#The unfolded version never appeared in-game but I think it was in the game's coding? (maybe?)

[aimer-arts]

Harmony Scarf

(references under the cut)

These are official from the game! (got the pictures from Bulbapedia)

#I love the design of the scarves soooo much #The unfolded version never appeared in-game but I think it was in the game's coding? (maybe?) #The pattern is so cool I love it #psmd #pokemon super mystery dungeon #super mystery dungeon #pmd #super #pmd4 #super pmd #pmd fanart #Pokémon Mystery Dungeon #harmony scarf #pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon #pokémon #my art

[gunnerpalace]

Hyperchlorate: How I’d Rewrite Bleach (Part I)

Okay, this is it, kids. This is gonna be—as best as I’m able to manage—the ultimate synthesis of all my scattered discourse on Bleach, combined with a condensation of what I’d do about it all. Buckle up, because these posts are going to be long, and I’m not putting it behind a spoiler. I’d apologize for destroying your dashboard, but I put in the work.

WHAT’S UP WITH THE NAME?

What's referred to as (liquid) bleach is usually a solution of sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) in water. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is usually added to slow the decomposition of bleach into sodium chlorate (NaClO3), and sodium chloride (NaCl)—that is to say, common salt. (How appropriate!)

Sodium perchlorate (NaClO4) is a perchlorate salt which is very closely related to the above and, when treated hydrochloric acid (HCl), makes perchloric acid (HClO4) and common salt. The former is very nasty in and of itself and is mostly used to make other, worse things.

In the context of chemistry, the prefix hypo- means one less oxygen atom than something suffixed -ite, while the prefix per- means one more oxygen than something suffixed -ate. (See here for a chart if you want.) The prefix hyper- isn't used in chemistry, but I think it sounds better.

tl;dr: It's a weird chemistry not-joke used as a code name for this project.

WHAT’S THE PITCH?

The short version of the pitch is: Most people who liked Bleach as a thing liked the initial Karakura and Soul Society arcs, and interest gradually dropped off after that.

Therefore, if you wanted to rewrite Bleach, you’d want to focus on that time period and expand on it and develop it further. You would also want to rework whatever came after, and more thoroughly integrate it with that time period in tone, focus, and perspective.

To do that, you first need to understand how it was structured and what made it work in the first place.

OKAY, WHAT’S THE LONGER VERSION?

The longer version of the pitch is: Bleach was supposedly a shōnen. One of the Big Three shōnen, in fact (in Western thinking). But understanding Bleach and why it worked (and why it fell apart) requires debunking that idea.

You see, the thing is that Bleach was never particularly good at being a shōnen, at least as most people think of such a thing. When people think of shōnen, they tend to think of four (4) things: 1. A Certain Kind of Protagonist, 2. Worldbuilding, 3. Plot, and 4. Fights. Bleach doesn’t really fit the pattern when it comes to these elements. I’ve been over these before, to a certain extent (many times), but I’ll reiterate them here:

A Certain Kind of Protagonist: Goku. Luffy. Naruto. Natsu. Kenshin. Yusuke. I don’t have to name their anime or manga; you already know who they are and what they’re from. Ichigo is certainly a kind of protagonist, but as Sera (@hashtagartistlife​) once pointed out, he’s very different from what one normally thinks of when they consider the genre. Ichigo is a punk with a heart of gold (a la Yusuke) but he lacks the inner drive and confidence of all those other protagonists. He is, in fact depressive at the start of the series; he’s at best listless and nihilistic, and at worst suicidal. He’s something of an outcast loner with a tsundere personality he developed as a kind of mental armor. He’s deliberately mediocre at and unengaged with things. That changes (and the story starts) when Rukia enters his life and gives him the ability to act on his desires to do good and protect people. In other words: his confidence comes from outside of himself. Indeed, it’s a recurring plot-point that the longer he’s separated from Rukia, the more his confidence wavers. In addition to all the other things that were noted as marking him out, this one is crucial, because the average shōnen protagonist is possessed of unwavering confidence. Having Ichigo’s confidence (and his animating ethos) externalized to Rukia essentially splits the traditional protagonist role in two. (Indeed, you could readily say Ichigo and Rukia are deuteragonists, despite the story focusing on Ichigo—he eclipses her visually, but her gravity is unmistakably present and dominant.) This by itself tells you that you are dealing with a different kind of story than usual. This fits in with one of the reasons people tend to like Bleach, specifically the first. 

Worldbuilding: Few shōnen rival Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings in sophistication and detail, but they usually have well-developed worlds where whatever is going on substantiates—and ideally enhances—the plot and the journey of the protagonist. Think of the world of One Piece, which is excellent at this, or those of Naruto or Fairy Tale, which still sufficiently sell that there is a living, breathing setting in which the story is taking place. Bleach is something more like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: it holds up on its own if you accept its premises at face value, but if you start to investigate more carefully, things stop really making all that much sense. My own personal go-to example is the identity of the two unrevealed Great Noble Houses which presumably wielded power in Central 46. (I don’t consider Can’t Fear Your Own World a satisfactory answer for this, or other questions, and notably it has only revealed one of them.) Another example is the history of the Great Noble Houses, or Soul Society in general, or the Soul King. All of these (and much more) were things that were shoved into data books or follow-on novels, if they were ever addressed at all. The more one inspects the worldbuilding of Bleach, the more it feels like it’s flat or significant sections of it were missing—like it’s a movie set instead of an actual place. Most fiction strives to present, as much as possible, a kind of simulated world that you could imagine existing. Bleach, perversely, rather brazenly gives us a set of stages with clearly defined borders instead. This ties into the third and fifth reason people tend to like Bleach.

Plot: In academic circles, you will be told that what distinguishes literary fiction from genre fiction is the former is about characters (i.e., how events impact them), and the latter is about plot (i.e., what happens). For example, White Noise by Don DeLillo is not about “The Airborne Toxic Event,” it is about what that catalyzes in the protagonist’s life. Something like One Piece is very much a genre story about adventure. Things happen to the characters, sure, but they don’t really change all that much over time. They’re all following their dreams, and those dreams are (for the protagonists) often immutable. Bleach doesn’t really follow that structure. Ichigo and Rukia have an ethical viewpoint, but they’re not really on a journey to implement it. Things largely just kind of happen to them. In this regard, Bleach is much more like a literary work than a genre one. It also features, as Sera pointed out in an earlier post, a depiction of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth within the Karakura and Soul Society arcs: we see Ichigo and Rukia go through the process of “becoming a hero.” Protagonists like Luffy or Goku already are the heroes, it’s just that nobody else knows it yet. The plots that unfold are thus very different. Furthermore, Bleach is also often a symbolic work. For example, the Karakura II, Hueco Mundo and Fake Karakura arcs are a sort of inverse deconstruction of the earlier Karakura and Soul Society arcs; they function as an anti-monomyth and refutation of it (think of it as being like “how a hero can fail”), a la how Bloodborne subverts the monomyth to incorporate Lovecraftian mythos: they are designed to cast down the achievements of the protagonists and demoralize the reader, rather than being triumphant and uplifting. Bleach also frequently prioritizes thematic elements over verisimilitude. One example is the association of romance with death (Isshin and Masaki, Ryuuken and Kanae, Kaien and Miyako, Rangiku and Gin, and so on). Another is loneliness (no one ever seems to really hang out or have many friendships), especially when it comes to parents (Isshin and Ryūken have strained relationships with Ichigo and Uryū, Ikumi is a single mother, Chad parents are dead, Orihime’s were reverse-abandoned, Keigo and Mizuiro’s are absent, Tatsuki’s are never seen, and so on). Bleach absolutely prioritizes characters and themes over traditional plot or plausibility—that is to say, how things feel is often much more important than how exciting or realistic they are, which ties into the second and third reasons people like Bleach.

Fights: Bleach’s fights tend to suck. There are some exceptions, sure, but the power of those exceptions usually stems from the emotional content and personal nature of them. Something like Ichigo vs. Byakuya, Uryū vs. Mayuri, or Rukia vs. Aaroniero (to name a later example) are very emotionally charged fights. That said, even fights that aren’t particularly interesting, like Ikkaku vs. Edrad, tend to be more about showing us aspects of the characters’ personalities more so than about the fight itself. In fiction, one is encouraged to show rather than tell, and more extreme situations (which violent confrontations are one example of) allow one to show deeper and more extreme aspects of a character than slice-of-life situations usually do. This is what Bleach’s fights are often in service of. This is evident from how uninteresting the average Bleach fight is. There’s a lot of sword-pressing, a lot of ineffectual diagonal slashes, a lot of appearing behind someone to their surprise, a lot of losing an arm as a serious injury, a lot of no-selling attacks, and whoever reveals how their powers work first usually loses. The fighting quickly boils down to shikai and bankai, or their equivalents, with the other aspects of fighting, like kidō (and the rest of zankensoki) being discarded except when they reflect some matter of character (for example, Byakuya or Uryū’s more analytical and technical approach to things). Combat in Bleach isn’t about a robust combat system or consistency, nor is it about what looks cool—it is about what shows off the character in question. This is unusual for a shōnen and ties directly into the second reason people like Bleach.

I’ve talked a lot about why Bleach is liked, and it’s now prudent to get into that. In my opinion, the reasons that early Bleach was well-liked and well-received can be boiled down to five (5) things: 1. Deuteragonists, 2. Character Designs, 3. Mystery, 4. Contrast, and 5. Urban Fantasy Setting. I’ve been over most of these before, but they also bear repeating.

Deuteragonists: I have explored this concept in quite some detail (see: 1, 2, 3) before, so I’m not going to go too deeply into its mechanics here. The most obvious selling point here is that splitting the role of the protagonist into two mutually supporting halves that are fallible in their own ways is A. relatively unique, and B. humanizing. Ichigo and Rukia are by no means either the first example of this (consider Sherlock Holmes and John Watson) or the last (I've not seen Psycho-Pass, but Shinya Kogami and Akane Tsunemori seem to have much the same relationship), but I am unaware of any (supposed) shōnen prior to Bleach that attempted it. (That’s not to say that it doesn’t exist, but rather, that its obscurity if it does simply reinforces the point.) That made it unique for its time. That Rukia is a (competent and independent, but still vulnerable and feminine) woman only makes it even more unique, especially given the medium and how women tend to be treated within it. It also allowed for both Ichigo and Rukia to have problems as characters, and to largely grow beyond those problems over the course of the series, rather than there being yet another immutable and unchanging rock of a protagonist like so many other shōnen feature. When coupled with their interpersonal banter and dynamics, they formed a major draw together simply because their sharing of the role was so unusual and well-executed.

Character Designs: Bleach suffers from a dizzying overabundance of characters. Many of them are only present for a few chapters, at most, and yet even characters who appeared very briefly have any number of adherents out there among the readership or viewership. Consider characters like Starrk, Bambietta, or Bazz B., who have little to no establishment, and little panel time relative to the series, but who nonetheless gained resolute fans. Sometimes they have backstories shoehorned in to help sell them (as in the case of Starrk and Bazz B.; the most hilarious example is probably Giriko being given a flashback several chapters after he was already dead), but often they succeeded without them. They also often succeed despite their personalities largely being remixes of existing characters. How? Because of their character design and attitudes. Bleach was enormously successful in delivering characters that appealed to somebody, even at almost only a glance. The characters almost radiate a sense of mie purely through their designs. This sort of visual imminence routinely overcame all other character shortfalls. 

Mystery: The anime of Bleach began airing on October 5, 2004. Coincidentally, Lost started airing on September 22, 2004. They began at almost exactly the same time. What does one have to do with the other? Nothing, except for the fact that they both relied heavily on mystery and both capitalized on it (in different markets) at almost exactly the same time. The bulk of Bleach is predicated on inculcating a sense of mystery. This is why basic facts that would often be mentioned in passing are kept tightly wrapped secrets until the end of the series and beyond. (Token examples, great and small: Who are the other two Great Noble Houses? Where’s Yoruichi’s zanpakutō and why can she turn into a cat? What’s the deal with the Soul King? Why is there a fox-man like Sajin around, and is he a yōkai or what? What was the Final Getsuga Tenshō?) Even things that were resolved, like Ichigo’s parentage, what was going on with his “inner Hollow” and zanpakutō, and so on, were kicked down the road as long as possible to create an air of mystery. The most obvious manifestation of this was all the guessing about the bankai of various characters that the series egged on. This sense of mystery and a desire for closure kept quite a lot of people invested when their patience for the rest of the series ran out.

