#its very hard for my to become submerged in anime these days but its easy with snk and thats my ✨toxic✨ trait ig
so i’ve never seen snk season 2 before i watched it this weekend and i already know everything that happens up to chapter 138 of the manga but my ass was still shook seeing the beast titan for the first time, ymir’s titan reveal, the whole shenanigans with bert/reiner. they just know how to put on a fkn show.
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Mae Flowers Ch. 1 Pt.1
Characters: Alfie Solomons x Mae LeBlanc (OFC)
Word Count: 2700+
Summary: An Alfie Solomons Modern Magical AU. (Based in New Orleans and mixed with some AHS Coven characters at certain points.)
Alfie Solomons became the vessel for a dark ancient energy. In this universe, each of these energies has a mate and being the owner of a dark energy, Alfie has spent nearly a century waiting to find his light energy match. After a soul awakening of her own, Mae LeBlanc, a natural born witch, as well as a sensitive and kind woman from New Orleans soul finally starts to bloom and calls out to Alfie's, unbeknownst to her. Not believing in supernatural powers, she finds herself thrown into a new existence that is full of things she never thought possible, including magical powers of her own. Faced with a new world full of possibility and potential danger (that also includes the incredible daunting idea of having a soul mate) Alfie takes her under his wing to teach her about her powers. As she grows and learns, so does he. They navigate her lessons together, come to terms with how lonely their lives have been without the other and face these very human emotions together. With a newfound friendship formed out of necessity, will the idea of a soul mate translate from a mere magical meaning to a romantic one?
Warnings/Tags: Language. Spooky Imagery. Mentions of anxiety, depression and death.
Positive feedback is MUCH appreciated! Reblogs, likes, asks and comments feed me to write more! Let me know if you’d like tagged in my work.
My Masterlist.
The year is 2018, a long, long way away from his birth year of 1893. He stands in front of the Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies in New Orleans, Louisiana. A place that had been around longer than he had. This place and the supreme, Fiona Goode had served as a haven and an ally for him for many years. It seemed no matter the type of witchcraft, save for the spat between the witches and the voodoo practitioners, this place could serve as a resting place, a pause in whatever journey anyone with powers might find themselves on.
He'd been drawn to New Orleans, his inner voice, his darkness kept pointing it out to him, whispering it to him. It'd all started about a year ago, only growing in intensity since. Once the odd dreams had started, and for the life he had lived, odd was saying something. Once they had started, his usual blackness, an endless, timeless void that lay before him in his unconsciousness, there started to appear small specks of light.
Nightmares were eased with more pleasant thoughts and memories that were not his own. Once he felt his darkness recoil from the light in his dreams he knew something had changed, something was different. He'd heard of awakenings like these from others of his kind but it'd been so long that he'd been alone in his own dark soul that he had thought that he would be alone there forever.
Fiona stands with her hand on her hip in the doorway after opening it with an unenthused swat of her hand. "Alfie Solomons." she grins, looking him over. "Look what the alligator dragged in." she scoffs as he walks past her into the house with his suitcase. "And what do we owe the pleasure of such a powerful being coming to visit us?" her tone as always sounds sarcastic, but she meant it. She liked Alfie just fine, he'd never done anything to wrong her or her kind. He mostly stopped in and hid out, only a handful of times over the years she'd been Supreme and even before that, former Supreme’s had never had a bad word to say about him. Mostly stay out of his way, his kind is best left to solitude when they are aloof as he was.
"'Ello." he gruffs out, brow as heavy as ever. "I'm gonna stay here for a bit, yeah?" he says, looking around the stark white interior of the old plantation style home. "I believe I got some business to handle down here. Need to figure it out and I suppose here's best. Hotels don't like it when you muck up the room 'n all." he shrugs.
"Doing some work are we?" she asks, shutting the door behind her.
"Yeah. Somefin' like 'at." he frowns.
"Same room as always is open." she says, saunter in front of him and back towards the drawing room.
------
"'Ello, luv." he says to Cordelia as he sits down at the long table for dinner.
"Hello Mr. Solomons." she says with her kind smile and a polite nod of her head.
"Alfie, Alfie, please." he insists.
"What kind of name is Alfie for an immortal powerhouse like you?" Madison snarks, arms crossed, still mad at him tossing her against a wall for coming onto him earlier in the day.
"The kind of name me mum gave me so ya best shut ya fuckin' trap." he points a stern finger at her.
The clinking of silverware fills the room, the girls not chatting like usual, he knows he's the cause but he certainly doesn't mind the quiet.
"What brings you to us?" Cordelia asks.
"Something about a dream." Nan says, narrowing her eyes.
Alfie smiles at her. "You've got a rather spectacular noggin there little one." he praises. "Picking up on thoughts like mine."
"Well, I'm the next Supreme so..." she says sassily.
"Ah! My apologies." he grins and looks back to Cordelia. "I am here because of dreams, yeah." he nods. "Gotta do some work, figure out what they mean." he says thoughtfully.
"If there's anything we can help you with, let us know." her trademark soft and gentle approach as always.
"Ah, I'll be alright luv, I can handle meself." he gives her a wink to comfort her worry he can sense. He'd be worried about a dark soul like him in the house if he was her too. But he and his darkness were old friends at this point, having beaten each other up for almost a century now. For the most part they cohabited the space of his soul and mind in an unconventional harmony.
-----------
The first night he slept in New Orleans his dreams became more vivid. To know it is not a fluke, he waits until the next night before trying any spellwork. Surely enough, his dreams are brighter, lighter, full of sounds of nature. But the sounds of nature humans like to hear, sounds of life. He could hear birds, smell the heat of the summer sun off of skin, coconuts, and flowers. These were not nature sounds he was used to. His were more glugs of swamp water, thick algae scratching apart and separating as his body disturbed it when he submerged. The smell of mold and decay of animals. These spaces of the earth and their inhabitants of cold-blooded reptiles were what he had dominion over. He oversaw the darker recesses, the dead and dying. But these dreams were not that, and he knew he was getting close to something.
That next night he locks himself away, preparing for a dream walk. He covers his body outside and in with powders and pastes of pulverized animals and minerals to connect himself with both living and dead. He sits with eyes closed in front of the fire. The fire wasn't necessary to the work but on the nights he'd spent alone in the wilderness in seclusion after taking in the darkness he'd gotten used to doing his work in front of flames. He lets his darkness free, let's it wander the city, the tops of buildings and into sewer systems, searching for what was calling to it.
He feels a jolt. A prickle up his spine as a warm yellow light takes up his field of vision. The images come in flashes, the smells waft by him like their on a breeze. He sees sunlight through rustling trees, flowers at eye level, big beautiful and absolutely teeming with life. Their almost psychedelic color palette, the sturdiness of the stems, the softness of the grass and dark dirt around them. He feels a sense of pride, a sense of calm, a sense of belonging. The visions turn to something else, a woman. He hears a feminine laugh, hears the purr of a cat, dark bouncing curls and tan skin warm from the sun. A soft exhale, then a sharp gasp. The happiness fades, giving way to darkness, but not his darkness. This was an emotion, a feeling.
He sees a female silhouette in front of a fireplace alone, an arm reaching out to find nothing but cold sheets and an empty bed. He felt loneliness, anxiety, a longing that led to sadness and confusion. He see can see a bed of deep jewel tones in a sea of blankets, the curve of a hip, traveling over the broad swell of it, noting bright yellow fingernails on a small hand, he becomes too desperate in his search, too intense to find what was calling out to him, so intense it wakes her and with a jolt it's all gone.
He emerges with a groan. -It is her.- His darkness whispers.
"Who?" he whispers into the fire.
-The one we've been waiting for.-
He didn't know if he believed it.
-Believe it. I can feel her light calling to me. It is she. It is the other half.- it's voice growing in intensity with its need. -She is ripening.- it hums in pleasure. -We have been waiting for millennia for her.- it whines. -She is ours. We are hers. We are us now.- it moans. -Join us. Complete us. JOIN US! COMPLETE US!- it starts to scream.
He shakes his head hard, rubbing his temples. "Yeah, yeah, mate that's what I'm tryin' to fuckin' do." he growls. "We'll try again tomorrow night, yeah?" he mumbles to himself.
They do it again the next night, after having a stern talk with himself about not getting too excited because it would scare her off and he'd find out nothing. His darkness was too excitable about finding it's mate. He personally was thrilled it seemed to be a lovely woman who harbored the light soul to compliment his dark one. He knew this wasn't going to be an easy task to take on, but inside he and his darkness both felt a strange tingle of happiness that wasn't something that existed before.
They were not soulmates in the way romance novels would portray them. These were ancient energies, beings that had no form, but were forced to dwell in human souls to enter the world. Every end a beginning and every beginning and end. A reaction and an action, a cause and an effect. There was a light to his dark, an equal to his energy. Some energies came organically, as he was guessing this woman's did. They were born with them. Others, like him, they were given to them. But when they joined, their powers were unstoppable. A perfect merge of life and death, as a ying-yang symbol with one-half black and one-half white, intertwined and in harmony. Without the match, the powers were less stable, not as powerful as they could be. And his darkness was starving for the stability and wholeness that they had been following all the way down to Louisiana.
This night his darkness hears her call easily, she might be curious about him as well. He finds himself in a garden, green and lush and overflowing with life. The air is thick and muggy, the sun is hot and feeding everything in sight. He sees a woman on her knees in a flower bed. He approaches her slowly. She's a beautiful little thing, he thinks. A headful of thick dark bouncy curls that spring as she digs and plants. Her light brown skin shining with sweat, two large thighs from little red shorts, a fitted tank top of orange wraps around her torso, drops of sweat falling onto it, gliding down her collar bones and cleavage. She's humming, drawing flowers out of the ground happily with an invisible force with her fingers. Big light hazel eyes with freckles scattered across her cheeks, her lips flushed and pouting as she sang to herself. She freezes and so does he. She doesn't raise her head at first, but her eyes dart around the garden. She slowly raises it, her big doe eyes meeting his own uncertain and blue ones.
"Is that you, luv?" he whispers out in a breathy, needy voice.
Her eyes widen in fear, a deep gasp before they both wake up and lose the connection.
-She is weak. She does not know what she is.- his darkness says.
"We scared her." he says with a sigh.
-She is weak, afraid.-
"We don't want her to be bloody afraid of us." he says angrily.
-She is afraid. Anxious you call it.-
"Fear of the unknown will do that. Strange men appearin' in your dreams 'n all." he shrugs and rubs his face as he lets out a heavy sigh.
------
The next day he finds Cordelia in her office. He explains he's looking for a local girl and since she might have powers, he wondered if they had records on her. She gives him access to the hard copy files. He tells her she seems to like flowers if that helps. She pulls files specializing in growth and life powers and leaves him to it. He was far too distracted to have company it seemed. He sorts through them with a heavy brow, each a disappointment until he reaches on. He feels his fingertips tingling. He opens it and inside is a Polaroid of her, although it must've been more than a few years ago.
-Ours.- his darkness whispers.
"Mae." he says with a sigh. "Perfect name for her, yeah?" a half smile appears on his face.
-OURS!-
"Yeah, yeah." he shakes his head hard. "Most recent record..." he says, finger scanning the bottom of the page. "Address unchanged. Owner of Green Goddess Flower." he lets out a thoughtful hum. "That explains all the flowers." he smiles, a finger tracing over her picture.
-Go to her.- he hisses angrily.
"Yeah." he nods, closing the file and moving fast to gather his things.
Cordelia is speaking with Fiona in the corridor as Alfie comes hastily through, suitcase in hand, walking past them briskly.
"Where are you off to?" Cordelia asks.
"I'm going to find my girl." he says without looking back.
She nods with an open mouth, not sure what he meant by his specific choice of words.
"Well, that's over." Fiona snarks, taking a drink.
"What is it that he's going to do exactly?" her daughter asks with a tilted head as her mother starts to walk away.
"He's going to go find his mate, I believe. Something his kind does." she says with an uninterested shake of her head.
----
He throws the suitcase into the trunk of his black Cadillac Coupe Deville. He enters in the address of her shop into his phone, setting up the directions.
-Yesssssss.- his mind hisses while it vibrates with anticipation.
"I'm gonna need ya to take a backseat for a bit yeah, gotta handle this delicately."
He hears it makes a disgruntled noise. "No."
"You can come forth and scare her, we're going to frighten her, doesn't matter if your missing piece is in her, we have to get the human to accept us first. You understand?"
Another disgruntled noise.
"Right." he nods.
-------
He pulls onto the street of her shop. He can feel something shifting inside him, something different from the usual nuisance of his darkness. He wonders if she can feel it too. Shutting the door behind him, he clears his throat, taking wide steps, seeing a cute little shop with big glass windows coming into focus. There's a large mural of a green woman surrounded by plants with leaves for hair.
"Green Goddess Flowers" he hums to himself, looking up at the sign first, lovely polished cursive print. In the windows is a big beautiful display of her work. She really was full of life and talent, everything was not only aesthetically pleasing but lush and bright. He looks behind the foliage, seeing no one in the shop. He hopes he hasn't missed her, but as the sign on the door still reads, 'OPEN', he stands with his hand on the handle, feeling as if he should try to remember this moment, it seemed like it would be important. His darkness begins to hum and vibrate again. He pulls over the door. A little bell rings, almost making him jump with the anxiety he felt. Or was he feeling her anxiety? Or both? He didn't know her well enough to know the difference. He stands, feeling raw and unsure, things he hadn't felt in decades.
