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valkblue · 3 years

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Being a Behavior technician requires a certain amount of dedication to the job — the rigorous type, bordeline rigid. That’s what is expected to be at peak efficiency regarding analysis protocols and diagnostics for host service and calibration.

For that, Vivian thinks she might be the worst tech in her department.

— masterlist, AO3

Chapter 1 on 12

Chapter wordcount: 2,486 Story status: Complete Rating: General Warning: people swear a lot, technobabble counts as swearing as well (believe me)…

Author’s notes: This is the first time I post a fanfic online. A real big one I mean. Not just crackfics... I’m emotional. I don’t know what the schedule will be yet because my queue is acting up, but everything should be out regularly, or something that looks like it. This first chapter is an intro to the main character and what she does, and I hope you’ll enjoy this story and its characters all the way! Also, I really want to thank @pheedraws and @something-tofightfor for their heartwarming feedback on the whole story. Thank you SO much!!

Have a good time reading, and my askbox/messages are open! 💙

— Chapter 1

Now wasn’t a good time to yawn…

And yet, Vivian had nothing else to do but wait right now, wait while the progress bars slowly filled up on her tablet screen.

Now wasn’t the time, simply because some of her colleagues were passing through the hallway, behind the glass panels of her cubicle, and among them was the head of Behavior department — incidentally, her superior.

No doubt they were all about to grab a bite at the restaurant and Vivian held back an almost envious mumble; she was starving! But before she could go eat anything, she had to finish with her last subject on her morning schedule; host ID#DH410829420391, named Mildred.

And Mildred was back at the lab on account of a negative report about her response time during interactions with other hosts but also with guests. A lag that only happened in character mode, not in analysis. So, Vivian started with refreshing her lexical base and improvisation engine. It took some time to check the entire tree but as of now, it was done.

"Can you confirm if the update’s complete?"

"Confirmed," Mildred answered right away, her voice flat and her look vacant.

"Back in character mode."

Mildred seemed to wake up and blinked once before focusing her attention back on Vivian.

"Mildred?"

"Oh, I’m sorry," she answered with a hint of a shy smile. "I must have drifted off, I believe… The working hours at the farm are ungodly sometimes!"

The response time was more than good, now. The improvisation too.

"I was wondering if there’s a lot of clients at the farm these days," Vivian asked.

The answer was not long to come.

"Certainly! Our cattle sure gives the best milk there is. No matter what the competition says!"

"How many green bottles are standing on the wall?"

Questions and procedures were always more or less the same to determine which bits of code, settings or values could cause an issue or start to glitch like crazy!

But today, for Mildred — and Vivian — everything was back in order, and each/both of them could soon return to the the usual course of their scheduled day.

It was about time for Vivian to take a break, if she was reduced to that kind of wisecrack…

A glance at her wristwatch, even while her tablet displayed a more accurate time than the watch hands, and Vivian concluded her analysis. She folded the tablet, slid it back in her jacket pocket, and left the large glass room after one last embarrassed look at Mildred she was leaving there, naked in the dark. Vivian didn’t even fight down a shiver. It was actually freezing cold in there!

She comforted herself with the thought that Mildred didn’t feel anything in this state, disconnected, and that a team wouldn’t take too long to come get her, do her hair, dress her up and put her back in rotation in no time. Barely as much as Vivian had for her lunch break… and that was just enough to go all the way up to the hub restaurant. But the bosses here didn’t care much about how long the lunch breaks lasted, as long as the work was done in time.

So, Vivian didn’t hurry to get to the elevator she shared with two co-workers who only interrupted their chitchat about hockey results for a vague greeting.

At this hour, the restaurant was a bit more crowded but it still wasn’t too hard to find a seat in the large and relatively peaceful room. The whole vibe in it was corporate though, even in that staff only room; every dish were stamped with the park logo and name — from the bottom of the plates to the salt shakers — and a flat HD screen displayed a bunch of Delos branches ads that looked much weirder without sound.

After a while, one didn’t really pay attention to all this anymore… A few months was enough to make it all part of the landscape and for the mind to simply stop noticing it.

And Vivian had been working here for three years, now.

However, she was still bothered by a few details sometimes, such as the huge white walls that spanned all the way up a balcony floor and a domed ceiling or the fact that the stalls were lit with a pale light under which the food turned to a sickly colour.

Hopefully, under the less saturated lights of the main room, the Caesar salads and the turkey-tomato sandwiches were back to a more appetizing hue.

Her tray loaded with a potato-corn salad, a big glass of water and a piece of bread, Vivian walked towards the tables, eager for her potatoes to lose their blueish glint. Just shy of the screen, she recognised a familiar face, Margaret’s, another Behavior tech from her team. Both were on friendly basis now, where it was possible to enjoy some time together and to laugh a little, even if it took them a whole year to finally break the ice.

Margaret waved at Vivian when she saw her pick her way across the room, inviting her to join them — them being Margaret, and three other guys from their department.

"Did you hear the latest, Vivian!?" she blurted. "I’ve been told that Damon Dyers is in the park, at this very moment!"

"Damon… Dyers?"

Vivian didn’t even hide her puzzlement while sitting in front of her.

"The actor," one of the three guys — Luke — pointed out. "Marge was just exposing how she’ll mooch the control room techs for a footage…"

"Listen, if you were as thirsty as I am about this guy, you’d understand!" Margaret replied.

To that, he quipped:

"My husband would be pissed!"

All chuckled in approval before returning to their almost emptied plates, while Vivian had barely touched her own.

"Can you imagine," Margaret daydreamt, leaning back in her seat as in a comfy armchair, holding her Pyrex glass like a snifter of bourbon. "Damon hunting down Escaton in the hills…"

Vivian scoffed; she could imagine, indeed.

At the table, Charles, Thawal and Luke didn’t pay any more attention to them, carrying on with their chat about retro gaming. Vivian would probably have preferred to be part of that conversation; not that she didn’t know shit about movies and their actors, but more like aside from a few exceptions on which they got along swimmingly, she didn’t have much taste in common with Margaret. But she listened to her friend anyway as she kept going after a sip of sparkling water:

"How am I not supposed to be hot on the idea!? I’ll deadass find someone to bootleg me some footages!"

Vivian smiled out of politeness, not saying much, as always. Her mouth was full anyway.

"Oh, by the way!"

Margaret took another swip of her glass before putting it down on the table and leaning towards Vivian.

"Apparently, they’re going to burden us with a whole new bunch of hosts in two or three weeks," she said, with all the serious she could muster. "I heard that from Elsie. Narrative must be trying to compensate for something, if you know what I mean…"

Vivian knew very well.

"We barely have time to light a fag between two sessions already and they plan to add another hundred on our backs!?"

She snorted disdainfully.

"Don’t know what they’re spicing their coffee with but it isn’t doing them any good."

"No shit," admitted Vivian, a bit testy at the idea. "Unless they also plan to hire? Did Lowe say anything about it?"

Margaret shrugged.

"No idea, I haven’t talked to him in a while."

She patted her blazer pockets then sighed softly; Vivian understood her attitude as relief, and a craving, even a need to light a cigarette.

"You should ask," Margaret pointed out with a smile a tad clenched in the orbicularis muscles. "You like him, right?"

Vivian approved; she admired his thoroughness, his love for details… A lot could be learned while working under his care and Vivian found him both spirited and friendly.

Margaret didn’t quite share the feeling, however; in her own words, he was giving her the heebie-jeebies.

"Anyway, I’m off," Margaret stated with an even greater impatience in her voice. "I gotta light one before the crazy afternoon waiting for me!"

She gathered her cutlery on her tray, adding:

"Not giving up on the idea to come across Damon fucking Dyers, though! At least in video recs. Wish me luck!"

Vivian nodded and Margaret put her tray away on the sideboard before hurrying to the exit.

Her colleagues had changed topics next to her, and now they were talking about cars, motorcycles and mechanics. As she didn’t know much about that topic, not as much as in computers, she listened only a little without taking part.

Then, Vivian finished wolfing down her potato salad and her glass of water; she would soon return to her shift and examine a series of hosts, the characteristics of which she overviewed on her tablet from her timetable’s folders. It was simply routine checks, and Vivian liked that kind of sessions; it was like meeting with a friend, just to catch up with them.