Contrast: While lots of anime and manga frequently leaven their drama with comedy, or vice-versa, Bleach was unique for the means in which it did so. It’s worthwhile to draw a contrast with something very close to its opposite: Gintama. Gintama is particularly notable because of its odd mix of different elements; it has a fantastical alternate history setting and can go from irreverent comedy (running the gamut from pop-culture puns to crude toilet humor) to deadly serious drama in just a few pages. However, Gintama’s default mode is comedy. Bleach is a relatively grounded secret history with a default mode that is dramatic. In this regard, they are equal but opposite. Early Bleach was a very dark and grim, almost Lovecraftian setting, and often had elements of horror or was just plain gross, but was lightened up through the way in which it approached that and its frequent inclusion of humor. This contrast is also heightened by the relative lack of fighting in the early manga; when fighting does occur, it’s all the more notable because the focus is largely upon slice-of-life elements. As the series progressed, this element of contrast was lost as it became relentlessly serious (in the process, becoming desensitized to its own sense of horror, great or small) and tried to become a battle manga.

Urban Fantasy Setting: Although Bleach ultimately goes on to visit rather fantastical places, it started out in a very grounded and realistic fashion. The sleepy (fictional) suburb of Karakura in Western Tokyo is just the right mix of urban and rural to be relatable to almost anyone. Simply by virtue of being based on a real area (the region around Tama), Karakura feels lived-in and well-developed, despite the fact that we see very little of it. (This is especially true compared to Soul Society [be it the Seireitei or Rukongai] or Hueco Mundo, both of which are very sterile and fantastical in a bad way [especially since the former is really just a stylized representation of the Heian period in Japan]. There is a very old parody of DBZ featuring the line "We need to go to some place that's completely desolate and... that would never be in real life at all, and it's huge, and it's a bajillion miles wide and it's nowhere to be found on earth—but it's right over there!" and that accurately describes both Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. I’ll get into this more in the next post.) The initial focus on day-to-day high school life also gave it a solid grounding for the age bracket of its intended audience. In this capacity, it exactly nailed the setting of teen-focused urban fantasy. The interesting thing is it did so before a lot of the most prominent novels in that genre were written. In other words, Bleach was a market-leader in urban fantasy for teens, and beat many of its peers to the punch. Just as deuteragonists were a major selling point out of their sheer novelty, so was the setting.

As an aside at this junction, I’d like to direct your attention to something from the Wikipedia page on urban fantasy, regarding the distinction between urban fantasy and supernatural romance:

The two share 90% of their genre DNA. However, the main differences are this: Urban fantasy focuses on an issue outside of a romantic relationship between two characters. Paranormal romance focuses on a romantic relationship between two characters and how outside forces affect that relationship. The best litmus test to determine if a story is urban fantasy or paranormal romance is to ask the following question: 'If the romance between Character A and Character B were removed, would the plot still stand as a viable storyline?' If the answer is 'yes,' chances are good it's urban fantasy. If the answer is 'no,' it's most likely paranormal romance.

Now, whether you think the relationship between Ichigo and Rukia is romantic or not, I would note two things. The first is that if their relationship was removed, the plot would not “still stand as a viable storyline.” The second is that the events of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs are very much about “how outside forces affect [their] relationship.” (As were all subsequent events involving them, really.) In short, I would argue that it’s impossible to suggest that early Bleach doesn’t sit somewhere that very closely approximates paranormal romance, if not being one outright. In this regard, Sera’s assertion that Bleach is a shōjo is a lot closer to the mark than you might think, as is my own that it was on the path to becoming either a battle shōjo or a couple shōnen.

HOLY SHIT, GIVE ME AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SO FAR?

To summarize, Bleach started off as a pseudo-paranormal romance (if not an actual one) that succeeded on the basis of being—on the one hand—grounded, characterful, and novel, while—on the other—also being mysterious, emotive, and meaningful. Bleach was, at the start, not necessarily trying to sell itself as an unbiased account of “things that happened in this fictional world,” or create an expansive universe. It was instead a rather intimate story set in a particular place, focusing very much on its characters and on conjuring up emotions.

Even when it went to Soul Society, you might still just as easily think it as something like an off-beat Kabuki play rather than a traditional shōnen. (Perhaps making it not so surprising that it was so easily adapted into a musical play.)

I feel that Bleach is also notable for embracing the aesthetic principles of Japanese art and culture that other traditional shōnen usually do not heavily emphasize; it features elements of not just Kawaii (of course), but Jo-ha-kyū, Geidō, Miyabi, Iki, Ensō, Shibui, Yūgen, and Wabi-sabi. (Indeed, I would say that an over-attachment to those last four is a major component of why it ultimately failed.) This also gave it a unique flair.

I think it was ultimately so successful to begin with because it was a unique melange of elements.

BUT I LIKED BLEACH BECAUSE OF SOME PARTICULAR THING YOU DISMISSED AS ANCILLARY!

There’s no accounting for taste. I’m just telling you what Bleach’s focus was and why it was initially exciting and good at what it did.

OKAY, FINE, WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH REWRITING IT?

Like I said, I think it’s important to first understand what worked and why. Then, it’s important to understand why things went wrong. (And boy, did things go wrong...) Only then can you reasonably propose solutions to fix things.

Next time, we’ll go into what went wrong, which involves a mixture of poor planning, shifting priorities, inflexibility, overindulgence, and hubris. But for that story, you’ll have to stay tuned for Part II!

#Bleach #Hyperchlorate #Meta #Analysis

[evannashamrock]

Let’s play a game, shall we?

I will talk about my favorite Paladin hehe and his interactions with Axca throughout all seasons.

Fact: Both Keith and Axca are half Galra and share similar character traits, especially if it comes to them fighting. Opinion: They are two sides of the same coin. May be related. (My opinion: Axca is basically a girl version of Keith. Same personality, character traits, they even gave her a cropped jacket in s7).

Fact: Axca had the oportunity to kill Keith (season 2) but she decided to spare him. Opinion: She liked him since she meet him. (My opinion: She had a serious reason to spare him while being loyal to Lotor at the same time. Code of honor? Plus, the plot would be no more with Keith dead).

Fact: Keith and Axca did not talk, only fought. When they met again, Keith did not kill her. Memory of them being allies distracted our Paladin. Opinion: He likes her, that's why he was distracted. (My opinion: Favor for favor).

MEANWHILE

Fact: Keith was also distracted when Lance saved him, stopped in the middle of a battle to smile at him. Opinion: He likes Lance romantically. This is a romantic trope. (My opinion: Keith was impressed by his skills).

Fact: After that, Axca decided to attack Lance. Keith, when he realized that:

Me: What kind of lovestruck bullshit is that, Keith?

Fact: Axca and Keith met again in "Kral Zera" episode. She helped him with Commander Gnov. They exchanged an annoyed expression. Opinion: She helped him because she liked him. (My opinion: Axca's motives are unknown. She's switching sides and I don’t trust that easily).

Fact: Later (s4?). Another meeting, Axca wanted to fight with Keith again. Opinion: She always wanted to be close to him and had a thing for him from the beginning.

Fact: Axca appeared out of nowhere in s7 to help Voltron coalition. Opinion: Axca returned just because of Keith, because she likes him. (My opinion: This might be her redemption arc).

Fact: Ezor and Zethrid teased Axca, saying that Axca's "always been sweet on that one with the flippity hair" and "It must be true love", because Keith is her "favorite paladin", when Axca showed up to save Keith. She did not acknowledged that on screen. Opinion: Axca must be in love with Keith, because they said so OR Axca may indeed have feelings for Keith.

Fact: Keith is having none of their shit. (He did not show any romantic interest in Axca or any girl whatsoever). Opinion: Keith is gay-coded. (My opinion: They were enemies, it was a time to fight, not to talk about being in love, for fucks sake! AND He is just awkward with any social interactions/ might be demisexual, but him being gay is also interesting).

Fact: Keith went to save Axca because, as he stated himself, she saved them. He returns the favor. Opinion: Keith is hetero now.

Fact: Axca showed up in the season’s last episode, when Krolia and Keith visited his dad's grave. Keith did not see her. Opinion: They want to push a hetero romance there. She acts like a creepy stalker OR she really likes Keith romantically. (My opinion: Loyalty doesn’t have to be romantic).

Facts: They saved each other lives many times. They were exchanging dreadful glares throughout seasons. No more serious interactions before s7, nothing explicitly romantic.

TO SUM UP: Their 'relationship' is mysterious as fuck.

MY OPINION: It might be some half-assed, pushed love trope BUT it doesn't have to be. We will know when season 8 comes out. By now it remains... unsolved (but we can be sure that Keith did not showed romantic interest in her).

Relationship status: NOT CANON.

BONUS

Some of Keith's interactions with other people:

(This pic is me when I see forced het-romance, with little to no interaction, but canon because it was m|w)

Fact: Keith was angry when Lance forgot their "bonding moment". He over-exaggerated and his voice literally cracked. Opinion: Keith likes Lance romantically. (My opinion: 'Bonding' is really important to Keith, because he wanted someone to acknowledge him. Still, that one moment was weird).

Fact: Keith said "I love you" to a man (aka Shiro). Before that, he said "You're my brother". They are not real siblings. Opinion: Keith loves him romantically. (My opinion: Keith really loves Shiro, but this is the kind of love we call "unconditional" and it doesn't have to be romantic).

Fact: When someone is hugging him (Allura, an Arusian, Hunk), Keith acts flustered BUT he was not flustered when he and Shiro hugged a few times. Opinion: Keith is the dumb-dumb when it comes to social interactions OR he loves Shiro. (My opinion: Keith only feels comfortable when he is really close to someone, like Shiro).

Fact: Keith does not like to be vulnerable around anyone BUT he was vulnerable around Lance. Opinion: He likes Lance and feels comfortable around him. He really cares for Lance but it’s hard for him to admit that.

Make of that what you will.

---------------------------------

(Ps. If I forgot about something about Axca, please add it in the comments! I’d really like to know what the others think).

(Ps2. MY OPINION again. Keith could end up with Axca if their relationship, if there was any, had more romantic built up. But exchanging glares and trying to kill each other - even if they spared themselves everytime - is not love. I never knew I’d say that but, at this point, Allurance makes more sense than this fucked up bullshit. Unless VLD suddenly wants to show us that Keith’s hetero (nice timing btw, after all that happened throughout the seasons?), and aggressively push that nonsense, there is some shit going on and you know it. What happened with Keith in s7 just doesn’t add up, just like Axca showing up out of nowhere. As I said before - I don’t trust that easily. THERE IS STILL MORE STORY TO UNFOLD and I will not acknowledge that straight romantic 'star-crossed lovers’ bullshit unless something serious happens).