"Hello!" he hears called out from the back, he feels his heart palpitate, not that it's beating pattern really mattered any longer in regard to keeping him alive. She has the sweetest voice, like a bird singing in a summer breeze, it hits his ears and sends a warm shudder down his spine, his darkness is practically purring inside him. She walks around the corner, a pleasant face replaced with a shocked one instantly. Her eyes are wide, her jaw tight.
"Mae? Mae LeBlanc?" his voice is gruff and deep. She swallows noisily. "That you, luv?" he asks.
She lets out a nervous laugh, mouth open as if she was going to speak, but instead, her eyes roll back in her head and she passes out.
"Oh, fuckin' hell." he groans, moving fast to pick his soul's mate up off of the floor.
Ch. 1 PT. 2
@jaegeeeeer @negansdirtygirl22 @brianaisasongbird @hardygal69
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Best Games of 2020
2020 was a lot. It will be remembered for many things far above and beyond video games. COVID-19 shut the world down in a way never seen in my lifetime. It changed day to day life for many of us, and cost many of us loved ones. It was also the year when the ugly parts of our capitalist society were shown in broad daylight. It feels like 2001 again in that our lives will be divided into pre-2020 and post-2020.
For me personally, I was able to keep my job and work from home, and no one close to us died to the pandemic. We stayed home as much as possible, wore masks, wiped down groceries, and did our best to control what we could. It can be hard to talk about stuff like video games and sports with the usual sort of fervor when the world feels like it’s falling apart around us. It feels like playing the violin aboard the Titanic. But self-care is especially important in times like these, and it’s healthy and necessary to close Twitter, or for-the-love-of-god fucking Facebook and get a breather sometimes. Finding a balance where I could stay informed without completely submerging myself in misery wasn’t always easy.
And so. 2020 was a pretty good year for games, though it must be noted that there is a cost to that escapism - the industry is rife with stories of abuse, burnout, and coverups from companies such as Ubisoft and CD Projekt Red, Naughty Dog, and many others. That can add an additional layer of exhaustion to what is supposed to be a relaxing escape. So I can understand the people who say they don’t want to hear about abuse in industry, they just want the games. But also, fuck those people. “I don’t care if you suffer to entertain me, I just don’t want to hear about it.” Fuck the whole entire way off.
But I digress. Like most years, I played a lot of games. I played a lot of coop beat-em-ups with my kids this year. Minecraft Dungeons and Streets of Rage 4 didn’t make the list, but I spent hours playing them with my middle child. And it wasn’t a 2020 release, but I had a blast playing River City Girls with firstborn. It was a good year for fans of tactics games with stuff like Gears Tactics, Troubleshooter, Wintermoor Tactics Club, and Fae Tactics. 2020 also saw new console releases, though the launch lineups were especially thin.
Gaming-wise, 2020 was the year of Xbox Game Pass for me. I spent most of this console generation (justifiably) dogging Xbox for their lack of platform exclusives, but I decided to pursue an Xbox Series X before a Playstation 5. Game Pass is the main reason for this. The “Netflix for games” thing has finally become a reality, and Sony just doesn’t have an answer for the bonkers value of Game Pass. We head into the new console generation with Microsoft leaning heavily on Game Pass subs, Sony still banking on a few console exclusives, and Nintendo, uh, doing their own thing over there. What a fascinating time for the industry.
Honorable Mention
It’s an honor just to be nominated.
Monster Sanctuary
If you start with Pokemon, strip away the anime, and mix in a healthy dose of metroidvania, you have Monster Sanctuary. This means there are monsters to collect, level, and evolve, and lots of combat revolving around elemental strengths and weaknesses. And I am here for that shit. A game like this lives and dies by its combat, and it’s very satisfying here. The game has plenty of choices about which skills to focus on for each monster, which gear to equip, and which monsters to keep in your active roster.
That said, between a couple of nasty difficulty spikes and some super-frustrating puzzle rooms, I was close to walking away from the game on multiple occasions. It’s a testament to the game’s quality that I kept coming back to it.
Animal Crossing
Animal Crossing on the Gamecube is one of my favorite games ever. Each game in the series since the first has felt like a small incremental change from the original. I played Wild World on the DS quite a bit, City Folk a bit less, and A New Leaf not at all. I was thinking that maybe enough time has passed that I could get wrapped up in New Horizons, but I fell off it after a month or two.
I’m wondering what I would want from a new Animal Crossing game, and the answer is nothing. How much can you change the game and still have it be Animal Crossing? I don’t think the game is bad by any means. My whole family shared an island community for a couple of months. It’s impossible for a new game in the series make me feel the way that first game did.
The most memorable part of New Horizons is the museum. The museum is huge and absolutely lovely, with fish, bugs, fossils, and art each having their own wing. There were a few nights where the tranquility of the museum made for a nice end of the day.
Tell Me Why
My wife, firstborn, and myself have made a nice routine of playing through “choices matter” games together (starting last year with Detroit Become Human and following up with Life is Strange 2). Tell Me Why is the latest one one of these we tackled as a group. These game have created some memorable moments for us; who could forget their child yelling for them to “shoot the hooker”? (thank you, Detroit Become Human).
Tell Me Why was on my radar because it’s One of These, but also because it features a transgender protagonist. As a parent of a trans child, I was both excited at the prospect of this and also worried that it is such an easy thing to fumble. I’m pleased to report that DONTNOD handled the writing of the trans person very well without being hamfisted, preachy, or tryhardy with it. The character of Tyler is a believable trans man, and the topic is spoken of matter-of-factly without placing special focus on it; being trans is a part of Tyler’s story, but it’s not the entirety of his identity.
Less impressive to me was the story itself - especially the way it wrapped up its main conflict. The game trades in the idea of memory being imperfect, which is fascinating in and of itself, but I did not like it as a game mechanism. How did this REALLY happen? One character remembers it one way, and the other remembers it differently. Choosing between them felt cheap and hollow to me; I want you to tell me what happened, don’t ask me to choose. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game, and it feels like a step forward in mainstream storytelling for LGBTQA characters.
Ghost of Tsushima
Ghost of Tsushima is flat out gorgeous. Practically every area and every moment in the game is begging to screenshotted to the point where it can sometimes pull me out of the game world a little bit. That’s not necessarily a complaint because, as I said, the game is freaking beautiful. But every part of the world looking like a painting makes it feel more like it takes place in a fantasy world and less like a game from feudal Japan.
I also had some ludonarrative dissonance going on with the game; you play as Jin, one of the few surviving samurai in his homeland which has been invaded by the Mongols. His uncle is being held prisoner, and combatting the occupying force would be impossible without using dishonorable techniques like hiding, attacking from a distance, and ambushing from the shadows. I, however, have no qualms and savored every opportunity to catch my foes unaware. So Jin voices his doubts, then goes into a camp and proceeds to cut his enemies down from shadows as I cackle with glee.
Ghost of Tsushima also combines dark souls-esque* combat with Ubisoft-style open world gameplay where you’re hunting down icons on a map. That kind of open world game is hard for me top stick with, especially after I spent ~30 hours with Assassin’s Creed Origins early in the year. All of makes it sound like I’m pretty down on Ghost of Tsushima, which I’m not. I’m hoping I’ll come back to it at some point when I have more of an appetite for One of These.
Crown Trick
My Dungeons of Dredmor hole has not been properly filled in a long time. Chcocobo’s Mystery Dungeon is the closest I think. These games are what I think of as roguelikes, though the progression between runs makes them roguelites. *tips fedora*
Crown Trick is a turn-based dungeon crawler where the map is a grid, and each time you act, the enemies act. Add to this clockwork puzzle gameplay a good variety of weapons, relics, and events and you’ve got a lot of replayability. It doesn’t have Dredmor’s ridiculous combination of skill classes, but it does have a neat Mega Man-esque system where you defeat minibosses and add their skill set to your build.
Top 10
10. Star Renegades
Star Renegades was not on my radar at all until I heard Austin Walker talk about the game on Waypoint Radio. Two things gave me pause:
- It’s a sci-fi-ass game. It’s a setting I don’t care for. Star destroyers and aliens and galactic battlecruisers aren’t my jam.
- Austin Walker’s enthusiasm is infectious. I’ve tried games after hearing him gush over them and those games haven’t worked for me.** That’s not an indictment, he and I just have different tastes.
Star Renegades ticks a few important boxes for me: it has a lot of characters to unlock, it’s highly customizable, and the combat is turn-based with a twist. Every action, whether friend or foe, appears on a timeline. Some attacks will push their target’s action back on the timeline, so there’s a puzzle element to the combat that keeps it feeling fresh. You can choose the makeup of your party on each run, which helped give the game a buttload of replay value.
It’s not flawless by any means. The writing tries a little too hard to be cheeky and ends up feeling tryhardy and a little flat. A decent run in the game would often take 2-3 hours, which makes it feel deflating when it ends in failure - which it frequently did. The sections of the game where you move between zones on an overhead map feels needlessly clunky, and sometimes I ended up with movement points I couldn’t spend because of how the game handles that system.
I enjoyed Star Renegades a lot, but my time with it was weird. The game has unlockable characters, so unlocking them all was my first priority. The game’s runs are pretty long, I was playing sub-optimally trying to unlock things, and the game is more difficult than I’d expected. It took me a long time to complete the unlocks, then I had a hard time actually finishing a run successfully. Eventually I was ready to be done with it and turned the difficulty down to easy**** just to finally get a W. Still, the positives far outweigh the negative here, and Star Renegades is one of my favorite games of 2020.
9. Immortals Fenyx Rising
Man, something happened to me this December. I’m currently finding myself playing a lot of Forza Horizon 4, Destiny 2, and Immortals Fenyx Rising. None of these is My Kind of Game. Immortals is probably the least surprising of these, because it at least has swords and bows and stuff.
Still, I dismissed and mocked Immortals Fenyx Rising when it was first shown. It was called Gods & Monsters back then, and the idea of Ubisoft making yet another open world game, this time aping Breath of Wild was not appealing at all. I only ended up with the game after trading in Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox credit and looking into Immortals because I was very surprised to see it on Game Informer’s game of the year list.
To get a few things out of the way, it absolutely recycles a lot from Breath of the Wild: you’ll be hang gliding, scaling walls as a stamina meter drains, finding shrines that contain puzzles and combat and climbing towers to get a vantage point and find points of interest on the map. The latter feels the most fumbled in this game - you can zoom in and survey the landscape, and your controller vibrates when you are looking near a point of interest. Move the cursor over it and press a button to reveal it on the map. They split the difference between Assassin’s Creed’s “all the icons pop in automatically” and Zelda’s wonderful “manually mark places that look interesting to you on your map” system and ended up with something neither functional nor interesting.
That’s where my complaints end though. The game’s art style is similar at a glance, but it’s vibrant and gorgeous, and never feels like Breath of the Wild. The combat is snappy, responsive, and challenging. The puzzle design is often creative, clever, and rarely frustrating; most of my frustration has come from my overthinking the puzzle solutions. There is plenty of gear to find, and the game’s cosmetic options are intuitive and welcome. The game’s narrative is better than I expected; it feels like a B-tier Disney movie. The writing has made me smile a few times, and made me roll my eyes a few times. Zeus as comic relief is a pretty major miss, but it’s fine apart from that. It helps that I’m already familiar with Greek mythology.
It’s a huge, beautiful world where traversal and combat feel great. It’s sometimes hard to get anything done because I am constantly distracted by tracking down an icon on the map, or just exploring because I saw something cool or strange. Not all of the puzzles and challenges work, but that’s okay because I can move onto something else. Immortals Fenyx Rising is this year’s Dragon Quest Builders 2: gaming comfort food where it feels good to sit back and check things off a list at the end of a long day. Still don’t like the name though. And fuck Ubisoft.
8. Atomicrops
The first mention of Atomicrops I remember was “What if Stardew Valley was a twin stick shooter?” which is bullshit, because the games bear no resemblance beyond “there’s farming”. Beyond that first blurb, what appealed to me is the idea that the game’s days take place in 2 phases: during the daytime, you go out and fight baddies to gather seeds, and at night the baddies invade your farm and you fight them off while planting and watering crops.
It’s also a run-based roguelike, and I am 1 of 26 remaining people who is still psyched to play those. Give me a challenge, mix up the details, let me upgrade stuff between sessions, and turn me loose. The game has a good variety of weapons and the challenge is satisfying and rarely feels unfair (apart from the bullet hell problem of too much stuff on the screen at times). I don’t love the art style, but the music sure makes up for it.
7. Wintermoor Tactics Club
A game needs more than charm to be memorable and enjoyable. Charm can go a long way though, and Wintermoor Tactics club has it in spades. It takes place at a small college, and you play as a girl named Alicia. She and her friends are members of the school’s tactics club, and much of the game takes place around a table littered with graph paper, rulebooks, and snacks. As someone who loved tabletop RPG’s in simpler times, and never had the traditional college experience, a prettied-up version of that appeals to me in a huge way. It’s not wholly idyllic though, and it touches on issues of discrimination and what it’s like to be an outcast.
The gameplay itself is pretty straightforward tactics stuff and it works fine but isn’t really the draw here. I was propelled through the game largely by a desire to meet the next character, get the next story bit, and keep basking in the game’s wonderful aesthetic and smart writing. There’s something lovely about sitting around the table and playing a game with friends, and this game really captures that.
