I broke your heart!" He tears off his suit, removes his bowtie, and run towards the tip of the deck and dives off of it headfirst into the water below. Guts Man, Dive Man, and Bubble Man barge out of the door and onto the front deck. "Where did that blue lothario go!?" Guts Man roars at Splash Woman, ready for a fight. Splash Woman tells the robot masters that he jumped into the water, then commands Dive Man and Bubble Man to pursue him with her. She goes over the railing and goes into the water in pursuit of Mega Man. Proto Man stands at the door and shakes his head at the spectacle occuring

before him. After diving into the water, she activates her Laser Trident and swims away. "Where did that cyan cad go!?" she asks herself with anger in her tone. Meanwhile, Mega Man is hiding under a dock, with some scraps of the suit still on his body. He calls up Dr. Light on his arm cannon and yells into it "Dr. Light! Come one! The mission's a failure and now Splash Woman and the other robots are after my blue hide!" Dive Man passes by the dock and hears Mega Man calling for help on his arm cannon. Mega Man hears Dive Man swimming towards him, looks up, and gasps in terror. "Found you, you little womanizer!" Dive Man

says to him. He fires some Dive Missiles at him. Mega Man swims quickly out of the way of the missiles. The missiles destroy the wooden pillars holding the dock up. The dock falls into the water. Mega Man tries to escape the sinking dock, but ends up pinned under the wreckage. Bubble Man comes upon the carnage and swims over. He sees Mega Man struggling to free himself from the wreckage and comments "Ha ha ha ha! Trapped like a blue crab!" Splash Woman joins Dive Man and Bubble Man and charges towards Mega Man with her Laser Trident. Mega Man sees her charging towards her with a very angry look on her face. Mega Man exclaims "Don't make me shoot you!" He realizes that she will not listen to this threat, and aims his plasma cannon at her as it charges up. Unfortunately, his plasma cannon has been damaged and automatically shuts down. Mega Man sighs and braces himself for Splash Woman's attack. Bubble Man and Dive Man simply watch with

sadistic glee. Just then, Roll jumps down into the water and onto Splash Woman. She is knocked unconscious for a moment. Rush dives into the water not too long after. He goes over to Mega Man and sees that he is trapped in the wreckage. Mega Man shows Rush his damaged arm cannon and tells him "I can't really defend myself this time, boy." Bubble Man tells Roll "Sorry to burst your bubble, Blondie, but you're not going to be play heroine!" He fires his Bubble Lead weapon at Roll. Roll is enveloped in a large bubble. Bubble Man goes over to Rush while he's removing the reminants of the dock off of Mega Man and says to him, "Now it's your turn, Metal Mutt!" He fires his Bubble Lead weapon at Rush. Rush dodges the bubbles. The bubbles hit the wreckage and encase parts of it in bubbles. The bubbles float away, freeing Mega Man from the wreckage. "Thanks for the assistance, Bubble Man!" Mega Man tells Bubble Man. Rush turns into his Marine Mode, and Mega Man gets inside. Dive Man fires some Dive Missles at Rush. Rush quickly jets away from the missiles. Roll tries to pop the bubble trapping her with her fingers, but is unable to. She switches to her corkscrew attatchment and jabs the bubble. The bubble pops, and Roll swims away to join Mega Man and Rush. Splash Woman goes after Roll and fires her Laser Trident at her. Mega Man looks back and sees that Roll is in trouble. He tells Rush "Rush! You need to fetch Roll! She's in a pickle!" Rush turns back to rescue Roll from Splash Woman's wrath. Roll switches to her toaster attatchment and attempts to fire it at Splash Woman, but the toaster won't work underwater and just produces a stream of small bubbles. Splash Woman laughs and tells Roll "How pathetic! You can't even use the right attatchment! You really are a Robo Ditz!" Splash Woman charges up her Laser Trident and aims it at Roll. Roll goes through her attatchments in a desparate attempt to find the right one to fight Splash Woman with. Rush quickly grabs Roll by the collar of her "shirt" and quickly swims away. Splash Woman still fires at them as they get away. Dive Man tells Splash Woman "Don't waste your Laser Trident on them, Splash Woman! We'll get them next time!" Splash Woman growls and clenches her fist as the good robots surface.

As the Air Raider makes its way back to Dr. Light's lab, Mega Man and everyone else are trying to think of another way to find a way to reverse the effects of Splash Woman's singing. Roll recalls back at the seafood restaurant, when she cried out in a way that sounded like off-key singing, that for some reason it reversed the effect the singing had on Mega Man. "It was almost like I was singing off-key!" Roll comments. Mega Man and Roll both realize that off-key singing is the key to reversing Splash Woman's singing. "That's it!" they both say in unison. Mega Man turns to Roll and says "No offense, Roll, but your terrible singing appears to snap guy robots out of Splash Woman's spell." "None taken!" Roll says. Mega Man then says "We gotta tell Dr. Light right away!" The Air Raider flies over to Dr. Light's lab.

Elsewhere, the Skull Ship docks at Baltimore's harbor. The Skull Ship is near the World Trade Center. The Skullker flies out of the Skull Ship and goes up towards the roof of the skyscraper. It lands on the roof. Proto Man is revealed to be the one flying the Skullker instead of Dr. Wily. He looks to the back of the Skullker, where Splash Woman, Guts Man, and Cut Man are, and says to them "Time for your concert, Splashy!" Splash Woman smiles evilly and chuckles. Guts Man carries Splash Woman out of the back of the Skullker with Cut Man following behind them. He goes to the center of the roof and places Splash Woman down. "Okay!" Guts Man says to her "Sing yer heart out!" Splash Woman stands up a bit and clears her throat. She begins singing. Every male robot within earshot of her begins to stop what they are doing. They then begin to wreck havoc on their surroundings. Dr. Wily is viewing the situation from his Skull Ship. He laughs evilly and is very pleased that his plan is working. He calls up Proto Man in the Skullker and tells him to look down and see how the male robots are reacting. "Okee Dokee Doc!" Proto Man responds. He gets out of the Skullker and looks down at the city below from the edge of the roof. He sees the destruction below and smirks. He turns around and walks back to the Skullker. He hears Cut Man cry out that an air vehicle is on the horizon and looks back to see what it is. It is the Air Raider. Proto Man thinks that it is going to shoot at them. He and Cut Man aim their cannons at it. To their surprise, it lands on a nearby skyscraper. They deactivate their cannons.

They go over to the edge of the roof to see who is going to come out of the Air Raider. Mega Man comes out of it, looking confident and determined. Roll climbs out of the Air Raider, but instead of her usual garb, she is in a sparkling red dress. Dr. Wily's robots are strangely both confused and enamored at the same time. Rush comes out of the Air Raider, carrying a kareoke machine on his back. He places the machine in front of Roll. Roll grabs the microphone, looks at the bad robots and says "Hey Boys! Check this out!" She takes a deep breath and begins singing, off-key. Splash Woman hears Roll singing and stops singing herself. She flops over to the side of the roof. She becomes enraged when she sees Roll for herself. She commands the bad robots to go over there and get rid of them. They run into the Skullker and fly off while Splash Woman resumes singing. Mega Man and Rush see that the Skullker is heading towards the building that they are on. Mega Man looks at Rush and says "We need to stop them!" Rush turns into his Jet Mode and Mega Man gets on him. They fly off the roof to confront the Skullker. Inside the Skullker, Proto Man is piloting it and sees Mega Man approaching, his cannon aimed at the Skullker and ready to fire at it. Proto Man says, "So you're going to stop us, huh?" He presses a button, smirks evilly and says "Let's see you stop this!" The Skullker fires a large beam at Mega Man and Rush. "Rush! Roll over!" Mega Man yells out to Rush. Rush does a barrel roll, narrowly dodging the large beam. The beam hits the windows on the side of the building. The windows reflect the beam back at the Skullker. Proto Man, Guts Man and Cut Man are terrified at the beam shoots back at the Skullker. The Skullker is hit and is badly damaged. Mega Man looks on and comments "How's that for karma?" The Skullker emits billows of smoke and begins to plummet to the ground below. Mega Man is shocked to see that the Skullker is headed towards a group of people. He flies down and catches up with the plummeting Skullker. He pushes the Skullker towards the water. Proto Man sees that the Skullker is now headed towards the water. "Abandon Skullker!" Proto Man cries out in distress. Proto Man and the other bad robots jump out of the Skullker, Proto man jumps out of one of the windows in the cockpit. Guts Man and Proto Man plunge into the water. The Skullker makes a huge splash as it smashes into the water. Cut Man misses the water and lands onto the concrete walkway. His cutters take the impact and smash into pieces. He hits his head on the ground and bounces over onto his back. Swirls appear in his eyes. Underwater, the Skullker sinks quickly down into the depths. It then explodes, sending up a column of large bubbles. Proto Man and Guts Man try to dodge the bubbles, but the bubbles end up floating them up towards the water's surface. As they surface, Bubble Man and Dive Man confront them. Dive Man sternly asks them "What's going on here!?" Proto Man tells Dive Man "Mega Man is what happened, Dive Man!" They hear Rush and Mega Man flying up back to the rooftop. Proto Man fires his plasma cannon at them. Guts Man grabs Dive Man and prepares to hurl him at Mega Man. "Hey! Put me down!" Dive Man commands. Guts Man tries to throw him, but messes up the throw. Dive Man falls into the water. Dive Man surfaces and yells at Guts Man "You moron!" He aims his cannon at Mega Man and says "Let a more competent soldier handle this one!" He fires some Dive Missiles at Mega Man. Mega Man catches the missiles, much to Dive Man's shock. "Touchdown!" Mega Man cries out. He then says to Dive Man "Here, let me throw you the old pigskins!" Mega Man throws the missiles back at the evil robots. The missiles explode and literally blow them out of the water. Dive Man flies out of the water and lands onto the concrete. Guts Man ends up landing on him. "Get off of me, you hard-hatted lug!" Dive Man angrily yells out.

Meanwhile, Splash Woman sees that Mega Man is returning to where Roll is situated. "It's time for an encore performance, Mega Cad!" Splash Woman evilly says. She sings to him. Mega Man sees that she is delibrately singing to him and covers his "ears" with his hands. Unfortunately, he is unable to do this for very long. He and Rush swoon as they succumb to the singing's effect. Mega Man and Rush go up to Splash Woman. Mega Man asks Splash Woman "W-What is your h-heart's desire, m-my love?" Splash Woman tickles his chin and tells him seductively "Oh Mega Man, I would just love it if you would destroy your sister!" Mega Man turns around and says "As you w-wish, mi a-amore!" Rush barks slowly and lovingly. Mega Man and Rush turn around and jet right towards Roll. Mega Man aims his cannon at Roll, all the while flashing an expression of hatred. Roll knows what to do this time, and without fear, begins singing off-key. Mega Man and Rush immediately snap out of the effects of Splash Woman's singing. Mega Man realizes that he his aiming his cannon at Roll, and quickly puts it down as his cheeks redden with embarassment. Splash Woman is furious that Mega Man has yet again escaped her control. She readies her Laser Trident and fires at the good robots. Mega Man fires at Splash Woman and knocks her Laser Trident out of her hands. Splash Woman sneers and growls "If I can't destroy you, then my fans will for me!" She goes over to the edge of the roof and looks down. She sees the hypnotized male robots being loaded up onto the Skull Ship. She begins singing to them and has them enter the skyscraper the good robots are on and go up to where they are. "Scale that building and bring them down!" Splash Woman commands through song. The male robots march out

of the Skull Ship and run over to the skyscraper. Some of them enter the building and go up the stairs and the elevators, while some of them climb up the building. Dr. Wily calls up Splash Woman on her arm cannon and cries out "What do you think you're doing!?" Splash Woman responds with "Getting rid of the problem, just like you've commanded me to do!" Dr. Wily angrily tells her to get them back on the Skull Ship. Splash Woman replies "After I get rid of the problem!" She hangs up the call and continues with her singing. In the Skull Ship, Dr. Wily calls up the robot masters. Over near the building, Guts Man manages to finally get off of Dive Man. Dive Man gets up and begins yelling at Guts Man. Proto Man gets a call on his arm cannon. He yells out "Shut Up! Wily's calling me!" at Guts Man and Dive Man, who were still fighting. Proto Man says "What is it, Wily?" Dr. Wily says to him "It looks like the hypnotized robots are going to need your help in taking down Mega Man...literally!" Proto

Man smiles evilly and says "Sure thing, Dr. Wily! We'll be right there, won't we guys?" He looks at Guts Man and Dive Man. Dive Man salutes Proto Man and says "Yes sir!" They then run off towards the building. Meanwhile, Mega Man and Rush look down from the rooftop and see that the hypnotized robots are getting closer and closer to them. Mega Man shoots at some of them, causing them to fall off of the building. He tells Roll "I don't think I can hold them off for long..." He then tells her "Sing to them!" Roll resumes singing. Splash Woman sees that Roll is singing again. "Oh no you don't!" she exclaims. Splash Woman starts singing again. Roll sees that Splash Woman is staring to sing and turns up the volume on the kareoke machine. Splash Woman sings louder. Roll turns up the volume on the machine even higher. Splash Woman sings even louder. "How about this, Scale Tail?" Roll yells out to Splash Woman. She turns the machine up to maximum volume. Splash Woman sings as loud as she can. Mega Man is still blasting away at the robots climbing up the building. He and Rush hear them exiting onto the rooftop. Mega Man looks at Rush with worry and says "Looks like we're done for!" Suddenly, Splash Woman's throat short circuits. Some smoke comes out of her mouth. She tries to sing again, but can barely let out a squeak. "What's the matter, Splash Woman?" Roll taunts "Robo cat got your tongue?" Splash Woman readies her Laser Trident and aims it at Roll. "Not this time, Splashy!" Mega Man cries out. He fires a fully-powered shot at Splash Woman, knocking her out. "Looks like her singing career is over!" Mega Man says to Roll. Rush is at the edge of the roof and says to Mega Man "Look! Look!" Mega Man and Roll go over and see that the robots are snapping out of it. The robots on the roof that were about to attack Mega Man and his allies realize where they are and head back to the door. Roll turns around and says "I hope the rental store is still open at this-" She is suddenly grabbed. Mega Man turns around and sees that Guts Man has snatched Roll. Before he can react, Cut Man aims the cutters on his head at Mega Man's neck. "Mega! Danger!" Rush barks out. Mega Man turns around to see Cut Man on the verge of taking his head off. He ducks just as the cutters close shut. Proto Man, Dive Man, Wave Man, and Bubble Man climb onto the rooftop. They surround Mega Man and Rush. "Looks like you're surrounded, Little Brother!" Proto Man says to Mega Man. Mega Man says "Well in that case, why don't we put some tunes on!" He adjusts the kareoke machine's volume, causing it to emit a loud horrible screech. All of the bad robots cringe and cover their ears. Guts Man drops Roll and

stumbles back a bit. He loses his balance and falls off of the building and onto the ground, smashing into pieces. Roll gets up and says "Twas beauty that killed the bot!" Proto Man crouches down, still holding his 'ears' with his hands. He yells out "Somebody turn that wretched machine off!" Wave Man fires his Water Wave at the kareoke machine. It does not turn off but instead shorts out. The Water Wave sends the machine towards Dive Man and Bubble Man. "Not over here!" Dive Man yells out. "It's going to explode!" exclaims Bubble Man. The machine is about to explode. Bubble Man fires his Bubble Lead at it, encasing the machine. Dive Man and Bubble Man both exhale a sigh of relief, but to their horror, the machine explodes. They are both blown to pieces. Roll comments "We're going to have to pay for that now!" Only Cut Man, Proto Man, and Wave Man now remain. Mega Man tells Roll "Stand in the middle!" Roll complies and gets between Mega Man and Rush. Mega Man fires at Wave Man while dodging his Water Waves. Mega Man charges up his cannon and fires it at Wave Man. Wave Man is knocked out and falls onto the ground. Mega Man then copies his Water Wave weapon. Proto Man and Cut Man see that Mega Man has Wave Man's weapon now. "Let's get him!" Proto Man yells out to Mega Man. "I'm sorry, but you guys are all washed up now!" Mega Man says to them as he fires his Water Wave at them. Proto Man and Cut Man fall off of the building. Before landing on the ground, Proto Man cries out "I'll get you next time, Mega Man!" He and Cut Man smash into pieces, their parts joining Guts Man's shattered body. Mega Man and company hear a boat's horn blow. They peer over the roof and see that the Skull Ship is leaving the dock. "Bon voyage!" Mega Man yells out.