#voltron #vld #keith kogane #axca #lance mcclain #klance #laith

[mbrinnon35]

I did so many cool things in today’s sequence

Hm thought

There’s no proof of anything really

When the demons staring

Freezing Time it appears

As my focus feels renewed

As peripherals do

What they do

These song worms

Bugs

I been bugging

Money

Fuck

Phoning

Or phening death

A basic need

Unmet

Ow it feels like recovery

What I need

Leave me alone

I’m always so not

Caught up in a game

Caught up in feelings

I haven’t screamed when It’s pushed out my lyrnx and crushed my brain out mush

So much pressure

Like i’m going to explode

Upside down

Blood squishing out pooling to my crown

Krypton

Distant stars can look(be) so close from an angle that flatters

Splinting like a tree branch

I could feel it as if it was my skin and thistle

Im so dumb

And I get dumber

How else

Else if

Code me another heart

This one is corrupted

Memory is watching a present unfold as another does in peripherals we call reality

Thinking of the Future is never exactly

Because it’s the Present in the tunnel of third eye

Variation of Present in 2 eye

But you could never predict future in 2 eye because predicting is the difference(differing)

There’s a 4th eye

That just knows

But you can’t exactly see what it is

It’s a feeling

That repeats with different space type

Environment and internal space in a way

Since i’m explaining this I am visualizing

Either you are interpreting this as the knowing which isn’t quite aware knowledge but subconscious

Or you are interpreting this as present isness

Which can both be 4th eye

Or not

It’s hard to tell when the telling is unattached

Floating

And present

And future

I know i’m over complicating the obvious which isn’t so

All 1

In a fiery red pyramid laxer ź way

Off the track

A trick of the mist

Monsters from old story books

Stays at the psychopolis

It’s all coming back to me

The warnings

The devil can be mild

We got beef

I’m just eating and shitting

A disgusting revolution of flesh

Comic versions break the strata

Damage

AB cheat code

I missed another block this round

Or was it converted to a new attack

I just wanna get drunk high and play smash

After I die

Or before

Just not in the realm of living

Disconnected

Wanna disssocstie with my insane reality

Both these again

Why is it half

You could count numbers to ..

Pew

Whoa space travel can be a gnarly whirlwind

Disheveled

Words are like life’s

I know exactly what is was where it fit but it won’t manifest

Party animal

Damn time

Slippery as 🧍🏽‍♂️

Egooooooooooooooooooooo

GTA and lottery machines

Are they spawning

Built in front my awareness

Light switches

Play with the vibes

Ugh

Desire and addiction where’s the division

[aion-rsa]

The Medium Review

https://ift.tt/2Yl1lpH

With The Medium, Bloober Team take a clever gameplay concept and uses it to weave a psychological horror story that is one of the most polished titles released by the studio to date but doesn’t quite reach its full potential. Repetitive gameplay elements and issues with pacing bring this game down quite a bit, but espite the game’s needling flaws, it’s still worth playing, particularly for those who have enjoyed the studio’s previous work.

The game is set in ’90s Poland and centers on Marianne, the titular medium who can communicate with lost souls in the “spirit world” by focusing on objects imbued with memories of those who have passed. The spirit world is a parallel version of ours, like a nightmarish reflection, and Marianne has the ability to traverse both realities simultaneously, which allows her to make connections between them in myriad ways. In-game this is conveyed via a split-screen presentation where the player can interact with both worlds at once and solve puzzles by searching for clues in both realities, which are tethered in strange ways.

Unlike Bloober Team’s previous games, which were presented in first-person, The Medium is in third-person, which recalls genre classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The team handles this transition well, and they take full advantage of the split-screen mechanic, which is not persistent and only appears in select moments throughout the story (a tasteful decision on Bloober’s part—too much split-screen would have no doubt been headache-inducing). Overall, the game plays quite smoothly, from using Marianne’s powers to search for supernatural clues in the environments, to the directed camera angles and movements, which are all well thought out and never get in the way of the experience.

The story “starts with a dead girl,” a nightmare or premonition Marianne has of a girl being murdered by a lake. Haunted by this otherworldly vision, Marianne is getting her recently-deceased adoptive father’s house in order when she receives a mysterious phone call from a man who claims to know her innermost secrets, sending her on a grim detective mission of sorts, starting at the sprawling, abandoned Niwa hotel. There, she meets a young girl in the spirit world named Sadness, who helps her uncover the truth behind the man on the other end of that fateful call, as well as some shocking revelations about Marianne’s own past.

Narratively, this is one of Bloober’s strongest efforts. I found the story to be riveting, particularly in the latter half of the game. On paper, the dialogue and plot developments aren’t mind-blowingly good or novel, but the game’s unique presentation elevates the storytelling in a cinematic way. There are several surprising twists throughout the game that propel the story forward in a nice way, but the real strength of the script is its focus. Bloober Team has a knack for zeroing in on the intimately personal elements of its stories and exploring the human psyche in interesting ways both in the content and visuals, and the studio sticks to that philosophy here. 

Stories in games sometimes get too mired in plot mechanics and don’t focus enough on the characters and their internal journeys, but Bloober Team never falls into that trap. Marianne’s innermost fears and desires are always the going concern as the story unfolds. Even as other characters get folded into the story (you may even get to take control of them…), Marianne acts as the narrative center of gravity.

The dramatic elements of the story are done very well, with some cutscenes eliciting a physical response from me that I absolutely was not expecting. Without spoiling anything, I’ll say that the story explores some ugly aspects of humanity that haunt us all in one way or another, particularly if you’ve lost someone close to you or have deep-seated familial issues. Bloober Team always aims for poignancy of the dark and devilish variety, and the developers achieve that here.

Release Date: Jan. 28, 2021 Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S Developer: Bloober Team Publisher: Bloober Team Genre: Horror

Another one of Bloober Team’s strengths is art direction, particularly when it comes to creating detailed, evocative environments that reflect what’s going on in the protagonist’s head in fascinating ways. The environments in The Medium are stunning not just for their visual fidelity, but for their interconnectedness with the mood and themes of the story. The deteriorating innards of the Niwa hotel clearly convey that some truly twisted stuff went down in there, and the surrounding forests are creepy but in a way that’s almost beautiful, with the game’s atmospheric lighting (bolstered by ray-tracing if you’re playing on a sufficiently powerful PC or next-gen console) setting the mood nicely.

And that’s just the real-world environments—the spirit world is a fiery hellscape of rotting flesh and viscera, which happens to be inhabited by a lurching monstrosity called “The Maw” whose sole mission is to consume you in violent fashion. While the two realities look distinctly different (Marianne’s got white hair and a glowing arm in the spirit world, a nice touch), they still feel artistically cohesive.

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Most of the game consists of puzzles, whether it be scouring the environment for clues that reveal bits of the central mystery, or condensed puzzles that force you to switch between the two realities, changing the environment in the spirit world to allow real-world Marianne to proceed and vice versa. The latter, more traditional puzzles are a bit of a letdown. They mostly consist of you walking around the environment waiting for icons to pop up so that you can collect objects and place them in other objects to proceed. The tedium of this is alleviated by the dual-reality mechanic. For instance, if real-world Marianne is impeded by a powered-down elevator, spirit Marianne can break off and manipulate objects in the spirit world to power up the elevator in the real world.

The dual-reality concept is super cool for a while, but it’s only a bandaid for the deeper issue of played-out puzzle design. Most of the puzzles you encounter are, at their core, as rudimentary as can be. There are a few that forced me to actually use my noggin (one involving a keypad comes to mind), but for the most part, one should have little trouble figuring out how to proceed at any given time, which is a letdown.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

I like that the game is more experiential than challenging in the traditional sense, but so much time is spent on these unimaginative puzzles that I found myself getting frustrated, more eager to explore and uncover the story than collect color-coded toy butterflies that I had to arrange in a certain order. The developers try their best to imbue these puzzle sections with storytelling details and dialogue but it does little to mask the monotony of the task at hand.

There are some set pieces later in the game that are exciting and fast-paced and dazzling to look at, but whatever momentum those moments create is stifled by the puzzles. It’s disappointing, because I think if there was a little less focus on the traditional gameplay aspects, the experience would be far smoother and the best parts of the story would shine. I know that many would complain about there not being enough in the way of traditional gameplay if the puzzle sections were reduced, but I think The Medium as an even more narrative-focused experience would be more effective overall.

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[digitalpenstroke]

Storied Gaming: Aeris’s Resurrection

As promised last week, I am going to talk about two characters that met with death in one form or another.  Today I will be talking about one of them.  This one met her untimely end arguably too soon in the game's runtime.  When we last see her, she seems utterly at peace.  Perhaps she knew it was coming?  Perhaps it was all planned?  We don't know, and the narrative never truly tells us one way or another.  What we do know is that her death sparks a change in the story, and is the catalyst that saves the world from destruction. Today, we will be talking about the death of Aeris Gainsborough from Final Fantasy 7.

If you are new to this topic, let me first introduce you to the Internet.  Pretty neat place, isn't it?  Of course, I mean all of this with lighthearted fun, as you will never encounter a topic about death or saddest moments in gaming without her's being in at least the number 2 spot.  For 20 years gamers have mourned her passing, and it's really evident to see why.  Her character is charming if not adorable at times, she has that aura about her that makes you want to protect her, and for the strategist mindset, she was the best White Mage.  But whether it was her attitude towards life, or how she kept Cloud and the others up, her loss was truly a hole that couldn't be filled.

After her passing, and as the rumour mill does with games of that era, many theories began to arise regarding how to revive her.  If you would like to see a more or less complete list, visit this page.  Some of them are pretty silly, while others are rather intricate to the point where you wish it were true simply for all the work needed to accomplish the goal.  The more famous example is the 100 Tissues method.  This method has you first going to the Gold Saucer battle arena and losing the battle each time.  After each loss, your reward is a Tissue, an item with no apparent use.  Once you gain 100 of them, you go to the town of Mideel and offer all the tissues to a grieving woman in a graveyard.  After the last Tissue is given, she will explicitly tell you how to resurrect Aeris.

Another lengthy rumour has two requirements:  4 Tissues and one Master Revive Materia.  Supposedly there is a flaw in the coding of the Revive Materia that allows you to give it more points after battles, despite it being Mastered.  Once 800,000 AP is attained, the Revive Materia becomes even stronger than Master, unlocking a hidden spell called Resurrect.  After which, go to Aeris's house, specifically her room, and use the four Tissues.  Cloud will become distraught about her passing, and then the gang thinks of a plan to revive her.  You then go to the church with Cait Sith, with the kids there asking if they can play with the kitty.  Agree, they scamper off, and the ghost of Aeris will appear, telling you to go to the Ancient City.  From there, head to the waterfall and enter it, where a scene would unfold with Cloud using the Resurrect spell and breaking the Master Materia.  Once you head back to the church, Aeris will arise from the flowerbed, and rejoin the party.

While there are many more theories and rumours out there, these two have stood the test of time in the gaming community.  They are rather interesting reads and do harbour a second thought.  The Tissue item has no purpose, save for filling an inventory.  No game would offer junk loot, right?  Whatever the purpose of the Tissue, the dedication to detail in some of these rumours show just how much they wished to bring back the flower girl.  There is, however, one unfortunate matter which needs to be addressed.  A rather unpopular opinion to be sure, but one that bears to be said.

You cannot revive Aeris.

Whether it's the Japanese original, the Western original, the International remake, and even the upcoming overhauled remake of the game, Aeris's passing is a permanent outcome that has no chance of altering.  Storyline wise, her death was key for the Lifestream to come forth from the planet and stop Meteor from colliding, giving the time needed for Holy to become fully summoned and perform its function.  Without Aeris being a part of the Lifestream, even if Sephiroth was defeated, the Meteor spell would have done the damage to the planet anyway.

Thinking outside the plot a moment, and looking at the world of Final Fantasy, there really would be no feasible way for her to be revived anyway.  The most common argument used when dismissing her death is that Cloud could have easily used either a Phoenix Down or Life spell to bring her back, instead of sending her into the watery depths below.  But this idea becomes flawed for one simple reason:  From Midgar to Nibelheim, shops are stocked with Phoenix Downs, something presumably revives someone when they are dead.  Wouldn't Resurrection become a commodity?  If such an item is so commonly available, why are people still dying from unnatural causes?  If Cloud had his wits about him, could he have gotten Zack back to life in Midgar?  And, if such a power existed, wouldn't Shinra have attempted to make a monopoly on it?

But then of course comes the more important question, what is a Phoenix Down if not a means for revival?  When a character's HP goes to 0, are they dead?  I would argue no in this case.  A hero's HP only reflects how much pain tolerance they can endure before their body gives out on them, and they become unconscious.  Note, the official status of someone who has 0 HP isn't Dead, but simply K.O. The only time death occurs in a game is when it ties closely to the plot of the story.  When you beat a boss, it does not necessarily mean they are dead.  Look at the many encounters with The Turks.  How often have they run away when their HP has gone to 0?