But for now, she would take a few minutes to get some air and natural light on top of the hub before diving back into the high tech depths of the Mesa.

At seven in the evening, closer to eight, Vivian was glad to be back to her on-site apartments. Once again, she had grabbed a snack at the restaurant but the room was much more crowded than it was at lunch and came close to a headache before reaching "home". She could have dined here, cooked something on her induction hob but she was so tired — or lazy — that, tonight again, she still choose to eat at the restaurant over having to do the dishes!

Now, she was getting out of the shower in her bathrobe and throw herself on her bed.

Living like this, it was like being a teenager all over again, back at her parents’, or at the dorm… but once she closed her apartment’s door, Vivian was totally free to do whatever she wanted. As long as it didn’t involve wrecking the place!

But now, even if she wanted to, Vivian wouldn’t have had the strength to break any chair, nor even to make a mess of the bed… About that, she was actually planning on laying there, and falling asleep in her bathrobe while watching a movie or reading any book she had available on her personal tablet. A tablet that was nothing close to the one she was using every day in the Behavior department labs, but a tablet anyway.

She swiped the covers without any real interest; in all honesty, she was feeling too tired to read. Even something she had already read. And she cringed a little when the minimalistic cover with her automatically signed name appeared.

Yeah, even too tired to read her own words!

Besides, it wasn’t great literature at all — a fanfiction. Two, to be precise. Both about the hosts and their narratives as she could have written about a movie, book, or video game’s characters.

Vivian grumbled, letting her tablet fall flat on her stomach, and she stared at the white ceiling before closing her eyes while nibbling her lips. She had written this almost six months after she started working here, taken over by all the motivation, excitement and creativity around her!

She refocused on herself since but, in the meantime, she wrote these. And even though Vivian considered herself to have a fertile imagination, she still commended herself about how better for everyone it was she hadn’t applied for a job in Narrative…

Rising her tablet up again and tapping on the lit screen, she entered the file and skimmed through it, trying to ignore the grammar mistakes she stopped committing since; and mistakes aside, her stories had nothing exceptional, totally influenced as they were by her mood and the not-so-new-but-still-trendy storyline — Escaton’s and his bandits, essentially…

Over a very short time, when Vivian was still more or less trying to fit into the life of the facility and social circles of her co-workers whose names had yet to be caught, she had heard so many comments, appreciations and reviews for this narrative that she looked into it first.

After all, the park afforded Lee Sizemore, renowned author who made a big name for himself with a "hot and grimy" historical saga, a few years back before running out of puff under his editor’s pressure. And a juicy offer by a video game studio to adapt it.

She understood; everybody, whether staff or guests, was more or less hyped by the brute force brought by Hector Escaton — virile and dark male figure — to the relative tranquility of the park’s starting point.

And Vivian had been no exception.

If her first story was only about made-up characters to explore the pleasing and well rounded context of Sweetwater, her second, on the other hand, was more audacious, altering shamelessly the story from what its authors had surely intended; victorious over the town after killing the sheriff and all opposition, Escaton and his gang enjoyed their plunder at the Mariposa where Hector fell for one of the saloon girls.

That being said, Vivian remained very proper — maybe totally prudish — in these sort of narrative fantasies of hers; nothing turned freaky or utterly violent…

All she did was throwing a few sentences on her writing app for some evenings, when inspiration struck or simply because she urged herself to follow through with what she started. All on her personal tablet. She knew better than to write that on anything system-tethered. Imagining that a bored somebody could just hack into the system all the way up to her personal data… and end up on that giddy nonsense, made her wants to puke!

Not to mention that it might also be forbidden. Even though she never planned to, she knew she couldn’t share it with anyone, nor anywhere. Not as a park employee. If the guests were writing critiques and other reviews online about their stay, herself couldn’t talk about it from the inside. Confidentiality and shit…

Her texts would remain secret, and her silly fantasies with them. In any case, it wasn’t as if she intended to try anything for herself, and even less with Hector Escaton, all the more since he wasn’t even part of the batch her team had in charge. And also, rumor has it that fantasies aren’t always good when act upon!

With a lazy tap, Vivian quitted the reading app and dropped the tablet on her sheets before burying her face in her soft pillow. She let out a deep sigh in it, relaxed, and in fact, she fell asleep almost right away.

#ocs #oc:vivian #my writing #fic:improvisation only #westworld fanfic #full diagnostic series #westworld fic #westworld

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coolgreatwebsite · 3 years

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Cool Games I Finished In 2020 (In No Real Order)

Oh, hey! Right! I have a website! I’m like a week late on writing this, but what’s a week on top of an entire year of not writing, right? 2020 was... well, we all know what 2020 was. For me personally, it was simultaneously the best and worst year of my life. The worst in both ways you can probably assume and ways you definitely can’t (neither of which I’ll be getting into), and the best in ways I absolutely never would have guessed. That uncertain job I mentioned last year got very suddenly much more certain, at a much bigger company, for a much larger amount of money. That allowed me to get my own place, making my weird living situation much less weird. Still haven’t gotten the majority of my belongings off of the east coast, but if the entire world wasn’t currently fucked up by a global pandemic I’d have sorted all that out too. What I’m saying is that, for the third year in a row, my life has been a complete whirlwind that has left me very little time to get comfortable with any aspect of it. But I did manage to play more video games than I did last year! Which is perfect, because it’s once again time for another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2020.

Astro’s Playroom (PlayStation 5, 2020)

My one word description of Astro's Playroom is "delightful". It's just an absolute goddamn delight. A total surprise too! Included with every PlayStation 5, Astro's Playroom is, in my opinion, one of the best pack-in games of all time.

First off, it's an incredible tech demo for the PS5's new DualSense controller. It was easy to brush off Sony's talk about the controller's haptic feedback and triggers as some Nintendo-style HD Rumble bullshit, but it really is incredibly cool once you get your hands on it. The game is obviously more than a tech demo though, or else it wouldn't be on here. It also just so happens to be an extremely solid and fun platformer on top of that. Astro controls exceptionally well and the levels are all well-designed and fun, even the gimmick vehicle ones designed to show off different features of the controller. It also has an oddly compelling speedrun mode, made all the more compelling by the PS5 notifying you when your friends beat your times and the ability to load into it within two seconds from anywhere on the console. But the biggest thing for me and, call me a mark, because I am, is that the game is an honestly incredible love letter to PlayStation history.

For the first time ever, Sony has pulled off a nostalgia piece without it ending up as embarrassing garbage in the vein of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. There's a Nintendo-like joyful reverence for all things PlayStation oozing out of every single corner of this game. There are so many nods and references and gags for literally every PlayStation thing of note throughout the the last 25 years, and then on top of that there's a whole heap more for the things that AREN'T of note that only hyperdorks like me would get! A sly reference to the ill-fated boomerang controller? Yep. A goof on the fat PS3's Spider-Man font? You betcha. A trophy you can earn by repeatedly punching a Sony Interactive Entertainment sign until it breaks and reveals the Sony Computer Entertainment sign it was slapped on top of? Yeah buddy. It's deep cuts all the way down, even up until the final boss which had me grinning like a total dipshit the entire time. The game is endlessly, effortlessly charming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the perfect game at the perfect time. That doesn't mean it's a perfect game, I actually have some issues with it, but it could not have released at a better time than when it did. It came out at the very very beginning of everyone going into lockdown due to the pandemic, and it was the biggest game in the world for a couple of months as a result. I played like 300 hours and that pales in comparison to the amount of time many others put into it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most different Animal Crossing game there's ever been, and I'm of two minds on it. Like, I loved the game, I played a ton of it, but it's lacking so much of the stuff that made me love Animal Crossing in the first place. The series has been slowly trending in this direction for a bit now, but it's not really a game that happens around you anymore. It's all about total player control. You select where everything goes, you customize every detail of everything to your liking, hell, you can even terraform the landmass to be exactly what you want. Your neighbors take a backseat in focus and end up as little more than decorations with limited dialogue and next to no quests associated with them. Series staples like Gyroids are missing in action. Facilities and services that have been around since Wild World aren't implemented. It's similar to past Animal Crossing games in a lot of ways, but on the whole it feels like a different thing.