Back at Dr. Light's lab, Roll is telling Dr. Light how she had to explain to the rental store owner why she couldn't return the kareoke machine. Rush goes over to Mega Man and barks to him, indicating to him that the kareoke video game is ready for him to play. Mega Man goes up to the microphone. "This oughta be good!" Roll says to Dr. Light. Mega Man clears his throat and begins to sing. He hits a high note, shattering a nearby vase. Roll tells Mega Man, "You might want to consider singing lessons, Mega!" The episode ends with everyone laughing.

#ruby spears mega man #ruby spears #mega man cartoon #song of the siren

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happilystupendousnightmare · 3 years

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Introduction

The A-10C is an enhanced version of the famous A-10A that served as a major close air support aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard, and Reserves for almost 30 years. A-10C has been upgraded to meet 21 st century standards, using systems such as Multi-Function Color Displays (MFCD), GPS-guided weapons, and. Its advanced equipment has greatly reduced the number of 'friendly fire' incidents - thanks largely to the Situational Awareness Datalink (SADL) and the ability to better identify targets with using the Litening II AT targeting pod.

DCS: A-10C Warthog is currently available as a digital download from the DCS web site here. At product release, download rates and server availability were pretty spotty, with some users reporting consistent download rates below 100 kB/s, resulting in agonizingly long download times for the 4.34 GB installation package.

The A-10C of course retains its ability to do what it was originally designed to do: kill tanks in a conventional force-on-force battlefield.

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Despite the fact that many of the computer and weapon systems are new in the A-10C, most of the remaining systems are retained from the A-10A. Engines, fuel, electrical, hydraulic and emergency systems, communications, and lighting do not differ from those in the latest versions of A-10A/A-10A+. As with previous versions, the A-10C - very easy to fly and is a stable and survivable weapons platform. For those familiar with DCS: Black Shark, we feel that the A-10C will be much easier to fly.

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A-10C Cockpit

The DCS A-10C cockpit is a 100% six-degrees of freedom (6 DOF) cockpit that allows complete freedom of movement around the cockpit. Each panel is reproduced in exacting detail to match operational A-10Cs (Suite 3.1). This includes all panels, switches, dials, buttons being animated, rendered in the 3D, and with high-resolution textures. Both day, night, and Night Vision Goggle (NVG) lighting is available.

When the mouse is hovered over a cockpit control, a tool tip is displayed to indicate the controls function.

A-10C Model

As with the cockpit, the 3D model of the A-10C is highly detailed with complete animation of control surfaces, multiple-texture maps, normal and specular maps, and 100,000 polygon construction.

Several USAF A-10C active duty, Air National Guard, and Reserve unit squadrons are included with accurate markings.

The A-10C model has an integrated, highly-detailed damage model that can range from a few bullet holes to entire sections of the aircraft being blown off.

A-10C Systems

The front dash of the A-10C sports two MFCDs that can display data from various aircraft sub-systems (DTS, TAD, DSMS, TGP, MSG, STAT, and video from Maverick missiles). They allow a much more rapid and intuitive way to convey to the pilot the necessary information and input data. Each MFCD is 5x5 inches (12.7h 12.7w cm) and has 5 buttons on each of the 4 sides. The functions of these Option Select Buttons (OSB) depend on the context of the selected MFCD page.

Tactical Awareness Display (TAD)

The TAD displays a top view of the current tactical situation using symbols that represent your current position (Ownship), mission anchor point (Bullseye), Sensor Point of Interest (SPI), waypoints, flight route, and datalink symbols of friendly air and ground units. The TAD may be set as the Sensor Of Interest (SOI) that allows the TAD to be interacted with including using the slew control on the HOTAS throttle to slew the TAD cursor. Other functions are also controlled by the HOTAS. Using the TAD cursor, you can designate (hook) symbols on the TAD and set them as your SPI and get additional information about them.

All of this data can be overlaid on real air navigation charts of various types depending on the TAD display scale (ONC, TPC, JOG, etc.). Map will be available for both the Black Sea and Nevada theaters.

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When receiving a digital 9-line briefing from a Joint Terminal Attack Controller, the assigned target is marked on the TAD for easy target locating.

Digital Stores Management System (DSMS)

The DSMS replaces the A-10A Armament Control Panel (ACP) that was located on the front left panel. All weapon setting controls are now performed using the DSMS. Basic functions of the DSMS include the main Status page, selecting and editing weapon release profiles, inventory management, missile management (AGM-65 and AIM-9), and selective stores jettison.

The DSMS provides the pilot an overview of how the aircraft is loaded with stores, gun ammunition remaining, weapon status, the selected weapon profile, and release setting (SAFE, ARMED, TRAIN).

The DSMS also contains a sub-page that gives the pilot the ability to browse profiles, sel ect and edit profiles and parameters for the use of weapons, set fuzing for each weapon profile, and set the interval and the number of weapons in ripple release. Each of the combinations of these parameters is called a profile. These profiles can be selected either fr om the DSMS, the Up Front Control (UFC), or using the HOTAS.

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The DSMS provides the ability to selectively reset the loading on any pylon or rail when in TRAIN mode.

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ourbloodlinesendhere · 5 years

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Guess who’s made a fan-house for FE3H? It’s me! I did!

Welcome to the Roseate Wolves, a house for transfer students from all over the world. I took a lot of the locations in FE3H that haven’t been fleshed out and slapped some headcanons onto them, as well as some fun cameos of other kingdoms featured in the Fire Emblem series. Is there any chance that these places all exist in the same universe? Probably not! But I don’t care.

Now, if you’re interested, I’ll drop some rambling below the cut:

(Warning: It’s very, very long and very, very rambly.)

I’ll be talking about what this house would be like if it were actually in the game!

For starters, since we only have three professors including Byleth, either Seteth or Jeritza would be the fourth professor. I’m leaning towards Jeritza for this because iirc some characters do mention that he was considered for Byleth’s position. It just makes his disappearance a little awkward, but oh well. I imagine he would default to teaching the Black Eagles for every route where Byleth isn’t (for obvious reasons) and after he poofs, maybe Seteth steps in and just makes Edelgard hate the church even more.

Anyways, let’s talk about the actual route and it’s characters, not just the setup.

With the other three routes, I’ve noticed that the house leaders warm up to you pretty quickly. This makes sense for their characters and the situation, but I’d like to imagine for a moment a route in which the leader blatantly does not like or trust Byleth at all until later in Part 1. Aren is cold and somewhat brooding, hesitant to trust and avoidant of social situations. Really, he’s only the house leader due to the insistence of his grandmother, otherwise he would never have wanted the task. When push comes to shove, he’s a brilliant tactician and a good leader, but he’s not sociable in the slightest.

During the conflicts with Lonato, the Western Church, Miklan, and other pre-timeskip Fodlan problems, there’s a persistent theme of “Why are we helping? We don’t live here, it shouldn’t be our problem” which settles over the group. More kindhearted folks such as Julia and Ragnar are less blatant about this, but there is just this general feeling of reluctance.

Now, for Edelgard’s reveal, we have a little reveal of our own. Sreng is a small kingdom with a shaky structure at best, and a low population. The only thing that has kept its sovereignty from Faerghus has been a secret it has kept for a long time. Within the various factions that make up its population, beast blood runs through their veins. Not all Srengese have this (making the trait somewhat similar to Crests in Fodlan) but for those that do, they have the power to shapeshift.

Aren, Liara, and Ragnar are all shape-shifters. Underneath his hood, Aren has wolf-like ears (like Keaton’s in Fates), as does Liara (hidden under her hair, like how... certain someones in FE3H hide their own funny ears), and Ragnar’s horns aren’t actually a feature of his helmet. Beast-shifters in Sreng are known as Orthrus. Aren is a wolf Orthrus, Liara is a snow leopard Orthrus, and Ragnar is a mutated, horned black vulture Orthrus. (He has small, malformed wings hidden under his coat. Imagine how uncomfortable he must be)

There is also the fact that Sreng lacks access to Beaststones. Their beast forms are massive and extremely powerful, but volatile. Orthrus often lose themselves in their transformation, and after battle they often need to be subdued by their allies. Without a beast form to help control their shifted selves, the three Orthrus were strictly forbidden from shifting when away from home, even when their own lives are in danger. Not just to protect Sreng’s secret; also to protect themselves and others from their beast forms.

Edelgard, as the Flame Emperor, attacks Byleth. At this point, Aren has grown very close to his professor, but still struggles in showing it. In an expression of his care for Byleth at last, he breaks the rules he was given and transforms into his Orthrus form. Gameplay-wise, he’s like a demonic beast, with four tiles in his hit-box and even an extra health bar. However, he’s an allied unit with purposefully flawed AI. He will rush right into battle without a thought, and him falling is the lose condition for the map (even on casual mode).

After the battle, with no enemies in sight and wild emotions coursing through his bestial mind, Aren goes on a rampage through the throne room as Rhea is horrified. Once the sacred site is thoroughly destroyed, Byleth finally calms him down, and he shakily reverts to his human form.

Once that map is completed, the Srengese students have had their cover completely blown, and it doesn’t take long for Liara and Ragnar to be exposed as well. They plead with Rhea to keep their secret, but she is enraged at the damage to the room and the throne, and exiles all three of them. They have to leave by that night, and she makes no promises about their secret.

Byleth meets with them in the night, and the rest of the Wolves do as well in order to say goodbye. Surprisingly, Flayn appears, having snuck away from Seteth and Rhea. She offers the Orthrus three beast-stones, unlocking the Orthrus class for them. Thank you Flayn! Wonder how she got those, almost like she knows a thing or two about- I mean, what

This will alter their beast forms to be smaller and a bit less powerful, but allows them full control over themselves when shifted. Now they play exactly like Taguel in Awakening, except they stay in beast form whenever the beast-stone is equipped, not at the start of each battle.

Flayn can’t help them any more though, since she’s ultimately loyal to Rhea and Seteth. For the remaining time until the time-skip, they’re not available for use in your party. If for some reason you’re playing classic mode like some kind of masochist and both Liara and Ragnar are out of your party, they’ll still appear in these cutscenes. However, next moon you’ll be informed that their injuries slowed them down and Knights of Seiros caught them, killing them. Ouch!

The battle of Garreg Mach is a different story. With their loyalty to the church shaken, but with no desire to join up with Edelgard, Byleth and the Wolves are trapped between two clashing armies. The goal of the map is to get your students to safety, through a harrowing path riddled with enemy soldiers attacking anyone in sight. Any students from the other houses you didn’t recruit will be enemy units! But they don’t perma-die when you defeat them here, since lots of them will appear again post-timeskip. When Rhea starts wrecking shop, Byleth hurries all the students ahead, fighting off anyone who comes for them. But they gets yeeted off of the cliff anyways.

Now, I hope to design some post-timeskip designs soon, but until then, just picture that everyone’s a little battered. Fodlan closed its borders to prevent foreign reinforcements from coming in and deserters from leaving, so all of the Wolves have become trapped in the midst of a war. Only small exceptions occur for the purpose of paralogues and such (like if you had recruited Bernadetta and Petra, their paralogue happens the same.) but overall, nobody can go home. Also, Sreng has been strong-armed into fighting for the Empire! Lovely. If Liara and Ragnar are alive, you’ll need to face them in battle and recruit them there, Tharja/Gaius-style.

But where’s Aren? He didn’t return home, actually. He laid low, and upon hearing Garreg Mach fell, he searched desperately for Byleth to find them. He eventually holed himself up in the ruins of Garreg Mach, chasing out anyone who tried to come for it. Essentially like how timeskip Dimitri was, but less murder-y and more just. constantly terrified and lashing out. He became paranoid and desperate, and eventually abandoned his beaststone to remain in full Orthrus form.

When Byleth finds him, he’s fully shifted and tries to attack them. However, upon recognizing his professor, he backs down and manages to return to his human form. His beaststone lays on the floor, now having been attached crudely to a necklace. Byleth puts it back on him, and he regains control of himself.

His personality has become erratic and anxious, even more untrusting than before, but he’s instantly dependent on Byleth and clings to them with uncomfortable desperation. When the other Wolves arrive, he is cold to them, even to Liara, and becomes possessive of Byleth.

The post-timeskip era starts out with the Wolves feeling trapped and simply trying to stay alive, turning Garreg Mach into a sort of hideout for other refugees who wish to escape the fighting. However, after getting to know the suffering of the Fodlan people, the theme shifts to one of empathy. Just because something isn’t our problem, and doesn’t affect our people, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act when innocents are suffering. Faerghus and Adrestia are at each other’s throats, and the Alliance is getting trampled, but the neutral land of Garreg Mach houses a growing force of fighters looking to put a stop to the war.

Aren’s arc post-timeskip involves him eventually leaning away from Byleth as a crutch, and standing stronger on his own. He learns to trust others regularly, and forms a deep bond with all of the Wolves, reconnecting with Liara again.

Now as for how the route ends... who knows ! ;) I just might write something for this house, so you’ll just have to wait and see.

If people are interested, I’ll also go into more detail about the individual characters! Because this whole thing here was very Aren-centric with cameos from Liara and Ragnar.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #fire emblem oc #fe3h #fe3h oc

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mark-xeen · 4 years

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Transformers Archive Reimagine (T.A.R.)-Punch/Counterpunch

Punch

Transformer:

• Name Punch

• Alignment Autobot

• Altmode- A triple changer with one car vehicle mode and a second robot mode

• Role- Double Spy

Archive:

• Summary- Punch is a deep undercover spy working for the Autobots. Punch possesses a unique secondary robot mode as an altmode, further helping him infiltrate the Decepticon ranks as Counterpunch. However, as time goes on and pressure begins to build up, Punch teeters between the fine line of maintaining his cover from the Decepticons and reminding himself which side he truly belongs to.

• Notable Appearances & Facts

o Within his Tech Spec, Punch is written as being a cool-head individual who doesn’t talk much and keeps to himself on both sides due to his role as a double agent. This is best summarized with his quote “In my business, there are no friends, only suspects.”

o Transformers Cartoon- In the finale “Rebirth” (which was Punch’s first and last appearance in the Transformers cartoon), his main role in the episode was to uncover the Decepticon’s plan involving the vault, get out of sight, and change back to his Autobot form so he could fight them. While he put up a bit of fight, he ultimately lost and the Decepticons still managed to get the key. Punch would later regroup with the other Autobots and aid in the battle. From what was shown, Punch was just a regular spy for the Autobots with no traces of his split personality.

o Transformers Headmasters- In continuation of this rather questionable Japanese only sequel, Punch’s role as the Autobot’s spy was further expanded, with the revelation that he managed to get himself promoted to Scorponok’s trusty informant. While he mainly did his best to sabotage the Decepticon effort by giving the Autobots vital intel, there were times where he had to give the Decepticons actual information in order to maintain his cover such as giving details on the Autobot Headmasters’ location. While he mostly maintains his cover surprisingly well, his cover was nearly blown a couple of times, and even completely blown by Galvatron. But given the nature of this show this didn’t last long, as his cover was restored after Galvatron’s death by friendship and ice.

o Transformers Universe Marvel Bio- While Punch/Counterpunch never made a full appearance in the Marvel Transformers comics he was given a bio. It was here where Punch’s mental problems first appeared. In his two sectioned bio, Punch’s cool headed authoritative nature is actually a front, hiding a mech whose is a complete wreck with paranoia and nerves stemming from his job. This along with his distrust towards others eventually results in the double spy developing a split personality. But what makes it interesting is that while Counterpunch behaves more like a Decepticons in terms of personality and ruthlessness, he still retains his Autobot sensibilities and loyalties, remaining resolute and tight lipped behind enemy lines. Furthermore, both he and Counterpunch are unaware of the other’s existence along with everyone else aside from Optimus Prime himself. Despite the growing concern, Optimus keeps Punch deployed due to his usefulness but sees the agent as a ticking time bomb and fears he might actually turn traitor.

o Transformers Dreamwave Bio- Similar to Marvel, Punch and his alter ego Counterpunch never appear directly in the Dreamwave Transformers comics and instead only appears in the Transformers character bios. His Dreamwave version borrows many elements from his Marvel one, he’s displayed as a bot who is quiet with a cool headed attitude that is mistaken by his comrades as him being a calm, authoritative person, when in actuality he’s a complete nervous wreck. This eventually results in his created alter ego Counterpunch developing a life of his own. The bio further delves into the reasoning behind Counterpunch’s behavior by stating that Counterpunch became a way for the Autobot spy to indulge in some of his darker urges and impulses without any guilt. This has gotten to the point that he started having blackout periods while being Counterpunch. Despite this, Punch refuses to report these incidents to his superiors out of a belief that he can keep it under control. Though he begins to wonder who’s really in control- him or Counterpunch?

o Transformers: Of Masters and Mayhem- Out of all the appearances so far, this story delves into the dangers of Punch’s psychological problems and his sense of identity. In Masters of Mayhem Punch’s backstory is expanded upon. He was an actor from a city called Harmonex, however, during the war, the city got destroyed with Punch being possibly the only survivor. Punch, guided by his anger, became reckless, which got his unit killed. Eventually Autobot high command asked him to work as a spy due to his unique T-Cog. Many years later, reports of Decepticon attacks as well as Counterpunch’s involvement in an Autobot massacre causes Punch to be labelled as a traitor and locked in the brig. While locked up, Punch started hallucinating his alter ego Counterpunch with the ego claiming to be the real mech and Punch being the alter ego. The reasoning for this is that no other mech beside Punch knows about or even remembers Harmonex. Counterpunch claims that the city wasn’t real and he made it up as part of Punch’s backstory. Punch’s mind shuts down and Counterpunch takes control. When the Decepticons arrived to free him, Counterpunch took part in the battle, but seeing the dead bodies of his fellow Autobots caused the Punch personality to take over again and fight against the Decepticons, resulting in him getting blown apart. However (un)fortunately Lifeline was able to put him back together, but ended up permanently repairing him in his Counterpunch form- now more confused of who he was as the memories of both egos were flooding his mind. Soon afterwards Counterpunch is recruited by Impactor, before leaving he asks if the Leader of the Wreckers knew Harmonex to which, surprisingly, Impactor says yes. Counterpunch then became a part of an insane plan to turn the new Wreckers into a combining team, resulting in the creation of the Autobots’ most insane combiner since Superion- Wreckage.