In this case then, when we look at Phoenix Downs, Life Spells, and even curative options such as Cure Spells and Potions, we have to see them as a type of stimulant.  In this case, we can see Phoenix Downs as though they are a stronger version of smelling salts.  Something to bring the person back into consciousness when they are K.O'ed.  The same can be applied to Life spells.  As they are Materia, and the essence of the Lifestream, it is the Materia's restorative properties that offer renewed stamina to the recipient rather than renew a person's life essence.

I do understand the want to bring her back, I do.  She had a charm to soften the hardest heart.  She had the face of an angel.  In both dubs of Advent Children, her voice was like a gentle choir.  Her final Limit Break was OP.  But, in the unfortunate case of the narrative, her life had to be ended.  She is lost, but she is never forgotten, even after 20 years.  Fate has interesting ways to bring people together, and her passing has brought in an entire community all across the world.

Tune in next week where, if I were to make a top 10 saddest moments in gaming list, this moment would be at #1.

#Storied Gaming #Final Fantasy 7 #FF7 #aeris gainsborough #resurrection

[possiblyimbiassed]

What “stories” is Mary referring to?

OK, of course, I see; that’s it – the stories. Conan Doyles’ amazing detective stories at the hands of our “Baker Street boys” have once again been interpreted into a new adaptation, this time played out in our own modern times. But it’s still about these wonderful stories; nothing else matters.

But wait – what ‘stories’ exactly do you refer to, Mary / AGRA / Rosamund / Gabrielle-or-whatever-your-name-is? Series 4 may have lots of Conan Doyle canon references, but why doesn’t it have a single coherent crime story? Not one!

If the cases were that important, wouldn’t we be able to follow them as they unfold, basking in the brilliance of these fascinating adventures and their clever resolutions? Or at least be privy to some logical deductions and conclusions about them from the great detective Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his loyal friend Dr John Watson?

I think the ‘stories & adventures’ approach, in a traditional meaning, might be valid up until the beginning of Series 3, but then the coherent plot line gets abandoned in favour of a rather different content. Which means Mary’s words about ‘stories’ above may not be relevant. So – why not take a closer look at all of this show’s stories to see if they actually merit the name? I’ll go through all of them one by one since Series 1, focusing on the factual events in them, trying to evaluate their narrative interest as plot line and see where we end up in S4. I will try to not go into any personal issues for Sherlock Holmes or other characters – just the stories, as ‘objectively’ and free of Sentiment that I’m capable of. (And this is a monster post, so please bear with me).

For a start: A Study in Pink in Series 1 gives us the background where Holmes first meets former army doctor John Watson, whom he offers to be his flat mate. Watson moves in and Holmes takes him on their first ‘adventure’ -  a creepy crime story of a serial killer cabbie who ‘persuades’ his victims to commit suicide. His MO is to lure them into his cab, drive them to some remote location and threaten them to play Russian roulette with him by taking pills. Holmes helps the police (New Scotland Yard) with the case, but some of them distrust Holmes, and when he withholds a piece of evidence, they come to Holmes flat on a drug bust (finding nothing). Holmes does solve the case, however, and we are privy to his impressive deductions to get there; one of them involving the pink colour of a missing suitcase and another a desperate clue from a dying victim to find her murderer. Holmes gets in personal grave danger from the cabbie, but Watson saves him in the last moment by killing the culprit. Fair enough; I think this is a really good, intriguing detective story!

Next: In The Blind Banker Holmes and Watson get involved in a crime case with a mystic killer, who murders his victims in rooms locked from the inside (making it look like suicides). Cracking ciphers and codes and doing interesting deductions that we can follow, Holmes solves this one too, with some help from Watson. It turns out there’s a Chinese crime syndicate behind the murders, dealing with drugs and ancient stolen treasures, and a killer “spider man” who climbs buildings to execute their murders. Holmes, Watson and a third person get in serious trouble, but Watson saves the day in the culmination of the adventure. 

Interesting story, I’d say (if it weren’t for the rather prejudiced depicting of Asian people, perhaps…)

Series 1 culminates with The Great Game, where a super-villain manages to get Holmes’ attention by wrapping his victims up in explosives (as if they were suicide bombers) and make the detective solve other crime puzzles to save their lives. Every puzzle is marked by a ‘pip’ on a mobile phone, five of them in total. Holmes solves all of them (among them a case of “national importance”, involving a stolen secret memory stick that his brother wants recovered for the government). At the end Watson is kidnapped and wrapped in explosives to threaten Holmes. He doesn’t defeat the super-villain, which makes for a nice cliffhanger. The stories are thrilling and exciting, and the deductions are made clear to the audience.

First out in Series 2 is A Scandal in Belgravia, where a ‘femme fatal’ Dominatrix is working on Holmes to deceive him through ‘Sentiment’. The case starts with Holmes’ mission to recover some compromising photos of a royal person from the Dominatrix’s locked camera phone. But it soon turns into a case where the government (and the CIA) is trying to lure international terrorists into a trap by sending up an aircraft full of dead corpses for them to blow up. The Dominatrix (who is actually working for the super-villain) is supposed to make Holmes crack the code to the governmental operation in order to warn the terrorists. Which he does, with an amazing deduction that ends in:

She succeeds in this by getting his emotional attention, but Holmes defeats her in the end by breaking into her camera phone, and hands her secrets over to the government. In this episode Holmes also solves some other crime puzzles, some of which are told as mere fragments (if we want to know more about them, we can read John Watson’s blog).  The main narrative is a bit confused and convoluted, but I’d still say it’s a good, coherent story.

The Hounds of Baskerville is perhaps the story that is most similar to Doyle’s original. Holmes and Watson travel to Dartmoor to solve a case in which the young client Henry Knight thinks he’s going crazy. Henry believes a legendary gigantic hound was the killer of his father 20 years earlier (a crime he witnessed as a child), and he’s having creepy visions and sightings of this monster. Holmes suspects that the nearby top-secret military laboratory Baskerville is involved in the supposed appearances of the hound. Genetic cloning experiments with animals at Baskerville are suspected at first, but then Holmes concludes that the Hound is partly a figment of people’s imaginations. Henry Knight turns suicidal, but Holmes’ deductions save him in the last moment and the murderer who has been ‘gas-lighting’ Henry (a scientist at Baskerville) is revealed. When people’s sightings of a big, salvaged dog on the moor combines with the effect of a hallucinatory drug applied by aerosol, the result is the impression of a monster. Holmes’ deductions are presented for the audience to follow step-by-step, accompanying the plot line. This is a classical, fascinating detective story.

In The Reichenbach Fall the super-villain is back again, this time with an elaborate plan to disgrace Holmes and drive him to suicide. He starts by committing a series of sensational crimes and gets away with them in spite of overwhelming evidence, just because he can. His plans also involve poisoning children and make them fear the very sight of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes finds the kidnapped children through chemical lab analysis of their traces and clever deductions (which we can follow). But then Holmes get blamed for this crime and others, after the villain has influenced a tabloid scandal journalist. Four snipers are placed in Holmes’ neighbourhood, ready to kill Watson and two other of Holmes’ closest friends, unless he throws himself from a rooftop.

The villain shoots himself in the head, but this only permanents the sniper threat; Holmes has to jump. At the end of the episode, the audience knows that Holmes must have faked his death and somehow survived the fall, but we’re left to figure out how. The story line is thrilling, coherent and easy to follow.

Series 3 and The Empty Hearse starts with an explanation of how Holmes survived “The Fall”. This, however, is where the plot line starts to derail and lose credibility. We never get to know the real events of Holmes’ fall, but are introduced to a Holmesian Fandom within the series, with their respective versions of how the detective survived, one of them more outrageous than the other.  Holmes, who has spent two years traveling around to dismantle the super-villain’s network, is captured and tortured by Serbian criminals wearing WWII Red Army uniforms. When he gets back to London, however, he doesn’t seem to be the least bothered by his wounds. He gets involved in a case concerning a skeleton and a book by Jack the Ripper, which turns out to be a fake crime arranged by a former police officer (same guy who accused Holmes of being a fraud in the previous episode; what was his motive?).

Watson, who is reluctant to forgive Holmes for having played dead, gets drugged, kidnapped and tied up in a bonfire (we aren’t told by whom), but Holmes finds out where he is kept (through cracking a skip code), and sets off to rescue Watson. The main story about a planned terrorist attack on London is sketchy, to say the least (I’m afraid reality vastly surpasses BBC Sherlock fiction when it comes to terrorist attacks). We are allowed to follow some of Holmes’ deductions to locate a bomb in the subway, but several plot holes become evident: When did Holmes call the police?

Why did Holmes and Watson go down in the subway to diffuse a bomb with their bare hands? Why did the bomb have an off-switch, when no-one was supposed to be there when it exploded? Which organization was behind the attack? What were their motives? The plot seems secondary in this episode!

The Sign of Three focuses entirely on Watson’s wedding, and Holmes - who hates social gatherings - abandons his work in favor of a full-time commitment to plan the reception, down to the tiniest details of table decorations and who is to sit together with whom. None of these details turns out to be relevant to the story, however (plot-wise: WTF?). We’re now told in Holmes’ best man speech that his and Watson’s adventures are “frankly ridiculous”.

We do see flashes of cases to entertain the guests, but the only more or less coherent case happens on the wedding reception. Most deductions now take place inside Holmes’ head - his so-called Mind Palace. It turns out that the wedding photographer tried to murder one of the guests by stabbing him in the waist from his backside with a thin blade, while rehearsing for a group photo. The victim is supposed to not have noticed the stabbing until he took off his uniform belt (WTF?). When the victim is informed of this he threatens to commit suicide by removing his belt, which Holmes manages to talk him out of, so Watson can give him medical treatment. The photographer is captured; Holmes makes one more deduction about Watson’s wife being pregnant (which none of the parents are aware of?) and leaves the party early.

His Last Vow is the series final and plot-wise the most problematic episode, many times crossing the border of credibility. I’d definitely call this “frankly ridiculous”; it seems to contain more plot holes than a Swiss cheese and the kind of fantastic exaggerations one might expect from someone high on drugs.

Holmes is engaged in a blackmail case, involving prominent members of the government. The blackmailer is a powerful media magnate. Watson and his wife go to a drug den to rescue their neighbour’s son, where Watson also finds Holmes lying on a mattress. They take him to a hospital lab to test his blood for drugs. Holmes claims his drug use is for the blackmail case, which his friends dismiss. Members of Holmes’ fan club search his flat for drugs (sounds illegal to me), but find nothing. Later the blackmailer visits Holmes, intimidating him and showing him the letters he is using to put pressure on Holmes’ client. Holmes and Watson go to the blackmailer’s office later that night, to recover the letters. They manage to get through the security with help from the black-mailer’s PA, whom Holmes has a fake relationship with and fake-proposes to. (How she can buy this is an enigma, but that’s food for another meta).

Inside the office they find Holmes’ ‘fiancée’ unconscious on the floor. They smell a perfume that both Watson’s wife and Holmes’ client use. Holmes interrupts a scene where Watson’s wife is threatening the blackmailer at gunpoint. She turns out to be an assassin who is being blackmailed, but when Holmes offers help she turns the gun on him and shoots him in the chest.

In a matter of seconds, Holmes uses his Mind Palace to try to find advice on how to survive the gunshot. Watson finds him, takes him to hospital and Holmes ‘flat-lines’ on the operation table, but somehow he manages to restart his own heart (?). We then see Watson’s wife entering Holmes’ hospital room, threatening him to keep quiet. Later the ‘fiancée’ (already fully recovered from the blow to her head that rendered her unconscious), visits Holmes, fiddles with his IV morphine and shows him how she, as revenge for his fake proposal, is selling stories about their supposedly intensive sex life to the tabloid press (why would fame as a sex-god be a punishment?)