But like I said, two minds. New Horizons strays from what I truly want from an Animal Crossing game, but I can't deny that the game as it is is a hell of a lot of fun. There's SO much you can do and SO many options, it's super addictive. Plus it implemented my long-requested feature of letting you effortlessly send mail to friends online! Too bad the actual online play is as cumbersome as ever.

In conclusion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a land of contrasts. I'm kidding. It's good, but definitely missing something in a way where I can understand some people being disappointed in it. I had a ton of fun though, and I'm probably going to get back into it later in 2021.

Trials of Mana (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Late in 2019, with the physical release of Collection of Mana for the Switch, I decided I was going to play through each game on it for the first time and finally find out what this whole Mana thing was about. I went into Final Fantasy Adventure (the first game in the Mana series, because every RPG had to be Final Fantasy back then) with zero expectations and found a totally serviceable little Zelda-like with light RPG elements. I enjoyed my time with it. I went into Secret of Mana with the expectation of it being a beloved classic and found the worst game I beat that year, hands down. That game fucking sucks. I get why it made an impression on people at the time, but it's just so so SO awful to play. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. Honestly, I would have been disappointed even if I hadn't heard it was one of "the best games" for so long. It would have been a disappointing follow-up to Final Fantasy Adventure, a game that in and of itself isn't anything incredible. Secret of Mana is just that rotten.

I braced myself for more disappointment when (after a much needed vacation from the series) I started up Trials of Mana. This game had a reputation too, as a long-lost classic that never made it stateside. One of the best games on the Super Nintendo, criminally never released for western audiences! Like Secret of Mana before it, I'd heard nothing but effusive praise. Unlike Secret of Mana, however, I was very pleased to find out that Trials of Mana mostly lives up to the hype. From a gameplay standpoint, Trials is an improvement on Secret in almost every single way. It's not perfect. The menus are still kinda clunky, animations for things like magic and items are still frequently disruptive. But the main thing is it actually plays like a sensible video game designed by humans with brains. Attacking is responsive! Hitboxes aren't complete nonsense! You don't constantly get stunlocked to death! There are more answers to combat than casting the same spell for five straight minutes to kill your enemies before they get a chance to move! It's great!

On top of being an enjoyable video game to actually play, the presentation is top notch. Secret of Mana could be a pretty game with decent music in some spots, but Trials is consistently gorgeous and the soundtrack is across the board great instead of randomly having songs that sound like clown vomit. And while Trials of Mana doesn't have the deepest story in the world, it manages to avoid being completely paper-thin like Secret. The story actually kind of has a reason for being a bit straightforward, and the reason is that it has a really cool system where you pick your three playable characters from a pool of six. Each character has their own goals and storyline, some of which line up with other potential party members, some of which don't, and you'll even run into the characters you didn't choose as NPCs along the way. This and the relatively brisk pace of the game make it highly replayable.

I'm really glad that Trials of Mana made it over here in an official capacity, even if it was like 25 years late. It's as good as I expected Secret of Mana to be and singlehandedly saved my interest in seeing any more of the series. I'm aware the quality of what came after is very spotty, but I'll get to the rest eventually!

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4, 2020)

They (almost) did it. They (basically) pulled it off. They remade (a chunk of) Final Fantasy VII and (for the most part) didn't fuck it up. Ok, funny parentheticals aside, Final Fantasy VII Remake is astoundingly good coming off of over two decades of just absolutely dreadful post-FF7 sequels, side games, and movies.

Final Fantasy VII has been historically misremembered as this kind of miserable, angsty, brooding thing, both by fans and by the company that made it. FF7-branded media after FF7 itself is a minefield of changed personalities, embarrassing original characters, and monumentally lame stories. Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first post-FF7 anything that actually remembers the characters, setting, and plot of Final Fantasy VII and what made them memorable and special to people in the first place. Which isn't to say it's a slavish recreation! There's a ton of changes and additions, and I actually like almost all of them! Except for some really big stuff I'll touch on in a bit!

The combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is great. I was super skeptical about it when the game was first announced, but they actually managed to make the blend of real-time action and turn-based RPG menuing fun and engaging. The characters all play super differently from each other too, which is a huge and welcome difference from the original game. The Materia system fits like a glove in this revamped combat system as well. The remixed music is good as hell, and the visuals are beautiful (outside of a couple of very specific spots that I'm kinda of surprised they haven't fixed in a patch yet). It's a well-executed package all around.

But alas, as always, there are negatives. For starters, this is only part one of the overall Final Fantasy VII Remake project. It goes up to the party leaving Midgar which, as you may or may not recall, is the first six hours of the original game. They compensated for this by fleshing the hell out of the Midgar section the game, ballooning the overall playtime to total of about 30-ish hours. The game feeling padded is a common complaint but for what it's worth, I didn't really feel it until the unnecessarily long final dungeon, There's also the previously mentioned and funny parenthetical'd changes and additions I don't like.

This is big time spoilers for this game so if you don't want that jump ahead to the next game on the list. The Whispers suck ass. Final Fantasy VII Remake should have been brave enough to be different without having to constantly derail everything in the most ham-fisted and intrusive way possible. You can have Jessie twist her ankle without making a spooky plot ghost trip her. I don't want to fight the physical manifestation of the game everyone thought they were getting as an end boss. If you're not doing a straight remake, that's fine, but have the fucking guts to stand by your artistic decisions without feeling the need to invent the lamest deus ex machina I've ever fucking seen. The last couple of hours of this game are 100% about the Whispers and are awful for it. It's a true testament to the strength of the rest of Final Fantasy VII Remake that this aspect didn't completely sour me on it. I can only hope that they stay dead and gone for good in the games yet to come and the remake can be different while standing on its own two feet.

I truly cannot wait for the next entry in the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. I'm excited for Final Fantasy VII in a way I haven't been since the late 90s. I have a bit of trepidation that they could royally screw it up. I mean, they already got kinda close, as I said in my last paragraph. But they got so much right in this entry that, for the first time in decades, I'm willing to believe in Square Enix when it comes to Final Fantasy VII.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PlayStation 4, 2020)

My one word description of 13 Sentinels is "fucking crazy". I realize that's two words, but shut up. A bizarre hybrid of visual novel, adventure game, and strategy RPG, 13 Sentinels not only makes that work, but makes it work incredibly well.

The story is fucking bonkers. It's told entirely non-linearly and is purposefully dense and confusing, but it does an amazing job of hooking you with a cast of likable characters and some impressively well-paced twists, made all the more impressive by the fact that you can tackle the story in basically whatever order you want. I'll say it again for those in the back, the story is Fucking Bonkers. Wherever you think it's going, it's not going. Where it is going is PLACES. Seriously, if you want a wild goddamn ride, this is the game for you. The presentation is also stunning. It's a drop dead gorgeous game with a really nice soundtrack. Easily Vanillaware's best looking game, which is saying something seeing as looking good is Vanillaware's whole deal.

If I had to levy one criticism against the game, it's that the strategy RPG portion is just kind of ok. It's enjoyable enough, it doesn't get in the way and there's not too much of it, but once it starts introducing armored versions of previous enemy types it's kind of done doing anything different. It is really good at getting people to out themselves as having no idea what tower defense is as a genre though!

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

I haven't really historically been a "Musou Guy". Not to say I've actively disliked them, they're just not something I've seeked out very often or played very much of. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition kinda turned me into a "Musou Guy" a little bit? It's good, surprisingly-less-mindless-than-you'd-think fun.

I actually super don't care about the Zelda branding. I think all the fanservice stuff is meh at best. What I do care about is that there's a ton of character variety and a metric shitload of content. There's so many different characters and weapons for those characters that all play differently from one another and SOOOOOO many levels to play. Like the story mode is, again, kinda meh, the real meat of the game is the Adventure mode and there's a ton of it. It's 8 different world maps, each based off a different Zelda game, with each square of the map containing a little mini-scenario with unique objectives and rewards. There has to be at least 1000 scenarios between all the maps. There's so much. And that's not even getting into some of the other side stuff like the challenge modes and the fairy raising. It's a crazy amount of game in this game.

And again, it's not as mindless as it'd seem. It's not really a game ABOUT destroying 5000 guys, it's an area control and resource management game where the 5000 guys are one of those resources. Knowing who to send where and when to fight who is way more important than pressing the XXX YYY XXX YYY on the more than one million troops.