6. Ratropolis
Ratrpolis is “A fusion of roguelite, tower defense, city-building, and deck-building!” which sounds like a hodgepodge of nonsense. And it kind of is. It’s a city building game where you are periodically being invaded from either the left or right side of the screen (or both). You choose from 6 leaders, each with their own pool of cards and play style, start with a basic deck of cards and slowly evolve it. The cards consist of buildings, military units, and various economic and military buffs. The major things that set this apart from favorites like Slay the Spire are that it happens in real time, and there is an economic aspect to manage. Tax money comes in every few seconds, and it’s possible to make poor decisions early on and not understand why you feel hamstrung later.
I spent a lot of games like that, not really understanding why I’d be doing okay and then get overwhelmed. I had a few rage quits early on, but I could tell that there was something there. I started approaching it with the mindset of building an economic engine in the early game, and I started having a lot more fun and success. Each of the 6 leaders feels distinct, and figuring them each out has been a lot of fun. Runs are usually no more than about 30 minutes, which feels about right.
5. Final Fantasy VII Remake
Despite identifying as a big JRPG fan, I’ve never enjoyed a mainline Final Fantasy game enough to finish it. This year I finished 2 of them: Final Fantasy XV and the Final Fantasy VII Remake.*** I played the original Playstation Final Fantasy VII release, I think I got through disc 1 and a little ways into disc 2. It didn’t resonate with me, so I came to this year’s remake with no reverence for the game. When many of the original game’s fans got upset with how much the remake changed the script from the source material, I didn’t have a horse in that race.
The remake is gorgeous, the combat and upgrade systems are engaging, and the story is interesting enough to keep me wanting to see what’s next. The 1997 release of the game had some stuff that isn’t going to play the same in 2020 like the scene where Cloud is crossdressing, the game’s themes of environmental activism, and, uh, the entire Don Corneo storyline come to mind. But the game handled all of this pretty well. I’m glad to say that this is one of the best RPG’s I played this year, and I look forward to the next entry whenever the hell it comes along. Cloud is still an unlikable punk though.
4. Monster Train
Slay the Spire was a surprise hit a couple of years ago, and inspired a lot of folks in the indie space to take a crack at the deckbuilding genre. Monster Train managed to to take inspirations from Slay the Spire but still feels like very much its own thing. Both games have you progressing through a series of encounters consisting of battles, shops, or small events trying to defeat the big bad at the end of a journey. You start with a deck of basic cards and upgrade them and add new cards along to way. You can’t really start a run planning on making a certain style of deck, you just choose from the cards available and watch the strategy form. The way this process tickles my brain makes these games endlessly replayable. The “one more run” is very strong here.
Monster Train differentiates itself in a couple of ways. First, where Slay the Spire was always just your one character battling one or more enemies, here you are summoning multiple creatures on the lower 3 levels of a 4-level train (I don’t know either). If the enemies reach the top floor of your train, they attack your core directly and eventually defeat you. This adds a strong spatial planning element - now you’re thinking about which combatants you want on each floor, and in what order.
The other notable difference between the games is that while Slay the Spire has four heroes, each with their own unique pool of cards, Monster Train has five factions. It’s one better. The first three factions feel pretty standard from a creativity point of view - red/green/blue are fire/nature/ice. The last two factions you unlock feel wholly unique though: there’s a faction that summons weak, cheap units and feeds on them for combat bonuses, and one that is made of candle beings who are powerful, but melt away. Okay, the real reason is that each time you play, you’re choosing a main faction (each has 2 champions to use from) and a secondary faction (you don’t get their champion, but you get access to their pool of cards). This makes each run feel unique and makes the game feel endlessly replayable. Even after unlocking all of the factions and their cards, and winning a run on the hardest challenge setting with each faction, I’m still playing Monster Train.
3. Spiritfarer
If Kentucky Route Zero is my “It’s Not You, It’s Me” game this year, Spiritfarer might be my “Love at First Sight” game of the year. The game’s striking visuals grabbed my attention immediately when I first saw the trailer at E3 2019, and it was billed as a game about saying goodbye. My only reservation was that it was coming from Thunder Lotus Games, whose previous titles (Jotun and Sundered) both fell flat for me.
Spiritfarer ended up being everything I was hoping for. You play as the newly-appointed ferryperson for the boat that transports souls from the land of the living to the land of the dead. Your ship acts as your base of operations, and you build living quarters, a kitchen, a forge, and lots of other facilities on it. The beings who join you on your ship are anthropomorphized animals, each with their own story. Your job is to help them be at peace, then send them to the next life once they’re ready.
In practical terms, you’re spending a lot of your time sailing from island to island to talk to people and find resources. There’s a plenty of crafting and time sinks in the game, and I appreciated the excuse to luxuriate in this game world. No game made me cry this year, but Spiritfarer (Alice’s story in particular) sure did try. It was the perfect respite for the nightmare that was 2020.
2. Yakuza: Like a Dragon
A lot of Yakuza fans were concerned over this game’s switch from the series’ usual brawling combat to turn-based RPG combat. I was not one of them. Everything about this game sounds like the sort of fan fiction someone like, well, like me would come up with on a late night drunken bender. “What if it was Yakuza, but like, JRPG battles? Why would that happen.....OH oh oh what if the main character was a big fan of DRAGON QUEST so he just, like, saw the world in those terms? You could have party members, and a Pokedex of all the weirdo scumbags you fight, and you could change jobs by going to a temp agency!”
All of that is in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. And I love it. The series’ producer says they decided to pivot to a turn-based combat system after positive reaction to an April Fools Day Yakuza RPG joke they put online. And there are some rough spots. Your party members get caught on the world’s geometry sometimes, and combatants are constantly milling around so AOE abilities feel like a crap shoot. The Yakuza series has always had about 30% too much combat, so translating it into a genre known for grindy gameplay feels like a perfect storm of sorts. Thankfully, I’m a fan of grindy RPG’s so all of this is directly in my wheelhouse.
This eighth game in the Yakuza series is the first with a new protagonist - goodbye Kiryu Kazuma, hello Ichiban Kasuga. Where Kiryu was very stoic, Ichiban is a hothead with the perfect mix of kindness, earnestness, and stupidity for a JRPG hero. He is an incredibly likeable and charismatic character, and I hope Ryu Go Gotoku Studio tightens up the battle system and keeps this iteration of the series running.
1. Hades
Hades seemed like a slam dunk. My favorite studio was making an action RPG based on Greek mythology. The announcement was the best possible version of “AND you can play it right now!” I bought it (in early access) immediately and played it a bit, but I didn’t want to burn out on it so I only briefly checked in on it every few months. As a result, my hype was pretty low when the game reached its 1.0 release.
Once I decided to fully engage with the game though, I was unable to put it down. SuperGiant’s games have the best writing, music, and voice acting in the business. That’s a pretty high bar to aim for, and they hit it once again with Hades. Both of their post-Bastion games (Transistor and Pyre) are games that I have to recommend with an asterisk though; the gameplay parts of each game is an acquired taste and will put some folks off.
Hades, however, I can give a full throated recommendation for. The gameplay is tight and the combat feels good. There’s a lot of variety in the weapons, so you can either find one that fits your style and stick with it, or do what I did and change it up every run. They also managed to achieve something incredible - they largely took the sting out of losing in a run-based game. There are things to unlock between runs as you’d expect from a roguelite. I found myself enjoying chatting with the denizens of hell as much as the moment to moment action gameplay. I’d respawn back home and make my rounds, taking to people and spending my cash. I had a route I’d travel each time, and that route ended with Skelly in the weapons room. Oh, the gauntlets grant a bonus if I use them this time....the door to start a new run is just right over there....okay I can do one more run tonight.
That personality and dialogue is sprinkled throughout the runs themselves too, in the form of the various Greek gods you talk to and get boons from. The variety in weapons and boons give the game tremendous replayability and give the game a deckbuilding feel. Every character in the game is incredibly well developed and well-acted. Zagreus is a likeable and relatable protagonist. He wants to get away from his disapproving father and find his estranged mother, and he and his father can’t see eye to eye.
The story and gameplay in Hades do equal lifting, the game is an incredibly complete package. The game also provided a couple of the most memorable moments of the year. Hades might just be SuperGiant’s best game. It’s certainly their most complete game.
*It’s very much on the lighter side of this gameplay style, akin to 2019′s Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Plus there are difficulty settings, which I appreciate.
**Invisible Inc, Dragon’s Dogma, and The Outer Wilds come to mind.
***Final Fantasy VII Remake is only the first installment in a series
****Cloaked in shame and failure.
0 notes
EVAK FANFICTION RECS / PART 11
Hi loves! So 2 weeks passed and I’m back with another part of my long-ass Evak fanfiction recs series, hooray! I never know what else to write here, so I’ll just shut up for now. All the fics can be found under the cut. Happy reading!
As always, the list is divided into oneshots and chaptered fics.
My personal favorites are tagged with a “ ★ ”.
Completed chaptered fics are tagged with a “ ✓ ”
*
ONESHOTS:
du lyser opp rommet (you light up the room) by hippopotamus ★
Summary: roommates!au; Isak has never told his roommate Even that he's scared of the dark, but Even finds out anyway when there's a powercut. (He's also never told his roommate Even that he has a huge crush on him.)
kissing you, loving you by isakhoney
Summary: Isak and Even and kisses that aren't just on the mouth. Mostly not on the mouth.
Even's World by Skamzombie
Summary: After the events of the last clip of season 4 episode 5. Isak has been hurt and Even thinks it's his fault.
let's go somewhere they might discover us (sometimes it's better when it's publicly) by highpraises
Summary: Even and Isak fuck in a classroom.
Stop the world I wanna get off with you by LostInAdmiration ★
Summary: "Sometimes, it felt like they were worlds away from the people they were when they first met, both lost in their different ways and searching for their places in the world. They had come so far from that, become so much stronger, and finally had both feet firmly on the ground most of the time. But then sometimes, on a day like this, where they were curled up together sharing slow, lazy kisses, with Isak’s fingernails leaving half-moon imprints in Even’s skin, and Even’s hands buried in Isak’s hair, it felt as though no time had passed at all."
Real Eyes by SuddenTempest
Summary: soulmates!au; Where everyone is born with heterochromia - your right eye is your own natural eye colour but your left is the colour of your soulmate's. It is only once that you meet and recognize your own eye staring back at you that your eyes change to match. Or, Isak has been having money problems. Even just lost his job. What happens when both of them meet in a very non-professional fashion and realise that they're each other's soulmates?
it's hard for me to communicate the thoughts that i hold (but tonight i'm gonna let you know) by eatthatup ★
Summary: Isak loves it, but he loves pleasing Even even more. So, he decides, what could be better than giving him a lap dance?
take you to where the sun shines, cast shadows on your face (crawl into their deepest recess,'til i freeze or dehydrate) by vesperthine
Summary: They drag themselves up the stairs, and Even closes the door behind them; enveloping them both in the shadows ( – the familiar smell, dust, home – ) of the hallway. At the far end, that grey light is spilling in from the kitchen, and it’s just enough to make out the silhouette of Isak’s throat as he swallows.This is the aftermath, then; adrenaline sublimated and only the pieces and shivers left in its wake.
the best is over and the worst is yet to come by evenbec
Summary: He keeps walking forward step by step, until he isn't. Suddenly, all Isak knows is white noise. He doesn't know what's going on around him. Can't feel Even’s hand in his any longer. His eyes are out of focus, and his brain is short circuiting.Or, A Post Fight Fic.
Taking Care by oldskamish
Summary: Even takes care of a sick Isak for the first time. Then it's Isak's turn to take care of his boyfriend.
Touch It by nofeartina
Summary: The first kiss makes everything go quiet in his head. It’s easy to be courageous here; surrounded by water, no sounds coming through. Just him and Even. Just this storm in his head, butterflies in his stomach, that immediately quiets when he gets his lips on Even’s. Or, five times that Isak is overwhelmed by Even, and one time it is the other way around.
other lives and dimensions and finally a love poem by elspethelf
Summary: "Marry me," Isak says. Even almost drops the can of tuna he's holding.
Who Wouldn't Want It (When He Looks Like That) by CouldBeBlue
Summary: “They can’t see you, but they could hear you, baby,” Even whispers in his ear, pressing two fingers against Isak’s lips. “You’d like that, yeah? All those students in the courtyard hearing you beg me to fuck you?”
Every step of the way by Tchell1
Summary: “I snapped.” Even started “That’s what happened at Bakka. I snapped and wrote all these parts of the Qur'an over the school walls.” He opened his eyes to meet Isak’s, almost daring him to stop the words. Isak would never not allow Even to speak, though “The words were full of hate. I splashed the wall with all the parts where it said being gay was a terrible sin and all homosexuals were going to hell.”
Waiting Room by sasnill
Summary: He remembered a sick, frightened noise coming out of his own throat and Even saying, "We'll be there soon. We'll be there soon," as Isak's footsteps weaved from side to side across the path. - A long night.
you love when love hurts by thekardemomme ★
Summary: The one in which The Black Eye Galaxy finds its way onto Isak's face.
you bring me home by hippopotamus
Summary: Even comes home to find Isak listening to Harry Styles' album.
ten & twelve by fleurbleue
Summary: childhood friends!au; 10-year old Isak doesn't like 12-year old Even being so tall (maybe he does, but Even and his ego didn't need to know that).
in the place of you and me by DarkBeauty_890 ★
Summary: “Can I tell you a secret?” Even murmurs, tracing mindless patterns- zig zags and hearts and stars and infinity signs- up and down Isak’s bare back. He circles freckles and counts them, adding them to his never ending tally of things to know about Isak. Isak snuffles sleepily, “Mmhmm.” “You have made me happier in less than a year, than I think I have been in my entire life.” Eyes flicker open, hazy green; beautiful and open, “Ditto.”