Somehow, shortly after this, the seriously injured and recently operated Holmes manages to flee the hospital room and arrange a whole scene of revelation to Watson. He escapes through the window, buys a bottle of perfume, travels to Baker Street, moves back Watson’s heavy chair, places the perfume beside it as a clue and calls Watson at the same time he discovers the clue. Together with Doctor Watson (who apparently is OK with Holmes leaving hospital) he travels to the fake houses of Leinster Gardens and arranges a set-up for Watson’s wife, involving her highly enlarged wedding photo projected on the walls. Not bad for a man recently shot in the chest, is it? ;)

When she arrives, she (unknowingly) reveals in front of Watson that she shot his best friend, having no remorse about it. Holmes orders them back to Baker Street to “sort it out quickly”, because they “have work to do” (what work?).  

Oh dear storyteller, what did you take? Did you make a list? Anyway, the ‘story’ continues at Baker Street: Holmes is crumpling from pain, but there are no painkillers. Doctor Watson throws a tantrum and threatens his injured friend. Holmes makes excuses for his killer with some of the most ridiculous ‘deductions’ I’ve seen in the whole show. Then the meddlesome bastard (sorry, couldn’t resist – Sentiment got the better of me), before being taken back to hospital in an ambulance, goads Watson to trust his assassin wife claiming that she saved his life, at the same time as he accuses Watson of being attracted to this sort of people. The timeline jumps backwards and forwards between this scene and Christmas at the Holmes family House where Watson reconciles with his wife, while claiming that he doesn’t want to know who she really is an burns the memory stick she has given him with this info.

For the first time in the show, Holmes utterly fails to solve a case, leading to the suicide of his client’s blackmailed husband. Holmes and Watson go to the blackmailer’s luxury house to make a deal for Watson’s wife, but when things don’t go as he had planned, Holmes shoots the blackmailer in the head. (Where are his clever deductions to solve a tricky case? Since when is Holmes a murderer? Where is the coherence of this story? I’m loosing track here). The episode ends with Holmes being sent away on a private jet to a suicide mission in Eastern Europe, but he is immediately called back when the dead super-villains face is suddenly projected on every TV screen in the country.

The Abominable Bride is called a “Special” episode, since it mostly takes place in a Victorian setting inside Sherlock Holmes’ head. He re-plays his first meeting with Watson in the Victorian environment, and then starts to solve crimes involving a murderous bride who fakes her own suicide and re-appears as a ghost.

There’s also a conspiracy of women in hoods, having some sort of cult connected to the ghost bride, in a desanctified church. The dead super-villain shows up trice, challenging Holmes and drawing his attention to the fact that he’s dreaming. On two occasions Holmes seems to wake up on the private jet after severely overdosing drugs, met by Watson, his wife and Holmes’ brother. But they never really take him to hospital, and when the episode ends Holmes is still in the Victorian setting. All in all, the plot line’s total lack of coherence and logics is fully explained by it all happening in a drug-induced, dreamlike state inside Holmes’ head. So even if the actual story is missing here, I find this episode far more ‘logical’ than HLV.

The Six Thatchers marks the start of Series 4, and the plot lines (there are more than one) are bizarre, to say the least. In fact, it’s so weird and illogical that I would definitely not call this a ‘coherent story’.

First of all we see how the government covers up the fact that Holmes now is a murderer, supposedly so he can work on the case of the super-villain’s return with top priority. But he never solves anything about the super-villain; this whole plotline seems to just vanish!

Instead, there’s this other case where the corpse of a young man is found when his car explodes, having been dead for a week. Holmes explains to the shocked parents that the boy had disguised himself as a car seat, as a practical joke on his father’s birthday, when he suddenly had some sort of fit and died on the spot. Holmes’ deductions seems like wild speculation with next to no evidence. Why would this guy go to the trouble of finding a vinyl car seat disguise (where do you get such a thing by the way?) to surprise his father, when he could easily just have hidden in the dark of the back seat? And how likely is it that in this precise moment, he would have ‘some sort of fit’? But suddenly Holmes’ ‘prickling of thumbs’ are valid, rather than his hallmark logical methods.

At first the other plot line is similar to Arthur Conan Doyle’s story The Six Napoleons: Six plaster busts of Thatcher are smashed, the owners have the same names as ACD gave them, one person is murdered and Watson is suggesting that the culprit has an idée fixe. However, instead of discovering the precious Pearl of the Borgias in one bust, which was the canon case and what Holmes also expects this time, we end up with – a memory stick about Watson’s wife and her gang of assassins? The culprit of the smashings is another member, and he accuses Watson’s wife of treason in an earlier operation when they worked for the government. When Holmes meets up with her for an explanation, she drugs him with some sort of dust from a letter, which he deliberately sniffs on, and she disappears.

Then we follow Watson’s wife on her escape through many countries under several aliases. At one point she knocks out (kills?) a stewardess and steels her identity. When Holmes and Watson find her in Morocco (through a tracker on her memory stick) everything is forgiven without discussion, and Holmes swears to protect her. Instead of Watson’s wife, Holmes accuses a member of the government of treason.

But he is wrong (again) and the traitor turns out to be a governmental secretary, who also tries to shoot Holmes. Seeing this, Watson’s wife somehow manages to move faster than the bullet (??) and takes it for him. In a long speech, with a bleeding wound in her abdomen, she declares her eternal love for her husband and, for the first time, apologizes for shooting Holmes. Then she dies. For some odd reason Watson blames Holmes for her death, and cuts all contact with his best friend. But John’s wife leaves behind a recorded DVD with a strange message where she tells Holmes to go to hell to save John Watson.

In The Lying Detective many elements are taken directly from Conan Doyle’s The Dying Detective: Mrs Hudson seeks out Watson to tell him that Holmes is in a very bad shape. We then see him in a haggard state, babbling deliriously, and we learn, along with Watson, that Holmes is dying.

This picture of Watson looking at Holmes’ hospital bed...

...fits nicely with this quote from ACD canon: “I had stood for some minutes looking at the silent figure in the bed”.

Holmes then lures the criminal, Culverton Smith, to confess that he is trying to kill Holmes. At the end of the story, Holmes takes Watson out for dinner (“cake” in TLD).  

However, while Conan Doyle’s version is a perfectly coherent crime story, TLD is not. Doyle has Holmes explain the actual crime case: the murder of Smith’s nephew Victor Savage. Holmes has figured out that Smith killed Savage by poisoning him with a mortal disease. Holmes’ disguise is just a setup to make Smith confess, while gloating over both Savages’ and Holmes’ death.

On the other hand, in TLD, Holmes claims that Smith is a serial killer; he calls him “the most dangerous, the most despicable human being that I have ever encountered” and he shoots pictures of Smith on the walls of 221B. But who did this ‘monster’ kill? We don’t get to know about a single victim! Lestrade seems nauseated when Smith keeps confessing, but we never, ever get to know what the man has actually done. The only killing in TLD is instigated by Holmes himself; Holmes has told Smith that he wants Smith to kill him. And Holmes’ purpose with this is to make Smith confess that he is trying to kill Holmes. Redundant, isn’t it? What kind of ‘crime story’ is this? Holmes later tells Watson in TLD that the recording device he has used (hidden in Watson’s cane) qualifies as “entrapment”, which invalidates the confession. But since Smith supposedly has kept confessing other crimes (which we aren’t privy to) that’s enough to have him arrested. In canon Watson serves as a witness to the confession of the Savage murder, which is just what is needed to get Smith arrested. But in TLD Watson comes to rescue Holmes from a self-inflicted attack - in other words: Holmes’ suicide attempt.

In general, the other plot lines of TLD are even more ridiculous than in T6T, and the episode is perforated with plot holes that are never explained. Which is why I prefer to present them as questions below:

Why is Euros Holmes (Sherlock’s hitherto unknown sister) disguised as her brother’s suicidal client who walks the streets of London with him, only to suddenly leave him alone? Why does she fake being suicidal in the first place?  Why has she disguised herself as Watson’s new therapist? Why does she want to capture Watson?

Why is Watson haunted by a ghost of his deceased wife? Why so much focus on Watson’s wife in general, even when it doesn’t move the plot forward in any sense? 

If Mrs Hudson were worried about Holmes’ health, why would she put him handcuffed in the boot of a car and drive like crazy? And why would the guys from the café drop Holmes twice “because they know you”? 

Why would Molly Hooper bring an ambulance when going to examine a patient? Since when does she even do medical consulting; isn’t her expertise post mortem? And after her diagnosis that her patient is dying; why don’t they take him to hospital to help him rather than having him answer questions to a bunch of kids?

Since when does Watson do deductions (here in the form of his dead wife in his head doing deductions) to figure out how Holmes does deductions to predict Watson’s future plans? Couldn’t Watson otherwise just – I don’t know – plan them? And how the heck can Holmes predict future events involving actions of various people in detail and with an exact timing?

What happened with TD12, the memory-altering drug; weren’t they actually going to use this plot device? 

How can Watson assault Holmes, beat him to a pulp, be captured by the hospital staff, but then it’s suddenly said that Holmes has made a mess of himself? 

How can DI Lestrade know about Holmes shooting the blackmailer in HLV, when that was supposed to be highly classified information?

Sorry Mary, but I can’t see even the trace of an actual story or adventure here, since none of all these questions is answered satisfactory. And the characters are so distorted, compared to how we know them from before, that the plot line gets extremely confusing.

The Final Problem is presented as if it was the last episode of BBC Sherlock, but this is never actually confirmed by the writers.  As for the plot line, it’s so ridiculously convoluted, surrealistic and inconsequent that I simply refuse to call it a “story” at all; it’s much more similar to a nightmare.

When Holmes has learnt about Euros - his hitherto unknown sister - he sets up some sort of horror theatre with clowns, bleeding portraits and other tricks to scare his brother into telling him the truth.  

We learn that Sherlock Holmes’ brother Mycroft as a teenager took to incarcerate their mentally ill sister in Sherrinford - an isolated, top-secret fortress out in the sea. Their parents thought she was dead (never investigated?) and Holmes has, strangely, forgotten all about her. While Mycroft is telling Holmes and Watson this in 221B, a drone flies in with a patience grenade that will explode if anything in its surroundings moves. Holmes and Watson jump out of the second floor window as the apartment blows up, but we never see them land on the pavement below. Instead they suddenly appear - without a scratch - on a fishing boat heading for Sherrinford. They highjack the boat, claiming they are pirates and, together with Mycroft, sneak into the fortress in disguises.

Pretty soon it gets clear that the dangerously intelligent Euros has taken over the fortress and manipulates people into doing her bidding. The persons Holmes and Watson have met as “Faith”, “E” and John’s new therapist are all one and the same person; Euros in disguise. Euros starts to perform a series of cruel experiments on Watson and the Holmes brothers. First she tries to force one of them to kill the governor of Sherrinford, threatening to kill his wife otherwise. When none of them can do this, the governor shoots himself, and then Euros kills his wife anyway. Next she shows them three men, bound and dangling from a cliff. She forces Sherlock to figure out who of them is guilty of murder, but when he obeys she kills all three. In the next experiment Euros has Sherlock phone Molly Hooper and make her say “I love you” to him – otherwise her flat will be blown up.  But Molly doesn’t know this, and before declaring to Sherlock, she makes him say the same thing to her. Sherlock thinks he has won this one, but Euros claims that he has only managed to hurt Molly (who is in unrequited love with Sherlock).

All the time at Sherrinford, Holmes has somehow been in voice contact with a frightened little girl who is on-board a jet plane in the air, full of sleeping adults (including the pilot). He tries to get information from this girl, but their communication is constantly interrupted by Euros.

In the fourth experiment Sherlock has to choose between killing either Watson or Mycroft. Instead he chooses to shoot himself, but Euros stops him with a tranquilizer arrow. He sinks into a black liquid and wakes up in a room, which turns out to be a wooden box with walls that fall apart, and he ends up outside his old family manor. He can somehow hear Watson, who is chained at the bottom of a well, telling him that the water is rising. At the same time Euros’ voice presents the fifth experiment: he has to solve a puzzle to save Watson from the well. Once he manages it, he finds Euros in a room of the old house; it turns out she was the little girl on the plane (and now there is no plane anymore). Sherlock hugs her and tells her it’s all right, and then he finds Watson and rescues him with a rope (which is strange considering the chains). The police come and take Euros back to Sherrinford, where she stops communicating with people, except Sherlock, who plays violin in duet with her when visiting.