Reimagine:

Punch’s defining traits are his split personality and his job as an Autobot spy. Especially since there is a lack of Autobot spies in media, mainly on TV. It would be cool if Punch keeps his role spy. Both of these traits could definitely be played with in several different ways:

For starters the Punch and Counterpunch dynamic could be explored in different ways. You could make it where Counterpunch could be an embodiment of Punch’s dark urges and impulses where he tends to let loose and doesn’t care whose caught in between; a wild card if you will. While he will play his role as a spy for the Autobots, he could just as likely attack his comrades if he felt like it. Another possible way is using Counterpunch like a dark, twisted guardian for Punch, as the latter is a paranoid mess. He may even unknowingly protect Punch by doing actions that help alleviate suspicion off of them.

This in return could affect how one views the other, especially as one becomes aware of the other: Punch could fear or hate his alter due to the danger and threat Counterpunch could pose. He could see Counterpunch as an escape from his terrifying life staying behind enemy lines and someone to blame if he ever felt like indulging in his dark impulses. Or he could find Counterpunch as a sort of ally/comrade to do the things he himself couldn’t do. For the latter one, maybe have Punch do some self-reflection on his and Counterpunch’s actions and try to understand what Counterpunch is.

One could even play with their awareness towards each other, like having both mechs be unaware of the other’s existence at first but over time they slowly come to realize there is another ego in their mind. Would one of them try to interact with the other? And if so, would they leave messages or clues or would one, especially Counterpunch, try to mess with or gaslight Punch? Also if they don’t share memories of the other, they could share emotions or feelings about individuals, which could explain/justify why Counterpunch is siding with the Autobots.

And while it’s easy to write him off as “Punch’s evil split personality,” this can also be an attempt to explore what Counterpunch is as a character and give him some depth. Such as, is he just Punch playing a part? An alter that formed to deal with all the trauma and stress the bot went and is going through? Or was he an independent mech from the beginning and the war just gave him the freedom to show himself?

If one wants to make Counterpunch as a “good guy”, he could be written as one of the problem Autobots. His reasoning for siding with the Autobots despite having a personality and ideology similar to a Decepticon could be because of Punch’s lingering resentment, he himself doesn’t like being around others that are similar to him, or he just likes hurting his “comrades”.

Even without the double mind for the double spy, it would be interesting having an Autobot pretending to be a Decepticon in order to gather information and we could see what it's like to be in that environment. We the audience could be privy to seeing Decepticons in the day to day life where they’re not plotting something. We could see Punch as he tried to navigate across the tightrope of blending in and trying to gather information, while reminding himself who his enemies are. We could see an Autobot who is forced to juggle actions involving facing his fellow Autobots in battle; is there a way to bluff his way out of the situation? Does he have to reveal where their location is? Or does he have to kill someone in order to keep his cover? Also if he encounters a Decepticon spy, he would have to figure out how to out him to the Autobots without blowing his own cover and minimizing the damage this spy would cause.

This in turn could affect how he perceives his fellow bots. Due to his job he knows well enough that people have a side they keep hidden. As a result he puts on a façade of a calm bot in order to bring suspicion to himself. Even some of his superiors don’t escape from his paranoia. After all, how can he truly trust even his own leader if said leader was once close friends with a certain Con? But if there was someone Punch trusts completely he would let a small bit of his guard down, not completely after all someone could be listening to them. They would be the person around whom he would let his genuine emotions and concerns come out. And if they were in danger he would try his best to get them out while trying to keep his cover.

#transformers #tf #punch #counterpunch #transformers archive reimagine #tar

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writers-blogck · 5 years

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Number One Fan! ( Katsuki Bakugo x Reader )

Song

Warning(s): This is set during the crush phase, probably around right before he asks you out. There is slight yandere tendencies and stalking in this story.

Title: Number One Fan! Pairing: Katsuki Bakugo x Reader Fandom: My Hero Academia Word Count: 3,145

Classes had just ended, everyone heading back to their dorm or to some activity they had planned. You watched Deku follow Uraraka back to the dorms and the Bakusquad (as Kirishima called it) walking off somewhere together. With a quiet sigh, you decided that it would be the best time for you to go to the store and buy some groceries. You didn't have a lot in your dorm and you preferred to cook your own dinner, instead of going out to eat. That really was just due to how you were raised, there was nothing wrong with going out. It just felt right to make dinner. The dorm had a shared kitchen and sometimes you would be cooking beside someone else. The walk wasn't a terrible one, you knew that. You had been to the grocery store many times before, though you often walked with someone else. This simply was because it was nice to have someone to talk to. You knew some people didn't like to walk by themselves because they thought it was dangerous, but you didn't mind. Nothing was going to happen and if something did, you could deal with it. You were training to be a hero after all. As you walked past the gates, you tried to think over what you needed. You mainly bought enough to make dinner for a week, unless there was something special going on. Since you were only one person, you often had extras as well for leftovers. You would make ramen this week, that sounded good. You planned on sharing it with others because every time you ended up making ramen, it would attract others who would give you puppy dog eyes so you would share. It never bothered you, you liked to share but you just needed to account for that. What else should you make...? With your thoughts swarming, you almost didn't notice the boy you were going to walk into. Luckily you were able to stop yourself just in time, stumbling a bit back to catch your balance after stopping so fast. He turned to look at you with dark eyes, perhaps dark brown or black. His hair was black, that was certain, and it was a set of messy curls. But, his curls weren't like Deku's, this kind didn't look intentional, more like bedhead. "Oh! I'm sorry," You apologized, flattening out your skirt to make sure it hadn't blown up when you stumbled. His eyes scanned over you before brightening and a smile forming on his face. "No problem! Hey, you go to U.A., right?" He asked once he finished looking you over. It wasn't shocking that he could tell, you were still in your uniform after all. You had wanted to make the trip short so you wouldn't have to worry about it getting dark, which meant not having time to change. Even if you didn't know that this uniform was for U.A., the symbol was on the jacket. "Yeah, I do. Do you? I don't think I've seen you before." "No, I wish though! I always thought it was so cool! What year are you? You look like you are a first year." "I just started this year." You nodded with his question, a small polite smile on your face. You hadn't expected to talk to anyone on your way to the store. You didn't really understand why he was talking to you but you decided that it must just be because he liked the school. It wasn't the first time someone had stopped a student, but normally it was just to congratulate them, or something else short. "Haha, yeah! I thought you looked young. I'm a year or two past that." His hand that was shoved in his pocket came out to run through his curls. He looked sheepish, though you didn't understand why. You knew that you weren't the best with understanding people. You were naive, often believing Denki or Kirishima when they were messing with you. "Well, I need to get to the store before getting back to the school. We had a curfew and I don't want to end up getting in trouble." With a friendly nod of farewell, you began to walk back towards the store again. It was true, you didn't want to end up being out past curfew. If they found out, you would be in a lot of trouble. But, you didn't expect for the guy to catch up to you, hands shoved back in his pockets. "O-Oh! Well, I can walk you to the store and keep you company. My name's Shinja, by the way" His eyes were staring at your face as if taking in every detail. When your own eyes glanced over, he quickly looked back up to the sky. He was trying to act cool with how he was walking, you knew that. Bakugo walked the same way, hands shoved in his pocket and looking up at the sky instead of those around him. Yet, it was different with this guy... "(Y/N)." "That's a nice name. So, you plan on becoming a hero? That's really cool. I tried to get in but obviously, I didn't." He chuckled, "But it is fine, whatever. Gotta just accept what happens and move on." This continued for the entirety of walking to the store. He kept asking you questions and you would answer them as simply as possible. You wanted to be friendly, he might be really nice, but it felt strange. You really just wanted to get your food and then head back. In two hours, you had a plan to study with Bakugo. He would get so annoyed if you were late. His questions got strange the longer he was with you, causing you to refuse to answer some of them. What did this guy want? He was getting annoying... -*- The man hadn't left you alone even when you began to go shopping. He was acting like he had known you forever and was just a friend coming shopping with you. You were just trying to ignore it, confrontation was not your strong suit. Perhaps he was simply lonely and needed a friend for a bit. You were just hoping he would leave when you finished buying everything. You two would split ways and that would be the end of it. That was what you had hoped. Yet now as you stood outside, holding your bags just a few feet from the entrance to the store, you were wrong. "I should be walking back now," You smiled up at him, hiding the tension you felt in your hands. Were you being too nice? Were you overreacting? Nothing like this had ever happened to you before, you came from a small village to go to U.A. This year was the first time you were ever in a bigger city like this. "I can walk you back. Don't want you getting in any trouble." "Ah, thank you but you don't have to do that. I'll be fine. I am training to be a hero, after all, I can handle myself. It could even be practice." You joked as if it would lighten the situation. With every decline you said, the tension simply grew and grew. He kept a smile on his face but it seemed more forced and his eyes were staring down at you with an emotion you couldn't describe. He took a step toward you, which in turn made you take a step back. This continued until your back hit the wall of the store, the man only inches from you. He towered over you, back hunched and an arm placed above your head. This could have been romantic in the right situation but now it was terrifying. Your brain quickly began to switch into hero mode, trying to figure out a plan that would keep you safest. "Don't you understand? I want to keep you safe, is that too much to ask? I've made sure you were safe before so why won't you let me do it now?" His breath was hot and caused a shiver to run down your spine. What was he talking about? He had kept you safe before? What did he mean by that? You really were getting scared. He wasn't just some weird lonely guy who just wanted some company, this was something else, something wrong. Could you hurt him in order to get away? If he attacked you could but you should try to get away without having to fight at all. "I'm sorry, I don't understand. I really need to be getting back." You slipped under his arm that was above you, spinning so you were facing him, "I don't want to be late. I'm sorry." "Give me your number at least, don't I deserve that? I've been watching you since you came here. I saw you during the Sport's Festival and I couldn't get it out of my head. You looked so beautiful when you were shocking that boy. Yet, you got so hurt during that fight with that other boy. He hurt you and you need to be protected. That's what I'm going to do." Fuck, fuck, fuck! You quickly glanced around but there was no one. It made sense, not many people were out at eight. It was getting dark outside, you had planned to be back by seven just as the sun was setting. But this man kept you until it got dark out. Had he done this on purpose? This needed to be taken like a villain attack, just like how you had trained. "Sir, leave me alone. If you don't, I may have to hurt you. I don't want to have to fight, I really don't. Just, leave me alone, okay?" You tried to make your voice more intimidating than it was. Heroes always sounded so brave, they wouldn't be scared in this situation. All-Might would just yell at the man. Aizawa-senpai would use that terrifying voice and his scarf. They all would be fine in this situation so why didn't you? "You don't want to hurt me, baby. I need to keep you safe and I just need you to listen. It isn't safe for you at U.A. with those villains running around. I'll take you somewhere safe, somewhere that they can't hurt you anymore. You just need to trust me!" He reached out to grab your wrist which you narrowly dodged. You knew you wouldn't be able to outrun this man with these groceries and fighting wouldn't be your best bet. That left the store if you could just go back in where the worker could see you, maybe they could help. You dropped the bags to the ground to allow you to have full control of your arms. Luckily you hadn't bought anything that would get damaged from being dropped. You could get them after you were safe again. That was all you needed to focus on at the moment. This man wanted to do you harm, or he wanted to do something dangerous to you. "Darling, it is just too hard to watch you when you are in U.A. I've seen glimpses of you walking around the grounds but I never could get closer. But, when you left school, I would follow you to make sure that you were safe. I've seen those friends of yours, those boys? Why do you hang out with them? They will just hurt you! They are just like every other guy in this world!" "Come on, there is no need to fight. Come with me, I promise we will be great. I don't want to have to hurt you but if you won't come with me, I'll have to make you. It is for your own good. You'll understand that, even if you don't know. You just don't understand how much I love you." There was a crazed look in his eyes as he kept moving in your direction. He was leaning over so he was eye level with you as if that was going to help. He knew what he was doing. With every movement, he blocked your path to the door. There was no way to get into safety. Oh god. If you couldn't get to safety and you couldn't run... With a grunt, you swung your fist and connected it with the man's cheek. A stinging sensation radiated from your knuckles, shooting down your arm but you didn't care. You hadn't ever needed to punch someone with full force, terror in you. You weren't holding back like in training to make sure you didn't hurt yourself. Now was a live or die moment and you were going to do everything you had to. The punch seemed to be a good one as it caused him to stumble back, a look of pure shock on his face. "I said leave!" You shouted, this time full of fear and anger. You wouldn't let him win, you couldn't. Changing your position, you made sure you were in the correct stance to fight. You weren't really a fighter hero, planning on being more of a support and rescue. Your skills dealt with your speed and ease of dodging attacks more than fighting someone. You tired them down and then would fight if you needed to. Yet, this man gave you no chance to tire him out. This was a fight, no matter how you looked at it. As the man opened his mouth to say something, another voice shouted out which caused your heart to swell with relief. Loud footsteps were thumping in your direction, loud bangs popping at their side. You didn't need to see who this was to know. When you saw the spikey blonde hair as he got closer, you knew that you would be okay. You may not be a fighter, but he was and with that look on his face, a very pissed off one. It didn't take long for Bakugo to knock the man out. He trained to fistfight every day, of course, he knew how to deal with a creep who really didn't know how to fight. You may have been able to take him on, though not as easily as he had. The man may be creepy but he wasn't strong. His clothes were burnt in areas and he had burns on his arms due to the explosions he had suffered. Once Bakugo finished informing the worker inside that the police needed to come to take this asshole, he walked back out to look at you with piercing red eyes. "Are you hurt? Did he touch you?" "No, I don't think so. My hand is sore but that is just from the punch. I've never really had to do one out of training before..." You mumbled, glancing down at your reddening knuckles. The stinging was still there, but the pain didn't bother you. This just confirmed your thoughts of being weak. Could you even be a hero if you couldn't deal with a pervert who didn't even use his quirk? Villains were so much stronger than him... "You did fine with that punch. When you fight up close all the time, you get used to the pain," He spoke as he gently grabbed your arms to look you over. Even though his eyes were narrowed in anger, you thought you could see a hint of worry in them. Once he was decided that you weren't hurt, he released his grip on your arms and instead grabbed your grocery bags. When you tried to take at least one, he just grumbled that you just needed to focus on walking. As you walked back to school, you stayed close to him though you made sure not to touch him. The sun was setting, a haze of darkness beginning to blanket the town. The two of you should be able to get back to school before it was fully dark outside. For the first few minutes, you just walked in silence other than the small thudding of your feet against the sidewalk. Your eyes trained on the ground while Bakugo kept staring forward as if his life depended on it. You let out a small sigh, allowing your shoulders to finally relax after everything that had happened. "How did you know?" You hated how timid your voice sounded. You were strong, or at least that was what you wanted him to think. Now he would just see you as a scared little girl. You knew it wasn't your fault and yet you still couldn't keep it from bothering you. "You didn't show up to study. I went looking for you and when I didn't find you on the school grounds, I decided that you must have went out. You have to be more careful! Do you know what might have happened if I didn't show up or you weren't able to defend yourself? You should have asked me to come with you when you knew that you would be going out when it was getting late." "I just thought that I would be back by seven. But this guy, h-he was outside of the school and started to talk to me. He decided to walk me to the store and I just let him since I thought he was lonely. He wouldn't leave me alone. It wasn't until we were outside again that he started to get threatening....I kept telling him that I needed to head back." You took a shaky breath before continuing, "Bakugo, he said he had been watching me. Like, when I left school, he followed me. He saw me with you....I-I never even noticed him." A hiccup escaped your mouth before you could stop it, fear filling you up. Tears brimmed your eyes but you refused to let them fall. You were safe now, you shouldn't still be feeling this scared. "I didn't notice him either so no need to beat yourself up about that. He is a fucking creep and he deserves everything that is going to happen to you," He growled out when he spoke about the man, a fire in his eyes that you had never seen before, "I'm going to walk you to the grocery store from now on." It wasn't a question of if you would like him to, it was more of a demand. Whether you liked it or not, he was going to walk you there. You didn't want to admit it but that sounded nice. You would be terrified the next time you had to leave the school after what happened, but he would make you feel safer. To you, there seemed like nothing that Bakugo couldn't protect you from. "Thank you Katsuki." That was the first time you ever called him by his first name.