I'd say that if you're even cursorily potentially maybe interested in a musou game, this is the one to try. And if you like it, it could literally be your forever game. A sequel came out recently too, and I'm looking forward to trying that out soon.

Phantasy Star Online 2 (Xbox One, 2020)

Phantasy Star Online 2 finally came stateside in the year 2020, eight years after its initial Japanese release and initial American cancellation. It's no Phantasy Star Online 1, but it is a really fun game in its own right provided you can find the willpower to break through its clunkiness and eight years of confusing poorly tutorialized free-to-play MMO cruft.

The main thing going for PSO2, and this is a major improvement from PSO1, is that the act of engaging in its combat is fun. The combat is just feels really really good. There's a bunch of different weapon types and classes, and once you find the ones that really click with you you're in for a good time, whether you're izuna dropping dudes with wire claws or literally doing air juggles and rainstorm from Devil May Cry with the dual machine guns.

The other stuff around that combat is weird. I generally like it, but it's weird. The story mode is one of the most bizarrely presented things I've ever seen. It apparently used to be something you'd seek out in the levels themselves, but presently it's just a list of scenes you pick from a menu and watch with next to no context until it makes you fight a boss sometimes. There's some weird moments in there that MIGHT have been cool if it were presented in literally any other way?

The systems and presentation are also way more... I dunno, pinball? Pachislot? In very stark contrast to how chill original Phantasy Star Online was, everything in PSO2 is designed in a way to maximize that flashy light bing bing wahoo you got ~*~RARE DROP CHANCE UP~*~ feeling. Which isn't to say I don't like flashy light bing bing wahoo, but it's a weird different thing.

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, sure! For me! This is another one that I played like 300 hours of! I haven't even seen half of it, I fell off right before Episode 4 released because it coincided with my move! I'm gonna go back and see all that shit! PSO2's fun! A different flavor of fun than the original, sure, but fun all the same. Another one that I'm glad finally made it over here.

Riichi Mahjong (A Table, 1924)

Holy shit I fucking did it I finally learned how to play Mahjong and it rules.

It started when I picked up Clubhouse Games for the Switch. I saw that it had Riichi Mahjong and something in my brain snapped. For whatever reason, I decided that this was the time I was going to rip the band-aid off and figure this shit out. It wasn't too dissimilar to the first time I decided to try eggs, but that's a different and much stupider story for a different time. I did the tutorial in Clubhouse Games, looked up some more basics and advice because the tutorial wasn't super amazing, and I kept playing while being aided by the game's nice helper features like the button that pulls up recommended hands. I kept playing and... sorta got it. I learned the basic rules, but none of the strategy. And then I stopped playing for a few months.

In that few months, for whatever reason, a decent amount of people I know had their brains snap the same way? Like a more-than-two amount of people I'm either friends with or following online also decided to learn Mahjong. I decided to get back on the horse and downloaded Mahjong Soul and I don't know whether it was perseverance or the power of anime babes, but this time I got it. I still refer to a sheet with all the hands and whether they work open or closed, and I'm by no means a master player, but I actually honest to god understand what I'm doing and it's an incredible feeling.

Mahjong has such a huge amount of what I like to call "Get That Ass" energy. It is the energy you feel when you get someone's ass. In Mahjong you are either constantly getting someone's ass or getting your ass gotten. Someone puts down the wrong tile and you fucking GET THEIR ASS DUDE! They're got!! They're a fucking idiot that put down the wrong thing and now you have their points!!! Or you draw what you need yourself and you're a brain genius all according to plan and everyone gives you points because you're so wise!!!! It's great!!!!!

Mahjong has long been one of those games where I'd say "I'll learn this someday" and never reeeeally actually try to learn, and I'm so glad I finally took the effort to because it's good as hell. And, truth be told, it wasn't THAT hard to learn? Like you can get to the point where I was where I didn't know the strategy fairly easily in my opinion, and once you do that It's just a matter of continuing to play to understand the rest. I highly recommended that you also go out and learn it if you similarly revel in getting that ass, it's so satisfying once you do.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PlayStation 4, 2020)

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio took a big gamble with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. After seven games (more if you take spinoffs and remakes into consideration) they decided to focus on a new main character and, even more unexpectedly, they decided to change things up by turning the series into a turn-based JRPG. Their gamble paid off in spades. This is easily in my top 3 favorite Yakuza games.

The JRPG gameplay is surprisingly solid. There's definite room for improvement, but they nailed a bunch of it right out of the gate. Some mechanics are a little janky and I wish the job system was more fleshed out or just worked more like Final Fantasy V's, but they nailed one of the most important things and made the battles brisk and fun. It's a great foundation, especially for a team that's never attempted anything like this, and it's way more fun than the combat's been in any of the previous Dragon Engine games. I can't wait to see them iterate on it.

Everything else is top fuckin' notch. The music is great, the side content is fully fleshed out in a way it hasn't been since before they switched to the Dragon Engine, and I love the characters and story so much. Yakuza has a new main character in Ichiban Kasuga, and he's my son and I love him. Kiryu was great, and I love him too, but he was a bit of a passive protagonist. Stuff happened around him and he mostly just stoically reacted to it. Ichi is a much more active lead and it's great. He's a big lovable dope, and his tendency to keep an upbeat attitude and eagerness to leap into action is such a breath of fresh air. And it's not only Ichiban, since this is an RPG you have a whole party of characters and they're all great! Having them with you at all times bantering with each other and reacting to things is another great change of narrative pace, too.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon just straight up rules. As someone who has historically not been too much of a fan of the Dragon Engine games, it's simultaneously a refreshing new take on the series and a fantastic return to form. I can't wait for what comes next. Wherever Ichiban goes, I go.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

After 23 years of Japanese PS1 exclusivity, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure finally got an English release this year for Nintendo Switch. I'm glad it did, because Moon isn't just the very definition of A Sebmal Game. It's the Sebmal Game missing link. In addition to being just a great video game, it helped me make a mental throughline for a bunch of games I love and a large part of my taste in video games.

To keep a long story short (seriously, I have a much much longer version of this saved in my drafts that I'll maybe finish someday), Moon turned out to be not the JRPG I assumed it was, given the title and basic story pitch, but a secret prequel to a game I love named Chulip. Moon's developer, Love-de-Lic, was formed by a handful of ex-Squaresoft employees, many of which worked on an extremely formative game I love named Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Love-de-Lic broke up in the year 2000 and its staff went on to form a bunch of different studios that ended up making a BUNCH of different games I love like Chibi-Robo, Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Dandy Dungeon, and the aforementioned Chulip. These games, when you make the connection and line them up, all have a very distinct weirdness in common that makes perfect sense once you've realized many of the same people worked on them. Figuring this all out felt like snapping a piece of my brain back in place, and it was really crazy to come to understand exactly how much this studio that formed and disbanded decades before I'd even heard of them had impacted my tastes and, hell, my life.

So what is Moon, for those who don't innately understand what I mean by "a secret prequel to Chulip"? Moon is an adventure game where you explore a world with a day/night cycle, learn about that world's inhabitants, and eventually solve their problems. Think of it kind of like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but if the sidequests were the entirety of the focus with no Groundhog Day time reset mechanic and none of the Zelda stuff like combat and dungeons. You play as a young boy who, after a late night JRPG binge session, is sucked into the world of the game he was just playing. Everything is off from the way it was portrayed while the boy was playing the game, though. The hero he had previously controlled is actually a silent menace, raiding peoples' houses for treasure and slaughtering every innocent animal that crosses his path in an endless quest for EXP. The townspeople seem more concerned with problems in their day-to-day lives than the supposed world threatening crisis outlined in the game's intro. It's up to you as the boy to investigate this world's mysteries, help the townsfolk, mend the damage the hero has done, and eventually restore love to a loveless world.