The series ends with 221B being rebuilt, Holmes and Watson solving cases (which we aren’t privy to) and a strange voice-over from Watson’s wife, who has sent a posthumous message to them on a DVD (see the beginning of this monster-post).

While these events in TFP are technically crimes, I wouldn’t call them ‘detective stories’ or ‘adventures’ because a) No actual motive is presented for any of the cases other than that Euros ‘wanted to play’; her actions are completely illogical, and b) They are too surrealistic to be even plausible in real life and c) There are no satisfactory solutions to the ‘crime cases’, except for the last one.

I can’t for the life of me believe that the twisted fairy tales of S4 are meant to be some sort of detective stories. If I try to take Series 4 at face value, I can’t find any kind of narrative quality that even resembles ACD’s legendary Sherlock Holmes adventures. So what is ‘Mary’ actually talking about?  What stories?? 

The impression I do get is that in Series 4 the authors are trying very hard to tell us something through subtext. The only way I can make sense of it is interpreting it as something very different than a story; Sentiment, dream logics and a continuation of Sherlock’s drug-induced imaginations in TAB.

#bbc sherlock vs canon #emp theory #sherlock series 4 #sherlock meta #Sherlock #s4 is fake #s4 doesn't make sense

[insanereddragon]

No but imagine Harry and Merlin both working at Kingsman but not having met yet, and surely there is a pool table at the manor, and them taking a break at the same time and getting in a kind of friendly competition filled with UST

Dearest @elletromil,

You sent me this prompt way back in October, and you probably thought it got lost in the tumblr ether. Well, it didn’t. I immediately knew what I wanted to write for this, but I wanted to take the time to do it properly, and make it something special. I know you’ve seen my posts and indulged my vague mutterings about my super secret gift fic - this is it. It was so hard not to spill the beans, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you had figured out that the fic might be for you, but I hope the content remained a surprise.

I have tentative plans for a second fic, and perhaps more as a series of UST filled moments between these two. But I make no guarantees XD

Absolute happiest of birthday’s, my darling Elle. I hope that this was worth the wait.

***

Author’s Notes

Can I start by saying it is very nerve wracking when the person that you go to most for fic advice is the very same person that you’re secretly writing for. Phew!

This prompt is based on this picture by @wenquanzhu.

In this fic, Merlin is brand new to the organization and is just a tech. His name is Alistair. Any references to Merlin refer to the previous Merlin.

Also, to clarify, they are playing what is referred to as blackball - a british version of standard American 8-ball, where instead of solids and stripes the balls are red and yellow (or blue and yellow).

Thank you to @deepdarkwaters for the headcanon that Harry and Merlin communicate secretly with Morse code. As well, big thanks to @sheepunderthemountain and @notbrogues for the encouragement and ideas when I was bogged down by my self doubt.

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A Gentleman’s Stroke

stroke: /strōk/

The motion of the cue stick and the player’s arm on a shot;

The strength, fluidity and finesse of a player’s shooting technique; “she has a good stroke.”

A combination of finesse, good judgement, accuracy and confidence. 

He’s been in this room dozens of times since his introduction to Kingsman two years ago. First as a candidate learning advanced skills for billiards, and later as a knight, playing friendly (and perhaps not so friendly, on occasion) games of pool with the other knights and staff. He’s met, played, and generally beaten what he thought to be all the other interested pool players at HQ. But today is the first time he’s seen the man currently at the far table who appears to be crushing Tristan.

There are several other people in the room; a pair playing at the other table, and the rest watching Tristan’s game unfold. Harry slips just inside the arched doorway and tucks his hands loosely in his trouser pockets. From the looks on the other faces, this is not the first time the new man has beaten the knight today.

As Harry watches, Tristan leans over and takes his shot. The cue ball bounces off the side and rolls straight into the pocket.

“Bloody hell!” Tristan stands up and scrubs his hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. “It seems fairly obvious I don’t stand a chance now. Well come on then, Alistair. Finish it.”

The man, Alistair, stands up straight from the bookshelf he was leaning against. He surveys the table as he steps around it, until he finds the angle he’s looking for and leans over to line up the shot.

As Alistair studies the table, Harry studies him. He’s young, maybe a few years younger than himself, but he has an air about him that Harry hasn’t encountered often. Least of all from men his age. The others in the room already seem to have some level of respect for the man. He wonders what he does in the mansion when he’s not beating knights at billiards.

Surprisingly, Alistair’s bald. An unusual choice considering the kind of men that walk the halls of Kingsman - rich, snobby, and with entirely too much vanity. But it works for him, somehow accenting his suit which has been tailored perfectly, like they are for all members of Kingsman (albeit only the Knights get ones that are bullet proof). The grey trousers and blue waistcoat hug his frame, and as he takes his shot Harry is given a splendid view of his arse.

The cue ball hits one of the blue balls, which in turn taps another. Both balls roll around either side of the yellow ball blocking them and then continue leisurely into separate pockets. Quick and efficient, Alistair rounds the table and takes the final shot. As the 8-ball rolls into the pocket, a light wave of applause comes from the rest of the room. All around, it was an elegant set of shots and Harry can’t help but be impressed. He finds himself clapping along.

Tristan holds his hand over the table, and Alistair reaches out to take it. As he does, his cuff rides high on his long arm, and Harry takes note of the blue and green ink now visible on his forearm. Before he can get a clear look at the tattoo, the men pull their hands back and Alistair tugs his cuff back into place. It’s another intriguing aspect of this new man, and Harry’s curiosity insists he find out more about him.

Harry stands to the side as the room starts to clear out. One of the techs claps Tristan on the back and they wander out of the room in the direction of his office, Tristan looking put out but chuckling ruefully. Harry waits a moment, watching Alistair slip on his jacket and start pulling balls from their pockets to be racked. When the room is nearly empty, with only a couple of support staff left deep in conversation, Harry straightens his jacket and approaches.

He stops at the edge of the table, hip cocked to rest against the side. “You’re new.”

Alistair looks up from where he’s set a ball and quirks his eyebrow. “The handlers warned me that some of the knights were prone to stating the obvious, but I hadn’t expected to be accosted with it so soon. Aye, I’m new. I only started yesterday.”

“And already you’ve managed to humble Tristan. Although that admittedly doesn’t take much effort.” Alistair chuckles and the sound is warm and rich. Harry smiles widely in return. Reaching his hand out across the table, he continues. “Harry Hart, otherwise known as Galahad.”

“Alistair Grey.” Alistair takes Harry’s hand into a firm shake. His hand is warm and soft, Harry notes, and his long fingers brush against his wrist when they pull away. Harry wonders what those fingers would feel like elsewhere.

“How did you know I was a knight?”

“Ye aren’t the only one around here with keen observational skills.” He gives Harry an exaggerated once over, making a point of cocking his head and inspecting every inch. Harry barely suppresses a shiver as he does. “The tailors do a splendid job of hiding the gun and holster. I’d never know it was there. But to someone recruited for their aptitude with technology, yer accessories were a dead giveaway.”

Alistair steps around the table and closer to Harry. He tilts his head in question, and Harry stands up straight and spreads his arms, palms out, curious. Alistair is just a fraction too close for propriety as he starts pointing and listing the hidden tech that Harry is currently wearing.

“Glasses. Watch. Shoes.” He steps closer still to nudge the toe of Harry’s oxford with his own. Harry gets a faint whiff of his cologne and it ignites a heat low in his gut. “Signet ring and cufflinks were dead giveaways.”

When he steps back, there’s a challenge in Alistair’s expression, and Harry thinks that it suits him. Harry’s never been one to back down from a challenge, so he returns the look with one of his own as he carefully unbuttons his jacket. Alistair arches his eyebrow and his eyes grow dark as he leans back against the table and watches Harry. He removes his jacket and drapes it carefully over a nearby chair before turning to Alistair with his thumb tucked into the pocket of his waistcoat.

“I’m afraid you missed one. Granted, Merlin has only recently decided to tinker with the design. A sturdy belt has a multitude of uses, even before the techs get a hold of it.” His finger taps out WANT TO SEE in Morse code against the leather at his waist as he talks.

Alistair responds by tapping SHAMELESS on the polished mahogany where his hand rests and Harry laughs in surprise. “I’ll have to have a chat with Merlin then. I’m sure I’ve got a few ideas they haven’t thought to try yet,” Alistair says.

Harry smirks and makes the decision to get this man into his bed. He briefly considers asking Alistair if he’d care to join him at home this evening, but decides against it. He’s particularly fond of the chase and he doesn’t need to be a spy to tell that Alistair feels the same.

“You seem to have a very high opinion of your skills.” As Harry speaks, he moves over to lean his hip against the table, a scant few millimeters from where Alistair’s fingers lay.

“Modesty only slows things down. But that doesn’t mean ye’ll hear me showboating either. An accurate picture of my skills is much more efficient for everyone.” Alistair looks at Harry from the corner of his eye. “Not exactly the gentlemanly behaviour I’ve heard pervades the table, but ye’ll be thankful I didn’t spend my time kissing arse when my tech saves yers in the field.”

“Well, I’ll have to take your word for it, at least when it comes to your job. But those aren’t the only skills to which I was referring.” Harry leans around him, his shoulder brushing against Alistair’s chest as he reaches for the cue that lays across the table. His skin tingles under his shirt where it touches Alistair. Harry wishes for the first time that a Kingsman didn’t wear so many layers.

When he straightens, he looks at Alistair’s face and smiles at the faint flush he sees there. “Care to join me for a game? I think you’ll find I’m not as easy as Tristan is.”

Harry tracks Alistair’s tongue as he wets his lips. “Why not,” Alistair says. “Perhaps ye’ll appreciate my skills better if ye experience them first hand.”

He doesn’t break eye contact as Alistair carefully removes his jacket. But when Alistair turns to lay it on top of Harry’s, he takes in the wide expanse of Alistair’s shoulders and his never ending arms. Harry has always had something of a fixation with the male back. The way the muscles move and flex just underneath the skin when he’s fully sheathed inside them. Hips rocking slowly and hands gripping tightly. He wonders what Alistair’s back would look like under the same treatment.

As Alistair goes back to racking the balls, his sleeve slides up his arm and Harry catches another glimpse of the green and blue tendrils that curl around his forearm. This time he gets a better look and he recognizes the edge of a feather. It compliments his waistcoat and the balls on the table. Harry thinks that shade of blue is quickly becoming his favourite color.

“Wait.”

Alistair stops and looks up from the table. His hand is resting on one of the yellow balls, and Harry reaches out to take it. He slips it from under Alistair’s hand and feels a crackle of electricity where their fingers touch.

“I’m assuming you’d prefer to play blue.” Alistair nods. “Then if you’re amenable, I’d like to play red.” Harry walks around the side of the table to the cabinet where the spare balls are stored and trades the yellow ball in his hand for a red one.

Alistair pointedly looks at the vibrant red of Harry’s waistcoat and arches his eyebrow. “Careful, Galahad, yer vanity’s showing,” Alistair retorts. He taps out PEACOCK against the felt and Harry makes a put upon face that is ruined by the appreciative glint in his eye.

They don’t speak again, quickly replacing and racking the balls. It’s not a complicated task, but they still complete it with an ease that feels practiced. Alistair passes yellow balls to Harry two at a time; Harry takes them in one hand and replaces them with red ones from his other. Their fingers brush more often than not, and Harry is getting used to how Alistair’s skin feels under his fingertips.

When the table is set, Alistair nods at Harry and picks up his cue. “Ye can break if ye like.”

Without preamble, Harry leans over and lines up his shot. He knows the sight he makes, his trousers making his legs look longer, his waistcoat riding up ever so slightly to draw the eye to the thin fabric covering the small of his back. He takes a moment longer than he needs to before he hits the cue ball, enjoying the heat of Alistair’s stare from where he looks on.

The clack of balls as they hit each other is loud in the otherwise silent room. The stragglers from earlier have gone, and Harry is loath to admit he doesn’t know when, Alistair enough of a distraction to have him stop paying attention to the others in the room. They are the only ones left and it seems to intensify the growing electricity between them.