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pfenniged · 4 years

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Hi! I’ve been following you for a lil lil bit, but already you seem super smart and knowledgeable so.. what are some books or other pieces of writing you think everyone should read? Have a lovely day!

B’aww, thank you! <3 You too nonnie! <3

Just off the top of my head at three o’clock in the morning, and the qualification that you provided that its something that ‘everyone should read,’ I’m going to go for more books that I found changed me fundamentally, as a person, after reading them. That may be a self-help book; that might be a societal critique, that might be a work of classic literature. I tried to give a bit of everything. <3

I’ll put a little copy-and-paste synopsis here for you for each book, and will elaborate if necessary in brackets.

BEHOLD: LAUREN’S LIST OF LITERARY RECOMMENDATIONS:

From My (Non-Law) Bookcase (But still are about political issues):

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya Chemaly:

‘As women, we’ve been urged for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet there are so, so many legitimate reasons for us to feel angry, ranging from blatant, horrifying acts of misogyny to the subtle drip, drip drip of daily sexism that reinforces the absurdly damaging gender norms of our society. In Rage Becomes Her, Soraya Chemaly argues that our anger is not only justified, it is also an active part of the solution. We are so often encouraged to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Approached with conscious intention, anger is a vital instrument, a radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power—one we can no longer abide.’

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education by Jay T. Dolmage:

‘Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.’

(This book strays into more academic categories, but it’s still really great that this sort of book is being written. I personally recognise its value as someone with mental health struggles and who has had to fight ironically in the legal sphere for myself in terms of finding support within my own career moving forward as a lawyer/legal academic. I think the fact that the narrative that disabilities are seen as the antithesis of secondary education despite claims of diversity is something that all university students need to guard themselves against, or at least educate themselves on, in order to work against some systems that even though they espouse equality, might not have their best interests at heart.

I’ve ironically found this especially terrible in law, where my first term of law school I was told ‘girls like you don’t go to law school,’ followed by constant questioning by the community at large after graduate that any hint of mental weakness equates to being unfit to practice law. This is despite the majority of lawyers having mental health problems, if not full blown addictions. It’s honestly why I’m pivoting back to academia (law prof), or moving to practice for the government (which enforces union restrictions on how long a lawyer can actually work, where firms just actually work them to death without union protections ironically; ugh. My whole point is, I’m not ashamed of having mental health problems in a field largely categorised by achievements in secondary education. I feel no reason to hide it, even though people tell me to. If someone is ashamed of me over something I had no control over developing, then I probably don’t want to be involved with them, do I? (A good method I recommend; it may cut off some superficial ‘friends’/’opportunities,’ but it leads to those who truly understand what a mental health disability may entail, and how strong you are for overcoming it).

White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard to for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo:

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Two Mental Health-Related Books:

Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee:

‘We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable?

Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break?

In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost - we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile.

Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.’

(I just read this book lately and I love it; it’s really follows the history of how we’ve come to this point where we can’t shut off our brains, and we see ourselves in this really puritanical, commercialist manner: How we define ourselves by how much we produce, and if we fall short of this goal by being (ironically) human, we berate ourselves for it. This really has let me shift my mentality towards a much healthier, less ‘workaholic’ mode in my COVID downtime, and really helped me move towards a healthier lifestyle in the jobs I’m searching for now that I’ve left school. Recommended for anyone taking the big leap into the full time work world).

Chained to the Desk by Bryan Robinson:

‘Americans love a hard worker. The worker who toils eighteen-hour days and eats meals on the run between appointments is usually viewed with a combination of respect and awe. But for many, this lifestyle leads to family problems, a decline in work productivity, and ultimately to physical and mental collapse. Intended for anyone touched by what Robinson calls “the best-dressed problem of the twenty-first century,” Chained to the Desk provides an inside look at workaholism’s impact on those who live and work with work addicts—partners, spouses, children, and colleagues—as well as the appropriate techniques for clinicians who treat them. Originally published in 1998, this groundbreaking book from best-selling author and widely respected family therapist Bryan E. Robinson was the first comprehensive portrait of the workaholic. In this new and fully updated third edition, Robinson draws on hundreds of case reports from his own original research and years of clinical practice. The agonies of workaholism have grown all the more challenging in a world where the computer, cell phone, and iPhone allow twenty-four-hour access to the office, even on weekends and from vacation spots. Adult children of workaholics describe their childhood pain and the lifelong legacies they still carry, and the spouses or partners of workaholics reveal the isolation and loneliness of their vacant relationships. Employers and business colleagues discuss the cost to the company when workaholism dominates the workplace. Chained to the Desk both counsels and consoles. It provides a step-by-step guide to help readers spot workaholism, understand it, and recover.’

(I also just read this one, and it’s an older book edited to a third edition, and it shows. However, it also does the important work of demonstrating how workaholics should be treated in the same category as anyone else who gets any sort of ‘high’ from something, like drugs or alcoholism. It opens with the quote (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Workaholicism is the best dressed addiction.” It’s the one we’re rewarded for constantly, not matter what mental toll it takes on us. While I’m not exactly ready to sign up for a twelve-step plan (and some of the chapters are specifically for spouses and children), it still dishes out some really good advice about feeding other areas of our lives and how to not simply focus on work.)

From My Undergraduate Degree (Classics and Double Minor in English and German Literature, with a little World Literature thrown in for good measure):

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe:

THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.

(This is a classic of African Literature, and what I wrote my world literature paper on in first year. It really is a story about the affect of a fall of one culture, where Okonkwo is the prime example of what a ‘man’ may be in this society, to how this society (and African societies as a whole) are affected by European colonialism. How one man can be seen as a paradigm of perfection at one point in time, and the scourge of the earth at another, when he stubbornly holds to his ideals, no matter how flawed they may be. It’s a book I remember reading the ending of, and it’s a theme for all three of these books, and just looking down and literally letting out an, “Ooooooooh~~~~” xD That’s really my ‘tell’ of a good book. I haven’t reread it since then, but it’s always stuck with me).

Animal Farm by George Orwell:

‘Perhaps one of the most influential allegories of the 20th century, George Orwell's Animal Farm has made its way into countless schoolrooms and libraries, and has been the inspiration of several films. Written in 1945, before Orwell's conceptually similar 1984, Animal Farm's world consists of anthropomorphized farm animals as they attempt to create an ideal society--it becomes dystopian as the flaws of the ideology seep out. Like 1984, Orwell meant for Animal Farm to represent a Communist state, and to depict its downfalls. With a message that is not soon to be forgotten, Animal Farm reminds us that "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."’

(It’s stereotypical and you’ve probably read it, but I still love this book to pieces and literally have an Animal Farm pin on my bag xD If you haven’t read it, read it: It also has the OhhhOOohhh~ effect xD)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:

‘Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family". But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.’

(What do I have to say by this point? Another Ooooh~ effect book xD)

#oh my god it's 4:21am #but I enjoyed this way too much as well xD #hope this was along the lines of what you were looking for! <#personal #anonymoose #literature #recommendations #future reference

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cyberneticpeoplespolis · 4 years

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Marxism and Conspiracy Theories

Originally commissioned for the Organise Aotearoa website, you can find more articles here. In running a socialist organisation, especially one that has an audience and collaborators outside of the regular “left wing activist” crowd, we often find ourselves in contact with conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.

Some people even think socialists like us are conspiracy theorists—after all, aren’t we blaming nearly all of our problems on a tiny group of people who we say control the Government, most political parties, our workplaces, and our media? On the other hand, some believe that socialism is itself a part of a conspiracy, and that we are influencing culture and secretly control universities or political parties.

Conspiracy theories are usually based in the idea that some outside influence or ruling organisation controls everything around us, and this means that there is quite often a grain of truth somewhere in the mix. On the other hand, conspiracy theories can be a dangerous way of misdirecting anger away from those who deserve it and onto ethnic minorities or other scapegoats.

That’s why we’re attempting to write this in good faith rather than dismissing people we disagree with as cranks and crazies. Rather than appealing to rationality and common sense, we’re more interested in giving people the tools to separate fact from fiction. So what should you do if you’re confronted with a theory or worldview you think might be conspiratorial?

Is it falsifiable?

Falsifiability means that something can be proven wrong if the right evidence can be used against it. Many conspiracy theories rely on being unfalsifiable, what this means is that no matter how much evidence disproves the theory, you’ll still find a few people who believe it. For example, climate change denial is unfalsifiable because it is based on the idea that all the world’s scientists are deliberately misleading the public. No matter how many reports about looming ecological catastrophe come out, climate change denialism will still linger on because those producing the reports can’t be trusted. The only way that climate change denialism can be disproven is when our planet becomes completely uninhabitable, by which time the debate is pretty irrelevant.

In contrast, a worldview like socialism is falsifiable in part because there are thousands of ways we could be proven wrong if we saw the correct evidence. If someone becomes a billionaire without exploiting the labour of another human being, that would be direct evidence against socialism. A capitalist state completely abolishing wealth inequality would be another example. There are many things that simply could not happen without socialism being untrue—they just haven’t happened yet!

However not all conclusions of socialism are falsifiable, especially the application of revolutionary solutions in our current context. We don’t presume to have created a completely flawless worldview, and only through practice can theory be put to the test.

Where does the money lead?

Another hallmark of conspiracy theories is that they propose scenarios that simply don’t make economic sense. What is the profit motive behind paying off thousands and thousands of people so that they don’t reveal the “truth” about society when it makes much more sense to hide in plain sight for free? Every scheme requires a believable investment and a believable motive, but many conspiracy theories would require elaborate networks and millions of paid employees, all kept in perfect secrecy.

On the other hand, conspiracy theories which turned out to be true, such as the Jeffrey Epstein case, had clear social and profit motives. A single prisoner held information that was damaging to several politicians and businessmen, and they simply exercised their class solidarity to kill him before he could stand trial. This is a good example of a real-life conspiracy, as it was done so clumsily that it was only a matter of time before it was exposed.

As socialists, the main conspiracy we espouse is one that makes perfect economic sense, and takes place in plain sight: that the rich have created systems to endlessly exploit the labour of the poor—something that even the most capitalist economist would admit after a few drinks. While many conspiracies rely on the idea that truth is completely separate from appearance, most socialist theories rely on taking the most readily apparent and ordinary parts of daily life, and revealing truth through putting them in a wider economic and social context.

Does it focus on Jewish people?

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of conspiracy theories is how they are able to misdirect the anger of working class people towards minorities. Many popular conspiracy theories tie in to one big overarching conspiracy theory, collectively termed “New World Order” (NWO) conspiracies.

NWO conspiracies typically revolve around a secret pact involving Freemasons, the Illuminati, and the Elders of Zion with occasional guest appearances by Nazis, Rhodes’ scholars, aliens, communists and satanists.

One aspect of NWO conspiracies that makes them so insidious and widespread is their tendency to bleed into one another thanks to internet forums, right-wing ultranationalist organisations, and other purveyors of “stigmatised knowledge.” This means that people who believe in NWO conspiracies often come to believe that racial groups, especially Jews, are a part of, or behind all of the other conspiracies.

This is because of a few factors: Jews were historically the most literate minority in Early Modern Europe, which often led to conditional entry into the management and middle classes. This, combined with Christian religious hostility, led to situations where Jews were blamed for nearly everything. By the time the 19th century arrived, whole fabricated documents (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) were being produced, claiming to expose a Jewish conspiracy to corrupt the world.

This means that many conspiracy theories involve a conscious or unconscious hostility towards Jews and other minorities. Jewish banking families like the Rothschilds are blown out of proportion, becoming arch-capitalist overlords rather than relatively small-scale bank owners. Jewish association with other “conspiratorial organisations” also had tragic consequences for other groups: along with the 6 million Jews murdered by Nazis, 200,000 Freemasons and 1,450 Jehovah’s Witnesses were also killed thanks to their alleged participation in Jewish conspiracies.

Many people in Aotearoa espouse rhetoric similar to NWO conspiracism without realising what a tragic history such thinking has led to. We need to educate people about the full implications of this brand of conspiracy theories, and completely divorce it from the socialist movement.

What about Marxism?

Marxism inevitably gets lumped in with many of the conspiracies outlined above. This is natural, since aren’t we conspiring to overthrow governments and institute our own world order (a new mode of production)? But underneath this relatively innocuous association is something more sinister. Marxism gets painted as a Jewish conspiracy, since we get our name from the proudly Jewish Karl Marx. This was something exploited by Marx’s contemporaries, and something that undercuts much of the criticism of socialism to this day.

This is a particularly dangerous association, not only because it creates unsafe situations for our Jewish comrades, but also because it prevents us from redirecting the misguided anger of conspiratorialism towards those who are actually pulling the strings: the bourgeoisie, of all cultures, ethnicities and nationalities. After all, why should anyone listen to us if we’re shills for the NWO, or Jewish capitalists like George Soros? This brings us back to one of the concepts we raised earlier—it makes conspiracy thinking unfalsifiable, because the only people willing to talk about the real conspiracies can be dismissed as part of the problem!

Does it mistake “Shock Doctrine” for “False Flags?”

Many conspiracies rely on the idea that the ruling class or other groups deliberately stage or perpetrate massive catastrophes in order to further their goals. A good example of these “False Flag” conspiracies is the 9/11 Truther movement which claims that the US Federal Government deliberately blew up the World Trade Centre and made it look as if it was the result of airliner impacts. They believe this, in part, because the US Government massively benefited from the attacks, and was able to use it for propaganda to consolidate its own domestic power and enable overseas imperialism.

However such claims could also be explained by a much more real and mundane tactic of the ruling class: the “Shock Doctrine.” This is the idea that Governments will opportunistically take advantage of shocking events and people’s fear to push through legislation, or exercise repressive measures and emergency powers. A recent and notable example of this took place in New Zealand. The Christchurch Mosque attacks were used by police as justification for expanding the police’s access to automatic weapons. The police had been lobbying for greater access to firearms for years, and these policies would likely have been adopted regardless of events. However, by using tragic acts of terrorism for their own gain, the police were able to convince even left-wing civil society that this policy is justified. Through the Shock Doctrine, terrible events often lead to Governments achieving their policy objectives, and this appears to some outside observers as if they planned the whole thing.

In truth, the real crime is the unending ability for capitalist states to use civilian deaths and tragedy as political capital in pushing their agendas.

Does it present an unwinnable situation?

One thing all of these conspiracy theories have in common is that they create situations in which we are so hopelessly outmatched and outmanoeuvred by infinitely powerful organisations that there’s no point except to give up, and maybe occasionally update a blog about it all. In a way, it’s comforting to know that someone has a plan, even if it’s an evil one, because our only options are to sit back and watch it unfurl rather than exercise our own agency to make plans of our own.

Socialism differs from many other conspiracies because we know there is no single plan, no blueprint by which the bourgeoisie controls us. They are a mass of competing interests, but they will also work together in cases where their interests align, such as when ensuring collective profits through wars and crises, or when removing threats to their collective interests, such as taxation and working class solidarity.

Socialism holds that there is no individual with the ability to shape reality except working class people working together to develop our own plans. Those who rule over us aren’t shady organisations with no public face, but rather a class of individuals with names and addresses, as well as visible social and economic systems they have set up to advance their interests.

