CYBERPUNK 2077.

in continuity with claudette's CP2K77 verse.

jake park is a lone, wandering nomad that was formerly the son of one of the wealthiest businessmen in night city. the prodigal son & heir to an increasingly wealthy multi-national packaging company (Park Industries) that developed packaging for various industry powerhouses in the americas and south korea. with subsidiaries in landscaping and real estate. at the age of 20, he was infamously disowned by his father and went "missing" to the public eye for more than 5 years. at 26, he returned to civilization, welcomed back & supported by his mother; trying to restart his life with a new goal in mind: helping the Tolowa Dee-ni’ and jodes & thelas nations to broker a lucrative, world-changing contract with biotechnica, and a brilliant botanist: dr. claudette morel. within the first decade of the jodes nomads settling throughout california, conducting salvage operations and brokering construction contracts with megacorporations, they allied with Indigenous Tribes primarily operating out of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation’s territory in the Tahquitz Canyon, wherein various neighboring Indigenous Nations worked together, surviving peacefully beyond NUSA’s reach ever since the USA dissolved. Indigenous people and their sovereign territories were ignored or outright abandoned by the federal government and Free States after the collapse. as america’s national forests and rivers began to burn,  dry up,  NUSA chose to prioritize urban redevelopment, americentrism, military inflation and corporatism in the city-states. corrupt news outlets failed to report on the government’s racist neglect suffered by America’s Indigenous peoples.  western civilization quickly forgot about the true "americans." many Indigenous nations across the americas (and the world) anticipated this, as the previous US federal and state governments had historically enforced a genocidal apocalypse upon Indigenous peoples and colonial victims for centuries. they began organizing, networking, and brokering alliances with Indigenous organizations globally, before and after the collapse. resources, technology, datashards, and skill shards were distributed among all Indigenous peoples, sharing knowledge over the course of more than a century (between 1989 and 2077), with the aid of nomad nations like the jodes and pro-indigenous independent companies like biotehnica and metacorp. they continue to nurture and protect the americas’ growing wilderness with the assistance of nomad nations, cultivating environmental science and agroecology, as the jodes search for old knowledge and valuable salvage that were lost after the collapse.   the contract with biotechnica would allow for a new era of industry handled by indigenous nations and nomads. the potential for seaweed and aquatic algae as a cheap, bountiful food and energy source that would be able to grow one billion tons of resources in just 6 months; including dry food, biofuel, bio-plastics, carbon-capture, and fertilizer. undersea agriculture can potentially be commercialized to provide a cheap alternative food source to the insects raised in protein farms, and aid with marine restoration to rebuild the local fish population. it would change canada and NUSA's energy industry. royalties mass-distributed to the tribes. jake park became involved because he wanted to support their cause, returing to night city in order to ask his family's blessing to retake his place as the heir to their entire legacy. on one condition: they help him see this contract through.

So Lightfall is certainly a thing.

Narrative: ??/10 - what happened here

Gameplay: 9/10 - Largely fun, some bugs and a couple issues with Strand make it less enjoyable.

Characters: 10/10 - I love every character they gave us. Every single one of them. Nimbus is a beautiful Thembo. The faceless NPCs that chat with us over the radio are great, I would go to war for Sam and I barely know him.

Aesthetic: 9/10 - a vibe tbh. They did absolutely nail the 80s scifi action flick fantasy they were aiming for. My only complaint about that is that most of those movies are fairly shallow, and this expansion echoed that.

Overall, I'm still having fun with the game. I'm confused and vaguely annoyed about how much emphasis was put on Strand during the campaign instead of like... What was happening In The Campaign. There's some post campaign stuff that's holding my interest at the moment, and the Season of Defiance story looks like it might be well put together, so I'm waiting to form my full opinion on the release until at least post-raid. Things change in these expansions once the world's first, so that might change how I'm feeling about it at the moment.

I played a lot of Rift, and when I could see people it was a blast. Threadrunner is real weak in crucible rn, but has a lot of potential to get really busted. While I'm glad to see Bungie didn't ship Strand anywhere NEAR as hot as Stasis, the underwhelming aspects of the subclasses really make the whole release suffer tbh. Especially for how much emphasis was placed on it. It's really obvious too that Strand was intended for Witch Queen, because it lines up so much better thematically. I'm not sure what state Strand was in when they shipped Witch Queen, or what they would have needed to cut to have it ready to go, but... IDK it just doesn't fit with what they were giving us in Lightfall.

I'm really just banking on "Mr. Whispers" (eyes emoji eyes emoji) pulling some wild shit and making me go OOOOOOOH at some of the honestly wild plot holes. Root of Nightmares needs to be real good, is all I'm saying.

On a positive note: Nimbus action figure collectibles? Adorable. Poukas? I need 35. Osiris reflexively talking to Sagira out of habit? Destroyed me. Caiatl? Metal as fuck. Perfection. Mara? My wife my queen? Would die for her in a heartbeat. Having a mix of Techeuns/Corsairs, Eliksni, and Cabal on the tower the helm to put our current alliances on display for all to see? Delightful. The Cayde memorial? Rude. Made me sad. 10/10. DEVRIM BACK WITH HIS BEAUTIFUL GIDEON EMERY VOICE? Yes. Good. Wonderful. I missed you. The Witness seemed actually threatening for once. Nice change.

Mostly I just have SO MANY QUESTIONS and have exactly ZERO concrete answers at this point and I feel like that's not super great given the timeline of what's supposedly happening lmao. GIMME SOMETHING BUNGO.

Reading Choices

So @dingoat tagged me in this, thanks! I don’t think you know how much books are a part of my life, like these are my reading insights on my kindle app.