The balls roll to a stop and Harry straightens. He points with his cue to the side pocket, where he’s potted one of the red balls. “Red then,” he says with a smirk. He eyes the table and begins to talk as he considers his next shot.

“So how is it you were recruited into our ranks?” Harry asks. His shot bounces off the side and taps one of the red balls gently. It would have been easy to sink, but it’s more interesting to draw out the game and see exactly what Alistair chooses to do.

Alistair stares at the table and considers Harry’s shot. “I was four years in with the Royal Marines - combat intelligence, information systems, part of the Information Exploitation Group - working to improve their comms, when I heard GCHQ was asking around about me. Apparently Kingsman heard about it too, and decided to approach me first.”

He makes a decision and circles the table, leaning over for his shot. Harry’s gaze is drawn to the sharp angles of Alistair’s face. The light over the table casts shadows around his eyes, and Harry wants the intense gaze he’s giving the table to be turned on himself. He’d bet money that as a lover in his bed, Alistair would put him under the same scrutiny and handle him with the same precision, and Harry feels his interest grow.

“Merlin approached me personally with a whole speech about spies and gadgets. I take it that works on most of ye.” The balls clack around the table as Alistair takes the shot, a blue one falling into the side pocket, and Harry hums his agreement.

“Of course. Well, I told Merlin I needed a week to decide and then went to GCHQ to see what they were willing to counter offer. When Merlin found out, he wasn’t too pleased at the idea they might find a better way to woo me. He and the Director had something of a pissing contest. It’s clear who came out on top of that one.”

Alistair sinks another ball and then makes a shot that leaves Harry’s balls all strategically blocked. He stands up straight and sets the butt of his cue to rest against the floor. “Yer shot, Galahad.”

Harry looks at Alistair with a newfound appreciation. “You’ve surprised me. I wasn’t expecting a Marine.”

He considers the muscles that must be hidden underneath Alistair’s shirt. Before he can think better of it, Harry presses his hand to the small of Alistair’s back as he slowly rounds the table to get to the cue ball. He feels the quick tensing and relaxing of the muscles under his fingers as Alistair presses back into Harry’s hand like a cat. The heat lingers on his skin when he pulls his hand away.

Alistair clears his throat before he continues. “Aye, understandable. The techs I’ve met so far have come from strictly academic backgrounds. It’s about time they recruited someone that can keep up with the rest of ye lot.”

Harry takes his shot, curving around Alistair’s ball to pot his in the corner. “Then perhaps next time you’d be interested in matching our skills on the sparring mats. One of my specialties is close quarters, and I assure you, others have found my hands hard to keep up with.”

He leans over the table and lines up his shot, and looks up to Alistair as his cue slides through his fingers on the follow-through. Alistair’s eyes are dark, and Harry watches the line of his throat as he swallows and nods his head.

Standing up, Harry smiles hungrily before looking down at the table. It takes him a moment before he realizes that he has utterly missed his shot, and instead has scratched the ball. He lets out a self depreciating laugh, but isn’t sure he can be too upset with himself when he catches Alistair discretely adjusting himself in his trousers.

The rest of the game passes in something of a blur. They don’t speak again, but the air is thick with the electricity between them. Harry feels it zing through his body every time their hands or shoulders brush against each other. At one point Alistair bends down to pick up some fallen chalk and Harry has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise at the sight of Alistair’s trousers pulled tight to his arse.

It is by far one of the worst games Harry has ever played, but the same must be the case for Alistair because he doesn’t just take the win. Somehow it feels like it lasts for hours and yet is over far too quickly.

Harry watches with some regret as Alistair sinks the 8-ball. As the cue ball comes to a stop, Harry looks across the table. There is a faint flush running down Alistair’s throat, and at some point during the game he’d hastily rolled up his sleeves. Harry’s gaze lingers on his forearms and the swirling peacock tattoo.

“Well, I know when I’ve been bested,” Harry says, forcing his eyes to meet Alistair’s. “Your confidence in your skills, at least billiards, seems to be well placed. But I still reserve the right to assess the others first hand.”

He sets his cue down and walks around the table, hand extended. When Alistair takes it, Harry doesn’t hesitate to step closer and bring up his other hand to cradle his arm. He looks down as he runs his thumb along the lines of the feathers.

“And you called me a peacock,” Harry says quietly.

“Aye, I think ye are. But maybe I have an appreciation for them.”

Harry can’t help but smile at the implication. “I was serious earlier, about sparring with you. Maybe then you’ll have something else to appreciate.”

Harry lets his desire color his expression as he locks eyes with Alistair. He lets go of Alistair’s hand and moves his own to rest on top of the tattoo. With great care he taps out INTERESTED against the eye of one of the feathers.

Alistair grips Harry’s arm and leans close to whisper against the shell of Harry’s ear. “Desperately.”

Harry doesn’t bother suppressing his shudder at the word.

He’s just turning his head to close the space between their lips, the chase be damned, when Alistair suddenly straightens and takes a step back. Harry’s confused at first, until he sees Alistair reach up to tap the side of his glasses.

“Aye, Merlin?”

Harry turns away in an attempt to give the man some privacy and heads over to the chair where his jacket is lying. He tries not to think too hard about the arousal churning low in his gut and how he’s going to have to wait until he’s safely back home this evening to do anything about it. He considers briefly utilizing his office for a bit of relief, but dismisses the idea. He’s not a teenager anymore, certainly he can wait a few more hours.

Harry has his jacket on and put himself back to sorts when he hears Alistair come up behind him.

“I’m afraid I’m needed back in the lab. Can I take you up on that challenge another day?” The words are said so close to him, Harry can feel Alistair’s breath on his neck.

“Of course.” Harry grabs Alistair’s jacket and turns around to offer it to the man. When their fingers brush, Harry takes hold of his hand under the jacket. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Alistair. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Alistair looks like he is going to say something more, but instead taps SOON against Harry’s palm before taking his jacket and stepping back. “Galahad,” he says, voice low and rough and promising, then walks away.

Harry cock twitches and he decides he’s going to take an early day.

(Alistair’s tattoo)

(Yes, I know that you don’t normally wear a belt with a tailored suit - you’d wear braces/suspenders. But the Knights definitely don’t, presumably because of their holsters. So forgive my inaccuracies for the sake of a good story XD)

#elletromil #kingsman #harry hart #merlin #merlahad #prompt fill #my fic #writing #A Gentlemans Stroke

[swipestream]

Android Shadow of the Beanstalk Review

I grew up in the 80s, but I was a latecomer to cyberpunk. I loved Blade Runner, and read a few Philip K. Dick short stories, because at one point in the 80s I think 98% of all movies were adapted from one of his stories (this figure may be slightly exaggerated). But I didn’t read Gibson’s Neuromancer, and I never got into the crop of cyberpunk RPGs that I saw popping up in Dragon Magazine over the years. Shadowrun was that game that my friends learned without me when they went off to college.

In fact, what finally got me into cyberpunk was reading collections of Transmetropolitan in my late 20s. When I later picked up on a few more of the staples of cyberpunk, what struck me about Transmetropolitan was that it could be very cynical and grim about its world, and yet have some glimmers of hope in the stories. Life could be terrible and strange, but it could also still be strange and wonderful.

Having set the parameters of my primary interface into the subsystem of science fiction indexed as cyberpunk, let’s plug into the specific coordinates of my vector for this review run, the Fantasy Flight Genesys supplement Shadow of the Beanstalk, a sourcebook for playing in their Android setting.

How Much Chrome Does It Have?

This review is based on both the PDF of the product as well as the hardcover. The product is 258 pages long, with a two-page index in the back. Both formats are in full color, and there are full page pieces of art introducing each chapter, as well as several half-page images, maps, and illustrations of gear throughout the book. Like other Fantasy Flight products, the artwork is high quality, and many of the images may be familiar, as they appear in multiple product lines associated with the Android IP.

Most of the pages are shades of blue, with darker “file folder” sidebars to call out special information. A few sections, such as the section on the net, have a different color scheme, with the net pages appearing almost black, and the adversaries’ chapter being largely in golds and orange.

Introduction

The introduction sets the stage for what this book is, what it details, and what else you will need for a campaign. As a supplement to the Genesys RPG, this product is assuming you will have a copy of both the core rules and at least a set of the narrative dice that Genesys utilizes (experience tells me that you may need more than one set).

Fairly early into the introduction, the book suggests that for a more detailed look at the setting, you may want to pick up a copy of the Worlds of Android art and setting book. This immediately made me wonder how “table ready” this book was going to be, but we’ll revisit that later.

The rest of the introduction outlines the core concepts of the setting. Some of this information is delivered as online articles complete with digressions from a character that is currently hacking into the site. The actual date is never mentioned, but the setting revolves around New Angeles, a mega-city in Ecuador dominated by multi-national corporations, and home to a massive space elevator that provides access to the lunar colony of Heinlein and allows for shipping to Mars.

Why is the setting called the Android setting? One of the defining aspects of future society is the invention of androids. Androids are a term used for competing technologies, fully synthetic mechanical constructs called bioroids, and genetically engineered, purpose-built clones, neither of which have full rights as citizens.

While the setting clearly has cyberpunk elements, including multi-national corporations and a world-spanning computer network, the wars, colonies on Mars and the moon, and social issues like clone and bioroid rights also remind me of science fiction stories like The Expanse series of novels.

Chapter 1: Character Creation

Character creation unfolds in a manner similar to the process outlined in the Genesys core rules, but this section addresses changes in the process. The main points of divergence are the setting specific archetypes, careers, skills, and talents, and the introduction of factions and favors.

Factions are important for the favor economy because they will determine who you owe, and who owes you. Favors are divided between small, regular, and big favors, and you can owe bigger favors to get more resources at character creation. It’s not entirely unlike Obligation in FFG’s Star Wars Edge of the Empire, except the discreet favors and their size are tracked, rather than creating an obligation score that can be triggered.

Archetypes include the following character types:

Natural (unenhanced humans)

Bioroid (synthetic constructs)

Clone (purpose-built biologicals)

Cyborg (mechanically enhanced humans)

G-Mods (genetically enhanced humans)

Loonies (humans native to the lunar colonies)

The careers specifically detailed in this book include the following:

Academic

Bounty Hunter

Con Artist

Courier

Investigator

Ristie (rich heirs to the corporate elites)

Roughneck (blue collar space workers)

Runner (people that stick their brains into computers for fun and profit)

Soldier

Tech

Since Edge of the Empire is my favorite expression of FFG’s Star Wars RPGs, I’m not surprised that I really like the concept of favors and the rules surrounding them. I did find it a little ironic that the rules note that you can reskin the Animal Companion talent from the core Genesys book to account for drones, but the rules also subdivide the core Genesys computer skill into Hacking and Sysops. While I realize that in the real-world computer skills are definitely more granular than a single skill, I’m not convinced that they need to be broken out for an RPG. There are a few more details on what each skill gets used for later on in the book.

Chapter 2: Equipment and Vehicles

This section has a few more details on the favor economy but also details a slew of cyberpunk style equipment for the player characters to interact with. This chapter is also the home of the single most 90s piece of equipment I’ve ever seen, the charged crystal katana. Most of the weapons skew more towards monofilament blades, flechette guns, mass drivers, and masers.

There is a section that details various substances that may have addictive properties. There is a sidebar that discusses treating this topic with care, and being mindful both of real-world issues and any concerns players may have at the table, and I appreciated that inclusion.

Because this is a Genesys game, various pieces of equipment have hardpoints that allow for equipment to be customized in various ways. If you are familiar with cybernetics from the Star Wars RPGs, one way that cybernetics differ in this setting is that strain threshold is very important to their installation and operation. Augmentations lower strain threshold, limiting the number a character can have. Additionally, various special effects are triggered by spending strain.

The good news is that Shadow of the Beanstalk avoids old school concepts like “humanity” or “essence,” and doesn’t imply that enhanced people lose hold of their humanity with too many augments. There is just a limit to how many major augmentations a character can reasonably utilize. Unfortunately, there are still a few lines of text that imply having an altered emotional state is “creepy,” and the tone feels overly harsh and judgmental.