So does OA believe in conspiracies?

In short, yes absolutely! Every time the bourgeoisie works together on a project, they are exercising their class solidarity, in other words, conspiring with each other. They do this all the time, from a group of lobbyists helping one another pressure governments, to a gun manufacturer providing a discount to a police force. Real life conspiracies are…well, kind of boring compared to the ones that capture people’s imaginations. Even the shadiest aspects of the capitalist world, such as corporate espionage, CIA coups and propaganda campaigns, tend not to put a lot of effort into covering their tracks, instead relying on our apathy and the subservience of news media to let the story die.

What we don’t engage in is conspiratorialism, the idea that we can theorise about conspiracies based on loose connections, anecdotal evidence, and confirmation biases.

Real conspiracies are simple, visible, and pretty uninteresting to most people. We simply don’t need to explain things via the most complex, hidden, and obscure structures known to humankind.

#conspiracy #marxism #socialism

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cloudywithachanceofwatering · 4 years

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the galtean tattoos and piercings [ mostly for the brave , pt3 ]

you might be wondering - cloudy , wtf is that username and where is the tattoo shop - i wonder that too but you shall see soon

p.s - anything with a bracket has a cm behind it unless it's not numbers . then go ahead and assume it's not height-related .

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the rest of the afternoon , they went full blown matchmaking mode . " listen man , if we want them to do the deed , first they have their needs , " lance slammed his hands on the table , a customer walking in and widening their eyes a bit before backtracking and walking back in , albeit further from lance .

" no lance , you aren't listening ! " pidge pressed her fingers against her temple . " we need them together first , then we set the plan into action . " lance threw up his hands , " listen babygirl , i know you cute and all but this attitude ain't it . boo , they need to go on a solo trip first and we stalk them , then we head out with your plan . "

the full-blown chaos at the table for two continued , as allura and romelle calmly took orders . " mmmhmm , aight , i need to dip soon before anyone from class sees me - " " well what about me ?! " " shit i forgot you weren't twelve , " lance snickered playfully as pidge leaned over the table to punch him . " fuck you ! "

quietly , they snuck out the moment shiro and matt walked in during their lunch period - yes , the ' double trouble duo floopers ' - i swear i'm only the narrator - were intense stalkers . they hid behind the counter , staring right at the ' #shatt ' couple as they sat at the table the duo was hust at . " ⁰⁰⁰k s⁰ l¹ke wh⁴t'⁵ the p¹⁴n , " lance whispered , pidge scrunching her eyebrows at him . " what the fuck did you just say ?? " she whisper-shouted , cause lance to roll his eyes and nearly stand up , if it wasn't for pidge . " i said ok so like what's the plan - " " no yer fokin did nawt ! "

their under the counter bickering continued , until pidge's ass was met with a rough kick from allura , allura's face with a desthly sweet smile . " hey matt ! hey shiro - since when did your lunch breaks fit together so nicely ? " allura teased , hearing matt snicker a bit . lance and pidge , from behind the counter , physically f e l t shiro's blush as they scrambled to sneak out .

" th¹⁵ ¹⁵ ⁰ur ch⁴nce , " lance hissed , trying to hold back laughter . pidge pinched his cheek , " ⁵top talking in goddamn ... superscript or the ... fuck math . " lance pushed her by the booty out as they crawled , " i said this is our chance !! move !! "

as romelle blocked the display on her left so the duo could slide on out safely without being notice - " pidge ? " matt squinted at the display case , " oh no , pidge is in class , isn't she ? besides , she never comes to our shop unless it's lunchtime , " romelle diverted matt's attention , the crawling duo quickly falling over themselves on the slippery tiled floor as they walked on all fours - more correctly , struggled and slipped and mopped the floor -

" ... pidge never comes alone ? she's never seen here without me , lance , hunk or keith ... ? " matt raised a eyebrow suspiciously , shiro's mind turning and turning and - " she's here with lance , isn't she ??? i didn't mark her attendance this morn - " matt flung his head around towards shiro on his left his face half scrunched up with confusion . shiro blushed a bit and he told himself this was the wrong time to feel this sinful way .

matt looked at romelle's nervous face , looked back at shiro and looked to the gorund on his right as he heard some knocking noises . he blinked once , twice , opened and closed his mouth , " so you played truant with lance ? mom's gonna - " he paused abruptly , wincing as pidge's face crumbled a bit .

shiro blinked at least five times , looking around . " ... your mom's gonna what ? i-i didn't see her contact number on the list in the ' call in case of emergencies ' column , " shiro squished matt's shoulder , confusion intensifying as allura and romelle cringed physically , the line of customers backing away a bit as they formed a new line so allura could take their orders .

matt , in all his 5'2 glory [ 161 if you're like me and had to use google to figure out because america doesn't work the same way as pretty much the rest of the world ] - not including his shoes and hair though , in that case he's 5'10 - immediately threw shiro's hand off him and dragged pidge and lance out , throwing them harshly on the curb and shouting bloody murder about truancy and that they should've have skipped class and all the things that shiro would've said but in a much softer voice and even softer use of language . " uhm . t-two caramel fraps with no whipped cream ? " shiro itched the back of his neck , handing allura his credit card as romelle went outside for damage control . " c-coming right up ??? " allura swiped his card , gave it back to him and shiro smiled nervously before heading outside for damage control part 2 .

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so here shiro was , trying to stop matt from pulling the troublemaking duo's ears and saying sorry to the passerbys . " l-look matthew , you don't have to - " " stop calling me matthew , just call me matt , and yes i have to ! " shiro blinked a blush as he opened the door to the tattoo shop .

a few heads turned as the bell on the door rang , the windchime in the shop right next to the door clinging ... sweetly , as weird as it is - albeit on the softer side as well . not what you'd expect from a typical windchime .

lotor smiled painfully as he finsiehd up some paperwork and handed it to the nervous client , whispering assuredly to them - " don't worry , our reputation as a shop is that it's mostly only for the brave , so y'know ... ya gotta have some kind of balls to come here . " the client just sucked in some air , refusing to turn around .

" matt , stop please , i'm literally 6'2 [ 190 ] and you're bringing me down to like , 7'4 [ 225 ]- wait no i meant 5'4 [ 164 ] - ouch ! " lance whimpered , pidge just getting dragged upwards since she was 5'2 . i'm not kidding here , she's like , the bare minimum of 159 . she likes to say 159.5 just to make herself feel better so she can round it up to 160 .

matt psuhed them down at his work station and closed the curtain , sitting down on the swivel stool and sighing , hands covering his face . pidge and lance sat close to each other , lance gulping a bit at the sight of a cotton ball with dried blood on a tray with piercing items . shiro had taken notice of the cart's tray and out of sheer terror , dropped it into the trashcan next to the cart , pitying the poor person who had to sit through that .

matt breathed in deeply , proceeding to stand up and make the swivel chair taller , before sitting back down and taking off his shoes and hearing them drop against the floor . then , quite unnervingly , looking directly at pidge and lance in the eye . " miei amici , mi amigos , 我的朋友们， my friends . how many languages do you need til you understand ? what has gotten into you ?! especially you , katie - la mia famiglia, il mio girasole [ i'm sorry , i had to google translate , hopefully it means ' my family , my sunflower ' ] ! mama and papa trusted me to take care of you since we were little kids - " matt cut himself off , putting his head on shiro's bicep as he sighed , squishing it a bit . " stress ball , " he whispered quietly as shiro patted his other shoulder .

pidge and lance were trying not to ship it too hard in misdt of the end of their life . shiro breathed out , hoping he wasn't blushing too hard . " listen , please ... " he did a dad sigh , matt following along . " i know that it's ' oh-so-hard ' to sit down in a classroom and listen to a teacher drone on and on and i get it - i was a student myself quite a while ago . but it doesn't mean you can simply skip like this , " shiro scolded gently , petting matt's hair as matt clung to him increasingly more .

the recievers were just quietly staring at their hands , starting to feel bad . " we're s⁰rry , " lance said quietly , his voice cracking a bit . pidge held back a badly timed laugh , shiro shaking his head as he watched pidge struggle to hold back .

#cloudyhadachanceofwatering #plance #vld pidge #vld plance #voltron plance #vld lance #vld shiro #vld allura #vld #voltron #voltron matt #vld matt #weeeeeewoooooooooo im finally done with this xoxo it got real long and its been in my drafts for years now lol #galteantattoosandpiercings

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zombiescantfly · 5 years

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Words About Games: Unreal Tournament (Epic Megagames, 1999)

In 2291, in an attempt to control violence among deep-space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-barred fighting.

291 years earlier, I heard that for the first time. Unreal Tournament begins with a narrated flythrough explaining two very simple things: there is a Tournament, and you are going to win it. After the lonely melancholy of Unreal, that's a pretty abrupt pivot. Why, after getting through most of the 90s with platformers, pinball, and fighting games, did Epic Megagames barrel in headfirst to the multiplayer arena shooter market, a playground run exclusively by industry already-giant id Software?

Because they wanted to.

As I mentioned in the Unreal essay, that game's multiplayer was a fun shell filled with horrible, horrible problems. Epic set to fixing it, but realized that beyond some quick and dirty surface-level patches, there wasn't a lot they could do within the same scope. So they broke away from a simple expansion pack and landed on creating a full separate release by the name of Unreal Tournament.

Unreal Tournament, UT99 from now on, was released on November 23, 1999, to an almost absurd level of praise. Quake 3 Arena, id’s latest offering in the Quake franchise and first multiplayer-only title, would come out just over a week later on December 2, pitching the two games into a deathmatch of their own which still rages to this day almost 20 years later.

Let's talk about Quake a bit. Shooters, up until around the time the first Quake came out and probably still after that, were commonly referred to as ‘Doom clones’ because, well, many were. Any unambitious dev could buy an engine license, whip up some sprites on a lunchbreak, and ship a game. There's a parallel to be drawn between that era and the current ongoing avalanche of Unity and Unreal asset flips, but you can turn to others for opinions on all that.

Quake was, famously, id Software’s followup to Doom 2, and an early frontrunner of fully-3d shooters. It was so popular and noteworthy that it even caused the term Doom Clone to fall away in favor of Quake Clone. Quake expanded the popularity of online play, and saw the creation of the some of the first AI bots made exclusively for deathmatch. Quake 2 came along not too far after and pulled in even more interest. If you remember from my Unreal essay, that was when it grabbed my own interest, and I became a frequent over-the-shoulder spectator of many a Quake 2 deathmatch.

But then, UT99. When I first played Unreal Tournament, I was blown away. By the bots. Meaning that they killed me a lot. I was very bad at it. I didn't even strafe back then, just ran forward and turned with the mouse. But I learned.

UT99 is actually quite an accommodating game. Bots have 9 skill levels ranging from drooling idiot to a fittingly-named godlike, and I remember bumping them up a level at a time over the years. UT’s bots were one of its largest selling points back then, and the cornerstone of the Tournament part of its name.

The titular Tournament in Unreal Tournament is a series of botmatches of increasing difficulty over the game’s five primary gamemodes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, and Assault. A final series of three 1v1 matches caps off the Tournament, the third of which pits you against the Big Bad Reigning Champ, a robot named Xan Kriegor.

There were a handful of firsts in that short bit, so let's take a look.

As stated, Quake 2 was the de facto king of online shooters at the time. But Quake 2, for all its fame, only had three gamemodes available: deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. Unreal had dabbled with alternative styles of deathmatch and team deathmatch, but all of them were, more or less, the same gamemode, save one. In a unique take on King of the Hill, the first player to score a kill got a permanent damage boost until they were killed, at which point that buff was transferred to their killer. Killing the King awarded more points, matches were first to X points, you get the idea. RtNP added Cloak Match, a take on this KotH concept where instead of a damage boost, players fought for permanent partial invisibility and infinite jump boots.

Unreal Tournament was a little more ambitious than just reflavoring deathmatch, however. Domination used its own unique rotation of maps centered around controlling three points. Your team scores one point per every couple of seconds, per point held. Touching a point is enough to flip control of it to your side, and the result is a fun, frantic match with enough additional focus to guide it away from just another deathmatch. Map control becomes something more than just controlling various weapon spawns, and demands you keep your attention between the three points. Random respawns instead of near your team’s current territory and the instant capture of points meant the game never ground down to just being spawncamped, and helped reduce the prevalence of one-sided victories. Domination was great, the extra effort put in to creating its own category of maps was great, and games today still use the gamemode. That said, Destiny 2 really needs to make capture instant and not have you sit around for 5 seconds in a tiny room, like come on.

Domination may have been new for the time, and DM, TDM, and CTF made their own waves that I'll get into later, but Assault is what really caught people's attention. Assault was an attack and defense mode where one team was tasked with completing a series of varied objectives, while the defenders tried to stop them. The most similar thing we get in games now is pushing a cart down a predetermined path in TF2 or Overwatch. Payload gamemodes in those games are similar in the sense that one team must progress down a path to get to a specific location, and I suppose it might come across as a streamlining of the idea, but Assault is just more interesting.

UT99 shipped with seven Assault maps, and each one presented a different scenario. Assault was not just replacing the objective on an existing map, the same as Domination had its own maps. Each one had a little story it presented, from the attempted hijacking of a supersonic train, assaulting an ancient fortress on an alien planet, sabotaging an underwater research facility, stealing a Navy battleship, escaping a medieval castle, destroying an experimental battle tank, and even a recreation of the D-Day landing. Assault maps varied in how linear they were, with maps like Guardia, HiSpeed, and Overlord being fairly straightforward, to the more open-ended OceanFloor and Rook. It was, by design, an asymmetrical experience, but that design went so far as to change in-level as the attackers pushed further and further in. On HiSpeed, for example, the attackers start in a helicopter hovering over the rear of the train, and drop down largely uncontested. There's a full car where they can grab weapons and powerups, and then they reach where the defenders have spawned.

As objectives are met and various places in the map are reached by the attackers, spawn points start to change. On the same map, attackers spawn with a serviceable loadout of shock rifles and pulse guns (we'll get to the weapons later), both good options for the mixed-distance encounter they'll be facing as they move towards the next car. The defenders, however, spawn with access to flak cannons and rippers, which in the close quarters of the car’s interior are absolutely brutal. Once the attackers push far enough in to it, though, that car becomes their spawn point and the defenders are moved further back, thus giving the attackers access to those weapons for the next part of the map.

The same sort of design echoes throughout all seven Assault maps, and it creates a varied and frantic experience that was new at the time and still hasn't really been copied. The feeling of actually taking part in an event in the game’s world added so much to even the relatively sparse setting, and it remains a great example of an excellent piece of very quiet but highly effective worldbuilding.

The other gamemodes were again, team and free-for-all deathmatch, and as standard as that was at the time, UT99 made some weighty impressions on the genre. At the time of Quake 2’s release, it was common practice to just repurpose singleplayer campaign levels as the multiplayer maps. Quake 2 would get its own suite of maps designed explicitly for multiplayer later in its life, and Unreal shipped with 14 multiplayer-only maps, with a further 9 added later as free updates. UT99 shipped with multiple dozens of maps, each one presenting a different take on design and execution. You have a standard collection of flat-ish arenas, some truly impressive vertical design, maps with stage hazards, big maps, small maps, maps with areas of low gravity, and maps with secret passages leading to hidden weapon spawns. A handful of Unreal’s maps were even remade for UT99, and two in particular became series mainstays - Deck 16 and Curse. Both are still thought of as iconic maps, and for very good reason. They're well-balanced and play to the strengths of the game they're in while also, going back to Unreal’s bit here, feeling like they're a real space.

Because while UT99 may be a multiplayer-only fragfest with no real story, it has lore.

The opening narration is just a small bit of fluff, but it sets up a whole lot that the various designers had a ton of fun expanding on. Official weapon descriptions in the manual talk about the (in-game) real-world applications of each, and even set some up as not even being explicitly for combat. The Translocator, a personal teleporter by way of launching tiny disks, is a repurposed tool given to miners to help escape cave-ins. The GES Biorifle is a vacuum cleaner for toxic sludge instead of dust. The Impact Hammer is a jackhammer but sideways. The in-universe justification for those few weapons doesn't mean anything to the gameplay, but given that the Tournament was set up by Liandri Mining Corporation, it adds a bit of fun sense-making to the whole thing.