Handcuff Your Way To My Heart by sugarbeat24
Summary: Isak and Even work at Buzzfeed and are roped into doing a video together. Lots of "oh my gods" and eyerolls ensue.
you've been scared of love (and what it did to you) by dreamocacy
Summary: soulmates!au; Sure, almost everyone in Nissen have their soulmates, but they don't exist, not to Isak. Because Isak doesn't have one.
Isak is a hermit until Even happens by cloudowl
Summary: magic!au; Isak lives in a cot in the middle of nowhere. He makes potions, cares for the plants and animals of the forest and makes the best brew there is in the land. Jonas likes to visit and to call him a hermit but that is about to change when Even one day shows up at his cot.
Taste of Love by bashfulisak
Summary: Isak is obsessed with Even's lips and Even knows it.
I Just Want To Say I Love You by sugarbeat24
Summary: The 3 times Isak tries to tell Even he loves him with a grand romantic gesture and the 1 time he tries something different and succeeds.
on the verge, now submerge, i'm your church by highpraises
Summary: Even has a huge dick. They fuck in his parents' house.
the boyfriend experience by diamondjacket ★
Summary: The point is: Even is great. Even is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that the alarming and ever-growing disparity between them, in terms of boyfriend-ing, has become impossible to ignore. Try as he might to talk himself down, Isak can’t quite stop that ugly fear from gnawing at him—the fear that Even will wake up one day and suddenly realize, fuck, why in God’s name am I doing all this work for a smelly, socially awkward slob with no money and no skills and Dorito crumbs in his bed? Or: Isak decides he's gonna boyfriend the hell out of Even. It does not go to plan.
gratulerer med dagen by isakhoney
Summary: Wealthy boy Even's family is hosting a reception for constitutional day. He meets beautiful and bashful Isak, a waiter in traditional clothing. He takes him to his room, makes him sit on his lap.
sweet dreams turns into fucking in the morning by highpraises ★
Summary: “Can’t exactly touch you now, can I?” he points out the obvious, but of course Isak already knows that. He’s the one who fucking tied Even up while asleep in the first place.Isak giggles and pecks Even softly on the tip of his nose. “Just lie back and enjoy, Ev. I’m doing all the work this morning.” Or, Even wakes up to a surprise on the morning of his graduation.
I Ain't Never Did This Before, No by evenkosegruppa
Summary: 'Soooo, you don't have to answer this but, you ever had sex before?' Isak and Even have maths together and they send notes in class.
for you by thekardemomme
Summary: Isak and Even return to the karaoke bar.
take my hand (take my whole life too) by eatthatup ★
Summary: Isak loves holding Even's hand.
eleven & thirteen by fleurbleue
Summary: childhood friends!au; Even has a fever, Isak plays doctor.
This Minute by XioNin
Summary: It's 21:21 on the 21st, and Isak feels... something.
A Thousand Steps by riyku
Summary: There are about a hundred reasons why this is a bad idea and one reason why it's a great one.
Take Your Time by Masterless
Summary: “Isak,” Even started when they got onto the tram. He sat next to his boyfriend, letting Isak rest his head on his shoulder. “I should tell you something.” “You don’t have to tell me anything if you’re not ready,” Isak replied, his voice soft, almost not even there. Even rested his head on top of Isak’s. “I really should tell you, though. It’s something that I did and it’s affected a lot.”
Intense by nhasablog ★
Summary: Even’s hand found his chin and then his cheek, pulling his head closer so that their gazes met again. He was smiling. “Stop turning away from me.” Isak didn’t reply, because he knew Even wasn’t expecting it anyway. He bumped their noses together instead, relishing in the way Even looked at him, for while it made him want to run away it also made him want to never look away. (Or, Even’s gaze is almost too intense for Isak to keep looking at him, but he never wants it to stop.)
baby, it's our moment, let's enjoy it by potterskam
Summary: Four times Even realizes that 21:21 is their moment + one time Isak realizes it and posts it in Instagram.
du er ikke alene.du er ikke alene. du vil aldri være alene igjen. by RedLights
Summary: Isak is feeling hurt and broken and alone and Even letting him know that he's never alone. (Post 4.06 Clip #1)
there's only so much a dandelion can do by cuddlesevak
Summary: Even kneels down next to a group of tiny yellow flowers (dandelions, he thinks, although he's not that sure) and grabs one, going back up and looking at his boyfriend with the brightest smile. "Still waiting for an answer" he says, looking confused. "You're so pretty, you know that?"
You Know I'd Walk A Thousand Miles by pressurerin
Summary: A plague breaks out and claims half of the world's population. Even and Isak get separated.
The Adventures of the Snapback by littlemovie (Lejla) ★
Summary: The guy raised his eyebrows, when Isak had not said anything for quite a while, a faux innocent expression on his face, which brought Isak back to the present. “That’s my snapback!” Yeah okay, Isak could have eased a bit better into the conversation instead of yelling in the guy’s face. If possible, the guy’s brows climbed even higher on his forehead. “Excuse me?” Isak could feel the blush spreading from his chest to his cheeks. “I mean.. yeah, that’s my snapback and I want it back.” The guy grinned, “I really don’t think so.”
Veilchen by colazitron
Summary: A dandelion's marginally better than a black eye.
You are in Love by pressurerin ★
Summary: Even is so in love with Isak. Isak feels the same.
ivory by evenvaltersen
Summary: "Would that make you relax? A nice orgasm?" Isak nods, curling up impossibly closer to Even and Even almost wants to cry at the softness of it all, at how tiny and snuggly Isak looks in that pink, too big hoodie. "Alright, baby. How do you want it?" Or: Isak's stressed. Fingering makes him calm down.
breathe (don't you let that heartbeat fall) by argentae
Summary: “Hey, do you want to come over to our place this Friday so we can work on our presentation after school? And that dinner invitation still stands,” Isak says. “I promise I won’t even touch the food, so no need to worry about that.” (Alternatively: biology buddies make a presentation, Even makes great food and Sana talks.)
Veilchen by colazitron
Summary: A dandelion's marginally better than a black eye.
show me with your body baby by yourelectriclove
Summary: It's wild and careless but they don't care, he doesn't care when Even pulls down his boxers completely, he doesn't care when the darkness is slowly fading to light as the sun comes up and the birds start chirping, all he cares about is Even's hands on him, on his body, touching him, fucking him, loving him.
high for this by theyellowcurtains
Summary: married!au; Isak’s heart stopped hearing his name said aloud for the first time. He never thought it would feel so good to have Even’s last name. He leaned his head on the taller mans shoulder, sighing contently. “Okay boys! I’ll just get you your key card. Just a second!” Once alone Isak whispered ‘Mannen i mitt liv” to his Even before kissing his cheek and pulling him closer. AKA: Evak's wedding night.
blow out all the candles by tarjeiandhenrik ★
Summary: It's Eskild's birthday, Even works at a cake shop and Isak doesn't know how to make tea.
aren't you something to admire by highpraises
Summary: “Do you see how that mirror is pointed towards us?” he asks calmly. Isak looks to the side for a second, taking in the mirror, then back at Even and nods, a flush already starting to form on his cheeks. He’s so beautiful, pale skin and soft hair, curling behind his ears and spread out somewhat against the duvet. He’s a sweet little thing, pale but glowing. He looks like an angel. Or, Even fucks Isak in front of a mirror.
you in those little high-waisted shorts (both your hands in the holes of my sweater) by hidefromeveryone
Summary: Isak went into Forever 21 with a mission. He left with a cute boy's phone number scrawled on his hand, and lipstick smeared on his cheek.
The Abstract Art of Affection by readwritesleep ★
Summary: photographer!Even; Isak gets to know Even as an artist before he gets to know him as a person, but he is quickly taking a liking to the man behind the camera. After all, art means risk, and balancing on the edge has always been a good way to get to know a person.
It Has a Balcony by sasnill
Summary: "We could get our own place," Isak said, the thoughts forming simultaneous to them pouring from his mouth. "Because - I mean, we kind of live together now, and Noora's been sleeping on the couch for months, which... that's really nice of her, but - so if she didn't have to do that anymore, that would be..." Even kissed him.When they broke apart, faces pressed together so that Isak could feel Even's breath on his lips, he said, "Would you want to?" Even laughed. He said, "Yes, I'd want to," and kissed Isak again. So they do.
don’t you worry there my honey by sonhoedesrazao
Summary: “Did you have fun with Sana?” Even asks when they break apart.
we were made for garden by stomatoconveniencestore ★
Summary: When Eskild announces he's about to star in a documentary, Isak doesn't pay him much attention. But once he accidentally gets involved himself, it's not only the film he starts to care about, but also its director.
Good For You by nofeartina
Summary: “Do that again,” Even says and Isak can’t help but comply. Isak is powerless against anything Even asks of him, especially when he asks like that. Or, The Nipple Play-fic that nobody asked for.
Watch Me Now by sleepinggiant
Summary: soulmates!au; Isak is letting himself be happy with his soulmate, which is why he decides to open up to his friends about Even. (sequel to A State of Mind)
rolling on and on, sounds of love are in the air by highpraises
Summary: They've never done it like this before, and the sight is truly remarkable. Isak’s torso is all slim and small, his waist and hips so tiny, and his face is, god, he just looks like he's already been fucked for an hour. His pupils are blown and his lips are puffy and his hair's a mess and he's gorgeous and he's going to ride Even’s dick. God. Or, Isak's first time riding dick.
busted and blue by theyellowcurtains
Summary: Even finally told Isak about how his last year at Bakka went down. Isak reacts very differently from how Even expected him to.
Turn Off Your Phone by i_once_wrote_a_dream
Summary: “Turn off your phone, baby,” he whispers into Isak’s neck. The harsh light from the screen still glares at them, but he can see Isak’s grip loosen and he just has to push a little more.
Blossom by LostInAdmiration ★
Summary: “That’s because she doesn’t know you like I do,” Even mumbled into Isak’s skin. “No?” Isak sighed back as Even pressed a kiss onto his temple, before moving down to his cheek, and then even further, peppering kisses all along his jaw. “Nope. You’re kind, and you’re smart, and handsome too. And you deserve much better than her.” Even punctuated each word with a kiss, as if he could press each compliment into Isak’s skin, so that it could bury itself inside of Isak, and always be there as a reminder of just how wonderful Even knew he was.
CHAPTERED:
Will You Be My Best Man? by bashfulisak ✓
Summary: Even asks Isak to be his best man at his wedding and Isak falls apart as he pushes away the undeniable connection between him and Even all while trying to be happy, but that too falls and shatters come the wedding.
Before and After by XioNin ✓
Summary: Even's thoughts before and after the karaoke party.
it's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right by mmxii ★ ✓
Summary: childhood friends!au; Even suddenly stops and just looks at him for a few seconds. Then he says it. “You’re my best friend, you know. Always have been, always will be.”
Guru Knows Best by StMisery ✓
Summary: neighbors!au; Isak grumps, and Eskild schemes. But it's all in the name of love. For their gorgeous new neighbour (and a little for each other too). Even moves into the apartment across the hall, and Isak's just trying to make it another day without dying of embarrassment.
Home Is Wherever I'm With You by cuteandtwisted ★
Summary: travel!au; “Hi. I’m Even and I don’t usually walk around in nothing but a towel.” “Uh, I'm Isak.” “Isak. Mind if I kidnap you for some fun sightseeing activities?” Or Isak and Even keep meeting in hostels all around the world and never exchanging contact information.
The Notion of Falling by smokeshop ★ ✓
Summary: HateToLove!au; Isak hates Even and Even hates Isak and Sana is the only one who knows why.
Things Look Different in the Morning by allyasavedtheday ★ ✓
Summary: roomates!au & uni!au; “So,” he says, drawing the word out. “I told Even he could stay here.”Isak blinks, convinced he’s misheard. “Eskild,” he says flatly. “We don’t have a spare room.” Eskild straightens his back, expression turning sheepish. “That’s the other part…I was thinking he could stay in your room?” * In which Even needs a place to stay, kollektivet gains a new roommate, and Isak just really wants to sleep.
Golden boy by lost_in_the_maze
Summary: Hogwarts!au; Even's time at Hogwarts is rudely interrupted by the most beautiful boy he has ever laid eyes upon and he loves it.Isak's a veela and he's enjoying it especially now all his mates have transferred and he's captured the attentions of tall ravenclaw second year.
surrounded by eight of the most beautiful, crazy-ass mother fuckers the world has ever seen by traumatic
Summary: Isak gets sent to a group for anxiety sufferers. The boy who sits across from him makes him feel positively electric. Or, where everyone's fucked up, Isak is living in his past, Even stares a lot, and, sometimes, talking about your problems actually helps.
You Illuminate the Sky by antiscian
Summary: “Isak, why did Even Bech Næsheim post a picture of you on his Instagram?” “Even who?” Or: The one in which Even shares pictures of a mysterious boy he keeps seeing in the city and Isak turns out to be said boy.
Membership Dues by Sabeley ★ ✓
Summary: fraternity!au; Isak is pledging Even's fraternity. Even keeps having to be reminded that he's not allowed to date the pledges. "It's a ten-week pledge period. How hard could it be?" Famous last words.