EDIT: Stupid timblr mobile erased half of what I wrote, but this is just this year’s stats so far for me and yes, I reccomend the hell out of Anna Hackett. She does adventure, scifi, dystopian/alien invasion, paranormal, military and all with romance, hot dudes and some of the better heroine characters I’ve see around. 

I shall tag @dimigex, @a-muirehen and @actualanxiousswampwitch if yall wanna

hardcover or paperback (because it’s all good) / rent or buy (between buying books and using kindle Unlimited I do both. Frequently.) / reads in silence or reads with music (depends on my mood)  / standalone or series (I am a sucker for 5, 10, 20 book long series. Gimme all the stories!) / annotations or pristine pages / ebook or physical copy (I cant choose and, while I used to not like ebooks I now have no preference) / dog ears or bookmarks / mismatched series or complete set / cover matters or you don’t judge / lend books (and yes I have  lost books that way, stupid ungrateful coworkers keeping my books) or keep them to yourself  / enjoys lit classes or despises them (despise is a strong word, but they are hard for me to get into)  / browses shops or orders online / reads reviews or goes in blind (I read book descriptions, but there is a LOT I will forgive if a book promises to hit a few of my favorite troupes) / unreturned books or clean library record  / rereads (some book I skim through for favorite parts) or once was enough / fanfic enthusiast (SHOCKER!) or a stickler for canon / deep reader or easily distracted (This really depends on how enthralled I am some novels take me a few hours to get through, some take days because I get distracted) / must read the book before seeing the movie or order doesn’t matter / has wants neat bookshelves or messy bookshelves (lots of figures share my bookcase shelves) / skips ahead or resists temptation / reads aloud or in your head / guesses plot twists or never sees them coming (and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it when I don’t see it coming but get smugly happy when I do)

HELLOOO my nano friend, I am coming to wish you luck in your writing and deliver those good good vibes today! I’ve asked you about plot, I’ve asked you about characters, tell me today what is your world building like? Are we working realistic? Historic? Fantasy or scifi? Fanfiction even? Gimme the details! What makes your world unique, or what aspect of the world are you focusing on?

Hello! Good vibes come one come all! I hope you’re doing well, as do I all my fellow nano friends.

Today we’re talking about world building! Yay! My stories are usually realistic and take place in our world, unless I’m working on a fanfiction piece. However, my current story is a bit different. It’s realistic, yes, and takes place in a world like ours. My characters live in a rural town like lots of us do, with a school and neighborhoods and cars and everything you’d see in our own. However, my story focuses on magic, something that may not exist in ours (at least maybe not in the same way). My take on magic for my story is pretty realistic I guess, it was just a small idea at first that turned into a major plot point, but basically in my characters’ world, magic exists in every living thing. All plants, animals, and people, every living thing, has certain energy inside them, and they all have different amounts of it. However, whereas most people don’t know anything about it, or that it exists at all, some people study it, and learn how to harness it to use to do extraordinary things. Most people learning magic do so by using spells, which helps to direct the energy in a safe way. However, some of the people with more powerful magic are able to summon it whenever they need it. For example, if one of them is in danger, their magic can take over to protect them, even if they don’t call on it. This is how the main characters of my story discover their own magic abilities, and that they have strong levels of magical energy. 

Anywho, that’s basically it! My characters live in the New England area of the US (where I’m from), so although I don’t explicitly say that the imagery I use and scenery I describe, such as places they go, are images from my own mind of places I’ve been and seen. This makes the process easier for me personally, but I know lots of writers who prefer creating a brand new world and scene and that works for them as well!

Thanks for talking again, and if you’ve read this far and have any questions about my story, feel free to message me in my inbox! Happy day 8 to all of my nanowriters and I hope you’re all doing well! <3 :)

“Cj Cherryh [from Facebook] ·

Writing 101. Superlatives. Watch it. (And beware of wolves wrapped in them.)

Biggest, best, most... words that end in -est or a variant thereof. There are three degrees of comparison: eg, the word: big; then the comparative, [some variant of -er] bigger---and then the superlative.

If you say big, we get it.

If you say bigger, we ask---than what? It does imply there are others in the competition.

If you say biggest---advertisers and politicians love this---it's the end-all. 'The Last [whatever]' used as a title again --- and again---and again---does lose its punch. Not fair to the guy who thought of it first. And it is starting NOT to sell, I suspect: there have been many, many. Way many. Too many.

'First' is almost as suspect.

Best swordsman on Mars...yes, I loved John Carter too, but, gimme a break. It does limit our anxiety for him when he's in a scrape. It plays well to nine-year-olds anxious to do well at something someday---but hey, us adults are a little skeptical of the title, or wondering when he will meet his downfall. ---because a superlative does suggest a pinnacle from which there is no 'up', only a 'down' if the plot turns against him.

Now, practically speaking---superlatives about oneself are not endearing, unless you have a tic about it, and it's leading to a crisis and resolution. And in a book viewpoint, you'll likely develop more complex characters if there are things in which they are not superhuman---situations in which they can be threatened, and in which they really have to work at winning. Too many -ests is why the scream-and-clutch heroine had to exist, because the hero had to have a weakness.

But you can plot better than that, and a start is to climb down off perfect and create a hero we can get invested in and worried about. How do you beat the bad guy when you're not perfect and best? As Gollum put it, 'What has it got in its pocketses?' Give him resources that can be assembled in some surprising way by brains and ingenuity; give him cleverness; give him determination. It's in the set-up.”

[I’m a big fan of her Chanur series. Also, if anyone’s wondering, her last name is pronounced “CHEH-ree” as in the fruit cherry. She put the H on her last name to make it look more scifi-writer-y or something, apparently.]