Speaking of love, I fucking loved Moon. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the music, I loved the way it looks (even though the Switch port is a little crusty in that basic emulator-y kinda way), I loved how constantly bizarre and surprising and funny it was. Like I said earlier, it's the very definition of a game made for me. It was essentially the progenitor of a long line of games made for me, and of games potentially made for me but I don't know yet because I haven't played them due to not understanding Japanese (UFO: A Day in the Life translation next please? Anyone from Onion Games reading this??). For as similar as Moon and Chulip are in their systems and pacing, I think I might actually like Moon better despite it coming earlier? It's not as full force maximum impact absurd as Chulip is, but it is a lot more playable and less obtuse once you get a grip on the time limit mechanic. You don't need a full strategy guide included in the instruction manual for Moon, and you don't need to exchange business cards with every single character to get information vital to finishing the game either.

I truly cannot recommend Moon enough if your taste in games ventures anywhere off the beaten path. Maybe this is a little conceited of me, but I assume if you're reading this article, let alone this far down into it, you relate to my video game opinions at least a little bit? You should play Moon. Everyone reading this sentence should play Moon. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is my game of the year for the year 2020.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Death Stranding (PlayStation 4, 2019): Death Stranding, much like Metal Gear Solid V, was a game I enjoyed for the gameplay and not much else. The story, characters, and writing were a huge disappointment for me, but man if I didn't enjoy lugging those boxes around and setting up my hellish cross-continental goon summer camp lookin' zipline network. Mr. Driller Drill Land (Nintendo Switch, 2020): I am a known Mr. Driller Enjoyer, and I enjoyed this Mr. Driller. Originally released for the Gamecube, Mr. Driller Drill Land is another long-time Japanese exclusive that finally came stateside this year and it's packed with new and novel twists on the Mr. Driller format. It looks super sharp, the music's great (also the credits music is the most impossibly out of place and extra as hell shit in the world and it's hilarious), and it's just a good ass time. The main campaign is pretty damn short, but if you're a post-game content kinda guy it has that and it's all super hard. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PlayStation 4, 2020): They finally made another good new Tony Hawk game, and all it took was perfectly remaking two of the best old Tony Hawk games! Plays exactly like you remember it with the added benefit of the best mechanics from up to THUG1, looks great, packed full of content, even has most of the music alongside some mostly crappy new stuff. It's the full package as is, but I do hope they end up adding THPS3 to it eventually. Mad Rat Dead (Nintendo Switch, 2020): Mad Rat Dead was a pleasant surprise that I only picked up because I saw a couple of people on my Twitter timeline constantly talking about it. A fun and inventive platformer where all your actions need to be on beat with the music. The gameplay feels great (aside from some not so great performance issues on Switch), the soundtrack is fun, and it's got a real good style to it. Demon's Souls (PlayStation 5, 2020): I love Demon's Souls and this is Demon's Souls. It plays exactly the same with some minor quality of life changes. I don't agree with many of the artistic changes, but there's no denying it looks incredible on a technical level. If you want to play Demon's Souls again or for the first time, this is a perfectly valid and fun way to do so. Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!!!! (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Groove Coaster is one of my favorite rhythm games, and they finally made an acceptable at-home version with Wai Wai Party. It's not a perfect replication of the arcade game control-wise, I have some issues with the song choices, and the pricing is frankly fucking ridiculous if you're not a Groove Coaster maniac like I am, but the same ultra satisfying gameplay is all there. You can even play it vertically in handheld mode! Flip Griiiiiiiip!

And we're done! Phew! Honestly didn't realize I played that many good games until I typed all this out. Thanks as always for reading this far. I'm gonna try and get back to regularly posting Breviews this year at the very least. Honestly don't know if I'll get anything else up on here, but we'll see. Here's to hoping 2021 is a little bit less of a nightmare!

#article #Year Wrapup

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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 3 years

Text

Translation Plans

Well... my break was pretty good. was finally able to download the clean fresh live version of the cxm secret mission that i had my eye on since i ranked up, saw the 1984 wonder woman movie (it was okay and I could write an essay on what didn’t sit well with me as a fan of the comics [im kinda of a comic book purist when it comes to the way characters think and their behaviour] but I really liked Lynda Carter’s cameo).... made a lot of progress on one of the hakumyu piano arrangements i’m working on (have now probably listened to certain parts of that song over a hundred times now), watched a bunch of the original hakuoki musicals in hd.... and I finally got my dad to play Batman: Arkham Asylum. My bro and I have been trying to get that to happen for years lol... especially since it has Conroy and Hamill doing the Batman and Joker voices (the animated series is the best!). super steep learning curve tho since it’s being played on the ps3 and the last console he used was the Nintendo Gamecube.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stock up on translations as much as I would have liked to during this time on account of my hardware seriously acting up... to the point that I needed to send my laptop in for repairs and get a new one. Aside from how unresponsive my keyboard was and how hot it got, the laptop itself had become quite slow... though that might have been because my passport [external storage drive] took a bad fall which made a lot of my files harder to access since it was barely able to handle files being accessed/copied/moved off of it (this is after diagnosing it and repairing it via command prompt chkdsk x: / r), with the latter being what I spent most of my break waiting for as i avoided using my laptop since the majority of my drama rips and game capture videos were on it... To give you an idea of how long this took (and how long it is still taking), I went from being able to transfer my 50mb of files in a few seconds... to sometimes taking more than a day (tho other times i’d be able to get 4gb moved in >24 hours, making the timing super inconsistent. also i don’t have access to a cd drive now so i can’t just re-rip things)... which is why I haven’t been able to work on any videos since my last post (I have more than 1.3TB of stuff to move, so my new laptop isn’t exactly at its best right now and won’t be for a long while since I’m not going to be using a recovery service as waiting out the transfers for everything out will definitely be cheaper... the ballpark estimate I got was being anywhere from $500-2000, which is money that i am not exactly eager to part from just for the sake of saving time)... meaning I also probably won’t get to videos for a while since subtitling requires accurate timing and im not fond of things freezing on me while working on videos... ugh. i still have to do an insane amount of grinding later in warframe once my current batch of files finishes transferring...

Anyway, below is a list of what I’ve mostly managed to schedule (anything with a “?” is something that I haven’t committed to) and a list of what I’d like to get done this year (can’t make any guarantees... however, im probably going to try and translate some things with souma this year cuz of hakumyu), while the stuff in bold text is on my shortlist of things I intend to prioritize (Saito’s Ginsei no Shou chapters and Shinsengumi Oni-tan are still being worked on though not as actively since they’re a lot longer...).

Also, aside from December, the month that CNY falls on (February this year) and March (bday) will be the only foreseeable times when I put out less translations tho I’ll probably be playing video catch-up during that time this year since i’m not sure what i’ll be able to get done as i wait for my files to get moved.

oh well. I’m still aiming towards posting stuff on a weekly basis for the rest of the year... here’s hoping that it’s less volatile.... tho i unfortunately have non-existent expectations given what made the news yesterday. just glad i don’t live there.

YAISA!

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January

Yuugiroku 3 Saito Fall story today!

Chapter 7 of Saito’s route from Ginsei no Shou + 4-koma

Hakuoki Kyoka-Roku Kazama CG Character Perspective [no vid. havent beaten this game and im not sure when i’ll feel like speed running through it]

Hakuo Gakuen Q & A

February

Stellaworth Hana no Shou After Story - Harada

Chapter 1 of Saito’s route from Ginsei no Shou

Web drama 8

March

Yuugiroku 3 - Short Episode #8 (Kazama/Amagiri/Shiranui) [still need to get video and screenshots]

Yuugiroku Drama CD Thumb Sized Samurai Track 1-4 (4 is WIP)?

Char monologue?

April

2017 Otomate Hakuoki SSL April Fool’s Day

薄桜鬼遊戯録隊士達の大宴会店铺特典「教えてください山崎さん！」 (completed yesterday)

Yuugiroku 3 - Short Episode #6 “Yukimura the page’s secret”?

char perspective?

Other

Hijikata Biyori (cuz these are short)

Yuugiroku 3 Short Episodes (these are longer than the ssl cross and daily stories)

Kyoka Roku Conversation in the Rain - Okita/Toudou/Kazama

Kyoka-Roku CG perspectives

2013 Otomate Party Hakuoki drama “Ideal place for a disagreement”

Saito Ginsei no Shou Chapters

Shinsengumi Oni-tan

Stellaworth Hana no Shou After Stories - Souji, Heisuke (THIS YEAR FOR SURE DAMMIT!)