Summer Lovin', Happened So Fast by evenkosegruppa
Summary: neighbors!au; AU in where Isak lives near the beach and he and his friends refer to Even as the "guy that broke Isak's heart when he was fourteen."
Oppfordre (Nerve) by Evenbechbaesheim ✓
Summary: Nerve!au; After everything that went on last year, Isak's really just trying to keep his head down and cling onto the few friendships he's managed to maintain. Eva still hates him, and he doesn't blame her for a second. In Isak's head, he really is the villain of her story. He probably deserves everything that's coming to him.And then Oppfordre starts.It's just a silly game. A dumb app that makes you do dares for money, using online popularity as a driving force. Isak isn't interested. Not even remotely. Then he notices the new boy across the schoolyard. (Based on the 2016 Mystery/Crime Thriller Nerve.)
worth everything ever wished for by idariverman
Summary: Every day at exactly 18.11, Isak steps on the tram. Every day at exactly 18.15, a mysterious boy steps on it as well, and he seems to enjoy making Isak squirm.
your heart is a masterpiece (and i'll keep it safe) by glowatlast
Summary: They have been living together for a year. Even is now an art student and Isak is in third year. Or, Even loves drawing literally anything (preferably Isak), and Isak loves talking about weird theories, watching Christopher Nolan movies, and his boyfriend.
love and healing by evenbakkas ★
Summary: fake dating!au & uni!au; Isak is angry. He’s fucking pissed, and he’s suddenly seeing red, because his ex fucking took his heart and stomped on it until it was left in pieces, and he doesn’t get to do this to Isak after all the shit he’s pulled. So, before the guy can answer, Isak smiles curtly and says, “He’s my boyfriend.” Or: A Fake dating!AU where Isak goes grocery shopping and meets an attractive stranger in a jean jacket who ends up leaving as his fake boyfriend.
when you grow up, your heart dies by TheMousePrince
Summary: The Breakfast Club!au; Sana, Isak, Even, Eva, and Vilde are spending the Saturday in detention. Shenanigans, romance, rebellion, and growing up ensues.
you are my life (i don't deserve you) by thekardemomme
Summary: 20-something ways they said I love you.
Sees Hjemme by incorporealspike
Summary: AU in which Noora never leaves to go to London, and Isak finds himself in a new shared apartment. And his new roommates? Not who you're expecting.
I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me by dahlstrom ★ ✓
Summary: The diner AU. Even and Yousef open a 1950s American-style restaurant together - Even is the creative genius in the kitchen, Yousef keeps the trains running on time, and Isak, Chris B, and Magnus are all along for the ride. Falling in love over food while Elvis serenades from the jukebox. Welcome to the Throwback Diner.
Hurts so good by sayyestothis ✓
Summary: "Even, this is all I have wanted for my 18th birthday since like, forever. Except for you." Isak rolls his eyes. “Are you seriously comparing me to a piercing? Wow, I’m flattered.” Even laughs, his eyes squinting. “Two things I’d like to have in my mouth, can’t see what’s wrong with it”, Isak shrugs. Or: Isak gets a tongue piercing. Even tries to be supportive. Keyword: tries.
These Mountains To Move by verlore_poplap
Summary: soulmates!au; In one month, two weeks and four days at exactly 21:21 on Sunday, June 21st, 2015 - Isak Valtersen will turn sixteen years old and the name of his soulmate will appear on his wrist...
Pale polaroids. by echosofdawn
Summary: Isak is weird. His friends don't understand him. No one understands him. His childhood traumas are always there, under his skin, in his brain and are constantly cracking his heart. He can't have any more pain. He wouldn't be able to bear it. Even knows this. He knows it perfectly well. But human emotions can't be controlled.
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How To Enhance Your Magic With Regional Modifications
SL Bear
Where you live informs a lot about your life. What you eat, what you believe, whether you call it pop or soda, etc. If you’re a witch, it also influences your magic. I used to live in the desert, so rainstorms became very powerful and special to me and the perfect time to do magic. In the mountains, I was introduced to seasons and those changes became magical. I think most witches relate to their environments in this way, and in particular the weather of the region. Through online resources, we have access to all kinds of different magic, but at the end of the day, you’ll use what’s around you and you develop a style based on how your environment influences you.
Today, we’re going to focus on elemental magic by region and give you some ideas of how to use your environment for your craft. While it’s fabulous to be inside in front of your altar with candles and spell ingredients, this post is about getting back to nature and using what’s already available in your region in your magic.
Desert
Water is essential to life. Our blue planet is a thriving, flourishing, unique place in the known universe because of its water. Without it, we would not exist. Perhaps more than any other region, the desert is especially aware of this. Animals and plants are built to conserve precious water until the next rainstorm, and even the people, who have access to running water in their homes, move out to their porches when it rains to simply enjoy a break from the otherwise unrelenting sun.
While my first impulse was to choose fire for the desert, I realised that what’s truly special about the desert is how it relates to water. Its lack of water is what makes it what it is, and so I’ve whipped up some easy magic for desert witches to use when those all too rare thunderstorms finally show up.
The next time it rains, go outside and collect some rainwater in a couple bottles. Enjoy the storm and try and think of it as restoring you!
Rainwater Cleanse
What you will need:
White candle
Black candle
Rainwater
When the rains come to the desert, they replenish the earth and that’s what this cleansing spell is about. Think of it as a restorative cleanse for yourself, and any emotional damage you’ve endured lately.
Light your candles and arrange them on either side of your stove, then pour the rainwater into a pot and bring it to a boil. Hold your head close enough so that the steam from the water touches your face. Inhale deeply and hold your hands over the steam as well. Not so that you burn yourself — just waft the vapours toward you like you would if you were sick and trying to clear out your sinuses. This cleansing works in the same way, except you’re clearing out negativity from your system. You can save this rainwater in a spray bottle and use it for cleansing instead burning sage or smoking in other ways — much easier on the lungs!
You can also add plants and sand to this brew and really get the essence of the desert, which is a very pungent energy. You must be careful, however, because the desert defends itself and some plants are toxic — like the rain-scented creosote and pretty oleander. Be careful and do your research, witches!
Mountain
The mountains make our world interesting in a way few other things do. Travelling to the mountains, where the air is thin and cool, touches some primitive part of us all and it’s hard to deny their majesty. The element I’ve paired with the mountains is earth. Earth represents many different things but especially grounding.
If you live near mountains, you may not get to visit them as much as you’d like, so next time you do, take a few smoky quartz crystals and a container. While you let the crystals charge in the crisp mountain air, fill the container with earth and any leaves or soft mountain debris that you find — smooth stones, old pine needles, etc. Make sure there are no creepy crawlies in there.
Next time you perform a grounding, arrange the same smoky quartz on the surface of the earth you collected and submerge your fingers into the container while you centre yourself. Clear your head. Run the earth between your fingers, smell it, remember what it’s like to be up in the mountains and away from it all. This is a very literal way to get back to nature during groundings, without having to travel anywhere. This earth can also be added to amulets or talismans so you can keep this steady power with you, or used to charge grounding stones.
Coastal
Water seems like a natural element to use for the coast and sea, but after looking harder at what the sea represents, what it’s capable of it, how it has shaped our world, it becomes clear that water in this environment represents power. Symbolically, power is associated with the sun and fire — something the sea tends to lack. The easiest way to capture fire is a candle, so that’s what we’ll be making for this coastal power spell, merging these two powerful elements and helping to rekindle your personal power when you feel it’s gone out.
What you will need:
Candle making equipment along with red dye
Small stones or shells from the shore
Sand
Salt
Cayenne pepper
Oaktree bark if it’s handy, if not the bark of your favourite coastal tree
There are many online tutorials about making candles so I won’t detail that here. While you’re making the candle, add the stones or shells, sand, salt, cayenne pepper, and bark to the wax so all of these power ingredients are part of the candle. Once completed, take your candle down to the shore, light it, and meditate on all the ways you feel powerless in your life and how you can flip these scenarios to regain your power. Take a notebook and pen if you like, to write down any realisations or ideas. Once you’ve completed your powerless list, make a new one for all the times in your life you were powerful. Sometimes when we’re overwhelmed, we tend to forget the good things we’re capable of and only focus on the bad. How can you apply these powerful moments of your life to your powerless ones to regain a feeling of control? Take as long as you like with this, and when you feel you’ve made some progress, use a little sea water to put out the candle. Repeat this ritual whenever you need a little power pick me up.
Plains
Often ignored, the plains are the heartbeat of a country. In the USA at least, this is where we grow most of our food. It’s a land with a clear purpose, which is why I’ve chosen air as its element and the perfect place to work on manifestation.
Manifesting is hard. Essentially, you’re making what you think and dream about a reality, but if you’re bogged down with negative thoughts, you can see how this would manifest negative energy in your life. It’s not personal — the universe isn’t targeting you. Going beyond magic, there are medical studies that support this logic, as well. Negative, stressed out people tend to have greater risks for heart problems and other health issues. The good news is that you can train yourself to think differently and avoid these problems simply by changing your perspective.
In life, we all have some good and some bad, but what separates us is how we cope with these things. During the lows, you must learn to remember the good and to be grateful, to keep your thoughts positive and appreciative of what you do have. We all have moments of being overwhelmed, but you can’t let it rule how you see your life. Learning to be positive is key in learning to manifest positive things. No, you may not suddenly win the lottery or cure a long-standing illness, but you’ll learn to be thankful when things do go your way, and how to cope when they don’t.
So, witches of the plains, go out to one of those big open fields, relax, regulate your breathing, and say aloud what you are grateful for. You may struggle for a minute — it’s hard to retrain a mind — but work at it and make this is a regular ritual. Feel the air on your face, don’t let negative thoughts get in the way, and list all the things that you have that make you happy. During the week, make notes of when you’re grateful for something (especially small things) and try hard to stop negative thoughts or feelings in their tracks. Recognise when it’s happening and work to control it. Being alone in an open place will help you center, but by no means does this exercise only have to be performed outside. It should be something we all practice regularly.
Once you start changing the way you think, you’ll begin to notice good things happening because you’re learning to see them better.
You can always take it to the next level and show your gratitude as well. Take some seeds out to the field and leave it for the birds in offering. Pick up any trash around the area. Do something that gives a little back, taking the time to show thanks in any way you can think of. It does a soul very good. Congratulations, you’re now actively manifesting positive energy!
While I often enjoy complicated, structured magic, it’s certainly not the only way. By simply being outside and learning to use your magic with your environment and finding the magic within instead of in fancy ingredients, you’ll become a stronger witch. I haven’t covered all the different, beautiful regions this world has to offer, but with a little creativity, you can learn to use whatever environment you’re in to your advantage.
https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/2018/8/26/how-to-enhance-your-magic-with-regional-modifications-m78tf
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I don’t have mirrors in my room.
Now don’t get me wrong, they’re great for when I do makeup for cosplays, or when I need to check out my clothes like a boss, or to see whether or not ill need a beanie to cover up my shitty hair.
But I don’t like mirrors.
I hate them because when I see myself for longer than 5 seconds I don’t see me.
I see a body constructed by fiction, something created from the minds of those around me that have seen me for the past 20 years, but who haven’t seen…
ME.
I am the boy who is stuck in this cursed body, trapped in this life that is suffocating me ever so slowly.
I am the boy who loves art, but finds it so hard to create because I feel like all the work I do will never amount to anything and my parents and siblings will be right after all.
I am the boy who loves to watch cartoons and anime and movies, not because they’re cool or colorful, but because I can submerge myself into something so beautiful, so fake, but something so real to me that allows me to breathe - to breathe.
I am the boy who loves his family, but feels like a burden, a loser, a disappointment, because my parents had such high hopes for me, had such dreams, but I shattered them all because they are not my dreams.
I don’t want to end up hating my job, or doing something I never wanted to do. I want to do something that makes me feel proud of me. Because if I can find something that allows me to feel as though I’ve done something proud of then I feel as though I could finally live.
I am the boy who is happy, but happy is just something to portray over the sadness and stress because everyone expects you to be happy, because why can’t you just be happy? I mean, I have my family and my friends and my dogs and my school and my dreams, so why can’t I just be happy? Think happy? Bleed happy? Breathe happy?
I’m happy.
It’s not like I lay awake at night, drowning in all my hopes and dreams that my depression crushes right in front of me.
No, no. I’m happy.
He doesn’t whisper in my ear throughout the day, hissing through yellow clenched teeth that I am never going to pass as male, or transition, or be accepted, or become anything that my parents will deem as an accomplishment and praise me like they used to when I would get an A on that spelling test.
I’m happy.
He doesn’t suffocate me, reaching his hands through my body blindly grasping, squeezing my lungs, crushing me – Just breathe. Breathe.
Smile. Be happy.
He doesn’t make me eat less and less, dream less, sleep less, be less because if I ever try to be more he will just stab in the chest, making my blood gush out all of my insecurities, vulnerable and unfiltered for all to see. And fuck, I have a lot. My arms and legs can tell you all of them, let them spell out all of their hidden secrets I’ve kept exclusively to my ears and my body that you will never see, only if I let you because they’re very shy and wary of wandering eyes. But it’s ok, because no one ever sees them, so all my secrets are safe with them.
Pause. Think.