Maps, too, are part of that lore package. Each map throughout the Tournament ladder has a short description, and it's almost always about what this particular arena’s place in the world is. Most boil down to “this is a site built for the Tournament” or “Liandri bought this and made it a Tournament arena,” but it's about the tiny details hidden in the lines. Deck 16 is a toxic sludge refinery, but it's also a single deck of the spaceship Gaetano, rented out to Liandri whenever it's in drydock. Curse is an ancient temple that was an archaeological site until Liandri bought it after funding ran out. Arcane Temple is a Nali worship site on Na Pali left abandoned after the Skaarj invaded. Oblivion is a Liandri passenger ship that tricks Tournament entrants by being their first arena. Hyperblast, the final stage of the Tournament, is Xan Kriegor’s personal spaceship made specifically to be an arena.

The whole thing paints the Liandri Mining Corporation as this quirky half-malicious corporate giant, as big and influential as any sci-fi megacorp but out of an innocent love for their decidedly not-innocent game. It's a world where humanity spent seven days on the brink of destruction at the hands of the Skaarj, where the Corporation Wars tore entire planets apart, and where despite that everyone can get over it, crack some beers, and watch people blow each other away on live television, kept safe by technology that respawns them within seconds.

Character backgrounds, too, drop hints in their two to three sentence lengths. The bots you fight against or with all have tiny snippets of who they are, making reference to revolts, arrests, rebellions, other worlds, secret government experiments, and revenge.

The important thing to take away from this is that all of this was put in but none of it had to be. It doesn't affect the game and it's not even immediately noticeable unless you let every map and character description load before entering a Tournament match. Just going to map select for a practice session/instant action game doesn't show the same descriptions, so you have to go through the singleplayer ladder. It's work put in that shows a genuine and earnest excitement for the world the devs had created, and I still get a smile thinking about it. Unreal Tournament is such a weird celebration of every gritty science fiction trope, but turns them all on their heads to create a world for this game that feels exactly as expansive as it isn't. Because Unreal Tournament doesn't have anything to do with the lore it hides in all these corners, it's just a multiplayer shooter with no story beyond “kill better than the other guys.” And boy do they ever make that part feel great.

For better or worse, Wolfenstein 3D cemented FPS weapon progression. Ever since and with only a few minor alterations here and there, the loadout progression is melee weapon, bad pistol, automatic weapon, shotgun (though those sometimes switch position), a better version of one or both of those, some kind of explosive option, sniper rifle (that was a later addition), and then a superweapon of some kind. From Doom to Quake to our old nemesis Half-Life to our slightly newer nemesis Halo to Call of Duty, you get those weapons in roughly that order.

So let's talk about Unreal again for a second. I didn't mention that game's weapons because I wanted to bring the whole discussion in at once, but it does require me to go back in time a year and talk about where the series landed on its own weapons. The first thing to know about Unreal is that it was not immune to the Holy Progression of Gun, but it did make some incredibly noticeable changes. Unreal saw a videogame gun, famous for being a thing you can left click on men with, and asked “what if you could also right click on men?”

I'm moving a rough sort of progression, so be aware that this is only the general order you get these guns in. In Unreal, the first weapon you pick up is the Dispersion Pistol, a projectile-firing semi-auto gun that doesn't do a whole lot of damage. One fun thing about it is that its projectiles cast a real-time light on the environment so you can use it as a way to peek into dark areas before going in them with your vulnerable body. But another thing about the Dispersion Pistol is its alt fire, where you hold down the right mouse button to charge up a shot which then acts essentially as a rocket launcher shot - it deals better damage, it deals splash damage, and it can gib enemies. In-universe, the Dispersion Pistol is a Skaarj weapon, and you can also find hidden upgrades for it that boost the damage of both firemodes at the cost of taking more ammo per shot. Luckily, as your holdout weapon, the Dispersion Pistol recharges its ammo passively.

The second weapon you get is the automag, a basic hitscan pistol. Primary fire shoots a fairly accurate shot, alt fire has you hold the gun sideways to increase the fire rate at the cost of accuracy. It's dumb and I love it to this day.

Third up, the Tarydium Stinger, a projectile-based minigun with an alt fire that acts as a projectile shotgun. Here's where the lines start to get a bit blurred, but we're not totally out of the usual progression just yet.

After the Stinger you get the ASMD Shock Rifle, a famously curious gun that, as its primary fire, shoots a hitscan beam, and shoots a fast-moving projectile orb as its alt fire, trading perfect precision and speed for a little bit of splash damage. The thing about it is that if you shoot the orb with the beam you get a giant explosion that does an absolute ton of damage.

Moving from that piece of sweet hardware brings us to the GES Biorifle, a rapid-fire goop-throwing mine layer with a charged shot as its alt fire.

Then, the Eightball Launcher, a rocket launcher that has not two but four firemodes. Click primary fire to shoot a rocket, fast moving and with splash damage. Hold primary fire to charge up to six rockets that fire in a spread pattern, or click alt fire while charging to shoot them in a spiral formation. Also, you can get a mild lock-on effect by holding your mouse cursor over an enemy for about half a second. Alt fire is the same as primary but with grenades - click alt fire once to lob one, hold to charge up to six. The grenades bounce around for a set period of time, and also blow up on contact with an enemy.

Then possibly the series’ most famous weapon, the Flak Cannon. Primary fire is a projectile-based shotgun that fires individual shards that bounce around the environment for a bit, allowing you to fire around corners or even up at the ceiling to bank a shot over cover. Alt fire is another grenade launcher, though this one fires its shells at a shallower angle, a higher velocity, has a smaller up-front splash radius, and still creates little bits of flak that bounce around for a short time. This gun is my and many other people’s favorite gun in videogames.

The Razorjack is a strange gun that fires disks that bounce around the environment at scarily high velocities, and even have the ability to decapitate enemies if you hit their head, a useful feature in the Skaarj-infested levels where you first find it. Alt fire is a tricky system that lets you influence the path the disk takes, though its high velocity, bad turning radius, and small size makes “influence” a more appropriate word than “guide.”

Next is the Rifle, a high-powered hitscan primary fire with an alt fire that zooms in. Headshotting enemies decapitates them but other than that it's just a sniper rifle, let's move on.

Finally, Unreal has the Minigun, a hitscan bullet-spewing beast that shows up near the end of the game, leaving you with just barely too little time to get to use it as much as you want and also to realize that hey, it's just a minigun. Primary fire shoots with a short spool-up time, alt fire shoots faster but less accurately. Unfortunately this does not make you hold the Minigun sideways like the Automag.

So that was Unreal’s loadout, and it made some big waves at the time. Physics-based projectiles? Well sure, Quake had the bouncy grenade launcher, but the Flak Cannon and Razorjack made being aware of and using the environment second nature to players. The ASMD’s ability to produce a BFG shot on demand if you could combo properly was amazing. And the upgradeable nature of the Dispersion pistol made what was usually a loadout slot reserved for being sad about having to use a legitimate late-game complement to your arsenal.

So it stands to reason that Unreal Tournament barely changed it.

UT99’s arsenal did change a little bit, but not too drastically. Most changes were to damage or fire rate, and every weapon got a new model. Some weapons were slightly renamed, like the Automag becoming the Enforcer or the ASMD receiving its full title of ASMD Shock Rifle, the Eightball Launcher was just called the Rocket Launcher, the Rifle became the Sniper Rifle, and the Razorjack was renamed the Ripper.

The next level of changes was tweaking some alt fires. The biggest change here was the new Ripper losing its guided blade in favor of an alt fire that shot an explosive disk. Unlike the primary fire, it didn't bounce, and while it had only about half the splash radius of the Rocket Launcher proper, its fire rate and projectile speed were both much faster. Other than that, the only change to another gun was the Sniper Rifle getting a thematically appropriate overlay when you zoomed in, instead of Unreal’s Rifle not displaying anything. Additionally, because it seems to fit here more than the next bit, if you manage to find another Enforcer lying on the ground, you can pick it up and dual wield. It's pretty rad.

Larger changes came in the removal of both the Stinger and the Dispersion Pistol, and the addition of the Impact Hammer, Pulse Gun, and the series’ first superweapon, the Redeemer.

I'm personally a bit conflicted about trading the Stinger out for the Minigun. On one hand, UT99’s Minigun is a great piece of visual design - massive, chunky, and bold, with the added flair of seeing your arm holding onto a forward grip to really sell the vibe of that one scene in Predator. On the other hand, there's something to be said about a projectile weapon over a hitscan one, especially since so many high-powered hitscan weapons exist in the game already. But at the same time, UT99 does have an answer to the automatic projectile weapon, the Pulse Gun.

The Pulse Gun should be instantly familiar to anyone with a passing understanding of id Software’s early titles. Primary fire is just the Pulse Rifle from Doom, and alt fire is the Thunderbolt from Quake. But put together, married in this suitcase-sized brick of green polygons? A thing of beauty.

Let me at least address the Impact Hammer before moving on: it's a melee weapon you can charge up. It'll kill someone pretty good if you charge it up and manage to make contact. It has a pretty fun and inspired visual design but ultimately the only reason it's there is because you can run out of ammo with the Enforcer you spawn with. The end.

Alright, the Redeemer. The Redeemer is a man-portal nuclear warhead launcher, kind of like the Fat Man from Fallout 3 except way, way cooler. Primary fire launches a relatively slow-moving projectile that, on contact with anything, explodes in a shockwave that does enough damage to instantly gib anyone without 199 health and a Shield Belt powerup. It goes through walls, too. It's a very good superweapon. Making it better is its alt fire, where you take personal control of the missile as it travels, allowing you to guide it around the map with a surprising degree of maneuverability. The BFG may have a classic flair, but the Redeemer took the idea of a superweapon to a whole other level.

So how did all of these weapons actually play together? How did an arsenal designed for and balanced around a singleplayer game with fixed enemy spawns translate to a multiplayer arena? Quite well, in fact. Epic didn't design the game in a vacuum, and as Quake 2 was the reigning champ at the time, they didn't have to look far to see what worked and what could be changed for the better.

UT99 plays fast, hard, and unrelenting. People load into a map and immediately start running around picking up weapons and letting the lead fly. Now, it's time for my bias to show a bit. I only ever watched Quake 2 multiplayer, but I have in fact played Quake 3 and Quake Live, as well as a handful of hours of Quake Champions which I know isn't really comparable but it uses the same weapons so I'm still mentioning it. UT is my series, I have a preference for it, and this next bit is all my own opinion and observation.

Quake only has three weapons.

Quake is a game where movement is fast, projectiles are fast, and time to kill is fast. It's a fast game. But it's so fast that only three weapons end up mattering - the rocket launcher, railgun, and thunderbolt. They're the three highest-damage weapons in the game and they make up pretty much the entirety of its arsenal. Quake matches inevitably all play out as taking potshots at each other with rockets as everyone strafejumps around like crazy, switching to the railgun if someone manages to be in the open for more than half a second, and swapping to the thunderbolt if you manage to get close enough that another character model takes up more than a handful of pixels on your screen.

Quake is a very fast and chaotic game, and I'm not saying that this kind of play isn't skillful, it's just so fast that actual duels never really happen, and people just kind of end up taking damage from one end of the map when they're on the other. Quake’s other weapons just may as well not exist, because if you find yourself using your starting shotgun, the nailgun, or any other weapon you want to be close for, you're likely doing so in range of someone's Thunderbolt and that's not a race you're going to win.

It's a difficult point to make, so let me move back to UT and why I prefer it. UT is a small but noticeable bit slower than Quake in a way that I feel greatly benefits it. Overall, it comes down to bringing the action in a little closer, really making the fights seem more personal, and really giving players more of a chance to dance around each other rather than hopping around the level on their own accord until they find each other by chance. Projectiles are both slightly slower and much more visible than in Quake, so trying to slam a rocket into someone's face from three hundred meters isn't really going to happen. So, from further away, you'll want to use a hitscan weapon, but since your target will be smaller they'll be harder to hit. Unless you want to zoom in with the Sniper Rifle, but then you lose a bit of awareness of your immediate surroundings. Close up, the Flak Cannon is king, but its range is short enough to matter. The Pulse Gun’s alt fire is just the Thunderbolt, and it'll tear someone apart pretty handily, to say nothing of putting the Minigun into overdrive with its own alt fire. Even flipping your Enforcer sideways will get bullets into someone quickly, and with fancy enough footwork you can save yourself from a gruesome fate with the starting gun. Or, if you're trying to keep someone away, quickly laying down a gooey minefield with the Biorifle works just as well as filling a hallway with a dozen bouncing Ripper blades.

Every gun in UT99 can kill someone, and not just in theory. The game balances each of its weapons almost perfectly, and nothing ever feels totally useless or has an obvious better version (I am not counting the Impact Hammer or Enforcer in this statement). Jumping over or dodging away from rockets to close with the Pulse Gun’s alt fire is just as reasonable as forcing someone to switch away from their Flak Cannon by retreating backwards as your Biorifle makes it impossible for them to safely advance. Lobbing a Flak alt fire over that minefield is alway an option though, so be ready to get out of the way, and maybe pull out your Shock Rifle to push them backwards. A fully stocked Minigun can keep an approach locked off, but a quick sniper bullet right to the face will put an end to it.

Alright, admittedly the Biorifle is historically a bit ignored, and the Ripper didn't even show up in subsequent games, but both still had a purpose. I, personally, am a staunch defender of the Biorifle’s utility as an area denial tool, and the ability to charge its alt fire will instantly kill someone no matter their health and shield level, if you can hit them. It's certainly better in team gamemodes like Assault or CTF, though. But just shooting at people with the weapons does not an arena shooter make. For there to be the proper levels of frantic action, movement needs to have a strong focus.

As in Quake, you'll want to get familiar with your spacebar. Strafe jumping isn't a thing as far as constantly upping your own speed, but it sure does make you harder to hit, and getting decent at dodging rockets always helps. Double tap a movement key to do a quick dodge in that direction, useful not just for avoiding projectiles but for snaking down corridors. On an elevator? Jump just before it reaches the top to get a massive boost and go flying. The Impact Hammer isn't ideal as a weapon, but a quick blast downward makes a decent stand-in for a rocket jump, if at the cost of significantly more self-damage. Capping it all off is the Translocator, the aforementioned teleporting-disk-thrower. Primary fire to shoot a disk in a pretty generous arc, alt fire to teleport to it. Disks emit light and can be destroyed, if you teleport while carrying a flag you drop it, and yes, you do fall faster than the disk travels upward. Truth be told, I usually play with the Translocator turned off, but that's mainly because the bots, as good as they are at the rest of the game, are less than stellar at putting those disks where they want, often leading to a cluster of them bouncing their shot off a wall just inches under the ledge they want up to, and not taking any action until they get it. I think it has to do with the accuracy modifiers based on bot skill level, but I'm not sure.

The bots are great in every other respect, though. Sure, they'll never actually replace a human player, but they're more than good enough for a few hundred hours of offline play. All the tricks the Skaarj demonstrated in Unreal are on display again, and tuned up to use every weapon. Bots jump and dodge, retreat if they're low on health, make decisions about what weapon to use based on their proximity to you as well as their own inventories, switch between firemodes when it makes sense, and plenty else. Upping the bot difficulty doesn't just make them do more damage or give them more health (it doesn't even do that in the first place), it makes them smarter. Or ‘smarter’ if you really care - it changes their reaction times and how accurate they are, how aggressively they'll act, and even how good they are at using the weapons beyond just aiming. A low-level bot might not get close enough to hit you with the Pulse Gun’s alt fire, or will use a Rocket Launcher in close quarters with all the risks of splash damage and self-death that entails. Higher difficulty bots will bank Flak shots off walls and bounce grenades around corners, lay fields of Biorifle goop, or be deadly-accurate with a sniper rifle from above.

The bots are what really put UT99 firmly on the ‘classic’ shelf, because its contemporaries just didn't offer the same thing. Again, Quake 2 had bots, but they served the purpose of being moving targets and not much else. Driving UT’s bots was a dead-simple, if tedious to implement, system. If you'll indulge me, I'm gonna pull back the hood and reveal the not-at-all-secret ways Unreal Tournament made all of its bots so good at playing each map.

All over a map, there are invisible waypoints hand-placed by the designer. The goal is to make a rough trail of waypoints to each part of the map. Bots see each waypoint and have the ability to travel in a wide radius around each. Weapons, ammo, health, armor, and special powerups all act as special waypoints that a bot will see and travel to if they don't already have what that pickup is. Players and other bots are considered waypoints as well, and when all that comes together, a bot will very intuitively move around the level. Placing a waypoint higher in the air will make a bot jump to reach it, so having them move over obstacles is simple. Like I said, it only requires a loose sort of web across the level, as the world geometry itself is also something a bot sees. Going around a corner or a box in the middle of a room is no issue provided the waypoints are good enough.