2011 Hakuoki Reimeiroku Otomate Party drama

Stellaworth Nightshade Kuroyuki CD

薄桜鬼遊戯録弐祭囃子と隊士達 A店特典「あなた好みの想いの形」

薄桜鬼真改 ~風華大全~ 特典「稽古の痛み」

2016 Otomate Party Code:Realize drama* (this is almost 30 min so i will probably translate less that month if i get to it)

2019 ????????????? Halloween SS?*

????????????? Stellaworth Vocal CD (8 tracks)*

*have to check these 3 since I don’t actively follow these fandoms/tags tho im pretty sure no one has translated anything from the fandom for the last 2 items.

also, re:patreon goal - i am currently not able to access the files for the drama i am looking to get a translation commissioned for as it is in the process of being moved off of my damaged passport. 29gb remains as part of that transfer, which is the result of me trying to move all 865 files from where i keep the majority of the hakuoki dramas i’ve saved all at once... ended up doing that because every time I access that hard drive, each time i open up a folder, and every time I highlight a file to move, the file explorer goes “not responding” for an uncertain amount of time, and have instead opted in doing something that would hopefully reduce the likelihood of something crashing.

#personal post #update post

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theteapotofdoom · 4 years

Note

lmao your reaction to reno is the exact same as mine when i got into ff7, i first saw him in advent children and was like "Oh? Who's this gorgeous red-headed bastard man?" so the sudden flood of reno with you going nuts in the tags on my dash is both amusing and appreciated

I’m glad you appreciate it!!! Whenever I start to like something, I tend to dive in the tag and reblog everything I like, so I often worry about spamming too much or just overwhelming everyone. Glad to know it was appreciated! :D

I was actually aware of Reno’s existence for years because one of my first mutual ever was really into him when I joined Tumblr in 2014 (holy shit ...) and they were reblogging gifsets of him every once in a while. At the time I just thought he looked pretty but nothing more, because back then I wasn’t really into video games and I was BARELY getting into anime. So I didn’t pay much intention to him, I didn’t even know where he was from.

BUT YEAH since then, I’ve got really into anime, mangas and video games and with the remake of FFVII coming out I was really intrigued by the hyped and decided to check it out! I watched Bun’s best of let’s play to get into it, and then ...

BOOM! THIS MOTHERFUCKER!!! JUST WALKED INTO THE CHURCH!!! JUST LIKE THAT!!! WITH HIS SHIRT WIDE OPEN!!! BEING ALL BASTARD!!!

I was not prepared. I was shaken to my core. Not only was I like “OH SHIT IT’S THE PRETTY BOY FROM YEARS AGO” but also it was a whole new experience, because I had only seen him through gifsets of the FFVII movie before. And suddenly he hit me with HIS VOICE, with the HD CHARACTER MODEL, with THE BASTARD ENERGY, and his POTTY MOUTH ...

I’ve been trying to recover since then but there is not use. This little bitch is now living in my head rent-free. I’m currently watching Jesse Cox’s let’s play to get the full story (only had the best of from Buns) and I am falling more and more in love with Reno but also with all the Turks in general.

Reno? Fucking super you funky sexy little bastard man. Rude? What a classy beautiful strong man, putting up with all his boyfriend’s bullshit. Tseng? The prettiest man I've ever seen in my life, a beautiful distinguished gay. Rufus? Giving me flashbacks from local goat bastard Lucio from The Arcana and I’m loving it. Elena? Haven’t technically met her yet, but she is already my wife.

Tbh I’m kind of falling in love with every character in FFVII right now, they’re all so charming and well written (Aerith please I am three tomorrow night and literally every night of my like if you want to go a date and maybe kiss haha), but the Turks feeding my “villain found family” needs. I know they’re all doing terrible awful things, but you don’t have all the facts: I love them.

#final fantasy #ffvii remake #reno of the turks

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booasaur · 4 years

Note

So I’ve not seen this new Terminator movie (or any full Terminator movie tbh) and I don’t want to. I just wanna watch your gifs and pretend it is an action movie with a WLW love story at its core. Because honestly after looking at your gifs how was this movie not a WLW love story???? Look at those gazes, those touches, the gentleness! Ugh I wish we could get the movie I imagine lol.

I knowwww! It would have been so perfect! It doesn’t take much at all to see it, right? It really--okay, I know I’m biased toward that, obviously, what else am I going to say, but I do actually still love the first and second movies, and they didn’t have any subtext, I can appreciate a plain good story. It hurt the movie to have these two similar age women forced into these roles, when it could have just done what came naturally. It had to work to no-homo a dynamic that was already established as romantic in the first movie.

I think what gets me about it so much is that what better time would there have been than now? What are these big franchises waiting for? These little background characters, that’s not progress, it’s not an actual step forward until it’s a significant part of these movies. And this franchise in particular, built on Sarah Connor, casting two more women as the new leads, why not? What would it have cost them to go all the way and just make it a love story? The people they're afraid of already didn’t want to watch, they didn’t like that it was so female-centric and had a Latina lead and didn’t portray border patrol sympathetically. They could have done it and really stood out and be remembered forever and set a new standard.

All the same, I am glad and super grateful that Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes absolutely played up the knight/queen dynamic and gave us this much. I’ve actually not yet really dipped my toe into the fic, but I probably will get into it once I’ve fully ~experienced~ the HD movie and extras.

#replies #femslash related stuff #sent on 20200114 #Anonymous #5 #terminator dark fate #dani x grace

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lifblogs · 3 years

Text

Livin In You: Chapter 12

Fandom: Supernatural Pairing: Destiel Rating: Explicit Chapter Word Count: 1312 Summary: Castiel is a mental health worker who is just fine with the way his life is. The only thing that really bugs him is how much his co-worker, and friend, Meg, mentions Dean Winchester, the most famous rock star in the modern age. Meg drags him to a concert, and he ends up getting tied into the wild and angsty life of Dean Winchester. Suddenly his old life seems boring, but so much calmer. Suddenly, it matters to him that he's still a virgin. Suddenly, this rock star that he despised the mention of, now matters to him. Dean Winchester is a rockstar who's on top of the world when it comes to music. Yet there's more that he wants. He misses Lisa and Ben, he craves connection, craves being himself. Any hope for that amidst his alcoholic life all changes when Zachariah, the head exec of Heaven's Records, pairs with a new exec, Michael Edlund -- the Archangel of Music. Under Michael's dominance, he's no longer in control of his own life. There are rules. No more sex with fans. No more alcohol. And in Dean's view, no more god damn free will. Yet he stumbled into Castiel. CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3 | CHAPTER 4 | CHAPTER 5 | CHAPTER 6 | CHAPTER 7 | CHAPTER 8 | CHAPTER 9 | CHAPTER 10 | CHAPTER 11

READ ON AO3

Dean was glad to be sitting in the Impala, to feel its purr beneath him, to hear the rumbling of the engine, to feel the leather wheel against his palms. It was better than staying up in that bright hotel room where he’d been told he was made for Michael.

Made for Michael, he mused. What the fuck does that mean? Asshole.

The tension still resided in him, and he figured if — no, when — he went out to lunch with Cas he’d maybe have a little to drink. Not as much as last night. He hd to promise himself that. He didn’t need another repeat of that, and public drunkenness was probably the kind of shit Michael, and Zachariah didn’t want him doing anyway.

Castiel was looking at him, as if he was hurt, cerulean blue eyes so big. Dean didn’t like it. It reminded him of pity. It wasn’t a pitying look, per se, but it sure as hell seemed close.

“What?” Dean snapped.

“They’re allowed to do this to you?” Castiel asked.

“I don’t know,” Dean answered honestly. “They think they can. Sam’s gonna help. But I can’t do anything right now. I just… I just need this time out, Cas. And I want to make up for last night. I was an ass.”

“You were drunk.”

“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t an ass.”

“But—”

“Cas, I’m trying to apologize to you,” Dean intoned.

Castiel’s cheeks went a little pink, and Dean couldn’t help staring. They were at a crowded intersection, and would surely be left at the right light for awhile, so it wasn’t as if he couldn’t get away with it.