Maybe that’s why my dad drinks, to be able to run away from the life he built that is slowly crumbling in his palms. Maybe that’s why my mother loves flowers, because it’s something that she can groom to her will and not become a disappointment. Sand is hard to stick together, and flowers are always beautiful. Maybe that’s why my parents don’t love each other. Maybe that’s why I am scared to love someone because it’s scary to think how you can love someone and then just no love them at all. Maybe that’s why I’ve stopped trying to build sand castles, because I know they’ll crumble. Maybe that’s why I don’t grow flowers because I know they’ll die.
Pause.
Wasn’t this story about mirrors?
Sorry, I tend to get side tracked but it’s easy to do that when your words are heard of and acknowledged for once, in this topic.
It’s heavy; it sucks, but must be said. Because my body is tired of keeping all its secrets. I am tired of lying through my teeth. I am tired of crying the truth.
I am not happy. I am tired.
I don’t like mirrors.
They show too much of me that I’d rather say hidden.
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Saturday AM celebrates EARTH DAY with TIGERTRON!
As one of the earliest groups promoting DIVERSITY in manga comics, Saturday AM has long accepted our role as a RESPONSIBLE CONTENT PRODUCER. Whether it’s equality or representation, Saturday AM’s commitment to PROGRESS is a core part of our being. The subject of climate change is a growing concern and due to government negligence and corporate misinformation worldwide, there is a rising number of people who understand that we MUST take the threat seriously. So the amazingly talented members of game developer TIGERTRON decided to do something about it and Saturday AM was all to excited to cover it— on EARTH DAY 2019, no less!
Inspired after watching the acclaimed documentary, The Cove, James Mielke, and his team at Tigertron created JUPITER & MARS, a BEAUTIFUL and alluring undersea adventure game where players will get to play as a pair of dolphins and experience the undersea future of our planet.
Saturday A.M: From what I have read, Tigertron is a relatively new game developer. How did the company begin?
James Mielke (JM): I first started to get the idea of forming a development team when I realized I wanted my work to represent something more than just another shooter, or platformer, or puzzle game. I thought the game medium could be leveraged to accomplish so much more, based on how many people in the world play games, and so my wife encouraged me to take the chance and do something new. This concern, combined with my natural interest in the environment—especially now that I have kids—was the start of Tigertron.
Saturday A.M: Could you tell us about your upcoming debut game, Jupiter & Mars?
JM: Jupiter & Mars is a single-player undersea adventure game, where you control two dolphins (Jupiter and Mars) who find themselves engaging with the environment disrupting the machinery of humankind’s past. In this future Earth, the sea levels have risen, coastal cities and islands are all submerged underwater, and humans are nowhere to be found. Seeing familiar environments, like London, New York, and Greece, all drowned beneath the ocean hopefully creates a new and haunting effect.
Saturday A.M: It isn’t often that we come across deep sea-based video games. Let alone games set in a post-apocalyptic ocean. What motivated you to create the game? ( I read that the 2009 documentary the COVE had some influence).
JM: Yeah, The Cove had a big impact on my thought process around the time I first designed the game, which was back in 2011 or so. It’s hard to watch The Cove and not feel moved to do something about things that happen in our world that we could prevent or improve. So, with dolphins on my mind, and some musical inspiration in my headphones, I began to sketch out what a game would be like with two companion characters who just happened to be dolphins. My friend Fumito Ueda’s game Ico was a BIG influence on me.
Saturday A.M: The videogame looks GORGEOUS. How long have you guys been working on JUPITER and MARS? Moreover, how much research went into creating the world?
JM: Thank you. I appreciate hearing that. If you’re counting the time actively spent developing the game, we've been working about two years in total. The concept predates the development, but two years is how long it took us, although if we had money, we could easily have spent twice as long working on it. It’s not easy to create five distinct environments, each with their own architectural and geographical styles, and unique lighting and coloring moods.
When you’re beneath the water, it’d be easy to assume that “well, everything’s going to be blue.” However, there is so much more that affects the visibility, color, and feel of a body of water. So we put much work into making each area feel distinct and memorable. As for research, we put much research into the various science-related things in the ocean, such as AHDs (acoustic harassment devices) which are real-world, non-invasive devices that send out uncomfortable audio pulses designed to deter sealife from approaching an area. These are generally not harmful, as they’re designed to keep, say, orcas from visiting their natural feeding grounds when scientists are researching the area. Other forms of noise pollution, like percussive sounds from underwater drilling and rigs, can be fatal to sea creatures. It’s theorized that one reason that we see an increase in beached whales is that these noises disrupt their internal equilibrium, driving them towards the beaches.
Saturday A.M: From what I understand, the game takes place in the not so distant future, ounce humanity becomes extinct. Aside from humanity’s disappearance, how has the world changed?
JM: As a gamer myself, I’ve of course played a lot of games set in fictional universes, alternate realities, in space, etc. But for Tigertron’s games, I feel there is so much about this world of ours that is fascinating enough—especially viewed through the distorted lens of the future—that we can create eye-popping worlds set right here on Earth. The future Earth of Jupiter & Mars is one where, post-mankind, the world has begun to reclaim itself, growing over with plant life, and with even extinct animals returning to life. I want it to be optimistic in some ways, and not post-apocalyptic” as we see so much in fiction. Books like “The World Without Us” and TV shows like “Life After People” played a significant role in the way we’ve designed our world. Of course our game is underwater, so you won’t see the plant life, but the idea is that the reefs are actually making a comeback, but in areas where these AHDs are still active, thanks to the self-perpetuating technology of man’s devising, it’s creating these dead zones where sea life can’t propagate. It’s up to Jupiter and Mars to fix this.
Saturday A.M: People have often described your game as a mix between classic Sega game Eco the Dolphin and the early 80s film Tron. Did either of those properties influence the production or mechanics of the game?
JM: Tron certainly did, thanks to the neon shades we use all over the game and our heavily electronic soundtrack. There’s no denying that influence. Ironically Ecco did not influence our game at all. I’ve only ever tried the first one, and it was very difficult for me, so I put it down, and that was it. The games that impacted how I approached the design of Jupiter & Mars are less predictable than that. Super Metroid (gated areas and power-ups), Ico (AI partner), Panzer Dragoon Zwei (level progression), and a little-known game called Sub-Rebellion (sonar/echolocation) all influenced what Jupiter & Mars became. I think our game, despite these influences, is very much its own thing, but it’s natural to reference other games that offered inspiration, and I’ve always wanted to make something that stays with me even after I’ve finished playing, just like those games have.
Saturday A.M: Could you tell us a little bit about the gameplay?
JM: You play from the perspective of Jupiter, which is why you often only see Mars in the screenshots. People often think it’s just a single character, but you’re in first-person, while Mars is your companion at your side. It was determined early on that this would be single-player, due to the confusion that would occur if someone took Mars offscreen and out of view. Also, since this game was designed to support Sony’s PSVR, and considering how intimidating it can feel to be “underwater” deep in the ocean, we wanted players to have a companion. Mars is the action-button that also keeps you company, and that’s a good feeling to have.The controls go like this: Jupiter uses echolocation to light up and scan the area. Echo will highlight any interactive targets. Interactive targets, like gates or goliath oyster shells, can be shattered using Mars’ “ram” attack. Jupiter, however, can use “vortex rings” to gently interact with things that don’t require the brute force of Mars. Freeing turtles from plastic soda can rings, or blowing the oil off a manta ray, or interacting with a puffer fish can be done directly by Jupiter. It’s a pretty simple control scheme that has much use in our various biomes. Of course, there are also some simple “puzzles” that find our dolphins interacting with other creatures to solve. These puzzles are designed to be easy enough to do by all age ranges. Also, we wanted to make sure these challenges were organic and straightforward enough to perform, and not have Jupiter or Mars have to do things like push levers or perform complicated things a dolphin wouldn’t normally do.
Saturday A.M: Could you tell us a little bit about the gameplay?
JM: You play from the perspective of Jupiter, which is why you often only see Mars in the screenshots. People often think it’s just a single character, but you’re in first-person, while Mars is your companion at your side. It was determined early on that this would be single-player, due to the confusion that would occur if someone took Mars offscreen and out of view. Also, since this game was designed to support Sony’s PSVR, and considering how intimidating it can feel to be “underwater” deep in the ocean, we wanted players to have a companion. Mars is the action-button that also keeps you company, and that’s a good feeling to have.
The controls go like this: Jupiter uses echolocation to light up and scan the area. Echo will highlight any interactive targets. Interactive targets, like gates or goliath oyster shells, can be shattered using Mars’ “ram” attack. Jupiter, however, can use “vortex rings” to gently interact with things that don’t require the brute force of Mars. Freeing turtles from plastic soda can rings, or blowing the oil off a manta ray, or interacting with a puffer fish can be done directly by Jupiter. It’s a pretty simple control scheme that has much use in our various biomes. Of course, there are also some simple “puzzles” that find our dolphins interacting with other creatures to solve. These puzzles are designed to be easy enough to do by all age ranges. Also, we wanted to make sure these challenges were organic and straightforward enough to perform, and not have Jupiter or Mars have to do things like push levers or perform complicated things a dolphin wouldn’t normally do.
Saturday A.M: While reading your website’s description of the game I noticed that, among other things, players would be tasked to “shut down the remnants of mankind's legacy.” Care to elaborate?
JM: The AHDs are the main problem for most of the affected areas, and a global network of whales called the Elders will warp you around the world on ocean currents with a great sweep of their tails to fast-travel to each area. In these affected hotspots are AHDs, floating mines, and power generators that need to be shut down. The trick is getting past the expanding audio waves designed to deter you. The punishment of getting hit by one of these waves isn’t severe, but it’s enough to make you think about how to approach or disable these devices. Usually,y it’s best to try and find the generator and destroy it with Mars. Once you’ve achieved this, you can enter the nearby underwater station and shut down the main console, thus restoring life to the area.
Saturday A.M: What kind of environments can the players expect to experience in the game?
JM: We based each area on real-world areas that might have either high population densities, like New York City or London, and other areas that lent themselves to aquatic adventures, like Mykonos, and Asian islands where garbage pollution is at its most extreme. Of course, most dolphins tend to stay within 30 feet of the surface, but in Jupiter and Mars’ world, they earn power-ups that allow them to travel deeper. So in addition to a global adventure, it is also a very vertical game, which takes you to some very dark places.
Saturday A.M: Jupiter & Mars will be released in both PS4 and PS VR. Is PS VR the optimal medium for the game? If so why?
JM: It is playable on PSVR and without VR. It still looks beautiful without VR, since we only have to render half the frames, thus leading to a higher frame rate and resolution. However, if you have PSVR, it is the ideal way to play since it was designed for VR from the ground up. Being able to exist underwater in these vast, fantastic environments is something to be seen in VR. Where else are you going to swim through London? So, to answer your question, VR is certainly going to offer a more sensory experience (use headphones if you have them!), but there are benefits to playing both ways.
Saturday A.M: From what I have read, you intend to release your game on April 22, Earth Day. Do you believe your game will help raise environmental awareness?
JM: Releasing the game on Earth Day can only help as far as awareness is concerned. The very fact that you asked me this question already brings a smile to my face, because anyone reading this will have learned about our game, and this is precisely what we hoped would happen. So thank you for this.
Saturday A.M: In your opinion, why is it important to educate people regarding the effects of human-caused climate change?
JM: Because even though the old bureaucrats of the world are doing—burning up our last remaining resources like there’s no tomorrow—our responsibility is towards our children, and what our children are genuinely going to inherit is a toxic planet that’s unsuitable for sustaining life. We cannot continue living like what we’re doing doesn’t have consequences. That’s just laziness and denial. So if Jupiter & Mars fascinates anyone enough to cause them to look up some stuff on Wikipedia, and learn a little bit more about where we’re heading, then that’s a beautiful thing. If they become a passionate defender of the planet, who could ask for more? I recommend the movie ‘Racing Extinction’ to anyone who’s been thinking about this stuff. It’s a multimedia, environmental thriller that is as exciting and interesting as a James Bond film. That and The Cove (both made by the same folks) inspired me to take action with Tigertron.
Saturday A.M: Where can our readers obtain a copy of the game?
JM: They can find the game on the PlayStation Network in every region where PlayStations are sold. Thank you so much for your time.
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Best of 2017: 10-1
10. Paramore - Hard Times:
“Hard Times,” first and foremost, is an expertly crafted retro pop song just on virtue of sonics— those marimbas! Those guitar stabs! That awkward vocoder bit! Yet it also captures something deep about the new wave material it’s cribbing from, something that many artists who’ve decided to do Talking Heads cosplay miss. On “Hard Times,” Hayley Williams, who has long been one of the best songwriters in the Alt-rock world, nails the profound sadness and fear of the best New Wave. But “Hard Times” is not just notable for how it imitates the past but in how it boldly stabs towards new sonic ground, in how it shows a Paramore that’s willing to evolve into something unrecognizable from the band that put out “Misery Business.”
9. Mount Eerie - Soria Moria:
A Crow Looked At Me is a tragedy not just because of the real life calamity that it documents but because of the thing it realizes about the nature of sorrow. A Crow Looked At Me is about the death and mourning of Geneveive Castree, yes, but it’s also about how memory betrays us, gives us nothing but shards of what once was. “Soria Moria” is where Phil Elverum explores this theme most fully, weaving together his entire life and love into a meditation on the impossible places that grief and memory drive us towards, all held together by the twin images of a mythic Norwegian castle and “Slow pulsing red tower lights/Across a distance, refuge in the dust.”