So now that you know how the sausage is made, what does that mean for the game? Well, quite a lot. Bot support is built into every single one of the maps UT99 shipped with, which is no small feat considering the base game came with 53 maps across four gamemodes (deathmatch and team deathmatch use the same maps), with a further 30 maps added for every gamemode but Assault over the course of four free downloadable bonus packs.

Every single one of those is playable, to this day, offline with a complement of bots just as ready to rock as they were almost twenty years ago. And that's not event counting the thousands of user-made maps still available for download, but we'll talk about modding in a bit. Because right now, it's time to talk about another excellent thing present on each map - the music.

Returning from Unreal are indisputable gods of music Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos, who trade the previous game's subdued alien score for a soundtrack full of some of the boppin’est, crunchiest, hypest EDM tracks of the late 90s. (Can you tell I don't know anything about music?)

Run, GoDown, and Organic provide the upbeat bleeps and bloops to murder by; Save Me, Razorback, and Superfist let you rock out with your shock (rifle) out; while Forgone Destruction, Skyward Fire, and The Course chill things out a bit so you can focus on getting sick headshots. The quality of the music in Unreal Tournament is impossible to overstate, just as it was in Unreal. Brandon and van den Bos are unrelentingly good at their jobs, and the mishmash of styles all grinds together across UT99’s broad palette of maps like butter full of shrapnel. It's good, is what I'm saying. The music's really good. Listen to it. Please.

Stage music is something I personally miss from shooters, if you'll indulge another tangent. I love hearing the gameworld as interpreted by the composers, it adds so much to the whole package, and we just don't really get it anymore. The rise of the modern military shooter in 2007 with the runaway success of Call of Duty 4 kind of slammed the door on stage music with a tactical-lite focus on identifying footsteps and directional fire, but even Halo’s deathmatches were filled with a blank silence. Or Halo 2, I suppose, since Halo 1 didn't have online play, except for the PC version, which did. No stage music though, that's the main takeaway.

UT99 had a truly odd mix of contemporaries, from the last days of Quake 2 and the imminent release of Quake 3 a week after UT itself came out, to Half-Life creating a mod scene in its multiplayer, to Halo a year or so later. The turn of the century would bring with it the generally-accepted death of the arena shooter, but they all went out kicking, and the few hundred people still populating UT99 servers to this day are a testament to its tight, clean design and no-frills focus on gameplay.

Unless, of course, they're playing a mod.

Truth be told, I never actually played much UT99 online. I was very bad, you see, and when I got better my horrible social anxiety had progressed to the point where the idea of even playing a game with faceless strangers was terrifying. I was 8. But anyway, modding! You may have, in your travels as someone who presumably plays videogames - an assumption I'm making because you're reading this - heard of the Unreal Engine. In a hidden bit of Trivia, Unreal was the first game on the Unreal Engine, and Unreal Tournament also used it. Wild!

Along with the game itself, both releases also shipped with the Unreal Editor, or UnrealEd. UnrealEd is the exact development tool the fine folks at Epic Megagames used to make those games, and they just casually handed them to the players. The result echoes throughout the game industry to this day, and while Epic was hardly the only developer supporting mods, they were the first to do so on that kind of level. As a result, there are thousands if not tens of thousands of user-made maps scattered around the web, along with new gamemodes, fan-made expansions for Unreal, new character models, weapons, and mutators.

Ah, mutators.

Mutators can be thought of as ‘mini-mods,’ if you want. There's a list of them you can select before each game that all change, or mutate (see?), the gameplay a bit. Superjump, low gravity, replacing each weapon spawn on a map with another, big head mode, stuff like that. Mutators are a fun addition that can mix up a usual match, but don't bring with them the sweeping changes of a full mod or total conversion. They were a way to illustrate how flexible the development options were, and a nifty thing for players to have available to them.

So, Unreal Tournament had lots of ways to keep the game fresh, either built-in or crafted by other players. Turn a small map into Explosion Hell with the Rocket Arena mutator, or download a player-made weapon pack filled with weird goodies. Wondering how Quake’s iconic maps play in UT? Somebody's made them. Hell, someone's even made a bunch of UT2004 maps for UT99, complete with de-made character and weapon models. A lasting legacy of creativity is what UT99 brought above all else, and the fact that so much of what it did can remain as the primary example of how to do something right says more than I can about its impact on videogames as a whole.

Unreal Tournament is a fast, brutal game balancing all of its various systems on the edge of a spinning razor blade, and it does so with a mastery that I feel was not seen among its peers of the time. From the weapons, the movement, the maps, and the gamemodes, Unreal Tournament presents you the player with so many options, but it never feels like a generic crowd-pleasing paste has been slathered over everything. The game's core is simple and well defined, and everything else builds on that. It has a certain tightly-realized identity that I feel is missing from a lot of games that try to have the same sort of arcady arena vibe - Halo was probably its closest rival as far as small genre shifts go, and looking at Destiny 2 as the latest version of that is a weird mix of procedurally generated weapons, hero abilities, flat maps, and very few projectile weapons. Skill has been taken out of some areas and added to others, but the design feels looser, less actualized. Call of Duty is fast, but still has that small desire to be somewhat tactical, so there are recoil patterns and weapon attachments, the rich-get-richer killstreaks, and a progression system that murders any attempt at balancing their arsenal. Quake Live, from what I understand, has a healthy enough playerbase, but my preference has already been stated. Quake Champions tries to marry its classic gameplay with that of Overwatch, and the reactions have been mixed. Team Fortress 2 has been bogged down with more and more weapons that blur the lines between classes, and the official map rotation - already small on launch - has barely been added to in twelve years.

This isn't a “games are different now and that's bad” sort of thing, my point is just that UT99 had a much cleaner mission statement, if you will, than what we get now. The industry's gotten bigger, and budgets followed. Expectations of sales rose, leading developers to want to bring in as many players as they could. Games can't really be niche anymore.

Or maybe that was true five years ago, but now the indie scene’s getting huge, and you can find a revival of your favorite genre just about anywhere. Most aren't super well polished, but isn't that what made games like Unreal, Quake, and Half-Life into what we remember? They all had more ambition than was perhaps warranted, and each made their huge impacts despite a healthy amount of blemishes. Endless polish makes for a good player experience, but maybe not as much of a memorable one.

Unreal Tournament all but made me into an FPS fan, and I think it's great that we all have so many types to choose from now. Public tastes have shifted and evolutions of the genre happened. I've enjoyed my fair share of Calls of Duty and Battlefields, I plugged hundreds of hours into TF2 throughout highschool, I've ridden the Overwatch hype train, and I love poking holes in walls and getting sneaky kills in Rainbow Six: Siege. But Unreal Tournament is my oldest bastion, and one I return to every now and then when the whim takes me. It occupies my top slot, though admittedly in an endless 1v1 with Unreal Tournament 2004.

But there was another Unreal Tournament between the two, one that came and went with mild fanfare while paving the way for what I feel is, hands down, the best game ever crafted by human hands. Check back at the end of the month for a short look at the odd little Unreal Tournament 2003.

#unreal tournament #ut99 #words about games #videogame #review #essay #fortnite #unreal retrospective

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teaandgames · 5 years

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Teacup Time Machine - Rayman 2: The Great Escape (1999)

What is it? A 3D platformer and a sequel to the original, and 2D, Rayman. Where did we find it? It first came out in October 1999 but has released so many ports and versions that you could fill a bookcase with them. The latest came out in 2011. That’s over ten years of life, which is pretty impressive. Who made it? Ye olde Ubisoft, back when they had a space in their name. Ubisoft Montpellier to be precise, though back then they were known simply as ‘Ubi Pictures’. They’re still making Rayman games today, as it happens. Which version did we bring back? There are so many versions, with slight changes, that there was a lot of choice. It’s on everything from the 3DS to the Dreamcast. Rather predictably, I’m playing it on PC. What holds up about it?

The biggest thing that holds up about Rayman 2 is the sheer amount of imagination on display. Nothing is predictable. At any moment, a straightforward platforming level could change to you flying on a giant missile or being chased by a big ole flying ship firing cannons at you or that one bit where you’re taken waterskiing by a giant snake wearing a neckerchief. It’s very bizarre and quite refreshing how Rayman 2 never lets you get used to anything. That bit is definitely the eternal selling point. This was the first time I had mustered the patience to beat it and it was the creativity that kept me going.

It’s also quite an interesting world, which definitely helps that along. The Glade of Dreams is one of those places that doesn’t really set any ground rules. It’s not visibly on Earth, or really anywhere at all, so they can do what they want. Giant rivers of lava that you can float down on a big berry? Why not. While it does tend to stick to the usual grassland pallette, it gives Rayman 2 the scope to add in a lot of bonkers stuff. Not quite on the same level as the original, that had us punching a giant, angry, walking saxophone, but it’s still pretty nuts. Rayman himself is interesting to boot. He has no discernable limbs (as well as speaking in gobbledygook) and still manages to have a great personality.

I remembered all this stuff from when I was a kid, of course, but the things that stuck with me most were Rayman 2’s strange deviations into the horror genre, of all things. There’s a level fairly early on called the Cave of Bad Dreams, where you have to run from a big, round ball of teeth. The camera even cuts back into its mouth at one point, showing its teeth getting closer and closer. The music here is what sells it, being both panicked and scary. In fact, the score is great throughout and is full of earworms that stick with you for days after. Up to you to decide whether that’s a good thing or not.

On top of all this craziness is a fairly unusual plot. Robot pirates have come to the Glade of Dreams and have blown up the Heart of the World, which is about as bad as it sounds. Rayman has to collect the yellow lums that burst out of it, which gives him the power he needs to progress. He also needs to collect masks for a being called Polokus, who’s needed to sweep up the pesky pirates. Of course, it’s Rayman that has to go toe-to-toe with the main pirate baddy, Admiral Razorbeard. Good name. On the way, he runs into his odd collection of friends, including fan favourite Globox and… Clark. Who is a large man. It’s a strange world.

What doesn’t hold up?

3D gameplay is always going to be a difficult beast to get right and even twenty years later, 3D platformers often feel clunky. A large part of that is down to the camera controls, that never seem to point at what you want them to. Rayman 2’s camera is a massive arse, constantly pointing the wrong way at key moments and it frequently locks you off from moving it. Even when you can, it moves so slow as to be infuriating and snapping it around just left me disoriented. In a game with so many chances to fall into lava or off the world, a bit of a finer camera would be welcome.

This doesn’t help with the shooting either. There’s no manual aim, excluding the zoom in mode that means you have to stand still and take the hits, so you often have to jump around all over the place trying to make Rayman shoot the right thing. Not so bad when you’re on land, infuriating when you’re on a giant berry in the middle of a lava-filled room. Speaking of which, Rayman 2 loves levels where it can damage you, and lose you some progress, because you couldn’t predict what was around the next corner. The levels where you’re riding a shell are perhaps the most annoying for this.

In part that could be down to a port issue. See, I hit a game breaking bug about halfway through. During a cutscene, I was riding on the head of a stone statue that was sinking into lava. It’s supposed to cut back to gameplay and let you jump off. It did not. Instead, Rayman sat solemnly on top of the statue as it slid deeper into fiery death. Maybe he was just tired. Or maybe the game was running slightly too fast on my modern machine thanks to a quirk in the settings. After changing that, suddenly everything became a lot easier.

That excludes the final boss, however, who I will donate this last little paragraph solely to as it’s an example of everything wrong with the gameplay. You’re on a flying shell for one thing, which are a pain to control at the best of times. I’m so glad I managed to rig it up to use an Xbox controller because it would be unplayable on keyboard. Then you have to fly through narrow spaces, filled with lava and being chased by homing missiles. A single hit (or crash, as it’s a shell) resets the boss fight. It’s awkward, long, frustrating and I hate it.

Fossil or Gem?

In spite of the rather rough 3D gameplay, something I can’t knock it too hard for as it’s tricky to get right, it’s an absolute gem. The sheer creativity that went through the level design to just how happy (and scary) the game is make it an absolute must play for any platforming fans. The newer games may be a masterclass in 2D platforming but if you want some more Rayman, and don’t want to wade through the Rabbids games, then absolutely check out Rayman 2. It’s available on just about anything with a screen.

#Rayman #Rayman 2 #Rayman 2 The Great Escape #Gaming #Video Games #Tea And Video Games #Platformer #3D #Ubisoft

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criticalrolo · 5 years

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For Thalia and Lemwin: 2 5 7 10 11 14 18 20 22 23 31 34 35

SDKLJSHDFLS ok here we go rip anyone on mobile scrolling past this

2. What is their pain tolerance? Do they close their eyes and block it out, or go into a full blown panic?

Thalia: It’s probably decent, right around average. She’s kinda squishy but hardier than your typical sorcerer. She’s not really used to taking damage since adventuring is a new thing for her, and she usually pushes through by reminding herself that her patron can help heal her at the end (she’s got an invocation where if her familiar is within 100 ft of her all healing done on her is auto maxed)

Limwen: She’s one hardy motherfucker. Definitely the type to not say anything until she literally collapses from blood loss or something insane like that. She wanted to seem as tough as possible while in the army, so if she wasn’t dying then she could keep going.

5. What is their response to their friends or loved ones in pain?

Thalia: She goes into Triage/EMT Mode. Her mom was a healer/doctor in her town and she apprenticed under her for a long time, and would have followed that career path if Backstory Shit hadn’t have happened. She’s gonna get her ass over to them as soon as possible to stabilize and help however she can!

Limwen: She grits her teeth and eliminates the threat to them as soon as she can. In her opinion, the best defense is a good offense, so she’ll push down her internal panic and get the job done.

7. Is there any emotion they find difficult to control (anger, sorrow, anxiety)?

Thalia: She finds it hard to control her loneliness I guess? She’s not used to being alone, and for the first time in her life she’s VERY much by herself with no end to that really in sight. She’s gonna have a hard time managing that.

Limwen: Sorrow for sure. She tends to react with either anger or numbness, so she’s dealing with decades of unprocessed sorrow.

10. How stable do they consider themselves? How stable are they really?

Thalia: She feels like she’s shaky right now, and is trying to find her way back to center. In reality she’s actually doing pretty well considering her circumstances, and the Campaign is going to show her that she really does have an unshakeable steel core.

Limwen: She says she’s FINE, OBVIOUSLY. The answer is she is not fine, obviously.

11. Within their group, where do they fall during emergencies? The leader, the support, the cause of the emergency, etc.?

Thalia: In case of emergency, Thalia falls into a striker support role, getting off a volley of attacks before turning back to get everyone in trouble back on their feet. She’s probably not the Leader, but she’s an amazing support. And as time goes on, she might take initiative more.

Limwen: She charges forward, ready to take control of the situation and neutralize the emergency. She’s had a decent amount of experience in a command position, and she’s very in tune with her instincts and trusts them. When she misjudges a call it can shake her pretty badly since it happens so rarely.

14. What kind of image would they like to portray to their group? How does the group really see them, good and bad?

Thalia: Thalia wants to give off the vibe of being good to go and ready to help! She wants to seem helpful so that when the time comes, the group will agree to help her on her own quest.

Limwen: She wants to be seen as a leader, someone who’s in control and able to keep a level head at all times.

18. Is there a situation that might make it impossible for them to relax?

Thalia: It would probably be pretty impossible for Thalia to relax if she was left completely, completely alone. She’s always had another voice to listen to, whether that’s her parents, her sisters, or her Solar guide. If she was completely alone she’d probably be pretty lost and anxious.

Limwen: If she thinks she’s about to enter a potential combat scenario, she can’t help but constantly be noting the terrain, the conditions, possible exit strategies, and anything in the environment she can use to her advantage.

20. Do they like to be alone with themselves often or surrounded by friends?

Thalia: Surrounded by friends!

Limwen: Usually alone!

22. Is their community unsafe for them in any way (violence, pollution, etc.)?

Thalia: Her hometown isn’t necessarily “unsafe”, but it could be uncomfortable for her since she was the only aasimar there (besides her dad) and was probably the only one that her neighbors ever saw since all the other aasimar lived on an island instead of the mainland. So, she could feel ostracized sometimes and found it hard to make a connection with her community since she was immediately “othered” by most people. Oh yeah and the demons that stole her parents from her house were pretty unsafe too lmao

Limwen: She’s not currently in her original universe, so being stuck between dimensions is. pretty unsafe

23. How do they feel about hospital environments?

Thalia: Very comfortable, she was trained to be a doctor/healer by her step mom so she knows her way around and would work in one if she wasn’t trying to rescue her parents.