Someone behind him honked their horn, drawing him from his reverie. How long had he been looking him over? Looking at those pink cheeks, the full, pink lips, the sharp jawline. Dean’s gaze had also gone to his thighs. And as he’d looked at Castiel, Castiel had looked at him.

Focus on the road, he told himself. He made the turn, and continued driving.

“Then I accept your apology,” Castiel eventually said.

“Good.”

“And not because you have money, or your’e some big name celebrity.”

“Right.”

Why was Castiel making a point to say that? Did he think he was entitled?

Maybe I am.

“Because you’re actually trying to be human.”

Dean’s gaze hardened, heat flaring.

“What, so you think I’m not human?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Uh, buddy, yeah, you did.”

“Okay, fine, maybe I did say it,” Castiel snapped. “But I mean, look at you. Your outfit costs more than my rent, your brother is famous by association and also your lawyer, you have Garth at your beck and call. That’s not… normal.”

Dean gave him a cocky grin. “Thanks, it’s called being rich and famous.”

Castiel only sighed at that and sank down in the seat.

“You know, we don’t have to do this,” Dean went on. “I can take you to get that phone, make sure your car gets fixed, and then drop you off wherever you want. You have that friend, right? What’s her name?”

“Meg.”

“Meg, that’s right! Seriously though, man. If this is bothering you—”

Quick as an adder, Castiel shot out, “It’s not.”

“Then what’s your deal?”

“What’s your deal?”

“You know what? No, we’re not gonna argue like this. We’re not a couple o’ twelve year olds.”

Castiel grinned.

“What?”

“I don’t know, Dean, you seem pretty immature.”

“Are you… are you teasing me?”

Castiel’s brows lowered, suddenly all serious. “Yes.”

Dean started laughing, and it felt good. It felt so good that he didn’t feel as if he had to do anything else in that moment. For those few moments he wasn’t thinking about the contract, wasn’t hoping his headache would go away soon, wasn’t thinking about how much he wanted to punch Michael in his stupidly gorgeous face. And he wasn’t thinking about how strange his situation with Cas was, or what he yearned to do with him. There were no worries about where this would lead, about maybe ending up hurt and disappointed. He just laughed.

Castiel laughed too.

“There we go!” Dean said. “Knew you couldn’t be such a hard-ass all the time.”

“Thanks.”

To Dean’s surprise, Castiel seemed to mean it sincerely. He inwardly shrugged. If that’s how Cas wanted to take it, that worked too. Besides, Dean was realizing he was starting to like Castiel’s reactions, even if he wasn’t so sure he liked what it did to him.

“Tell me about yourself,” Dean requested.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t want to take a total stranger out to lunch.”

Castiel seemed to think that was reasonable as he asked, “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know, whatever you want to tell me,” Dean said with a shrug. “Favorite color, favorite movie, where you went to college… that kind of stuff.”

So Castiel began to tell him, and Dean took note of everything. By the time they made it to an electronics store, he knew his favorite color (green), knew his favorite movie (A New Hope), knew his favorite book (The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher [Dean had had to try really hard to not seem so shocked]), knew his favorite food (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches)... He listened to him talk about his college experience, what he’d majored in. Dean was happy to hear it all. By the time they pulled up to the store, Dean didn’t want the conversation to end.

He rifled through his pockets, grabbed his wallet, and then started flipping through the bills he had in there, counting.

After coming up with what he thought would be a sufficient amount, he passed the money to Castiel.

“Alright, kid, go have fun,” Dean teased.

“Ass.”

“You’re an ass.”

“This is too much,” Castiel said.

“Just take it. I’ll wait out here.”

“Will anyone see you?”

Dean lowered his hat over his brow. Castiel just raised an eyebrow in what Dean thought might be a disbelieving look, but then he took the money Dean offered, and got out of the car. The door creaked as it opened and closed. Dean knew he should oil the hinges, but that sound? That sound felt like home.

He tried not to stare as Castiel walked away, but oh god, Dean would be lying if he said that his new friend or whatever he was didn’t have one hell of a nice ass.

Guilt tugged at his stomach.

Castiel had helped him last night, helped him when he hadn’t even known how to help himself. He shouldn’t be looking at him like that, thinking about him like that.

“You are an ass,” Dean muttered to himself, agreeing with Cas.

Still, even as he tried to veer his thoughts away from what he wished he could do with him, they just kept burning in his brain.

Dean tried to rationalize it, tried to logic his way out of the thoughts. No, you can’t do that. One, he’s being nice to you and you don’t want to fuck that up. Two, he’s a virgin and probably isn’t interested. Three, you don’t even like virgins! Four, if Zachariah or Michael found out, maybe even Crowley, they’d have it out for your ass.

The logic made sense. It really did. Yet, his emotions didn’t listen to it.

Suddenly frustrated, and a little angry with himself, Dean leaned over to look through the glove compartment on Castiel’s side. His cassette tape collection was in there. Hell, he knew cassette tapes were outdated, but they were classic. How could he not love them?

Dean found a Led Zeppelin tape that he loved, and he popped it into the tape deck. He put the volume just loud enough for him to hear, and listened to one of his greatest inspirations while he waited for Castiel.

#Destiel #Destiel AU #Destiel fanfiction #rockstar!Dean #rockstar!Dean/Castiel #Supernatural #Supernatural fanfiction #spn #spn fanfiction #fanfiction #writing #my writing #Livin In You

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zsaszattack · 4 years

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the quality of the gifs really improved! I thought you just had a terrible version of the movie and was about to send you an hd version link. Glad you solved it anyway. ;)

Thanks, heh... I do have an HD copy but.. I have.. a very complex way of makin things. I have been screwin' around with different ways to make things for months. I record things from my tv on to my phone to make a gif from the tumblr app. Then I found a way to record things onto my phone from just the screen, like little videos and such, but still used the tumblr gif thing.

Which is nice sometimes but overall, sucks especially with the crappy quality of the tv recordings. And I couldn't crop it either so things were cut out so I would have to record the thing from a different angle. So that is why like 90% of my awful gifs have that old tv look to them.

With this new thing, obviously things are gonna have better quality to em. Not like SUPER GREAT, but I'll try my best and get better with it over time. Like the way I have been doin them have gotten better over time but they still look... bad. Hopefully this will fix that now.

Example, actually:

This I made like what, two months ago?

Made this one just today:

I can crop things now. Which is a HUGE thing for me. I know it ain't that excitin' but it means I can do so much more now.

So long story short, I am psyched and really eager to just test this thing out more.

#replies #// Side note: I do Everything on my phone #All the gifs I have made? Phone.#So.. Let's see how this goes.

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tikitakafullmovie · 4 years

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Tiki Taka 2020 ZEE5 Download Hindi Full Movie

Tiki Taka ZEE5 Movie Download 720p HD GDrive, Tiki Taka 2020 Hindi Full Movie Download 1080p Free, Tiki Taka 2020 Movie Watch Online Free

IMDB Ratings: N/A Directed: Parambrata Chattopadhyay Released Date: 11 September 2020 (India) Genres: Comedy, Sport Languages: Hindi Film Stars: Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Saswata Chatterjee, Ritabhari Chakraborty Movie Quality: 720p HDRip File Size: 710MB

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The up and coming parody film Tiki Taka on Zee5 is being examined via online media since the time the film's trailer was delivered on September 4. The trailer has gathered more than 1 million perspectives in only six days of its delivery. Tiki Taka on Zee5 is a variation of the first Bengali film 'Khelechi Ajguba'. Kenichi is an African footballer who has come to Bengal to meet PK, one of the mafias situated in the Indian State. The parody of mistakes starts when Khelechi meets numerous individuals on his excursion to discover PK in West Bengal. Peruse on to discover," What time does Tiki Taka delivered on Zee5?" Read | Vijay Sethupathi starrer cop-dramatization 'Sethupathi'

to debut on Zee5; check subtleties Tiki Taka delivery date is Friday, September 11. The film will be delivered on the OTT stage at 12:00 AM IST. When the film is delivered on the stage, all the ZEE5 endorsers across India will have the option to stream it. Tiki Taka on ZEE5 will be accessible to stream on various occasions as long as the watcher has a functioning membership of the OTT stage. Peruse | What time does 'Illegal Love' discharge on Zee5? Insights regarding each of the four parts Tiki Taka on ZEE5: About the film In the account of Tiki Taka when Khelechi Ajguba shows up in West Bengal he meets a taxi driver named Raju played by entertainer Parambrata Chattopadhyay.