8. Marika Hackman - Time’s Been Reckless:
There are more genius hooks crammed into the four minutes of “Time’s Been Reckless” than most albums have in their entire running times. What more do you want from a power pop song? What greater joy is there than a pop song as expertly crafted as this?
7. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Marine Tigers:
“Marine Tigers” is a heavy song— not just in its 4th-wave emo aesthetics and massive guitar riffs or its seven minute length, but in the density of its lyrics, which weave together fragments of the immigrant experience both political and personal into a meditation on what it means to be foreign. Yet any song this heavy needs something deeply vulnerable and open in it to survive— otherwise, it’s just dull— and “Marine Tigers” finds that moment in its midsection, as the eerie sustained guitar and synth lines fall away for riffs more delicate and the snare drops out entirely and the thing we’re left with it is just the simple declaration of defiant existence, repeated over and over again: “We’re here/I told you so.”
6. Vince Staples - Big Fish:
Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory is one of those obvious masterpieces of an album, an album that commits so deeply to its aesthetic, equal parts submerged and metallic, that it can use its specificity to make universally powerful moments. “Big Fish,” the album’s pseudo-title track, is the most compelling moment on an album that’s full of them— it’s the easiest demonstration of Vince Staples’ appeal as a rapper who can move between intensity and levity. Just take the opening of the second verse:
“It's funny I was going crazy not too long ago
Women problems every morning like the Maury show
Swimming upstream while I'm tryna keep my bread
From the sharks make me wanna put the hammer to my head
At the park politickin' with the kids
Tryna get em on a straight path, got the lames mad
Know they hate to see me make cash, got the space dash
In the foreign with the GPS addressed to your mama house”
Vince delivers these lines with his characteristic flow, an almost mechanical method that lends his punchlines, like the literal “your mom” joke that ends this passage, a certain ambiguity. His best material is unnerving in that respect, in how you can’t ever tell fully how serious he is about any proposition, but it’s also thrilling.
5. St. Vincent - Hang On Me / Slow Disco:
“Hang On Me” and “Slow Disco” are two equal and opposite forces, beginning and ending MASSEDUCTION with a desperate, pleading cry for companionship and an equally desperate act of abandonment. Both songs are bare, at least by St. Vincent’s typically maximalist standards, pairing Annie Clark’s vocal performances with just simple strings-and-synth arrangements that stick to slow, elegiac riffs. And in the open space left on these tracks, she delivers the two greatest vocal performances of her career, aching and raw in ways she never has been before.
4. Lil Uzi Vert - XO TOUR Llif3:
On paper, it’s easy to dismiss “XO TOUR LLif3” as just another pop-trap novelty song, a faux-edgy earworm of a hook about dead friends with no song supporting it. After all, Lil Uzi Vert dropped it on SoundCloud unceremoniously last February on the short stopgap mixtape “Luv is Rage 1.5”, and only gave it a commercial release after the song became inescapably popular on that platform. Yet as soon Uzi’s voice starts to croak over TM88’s cyber-goth beat, it’s clear why “XO TOUR LLif3” is special. Cloaked in layers of autotune that nevertheless serve to accentuate the raw human emotion of his performance, the Philadelphia rapper slurs his lines together, starting and stopping and fragmenting himself towards incomprehensibility. It’s strange to see “XO TOUR LLif3” as some anthem, a song of the summer, when in itself it is not just personal but an invocation of the sheer loneliness and untranslatability of feeling. The line that everyone focuses on here is “all my friends are dead, push me to the edge,” which admittedly is one hell of a unique hook, but it’s in the song’s second verse (roughly speaking) that the song reveals its heart, a swirling mess of megalomania and fear: “I cannot die because this my universe.”
3. Lorde - The Louvre:
The first part of “The Louvre” is already among the best work on Lorde’s messy, wonderful Melodrama. Lorde expertly captures the uncertainty and passion of a young romance in the song’s lyrics, which shift constantly from long, languid bits of poetry like “Well, summer slipped us underneath her tongue/Our days and nights are perfumed with obsession” to casual, conversational lines like “They’ll hang us in the Louvre/Down the back, but who cares—still the Louvre.” The beat, produced by Flume and Malay (who also contributed to many of the best bits of Frank Ocean’s Blonde) also contributes to this feeling of ambiguity, rising and falling and rising again from simple guitar strums to the burbling mass of synths that Lorde sings the song’s final chorus over, all wistful passion. Yet the best part of “The Louvre” is in the back half, after all that is over. The song’s extended, wordless outro, anchored by a repeated guitar and synth figure, is some of the most evocative sonic storytelling of the year, an open question of a piece that hints of sun-drenched memories.
2. Japanese Breakfast - The Body Is A Blade:
“The Body Is A Blade” is a song about grief but it is not quite a sad song— instead, it feels like every other emotion but sadness is here, from a kind of wistful joy to defeat to anger finally all the way to acceptance. These feelings flow through every part of the song, from the guitars that hold the track down, slowly moving across its landscape with a deliberate sort of beauty, to the synth arpeggios that float in, unbound to the material world, in the song’s second half. In between these interlinked, kaleidoscopic parts a whole world of trauma and memory lies, brought out by Michelle Zauner’s vocal performance. Even as all these things move around her, she is steady, a force of clarity in an ambiguous and beautiful sonic world. Her lyrics, focused around the idea of survival in grief, do the same, returning again and again to the image of the body cutting through the days for the sake of staying alive.
1. Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling:
Pop music is both very easy and very hard to explain. The easy part is identifying all the little moving parts that work— the surf guitar in “Toxic,” for example, or the rolling drum beat on “Maps.” The hard part is in explaining how each of those functional elements, the load-bearers of a song, come together into something more. It’s easier in other genres— you can point to the virtuosity of a metal guitarist or an uber-technical rapper as the point where a song achieves greatness, or see the deeper meaning in an expertly crafted folk song or thoughtful piece of R&B— but pop is supposed to be disposable, which isn’t a bad thing, really, but makes finding its critical value more difficult.
“Cut To The Feeling” makes the hard part easy. “Cut To The Feeling” is not quite the best pop song of all time but is certainly the most pop pop song of all time, a throwaway (it’s a B-side to Emotion’s B-sides, consigned to a fourth-rate French animated movie) that takes its status as a throwaway as not a write-off but a mission statement. It’s supposedly a love song, just as all of CRJ’s output has been, but it’s really a song about what pop music does to you, how these little confections of synths and vocal lines develop emergent properties and actually make you feel things. “Cut To The Feeling” knows that it isn’t real, that pop music is inherently an exercise in abstractions and constructed images, but it doesn’t really care. Somewhere in the song’s build, as chugging rhythm guitar gives way to those massive synth chords, the point of the difference between the feeling itself and the shortcut the music provides is lost. “Cut To The Feeling” sounds like what it is: an ode to the power of pop music to become something ineffably more even within its limitations.
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Dawn of Change, Chapt 5
Hi, everyone! Welcome to my fifth diary posting! I hope that you enjoy reading about my adventures in Magnolia, Fiore! If you want to read further than this chapter, there are 2 more after this, all posted on the following websites with 2 more in progress. Just follow the link you want to follow! Also, please don’t forget to favorite/follow/bookmark and comment.
AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6555616
FF.Net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11262127/1/Fairy-Tail-Dawn-of-Change
In this episode: I finally discover my magic and I choose my mentor!
One week after Roxanne first began her training with Makarov, she looked back in her journal while she waited for her breakfast. Reading each entry let her relive what she had learned and gone through that day, and it let Roxanne estimate how much she had grown.
In the seven days she had been training with Makarov, her body had changed slightly. She was eating more as a result of how much more active she was, and her metabolism had sped up as a result of the food she was eating and the strict workout regime. What little fat she'd had on her body was swiftly disappearing, and she could already see that her muscles were becoming more defined. Her body had begun adapting to the workouts too, so she could go through the day's activities without too much pain afterward as long as she followed it up quickly with a long soak in the bath.
She slept much better now, and although she was still plagued occasionally by nightmares of her brother and friends, they were becoming less frequent. As a result of the better sleep, she had more energy during the day. Granted, that extra energy didn't last very long, but at least she had it for her morning meditation and the following self-defense training.
She also saw improvements in the lessons themselves. Where she had struggled on the first day, now she was capable of falling safely from the standard positions. She had better motor control, more physical strength and endurance, and she could judge distances much better now. Makarov had even started her on the basics of punching and kicking without losing her balance—only one type of punch, and one type of kick, but he'd been very clear that simplicity was her best friend right now, and mastery through repetition was more important than finesse or complexity. To her surprise, Romeo also knew the basics up to that point and a little bit beyond, though his physical strength and endurance were still lower than hers due to his younger age and smaller body.
As to the meditation, she'd improved in leaps and bounds, and Makarov had been both surprised and pleased by her progress. He'd exclaimed that she must be a naturally meditative and introspective person, and by the end of the second day, had expanded her training to include sorting out her emotions and contemplating her motives and reasons. Then, two days later, he had added in the last skill, searching for her soul. Today would be her third day working on this lesson, her seventh hour practicing this skill. Unlike the previous steps, searching for her soul didn't come naturally to Roxanne. She hadn't been able to identify what she was actually looking for or where she should be looking until last night, let alone actually find it.
Closing the journal as the food arrived, Roxanne set it to one side as Mira handed her her breakfast. In the past week, her pre-ordered meals hadn't changed. Breakfast was comprised of two eggs on toast, three slices of bacon, a tall glass of orange juice, and a matching glass of milk. Lunch was a little stranger—water to drink was normal enough, but the food itself was Earthland's equivalent of avocadoes, mixed nuts and dried fruits, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She'd been mildly surprised to see how similar Eathland's sandwiches were to the ones back home at first, but now she relished their familiarity and always saved them for last.
Dinner was a leafy dark green salad with cucumber slices and tomatoes in it for flavor, rich multi-grain bread with butter, and some kind of very abundant meat dish. Snacks were limited to fruits, usually apples, oranges, and bananas because they were easy to transport and digest. There was a bowl of them in her room, and she usually took one or two with her during training, to be eaten during breaks.
Roxanne had, of course, wondered why Makarov had come up with such a specific menu for her. Eventually, she'd realized it was because she needed it—not only was she still growing, but she was much more active than she'd ever been before. And as much time as he was already spending on her, he didn't have any left to spend on designing a new meal each day for her, especially not one that fulfilled her dietary requirements, so a limited menu it was. Plus, it was less stressful for Mira if she always knew in advance what to make Roxanne.
Roxanne sighed, drinking the last of her juice. Glancing up from her plate, she checked the time and found that she still had a little while before Makarov was supposed to arrive. Retrieving her journal, she skedaddled upstairs. Once in her apartment, she put it away in the end-table by her bed and ran back downstairs. Glancing at the clock again, she went over to Lucy, who'd moved out just the day before.
As Roxanne had expected, she had chosen the waterfront apartment and Roxanne had helped Lucy with the move as much as she could. Which wasn't much, considering how full her days were now. Luckily, since Lucy had so few possessions at this point, it was an easy move. But Roxanne had wanted to help, so Lucy had let her wheel the suitcase and hold a few bags while Lucy had taken care of the paperwork.
Roxanne talked with Lucy until Makarov opened the doors. Seeing the guild master's silhouette in the morning light, she waved goodbye to her friend and raced to her mentor, then the pair set off for their usual training spot.
Once at the park, the two sat down in their places under the tree. There was silence between them. Roxanne had long since learned what was expected of her, and she didn't need to be told what to do anymore. She relaxed into her favorite resting position and closed her eyes, focusing her mind first on slowing her heartbeat and evening out her breathing as she banished thoughts from her mind. Then she began to search for her soul.
Roxanne couldn't explain what she was doing. Words were difficult to fit into such a process. But if words were necessary, then "exploring her mind" fit best. With her eyes closed and her mind quiet, she could focus on searching her mind and her body for her soul. On finding that lump of self that defined who and what she was. She'd thought she'd found it while dreaming last night, somewhere in the center of her body, near what Master Makarov had called her solar plexus, but before she could analyze it the alarm lacrima had given the command to wake up. Today, however, she knew where it was and what to search for.
She found it quickly, lodged just below her ribs between heart and stomach. Now that she had time, she could examine it more closely. To her surprise, it reminded her of the souls in the anime Soul Eater. A fist-sized orb hovering in the center of her being. But her soul glowed much brighter than the clear, soft pulse of light and life she remembered from that show. It was a turquoise/cyan color and the edges were a sharp white. It moved slowly, languidly, but it didn't really change shape or position. It kind of reminded her of water in a glass container. Like a fishbowl. She reached out to it, wanting to dive into it to learn more, hoping she'd learn more about her own personality.
The instant she touched her soul she was ripped from her trance. She opened her eyes with a gasp, feeling her heart race with the force of the sudden awakening. It took her a second to figure out why she'd awakened like that, but then she saw that her hands were submerged in a puddle of frozen water. Ice, though it seemed a bit slushy rather than perfectly hard and solid. Her eyes widened, but no sooner had she opened her mouth to call for Makarov than the ice begin to evaporate around the edges. Not melt, as it should have. It began to evaporate, starting at the edges and working its way inward.
"Master!" she squeaked in dismay, not wanting it to vanish before he could see. “Master, look!"
The old man beside her woke up just soon enough to see the last bit of ice begin to turn to vapor.
"You did it, Roxanne!" he cried, grinning in proud surprise and causing her to blush with pleasure at the praise. "You found your magic. Ice magic. Well done!"