Chapter 3: The Network 

Since a large portion of the setting is based on cyberpunk vibes, we have a chapter on The Network, and what it looks like to hack into various systems. This chapter gives a history of the global Network, as well as details on evocative things like God Code (programs that spontaneously write themselves in the Network), “ghosts” of runners that lost themselves while submerged in the Network, and religions that have arisen from these quirks of the virtual world.

There are also rules for hacking. This is not shocking for a cyberpunk setting. While they are a little more involved than I would like, a big benefit of how the rules work is that everything is framed in a manner similar to other aspects of the rules. ICE programs have a program strength that operates in a similar manner to character health. Icebreaker programs work in a manner similar to weapons in the “real world.” Remember earlier in the book where they split the computer skills up? If you are intruding on a system, you are using hacking. If you are defending against intruders or acting against someone entering a computer that you are “supposed” to have access to, you use sysops.

What I really appreciate is that there is a simplified version of hacking included in this chapter as well, which the GM is encouraged to use in situations where a more involved run would be cumbersome, which still gives benefits for having icebreakers and ICE installed.

Chapter 4: New Angeles and Heinlein

This section goes into more detail on the setting. While it briefly mentions a few areas outside of New Angeles, the Beanstalk, and Heinlein (the lunar colony of New Angeles), the main focus is on those core areas of the setting.

Each of the main districts of New Angeles is detailed, and each of them is essentially a small city in its own right. The various districts have information on the undercity, plaza, and penthouse levels of the area, and most of them follow a format of presenting general information, then providing a specific example location, and NPCs native to those locations, rather than giving exhaustive details on every major business and location.

In addition to the city districts on Earth, there are sections on Midway Station (the space station halfway up the space elevator that dominates the city), the Challenger Planetoid (a rock towed into geosynchronous orbit to facilitate the shuttles launched from the elevator), and Heinlein, the lunar colony that provides Earth with He-3 from its mines.

Despite mentioning the additional details in the Worlds of Android setting book, there are plenty of setting details in this chapter, with a ton of adventure hooks. There should be more than enough for multiple campaigns worth of material in what has been provided.

While I really like these details, I would much rather have a few more out of setting sidebars discussing potential issues with introducing topics like war, labor disputes, and slave labor that is a constant part of the setting with bioroids, clones, and even AI. Players may even be playing characters that don’t have full rights as people, or characters that are marginalized as being on the losing side of a war, so a little more discussion on safety would have been appreciated.

Chapter 5: Adversaries

The adversaries chapter gives a whole range of stats for security guards, drones, cyborgs, gang members, animals, and criminals that PCs might run into in the course of a game. These are organized in the standard Genesys groupings of minions, rivals, and nemeses, meaning that the NPCs work better in large groups, are fairly similar to PCs, or are more formidable than any single PC, in broad terms.

By far, the best entry is the teacup giraffe. Not because it’s a fearsome beast, and not just because it’s adorable. The Too Cute and Way Too Cute abilities are just too good not to enjoy.

Chapter 6: The Game Master

The Game Master chapter opens by explaining the mindset of people that live in the setting, and how that mindset changes based on the character’s position in society. It also includes advice on descriptions, the importance of social encounters and capitulation, referring to the social encounter rules in the core Genesys rules. It then wraps up with the Android Adventure Builder, a section that has several base jobs, escalations, and climaxes. While the hooks have a fairly linear outline, the escalations and climaxes can be mixed and matched with different hooks to create different adventure progressions.

I normally like a setting book to have a sample adventure, but in this case, I think the Adventure Builder is a solid toolkit for outlining what adventures should look like in the setting, with enough flexibility that it can be used multiple times. What I do think was lacking in this section was a discussion on how groups get together. Most of the hooks broadly assume PCs that are sort of outlaws, maybe mercenaries, but I would have loved to have had a few group templates to give examples of how the disparate archetypes might come to work together.

There is also some discussion on how there isn’t much discrimination based on nationality or ethnicity in the setting, with the exploration of similar topics being focused on android and clone rights, and societal stress between loonies and humans on Earth. That said, there are definitely some nationality-based stereotypes that echo in the setting, including Russian, German, and Japanese companies and neighborhoods that both feel a little too one dimensional in places, and belie the concept that only the manufactured prejudices are present in the setting.

There are a handful of paragraphs about creating micro-cultures in the setting, neighborhoods that are based on cultural backgrounds, religious affiliations, or other signifiers. There are examples of these in the setting chapter, and the book encourages players to use those as examples to make more, but three paragraphs of discussion feel really thin to fully convey the care you would have to use in creating a micro-culture based on any existing modern-day signifiers. I feel like this section would have been better served with advice on keeping these micro-cultures based on unique setting elements or exercising care and collaboration with those that understand the real-world foundations of such cultures.

Strong Signal

 While the setting draws heavily from cyberpunk tropes, it also draws broadly and allows for a wide variety of campaign styles. 

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While the setting draws heavily from cyberpunk tropes, it also draws broadly and allows for a wide variety of campaign styles. The setting information is concise enough for campaigns, but evocative enough to inspire further research. In general, rules for limiting cybernetics avoid some of the pitfalls of other cyberpunk games, and the mechanics for gaining benefits give similar items in this setting a different feel than, for example, cybernetics in the FFG Star Wars games. There is some very solid advice on structuring jobs in a manner appropriate to the genre, and while the opening scenarios are very specific, the twists to be introduced later are broadly applicable. This is a deep mine for campaign material.

ICE

The only real content warning in the entire book is about addiction, but the setting has many points that could cause safety concerns, including politics, religion, class, and national origins coming into conflict. The section on creating micro-cultures introduces the concept of creating a micro-culture and is especially thin and potentially fraught. While it is great that the setting is wide open for many kinds of stories, there isn’t much time spent examining how to bring together disparate character types, or examples of what different teams of player characters may look like, beyond assuming they will be criminals doing jobs, defaulting to one of the most common cyberpunk tropes.

Qualified Recommendation — A product with lots of positive aspects, but buyers may want to understand the context of the product and what it contains before moving it ahead of other purchases.

The setting really speaks to me. It manages to be grim and dystopian without being so cynical that it doesn’t allow for some feeling of hope. It leaves room for more heroic goals, instead of painting a life of endless jobs for the sake of survival. It does fall into the same pattern that many setting books fall into, presenting the setting without diverting enough to discuss how the various parts can be used at the table.

The GM advice is solid but could be fleshed out more, and for a cyberpunk setting, there isn’t nearly enough discussion on safety and the potential problems that could come up when introducing elements of the setting at the table. Because of that, anyone bringing this to the table should know that they will be doing the safety work on their own.

What are your favorite cyberpunk settings and games? What cyberpunk media informs your enjoyment of the genre? We would love to hear about it in the comments below!

Android Shadow of the Beanstalk Review published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[doctorwhonews]

The Pyramid at the End of the World

Latest Review: "Oh my God!" "No. I'm the Doctor, its an easy mistake to make - its the eyebrows."   Here we are. Part two of three, part one being last weeks Extremis - which I have to be honest with you dear reader - was an episode that I wasn't entirely blown away by. I rather thought it was too 'full on' Steven Moffat. The proof of this is that I always watch Who with my partner, we watch it time shifted, normally to around 9pm, on the evening of broadcast. He is a casual Who fan, in that he has seen (and enjoyed, for the most part) all of new Who at least once, but gleefully scoffs at the classics (there you are, now you know what I have to put up with). Halfway through last weeks episode I turned around and he was asleep. I nudged him, and he jumped up, muttered how rubbish he thought the episode was, and went to bed. I didn't mind too much, as I opened a bottle of wine, and popped Mawdryn Undead on as soon as Extremis ended....   Beware......there are plenty of spoilers below.   I'll refer to this weeks episode Pyramid, it saves on the amount of characters that you have to read, and I have to type. Pyramid immediately shows Extremis for what it essentially was, and that is a fifty minute trailer for the start of the main event. We begin with a recap on the previous episode, interlaced with scenes of Bill's REAL date with Penny. Bill is filling her in on the details of last week's simulation. They settle down in the kitchen and Bill jokes about the Pope making a sudden appearance, then boom - the door is broken down by soldiers, who march into Bill's kitchen, and are followed by the head of the UN, who is requesting an audience with the Doctor. Here we go again.... Pyramid is essentially a story about first contact, and it's handled quite realistically. A 5000 year old pyramid suddenly appears overnight in a territory that is flanked by the Chinese, Russian and the US army - now if that isn't a way to get an international audience, I don't know what is. The Doctor (or the President, as he is known in times go global crisis), is called upon to investigate - but of course he is still blind - but he has augmented his glasses so that he can see basic images, outlines - just enough to get him by. The Doctor edges towards the pyramid, while Nardole narrates the seen for him through the top toggle in his jacket....to an earpiece the Doctor is wearing. The Monks are in the pyramid, and they want to make a pact with the people of Earth that will save the planet. There is a truly global disaster looming, and the Monks can stop it, but we, the human race have to ask the Monks for help. The Doctor is of course suspicious of the Monks motives, and does something rather out of character. He instructs the UN that they should show a force of strength. Attack the pyramid with all that they can throw at it. Sadly the attack is a complete failure. As these events unfold, there is another story being quietly told in the background. We find ourselves with two people who are working at an agricultural research centre. One has broken her glasses, and the other is incredibly hung over. The sub-story is cleverly introduced, it feels out of place at first, but all the while it is drip feeding the viewer information vital to the story until the two plots converge. It really is a joy to witness the cleverness of this writing.  The end of the episode is very tense, with the Doctor trapped in the agriculture research lab with a hastily put together bomb. He is trapped on the inside of the lab. There is a simple combination coded lock that would release the door, but his glasses can't pick up the detail of the numbers. The episode ends with Bill making a pact, and the Doctor gaining his sight back. But theres not a Missy to be found anywhere.... Peter Harness (Kill the Moon, Zygon Invaision/ Zygon Inversion)wrote this episode with Steven Moffat, and that is probably a very good thing, as it seemed instantly more accessible for the not so avid fan. There is a lighter touch to a lot of scenes. I particularly liked the Doctor being surprised, when exiting  the TARDIS to see that he was onboard the UN's version of Airforce One. He asks a soldier "How did you move her, the windows at the university aren't big enough?" The soldier responds with a sheepish "Ummmmm - well.....they are now....". Let's talk about the Monks. I'm not sure about you, but I think they could be the best new original villain since the Silence. I realise that the way they speak is actually nothing new, with their mouths hanging open and words tumbling out - but they are quite unsettling. But what is their motive? At the end of the episode they save the Doctor, the Monks restore his sight and save the world, well actually the Doctor saves the world with his bomb, but he would have surely have needed an early regeneration at the very least if he had stayed in the lab. Are the Monks truly malevolent though? When they stop the UN attack, it's done quickly and efficiently, and almost gently. I'm guessing that we will find out what their game plan is next week. Another very good plot point in this  episode is that it makes a great tool out of the Doomsday clock. About a third of the way through, every phone and clock on the planet is set to 11:57, this of course, on the Doomsday clock is three minutes to midnight, which is actually what the Doomsday clock is set at now to indicate the global threat level, 12:00 being Doomsday. Having all the clocks inch forward to 11:58, and then 11:59 is a brilliant plot device, and a great way of describing how big the threat is, and to ramp the tension up. Never before has Doctor Who communicated a threat so well, and so basically. I read today that this episode would be edited as a result of the horrendous events in Manchester, and yes I can see why. I suspect the preview copy that I saw was unedited, as the events on screen were sometimes quite close to the bone, and traumatic enough with out the terrible events of Monday night looming in our memories. The Pyramid at the End of the World is a cracking watch. The cast are all great, the story writing dialed back to just the right level, and the direction by Daniel Nettheim (last seen in charge of events in 2015's aforementioned Zygon two parter) is fast paced and to the point. Pyramid isn't the best of the season, but it definitely isn't the worst. If we have an upturn in quality from the previous episode like this again next week, Toby Whithouse's The Lie of the Land could well be a cracker. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2017/05/the_pyramid_at_the_end_of_the_world.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

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