Limwen: Ehh. She’ll go to get any emergency treatment she needs to keep from just straight up dying, but other than that she likes to pretend she doesn’t need any help.

31. What’s one skill or aspect of themselves that they feel self-conscious of?

Thalia: Despite being an aasimar herself, she really doesn’t know much about any other aasimar other than her dad. Her dad got her off the aasimar island before whatever mysterious “Ruin” occurred that wiped out most of the aasimar in the world, so she never really got a chance to connect with them much. She’s kind of embarrassed that she doesn’t know much about any other aasimar.

Limwen: She’s got a big nasty scar that runs from the bottom of her chin, across her lips, and up to her cheekbone. It’s very noticeable and she’s really not sure how to deal with the fact that her face is pretty permanently marred.

34. Do they have an interest skill they excel at but are embarrassed of?

Thalia: She’s probably not embarrassed by any of her skills to be honest.

Limwen: She finds knitting really relaxing, but she won’t mention that to anyone.

35. How do they respond to being criticized for their shortcomings?

Thalia: She’ll probably feel ashamed for not doing better, and will worry about how being criticized will impact her relationship with the criticizer in the future. She’ll probably take the criticism to heart though.

Limwen: She’s very ambitious and has definitely been yelled at by a supervisor or a commander before. She’s good at viewing the criticism as a rung on a ladder towards getting her own command, so she’s good at parsing out valid criticism and just angry ranting that doesn’t actually apply to her. She’ll take the stuff she agrees that she needs to work on to heart, and straight up ignore anything she doesn’t actually think is important or relevant.

#limwen #thalia #LOV my girls #eziocauthon89

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adoseofyukiya · 6 years

Text

Since Then (Constant)

Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke

Relationships: MidoKise friendship, MidoTaka, hinted AoKise

Summary: Midorima Shintarou has long forgotten the last time when he actually didn’t celebrate his own birthday, all thanks to one Kise Ryouta whom he had the misfortune to call as best friend. He believed that this year would be like any other but it seemed like Fate has other plans.

A/N: This is me experimenting how to write Midorimacchi so please be gentle in rebuking me on how much I murdered his character here. Or maybe harsh, I’ll try to brace myself. I’m actually very stressed right now and it’s odd but I’ve began to turn into writing in order to cope. (I’m normally weird but a stressed me is even more so.) This whole fic spiraled out of my control to be honest. Simply because I got too engrossed in building the friendship for the two. (シ_ _)シ

Of course the idea initially revolved around Midorimacchi’s birthday but the MidoKise was my innate desire and @nina3491‘s idea. So this is for her. I really do salute you for your efforts.

This is supposed to be a two-shot but I’ve only written like three words on the next part so it might take a while but I sure hope this won’t be the case.

Someone's at the door. Midorima Shintarou's sleep addled brain registered the words. The echoing sound of the doorbell evidently indicated it. And he has a good idea on who the culprit was. There was only one person who could possibly annoy him by simply ringing his doorbell.

Still a little groggy, Midorima forced himself to stumble out of his bed while fumbling for his glasses. He had to stop his idiotic friend from disturbing his neighbors. Not that it'd be the first time the idiot did it but of course with little charm and he'd get away with it.

Midorima dragged his feet towards the door annoyed and exasperated. He yanked the door open, eyes blazing ready to give the person on the other side an earful. His momentum was lost though as he saw the familiar sunny smile and heard the cheerful greeting.

“Happy birthday, Midorimacchi!” Standing outside his door at freaking four AM in the morning was Kise Ryouta, looking like he just stepped out of a photo shoot but in this case, Midorima was pretty sure that the blond was on the way towards one.

The blond was carrying a cake with a lit candle on top smiling proudly and obviously feeling accomplished. Midorima only gave him an unimpressed look and crossed his arms all sleepiness and ire gone.

“Before you go into grumpy mode on me, you better blow the candle first. And don't forget to make a wish.”

Midorima internally sighed. He personally didn't believe in birthday wishes but indulging his best friend on their yearly tradition was well –tradition. He closed his eyes for a moment silently thinking for his wish. It’s a hit or miss, anyways. And it’s not the first time I’ve taken the shot. Opening his eyes, Midorima blew the candle out.

“I would give you a hug if I could but this -” The blond gestured towards the cake. “Just come in.” Midorima took the cake and allowed the blond to come in first. “Happy birthday again, Midorimacchi. I'm really sorry. I'd really love to stay and celebrate with you but,” Kise paused for a moment gave him an apologetic look before taking off his coat and hanged it on the rack. “I really can't skip this one out. This shoot's a favor for a friend and I can't really refuse. So I thought that I'd at least wish you a happy birthday before I fly out. I must've woken you up.”

“I mean I know that Midorimacchi's an early riser but you must admit that four AM in the morning on a Saturday is too early even for you,” Kise chattered as he took out plates from Midorima's cupboard knowing exactly where they were placed at. Familiarity was obvious in the way the blond moved around his apartment. Given that they were childhood friends, Kise was practically entitled to know his way around his place. The number of times the blond had come to deliver his mom's cooking whenever he went back home while Midorima was on his unending school works alone was countless.

“Where are you off to, again?” Midorima asked placing the cake at his table. Kise stayed silent and simply looked at him unimpressed, a pout on his face. Midorima sighed again, this time, loudly. He stood up and came around to the blond.

Kise placed the plates on the table and opened his arms for him. Midorima came closer and enveloped his childhood friend in a hug. The blond hugged him back placing his head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Kise's chuckle was muffled at his neck. “What?” asked Midorima in confusion. “Why are you so allergic to feelings, Shincchi? At this rate you definitely won't find the courage to talk with that cute –“

“Shut up, Ryouta. And I told you not to call me that,” snapped Midorima letting go of the blond and turned his back away silently hoping his best friend won't notice his burning face. The familiar use of the other’s name signaled his ire towards his so-called best friend.

“Shincchi~” teased Kise, finally taking his seat at the table.

“Seriously Ryouta, stop it.” Kise, the childish brat that he is simply winked at him. “Should I call you Rou-chan just like the old times, then? Shintarou was a little too mouthful for a two year old back then. We’ve been together for so long, huh?”

Midorima chose to remain silent and simply began slicing the cake, making sure that the blond’s portion was half the size of his own. The number of times the blond whined to him about his diet was innumerable. Though, Midorima did notice that this type of whining was practically saved for him. And maybe to Aomine. Most likely this counted as one of the privileges of a childhood friend. Lucky him. It has indeed been so long, they’ve practically been friends their whole life beginning that rainy day when the Kise family moved in the house across theirs when they were still both snotty two year olds and now they’re both almost on their way to fulfill their dreams.

“Just don’t call me anything. We both know your naming sense is non-existent.”

“Excuse you. My naming sense is excellent. Just ask Aominecchi,” sassily replied the blond before finally taking a bite off his cake. “This is great! Murasakibaracchi’s really well on his way to becoming a professional.”

Midorima also took a bite off his own slice silently agreeing to the blond’s remark about the cake. “He’s going out with you. So pardon me if I don’t trust his judgment when it comes to you. Besides Aomine isn’t really known for his intelligence anyway.”

“I beg to disagree, Rou-chan. The fact that he’s going out with me is a statement of his intelligence, don’t you think?” proudly replied the blond. Midorima would normally count this as one of his childhood friend’s insufferable bragging, yet another privilege reserved for him, but he knew that the blissful look the blond was sporting now was one that was only reserved for a certain basketball idiot. And Midorima, despite being exposed to the couple’s undeniable connection from the beginning, can’t help but be amazed on how the two of them made everything work. He internally shook his head. The exposure to the sap that was his best friend and the lack of sleep was definitely making him maudlin.

“Whatever, Kise. Won’t you be late for your flight?”

The blond looked at his wristwatch before replying, “I’m still good but I do need to get going soon.” Kise reached out for his pockets and placed two small rectangular boxes at the table and shoved them towards Midorima. One box had a green ribbon tied neatly around it while the other one had none.

“Happy birthday, Shin. Let’s celebrate the next one together, okay?” The happiness that can be seen in the blond’s eyes can almost make anyone think that he was the one celebrating a birthday instead. But Midorima knew that every celebration of his birthday meant a lot to his best friend.

“Thanks. And of course, my next year belongs to you. Again.” Midorima sighed dramatically before pushing up his glasses. Kise, understanding Midorima’s rare jab at humor, let out a hearty chuckle.

The promise to celebrate their birthday for the next year was one of their traditions. One that they haven’t broken ever since the near fatal accident Midorima had back on his seventh birthday.

The two of them had planned to have their own celebration that day on their ‘secret base’ but the blond was unable to come because he caught a cold. Midorima still went to their base that day to get ‘Mr. Fox’, the stuff toy that he knew his best friend favored. He hoped it’d help his friend get better faster. He was on his way back to their neighborhood when he saw a collision between a truck and a car. And it was then that the out of control vehicle sent him flying off. Midorima was in a coma for two days before regaining consciousness, thankfully without any lasting damage. And when he was declared to finally be well enough to receive visitors outside his family, he got himself an armful of blond mess. Kise was wailing out loud and kept on saying, ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again. It took him hours to calm his friend down and to make him understand that the accident wasn’t his fault. Despite Midorima’s best efforts though, the blond won’t budge on his accountability about his accident so in exchange to stop his friend’s irrational behavior a promise was made that they would always celebrate each other’s birthday together.

From then on, Kise became a permanent fixture on Midorima’s birthday and vice versa. They kept this promise until it became a tradition for the two of them. Throughout the years, their methods of celebrating ranged from full blown surprise parties to quick drop off of gifts to one another but there was one tradition that the blond never failed to keep, the blowing of candles for his birthday wish. As a result, his birthday cake also ranged from order made ones with elaborate decorations, disastrous handmade ones to store brought cupcakes.

The tradition used to annoy Midorima to no end but when he realized that the simple act of him making a wish meant more for his friend. To Kise, Midorima making his birthday wish meant happiness and hope. Happiness because he got his best friend for yet another year and hope that he could look forward for the next one. This mentality used to worry Midorima but he gradually realized that his friend was slowly overcoming his dependency to their friendship and the trauma from almost losing his best friend as both their horizons widened. In the recent years, their celebrations has simply become a tradition, one they both have no intention of breaking. Not that Midorima would ever admit this fact to his best friend.

Back to the present, Midorima first reached out for the plain box. Inside it, was a simple black fountain pen. At a closer inspection though, Midorima saw that the pen had something engraved around it. Dr. Shin.

Midorima looked up to the blond who was now grinning ear to ear at him. “It’s your lucky item for today. I checked Oha Asa in advance. I hope that the engraving won’t mess up any of its ‘luck’. It only said a fountain pen but then I realized how something like that could be used more than as a ‘lucky item’ for a day so I had the engraving made. You must admit it was creative of me, right?”

“I’m not a doctor, yet,” absentmindedly replied Midorima as he continued to trace the elegant letters of the engraving almost in fascination. Shin. Kise was the only person who called him that, refusing to use his full name because it was too old fashioned according to him to which Midorima strongly disagrees. The blond used it at times when he actually felt like cooperating to Midorima’s request of not adding any of messed up honorifics and when he was being serious or when he was reprimanding him (a rare occurrence ‘cause it is usually the other way around for them).

“You’re such a party pooper, Shincchi,” pouted the blond. “We both know it’s only a matter of time for you to finally have that title. Make sure you use it once you’re a practitioner, okay? Now get to your actual birthday present.”

Midorima slowly unwrapped the box, untangling the ribbon and laid it down the table. A bronze rectangular pin was nestled in a pristine white cushion. It was another engraved item. A caduceus was engraved on its extreme right while words that almost awed Midorima was centered on the remaining spaces.

Dr. Midorima Shintarou

Medical Resident

It was a simple gift, one that didn’t compare to the blond’s usual elaborate ones, but it was probably the one that meant the most to Midorima right now. His residency wasn’t confirmed yet but seeing his very own pin at his own hands made his goal more attainable and concrete. He had no idea how the blond knew about his inhibitions but Midorima recognized that in his own very Kise-like manner, his best friend was showing him his support and his confidence that he’d achieve his goal.

I really can’t win against this idiot. Midorima internally shook his head. His fixation towards the item must’ve took longer than expected because the blond broke the silence that enveloped the two of them.

“Did you like it? I made sure to ask your professor for the specifications and he sent me to the place where students usually have them made.”

Midorima continued to stay silent still looking pensive at the pin which unsettled the blond.

“I knew it! I was being presumptuous, aren’t I? Sorry. I’ll take it back and find something else,” panicked remarked the blond. He stood up and was on the motion of grabbing the pin from Midorima when the bandaged fingers closed around it cradling it almost delicately.

“No. I like it,” resolutely replied Midorima looking straight to his best friend. “Damn it, Ryouta. I love it.” Midorima swallowed thickly to control his emotions. Then he stood up and circled around the table towards his best friend.

Kise was too stunned to do anything when Midorima enveloped him in a hug for the second time. “Thank you. I didn’t even know that I needed this but I do. Quite badly in fact. You’re a handful most of the time but you’re not so bad to have as a best friend after all,” whispered Midorima his voice full of gratitude and appreciation.

“I’m a great best friend, Shin. And we both know it,” replied the blond before returning the hug. The two of them stayed silent for a few moments soaking in each other’s warmth. Midorima wanted to say more to his friend on how much he appreciated him and how Kise was not the only one thankful that they get to celebrate another year with one another alive and well but he was never good with words so he only hugged his best friend harder hoping to convey his feelings with it. He knew that Kise being Kise understood him even without the words.

“Are you crying in happiness, Shincchi?” started the blond when he deemed the silence long enough for the unspoken words to be relayed.

“No, I’m not, idiot Kise.” To Midorima’s embarrassment, his voice came out gruffer than intended as a result of his overwhelming emotions.

Kise only chuckled before replying, “As much as I like receiving this rare hug since you initiated this, I really need to get going, Shin.”

Midorima gave him one last squeeze before letting go of his friend. Kise took one last bite of his own cake and downed the glass of water. Midorima was thankful that the blond didn’t tease him about the moment they shared but he should’ve known after all, Kise always understood him, words or no words.

“Gotta go. Kyoto is waiting.” Kise went straight to the door with Midorima trailing behind.

Midorima watched Kise take his coat off the hook and wore it back on in a swift motion. “Don’t stay cooped up here, okay? Oha Asa said something about how the one thing you’ve wanted for a while can be found outside the house or something like that. And Cancer’s in second place and you already have your lucky item so don’t even think about making up any excuses,” admonished Kise perfectly knowing how Midorima planned to spend the rest of his day now that he was left on his own devices. And he knows he can’t refute the blond because he knew he won’t lie about his fortune ever, not after that one time when he tricked Midorima about a fake one as a prank and faced the consequences.

“Fine. Maybe I’ll check out the library or the bookstore for a new reference book,” reluctantly agreed Midorima knowing the blond would definitely check up on him.

Kise cringed at his reply. “You’re so boring, Midorimacchi. Maybe I should call Kurokocchi or Aominecchi? You might want to shoot a few hoops with them,” suggested the blond.

“No need. I’d rather deal with one idiot even just for today.” Midorima crossed his arms on his chest.

“Mean, Midorimacchi. Even though you’re so happy with my gift you actually cried.”

“I –I didn’t cry, idiot Kise! Just get going already,” protested Midorima almost red faced in embarrassment.

“Fine, fine. Happy birthday again, Shin.” The blond was grinning before he turned around finally opening the door out.

“Thanks. And be careful. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I can’t have you miss me too much.” Kise gave him another wink before walking out to the hallway. The outside was still cold, dark and evidently silent as an evidence that their rendezvous was way too early for normal people to be up and about. Midorima shivered at the sudden drop in temperature and rubbed the sides of his arms for a bit of warmth.

Despite the cold, he continued to watch Kise on the hallway until the blond reached the elevator. The blond waved at him excitedly until the elevator door finally closed obscuring his view.

The smile that Midorima wore as he went back inside his apartment was a content one. The content feeling stayed with him until he finally went back to catch a few hours of sleep before he could fulfil his promise to his idiotic but definitely endearing best friend.

Oha Asa was right again. Today really is a lucky day. These were the last thoughts that drifted in Midorima’s head before he let himself succumb to the embrace of sleep.

#midokise friendship #midokise!childhood friends #hints of aokise #happy birthday midorimacchi #so late but it's better than never #midorima shintarou #kise ryouta #the midotaka will be on the next part #on tumblr #cj writes

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