"Ice magic? Really?" Roxanne murmured, staring at her hands in awe. "Ice magic. That means… Gray could be my mentor, couldn't he? Oh my gosh!" She squealed, leaping to her feet in excitement. "Gray should be my mentor!" She squealed again as she hopped around in a circle excitedly. "Gray Fullbuster! Yes!"
"Now, now," Makarov chuckled. "There's more than one type of ice-based magic in the world, you know. Admittedly, Gray's skill with static Ice Make is admirable, but you don't have to limit yourself to that. Mm. Though, since he is available, we might as well have him teach you at least the basics. Heh." A cheeky grin, as he stood up. "Teaching someone else might do that young man some good. He's not the hothead Natsu is, but he can be a bit impulsive at times. A student might steady him a bit."
"Really?!" Roxanne stared at Makarov, full to bursting with excitement. She'd never thought that this would actually happen. Gray had always been her favorite character, and now he was going to be her teacher!
"Really." Makarov patted her shoulder, and Roxanne giggled at the fact that he had to reach up to do so. She wasn't even a big girl for her age! "You've found your magic, so it's time for you to receive your guild stamp and ask Gray to train you. Now, you won't be starting on missions any time soon—"
Roxanne stared at him, confused. "But what about you, Master?" They'd barely been training together for a week.
"Ah, well, I'm afraid my time to teach you personally is at an end," Makarov said gently, guiding her back towards the guild hall. "As much as I've enjoyed teaching someone myself again, you've found your magic and it's time to get you a tutor better suited to your specific needs. However, don't think that you're all done!" He waggled a finger at her. "I taught you the basics of basics—there's a whole lot more to learn, and don't you dare start slacking off just because your teacher changes!"
"No, sir!" Roxanne agreed sharply, shoulders straightening. To be honest, she felt a little sad, knowing their training together was going to end. As hard and exhausting as it had been, she'd seen how pushing herself like that had resulted in great progress, and she'd enjoyed this last week with the guild master. She sort of didn't want that to end. "Master? Will—will I still be able to meditate with you, sometimes?" she asked as they turned onto the guildhall's street.
"Oh, possibly," Makarov said, patting her on the shoulder. "If I have time to spare, I'd like to run through a few of your lessons with you again. But I'll make no promises.
Roxanne smiled. "Thank you, Master." That was all she could hope for.
It was hard to walk at a steady pace. She wanted to bolt ahead, run headlong to the guild and throw open the doors, start gushing to Lucy and Mira about her new magic. But she didn't want to just run off and leave the guild master behind.
When they reached the guild, however, she couldn't contain her excitement anymore. "I did it!" she yelled, shoving the doors open and almost stumbling inside in her haste to tell everyone. "I found my magic!"
The guild erupted into cheers and applause. Roxanne stood there for a moment, smiling and bowing before she made a beeline for Lucy, who had been joined by Natsu, Happy, and Gray since she left.
"Congratulations, Roxanne!" Lucy smiled, patting the child's shoulder. "I knew you could it. I'm so happy for you!"
"Nice going!" Natsu grinned.
"Aye, miss!" Happy chimed in immediately after.
"Thank you!" Roxanne beamed. She turned to look at Gray, feeling suddenly shy. He was also smiling, but in an 'I'm happy for you but playing it cool' kind of way. "It's ice magic, so, um—" She took a deep breath, and grabbed his hands. "Would you please teach me Ice Make? Please? I promise I'll work hard and do everything you say!"
Gray blinked at her, stunned into silence, eyes wide.
Natsu whooped and clapped Roxanne around her shoulders. She accepted another round of 'well done!' from him and Lucy, but her eyes were locked on Gray, her breath held hopefully.
He recovered from his shock quickly, but a myriad of subtle expressions flickered over his face. Surprise was still there, and doubt and worry too. She almost thought she saw a hint of a flattered expression, but it was gone into a kind of not-quite-a-smirk too fast for her to be sure. "I guess I'm the best you've got, huh?" he said, grinning crookedly at her.
Roxanne didn't just beam at the acceptance. She glowed. "Thank you!" she squealed, throwing her arms around his neck as Natsu laughed and Lucy smiled and Happy commented cheerfully on Gray's stunned-again expression.
Once Gray disentangled himself, Lucy handed Roxanne a compact from her purse so she'd have a mirror while Mirajane placed her guild stamp. Roxanne watched as Mira set the stamp over her neck and pressed gently. When she lifted it away, the area glowed for a second before the shape became visible. What set it apart from the other stamps was the color. It matched the color of Roxanne's soul, a beautifully brilliant shade of cyan, with just a hint of turquoise to deepen the color.
She smiled as she examined the mark, getting used to its presence, letting the symbol seep into every corner of her mind. The stamp was hers, and she was a mage, a Fairy Tail mage! Her dream had come true!
Unbidden, tears filled her eyes and she had to put down the mirror to wipe them away. She felt someone hug her and she hugged them back as she cried harder. Even back on Earth, she'd always dreamed of being a Fairy Tail mage. It hadn't been even remotely possible, just a silly fantasy, a game of make-believe that her friends and Jacob had played along with. She'd admired Lucy's will to leave the home that trapped her, had gasped in awe at the glory and wonder of magic, had giggled with her friends over the guild's silly antics, had begged Jacob to let her stay up just a little longer, please, just one more episode—
Even when she'd arrived here, becoming a Fairy Tail mage had seemed a distant dream. Something she could work towards, but still not real. The way thin black outlines weren't real, and flawless skin wasn't real, and flying blue talking cat-people weren't real, and magic wasn't real. It still felt like a dream, and whenever she woke up she was surprised again that it wasn't.
She never would have left her friends and family behind for this, and the week of hard work and self-discovery had been utterly exhausting, but…
This was real. It was really, truly really, the proof of it dyed into her skin.
What else could she do but cry?
Behind her, Natsu hung his head, groaning softly. "Again with the crying," he muttered, too low for Roxanne to hear.
Gray looked at him, one brow raised. This was the first time he'd seen Roxanne cry, and he couldn't tell if these were good tears or bad tears so he let Lucy and Mirajane handle her.
The girls glared at Natsu and rubbed Roxanne's back while everyone else watched.
Makarov remained by the door, watching everything. He was happy for the girl. He'd hoped for—expected—another week or two with her as his apprentice, but he wasn't upset that it had been cut short. Roxanne was a fast learner, and she was dedicated to everything she did, so it had only been a matter of time before she became a mage. To be honest, he was almost unreasonably proud of what the child had accomplished in such a short time. Oh, physically she was learning no faster than any other child of exceptional dedication, but spiritually? Her progress had been astounding, and it had taken quite a bit of willpower not to swell her head with praise, or gush about her progress while he was deep in his cups. The vast majority of his children came to him already knowing their magic in some way. Other than Laxus, he hadn't trained too many into discovering their talents himself, and it had been a very fulfilling experience. He felt a little bit of regret that he couldn't continue her education personally, but this really was the best solution.
After a few minutes, Roxanne seemed to pull herself together. She pulled away from Lucy, wiped her eyes, and flung her arms around Gray's waist, much to his surprise. He stiffened and she didn't have to look up to know that he was probably freaking out a little, not sure how to react. "Thank you," she whispered, and almost immediately felt him relax. She couldn't see his face, but he patted her head a little hesitantly, and she imagined he was smiling.
After a moment, Roxanne broke away from the hug, smiling like crazy. "What's the plan, Master?" she asked, and squealed again just a bit. She had just called Gray her Master, and her fangirl mode was in full swing.
Gray flinched a little. "First off, don't call me that. Gray's fine, okay?" He looked to Makarov, who nodded encouragingly. "Finish today's training with Gramps. Tomorrow I'll have a better answer for you."
"Yes, sir!" she replied eagerly, bouncing in place with a grin before racing off to Makarov, still smiling. He clapped her on the shoulder and led her back out of the guild, talking to her about celebratory ice cream after their exercises.
As soon as they were gone, practically the whole guild swamped Gray.
"Way to step up and be a man!" Elfman said in stout approval.
"How's it feel, having a cute girl apprentice?" That was Wakaba, already rosy-cheeked from drinking.
"Looks like you've got a fan!" Lucy smiled. "I thought she was going to explode for a minute there."
"Don't forget to keep your pants on, Gray!" Mirajane reminded him.
"What's the plan, 'Maaaster'?" Happy teased.
Gray flushed at the attention. "Shut up!" Mastering himself, he stood. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet, so I'm going to go figure it out. If you want to know tomorrow, ask me then," he said firmly and walked off, leaving the guild hall in favor of the silence of the city library.
As for Roxanne, her training continued as usual, mostly. She was too excited to meditate anymore, so they skipped right into the physical aspect of the training, and as Makarov had promised, during their lunch break he bought her ice cream as well. Time flew, and before Roxanne knew it the day was done and Makarov was taking her back to the guild.
When she entered the guild hall, she looked around for Gray and was rather disappointed to not see him. For that matter, she didn't see Happy, Natsu, or Lucy either. Frowning a little, she went to the bar and took a seat. "Hi, Mira." She greeted the older Strauss sibling.
"Hi, Roxanne!"
"Have you seen Natsu, Lucy, Happy, or Gray?"
"Gray left just after you did. He said he was going to make a plan regarding your training."
"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense." And now she felt kind of stupid. Of course that was what he was doing!
"Natsu and Lucy left a few hours ago," Mirajane continued. "Romeo was very worried, because Macao hasn't returned yet, so they left to find him, and rescue him if need be."
"Macao's missing?!" Roxanne exclaimed, not needing to fake her shock. She'd gotten so caught up in her training and finding her magic that she hadn't really thought about the fact that she hadn't seen Macao since that first day. "Oh no! Are they alright?" The Macao Arc had begun, and while she knew the outcome already, that didn't mean she wasn't a little worried.
"I'm sure they're fine," Mirajane assured her. "Natsu and Macao are both strong mages, and I'm sure Lucy is safe with Natsu and Happy."
"Yeah." Roxanne smiled brightly at Mirajane, feeling better. "After all, Natsu is a Dragon Slayer. There's nothing that can take him down when someone he cares about needs him!"
"That's so true," Mirajane laughed, handing Rox her plate. "Now eat up. You've got a big day tomorrow!"
"Yep!" Roxanne beamed at her and bounced in place, trying not to fall off of the tall stool in pure fangirl squee.
Just as she was finishing her food, Romeo entered the guild hall. Roxanne smiled and hopped down from her seat, racing over to the little boy. After a few minutes of mutually reassuring each other that Macao would be fine, since Natsu (and Lucy) were going to rescue him, they started a vigorous game of hide-and-seek. Two hours later, after somehow managing to convince Elfman to play the 'ogre' in their game, they were giggling and hiding under one of the big tables when Wakaba called Romeo to go home. The younger boy pouted a little—or was it sulking when boys did it?—but went along willingly enough, noting that he had homework to finish. Roxanne had been surprised by how dutiful Romeo was when it came to homework.
At that point, Roxanne decided that sleep might be the best idea. She wanted to study Fiorean runes some more—she still couldn't read well, though she at least recognized most of the symbols—but she was just so tired that she didn't think she'd be able to keep her eyes open long enough.
Once she was upstairs, she bathed quickly and changed into her pajamas. She stood between her bed and her desk, debating on skipping a journal entry for that night. In the end, she sat down at the desk. How could she possibly not record today's events?
July 11, x784
What a day it's been! This morning, during meditation with the Master, I found my soul. It was so pretty! It looked like water trapped in a glass ball, but the glass was actually ice! So when I reached out to touch it, I discovered my magic. Ice magic! Gray has agreed to be my mentor and I'm so excited! I don't think I could be happier. After all, I'm Gray Fullbuster's apprentice! We start training tomorrow. What will I be doing? Practicing ice magic for sure, but anything else? Will he make me keep doing my meditations? I found my magic—what else do I need it for? Will I learn how to really fight, not just fall, or punch air? I wonder what will change tomorrow. I have to say, though, I'm kind of sad to not be training with Master Makarov anymore. It was actually kind of fun, even if it was tiring. He had me doing all kinds of stuff so it was always a challenge, but nothing ever really changed too much so I got better and better every day. I wonder what Gray will have me do?
Oh, also, the Macao Arc began today. I wonder how much longer it will be until the Galuna Island arc? I hope not too soon. I shudder just thinking about the pain that is in store for Gray. And Lucy, and all of my friends when their arcs come! But Edolas is gonna be great! That's when Lisanna comes back! Natsu and Happy are gonna be so happy, and so will Elfman and Mirajane. Oh, I hope I'm not pulled out of the lacrima along with Gray. I'm not a very fast runner, so I'd have a hard time avoiding the Edolas soldiers. And I don't know if I'll even know how to fight properly by then. Oh no! What am I going to do during the Tenrou Island Arc?! That's seven years without Gray, Lucy, Natsu, Happy, and Mira and Makarov! How will I train if I'm by myself? I'm too tired to think about it too much tonight, so it'll have to be later. I'm really tired! But I'm not sure how well I'll sleep. I mean, I'm bone-tired, but I'm also so excited and hyper! Fangirl mode is in full swing and I'm not sure I'll be able to turn it off. Gray is my master! Squee! Well, I might as well try to sleep, I guess. Maybe I'll meditate in bed. Maybe I'll end up falling asleep as I stare at my soul. Okay, that sounds kinda creepy. Hee!
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