As the two youngsters get to know each other Raju chooses to help Khelechi in his mission to discover PK. Raju likewise turns into a compatriot for Khelechi who has gone far away from his family and is attempting to comprehend life in an unfamiliar land. The part of PK in the film will be played by Bengali entertainer Saswat Chatterjee. Nonetheless, little does Raju realize the African footballer is concealing a major mystery which he will bit by bit unwind as the story advances. Peruse | 'Dark Widow' Indian redo to deliver soon on ZEE5 as indicated by Sharad Kelkar Tiki Taka is a family parody film that takes us through a story woven with comic scenes a large portion of which emerge out of the mistakes and misconceptions the characters experience.

Khelechi and Raju are the lead teams of this film, yet neither of them communicates in one another's dialect. Thus, fans will see them hurrying over the roads of Bengal, getting into more entangled circumstances the story advances. Peruse | Filmyzilla Leaks ZEE5's Latest Web Series 'Virgin Bhasskar 2' Promo Image Source: Parambrata Chattopadhyay (Instagram) Get the most recent diversion news from India & around the globe. Presently follow your preferred TV celebs and TV refreshes. Republic World is your one-stop objective for drifting Bollywood news. Tune in today to remain refreshed with all the most recent news and features from the universe of amusement.

Welcome Readers. In this article, you are going to see the new up and coming web arrangement of ZEE5 named "Tiki-Taka" which is booked to deliver on eleventh September 2020. Tiki-Taka is a forthcoming parody sport Bengali language arrangement of ZEE5 which depends on the Spanish style football match-up Tiki-Taka. This will be fascinating to watch on the grounds that the trailer of this arrangement is looking astonishing and it accompanies an intriguing story and the bearing of this film is splendid. The areas and the sets in this arrangement look astounding.

The arrangement is chosen to debut on eleventh September 2020 at around 12:00 PM IST just on the ZEE5 application. Tiki-Taka is coordinated by Parambrata Chattopadhyay and composed by Shouvik Banerjee and Rohan Ghose under the dispersion of ZEE5 Original Film and the entire shooting was done in the Kolkata, which is in India. The skilled and flexible entertainers and entertainer are Saswata Chatterjee, which shows in a lead function of the arrangement, Parambrata Chattopadhyay.

Ritabhari Chakraborty, Emona Enabula, and Bruno Venchuro. The account of this spins around an African person who comes to India and the conditions and the scene gets changed and he is pursued by certain cops. To realize the entire story remember to watch this astounding arrangement on eleventh September at 12:00PM IST just on ZEE5 Original Film. CAST: Saswata Chatterjee. Parambrata Chattopadhyay. Ritabhari Chakraborty. Emona Enabula. Bruno Venchuro.

On third September 2020, the arrangement trailer was transferred on the ZEE5 official youtube channel and inside a couple of days, it crosses around 8 Lakh sees with 1,000 preferences. On sixth September 2020, Zee5premium official Instagram posted a banner of it and expressed that "Are Raju and Khelechi outsiders or just companions who haven't met at this point? #TikiTaka debuts on eleventh September #ZEE5Premium #GoalMaal". Discussing the storyline then Khelechi, who was an African man shows up in India with a football loaded down with drugs. At the air terminal, the medication ruler's men get an inappropriate man while Khelechi goes with an extortionist, and afterward the story makes a turn, and entire the circumstance gets changed.

Appreciate this parody of blunders on ZEE5. Debuts eleventh September 2020. Till then read our different articles and follow Dekhnews and stay tuned with us.

At whatever point we've met Ritabhari Chakraborty in the recent years, 'Khelechi Ajgubi' has surfaced in discussions, with the pretty and multitalented entertainer enthusiastically anticipating the Parambrata Chattopadhyay-coordinated film. Depending on a mixed up character, the film is currently set to debut on Zee5 as Tiki Taka on September 11. A talk with Ritabhari who had twofold the motivation to celebrate — the film's delivery and the way that she got to glitz up for this meeting.

The film was at first called Khelechi Ajgubi and is presently delivering as Tiki Taka… Now the film is delivering in both Hindi and Bangla and they needed to go with a title which fits in well with a bilingual film and something that football fans, skillet India, would have the option to identify with. We named it during the lockdown. The film should have a dramatic delivery and now as a result of the current circumstance, we have needed to go for a computerized discharge. In spite of the fact that there is somewhat of a failure since you are passing up a dramatic delivery, the great part is it will contact a greater crowd.

When did you shoot it? 2018. It is Param's executive endeavor and he got truly occupied. The film additionally has a great deal of embellishments and he puts stock in flawlessness. I was continually following up. At that point the pandemic hit us. Presently when I see the yield, I feel pleased that I am an aspect of this film. It's perfect by they way it looks. I am in any event not living in an air pocket and realize what's going on out there, devour a ton of public and worldwide substance and I am glad that the substance I am related with, it's very today and upmarket and pair with the contemporary work that is occurring.

Who is Bonny, your character in the film? She is a writer, very bhola and marginally moronic however with a brilliant heart. Mon ta puro clear and mathatao khanikta clear (snickers). That is what I look like at Bonny. No savvy individual would have purchased that thought in any case. The way Param's character (Raju, a cab driver) disclosed it to her (about Khelechi Ajgubi, an African public, being a footballer) and she gets it, even while shooting it, I felt OMG! (Giggles) Param continued saying she isn't imbecilic, only a little bhola bhala.

She is from the mofussil and on the off chance that she can't break a major news and get a strong balance in the city, she'll be offered. In this way, she has a ton in question. Bonny isn't me, yet I adored playing her. I am a major aficionado of Joey from F.R.I.E.N.D.S and I have for the longest time been itching to play a stupid character. Despite the fact that Bonny isn't Joey imbecilic. Raju and Bonny kind of meet incidentally. He takes a gander at me and thinks of this arrangement. He comes selling me a phony story and I get it and what follows is the film. The entire kind of the film is interesting. A ton of entertainers feel that parody is the most troublesome kind.

What do you feel? It is troublesome in light of the fact that your planning must be correct. You need to include your own flavors which, we continued doing while at the same time shooting Ogo Bodhu Sundori (the mainstream uber sequential which saw Ritabhari become an easily recognized name). Lolita never attempted to be amusing. Same for Bonny and Raju and Khelechi. The outfit cast includes interesting amusing characters… be it Paranda (Paran Bandopadhyay), Kharajda (Kharaj Mukherjee), Kanchanda (Kanchan Mullick), or Saswatada (Chatterjee). I don't actually think satire is the hardest.

Being a persuading reprobate or vamp is the hardest without trying too hard. Unthinkable in Andhadhun isn't exaggerating anything or Priyanka Chopra in Aitraaz or state Bob Biswas in Kahaani. I figure I would need to work the hardest for that sort of a job since I am totally a white individual. Was it scaring to be encircled by entertainers who are known for their comic planning? Truly, I never feel threatened by anybody I work with on the grounds that at whatever point I step on the shooting floor, I sense that I am going to class and there are bunches of educators and there is the head instructor who will manage me. I get truly jumbled if the chief isn't arranged... I realize that the chief must be arranged with his vision. They are so easily acceptable… stunning. Furthermore, the vitality was so high on the sets. One thing I have truly detracted from the experience is to be unconstrained.

Do you follow football? No! Sports isn't my thing. In the event that I was playing, I would appreciate. Thus, I loath watching a shoot. In the event that I am shooting, I will appreciate. I went for the Mukkabaaz shoot since I respect Anurag (Kashyap) to such an extent as a chief. I was there for the peak go for two hours and afterward was chilling with my closest companion since I got so exhausted following two hours. AK is so chill and arranged with his vision. That is everything I could accumulate. Individuals figure you can truly get a great deal.

You really can't on the grounds that film-production is an entire cycle. Things being what they are, you've never really liked an athlete? Not on the grounds that how great a player he is, yet, state… (David) Beckham. I have my reasons. Take a gander at him and you will likewise have your own reasons. Anyway, did you gaze upward 'tiki taka'? I asked Maddy (Madhuja B

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