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wilmakins · 1 year

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shipper communities would be more tolerable if their ships somewhat speculative but instead they like gravitating to 2 (white) characters who hate each other's guts, constantly fight, even attempt to kill each other in every iteration and continuity (successfully on multiple occasions) but since ppl are convinced that discord/anger(or even hatred) btwn men is gay love that they'll "i need a fic/art" their way into replacing the guys' actual friends in their solo projects w the guy they hate

So, I’m going to try and answer this as best I can, but I should probably start with the disclaimer that I’m a really bad person to ask about ‘the shipping community’ in general. And I don’t just mean because you can’t really ask any one person for an overview of a community that big – I mean I would be a particularly bad person to ask. As you can probably tell from my blog, my Tumblr and Twitter are basically handled by the queue. I’m off the internet for days at a time, and then tend to catch up randomly in bursts. I have a very low follower/reader count, I’m not known in the community, I interact with very few people and at irregular intervals. As such, I frequently miss trends or dramas, I’m often unfamiliar with the terms or names being used, and I acknowledge that I simply don’t have enough – or wide enough – experience, to speak to overall trends in fandom.

This is not me saying those wider trends do not exist, or that they shouldn’t be discussed – I’m simply being honest that I’m not best placed to comment on ‘fandom’ as a whole, and I can therefore only answer from my own personal experience and perspective. I accept that my own experience might not be in any way representative of anything.

However, in my own personal experience, fandom is a bit like a massive toy box in a communal play room. It’s filled with dolls, and action figures, and stuffed animals, and bricks-

And, of course, the kids in that play room don’t need any of that.

They’re more than capable of coming up with entire fantasy worlds in their heads – hell, they’ll still be imagining most of their make-believe world, when they do reach for a toy to add to it. And yet they do reach for toys to include in their make-believe worlds – and, if those aren’t available, they’re use ornaments, rocks, sticks, whatever – because that helps make the imaginary world fun, and accessible. And it’s even more fun, if you can find a friend to share that imaginary world and play with you.

And, of course, the toys in that box have specific forms – that’s what make them fun in the first place. The fact that they look like a soldier or a bride or an elephant or a cash register, or whatever prop you want to add to your story, is part of why it’s more fun to play with the doll than a brick.

But little kids know that those forms aren’t prescriptive. They understand that these are just aids to imagination and fun and connection, and there isn’t really a ‘wrong’ way to see them-

Some kids go through the box looking for inspiration, and end up playing a game about flying elephants because they liked the stuffed elephant they just found.

Some kids are just massively into dinosaurs, and they’re going through that box looking for a prop to use in that game – and, voila, the stuffed elephant becomes a woolly mammoth. And there’s a reason that kid picks the elephant and not the cash register to be the woolly mammoth, and hey, if it works for them, then they’re using the elephant right.

Of course, there are some kids who decide that the plastic pear is a hand grenade and the GI Joe is a Starbucks and the stuffed elephant is a fruit bowl – and, shine on you crazy diamond. Enjoy your game.

And, yes, sometimes you’ll get a kid try to join the dinosaur game, and get upset because that’s not a woolly mammoth, and they don’t like the imaginary world being built here… and that’s usually fine. They go and join the flying elephant game, and leave the dinosaur kids to their woolly mammoth game, and in both cases it’s just nice that these kids got to share their daydreams and have fun together. Sometimes a kid is quite happy playing pear grenade on their own, and that’s okay too.

…And, yes, sometimes one kid will whack another kid over the head with a plastic guitar, and the other kid gets hurt… And yeah, that needs addressing. Just because imaginative play isn’t a bad or unhealthy thing in and of itself, that doesn’t make it a magical bubble where harmful behaviour doesn’t matter and you can do whatever the hell you want without thought.

And, yes, there is a value to looking at the general trends in the games children play, and asking what biases they may be displaying, and where those come from – and you can do that without spoiling anyone’s game. If, one day, I have a little girl who loves Princesses, and turns every doll and stuffed animal into a Princess so that they can play their favourite game, I’m not going to see any problem in her indulging her imagination however she likes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her liking Princess games, per say. I am, however, going to ask myself what sort of female heroes I’m exposing her to, if I’m exposing her to a wide enough range of female stories, if we need to have a conversation about how monarchy works in real life, etc. My point is that the two things are not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to deny yourself your interests or judge yourself for having them in order to be reflective of them.

And, in case you’re wondering where I’m going with this, fandom is an awful lot like that toybox.

Our favourite media provide us with a cast of characters and a range of scenarios, all with existing forms and backstories. And we, as fans, pick through that box of toys for the ones that best fit our daydreams-

And everyone does that. Not just in fandom.

We all indulge in mindless, happy daydreams on occasion – whether it’s of a handsome prince rescuing a princess, or scoring the winning goal at the world cup, or winning the X Factor, or telling your boss to fuck off – and we all make use of existing motifs to make those daydreams.

It’s just that people in fandom are playing their game with a friend.

Now, even without knowing much about fandom at large, I can assume that people will all have different reasons for picking different toys – and that they’ll all choose to do something different with the toys they choose.

Some people will watch the show and be inspired, creating new worlds out of the characters as they exist on the screen.

Some people will come to that toy box with a specific interest in mind. They’ll be looking for the characters that best fit their favourite type of story/best fit their personal kink/best reflect how they see themselves and their struggles/best demonstrate a particular point they’re trying to make to the world – and a thousand other things, I’m sure. They’ll find the characters that best fit what they’re looking for, and let their imagination do the rest. If you’re a fan of childhood sweetheart narratives or war time romances or the concept of soul mates, you can pick Steve Rogers out of the box, pair him with Peggy, and use all that existing characterisation and backstory to build your perfect story – ignoring or rewriting parts of the canon if you want to, the way a kid rewrites a stuffed cat into a lion. Close enough. If you prefer to examine conflict or you’re turned on by the seemingly transgressive nature of kissing someone who tried to kill you, you can take that same Steve Rogers character and pair him with Loki, or Zemo, or the Red Skull – and it doesn’t really matter whether that would’ve been a terrible plot line in the actual movie, because this is your story your telling. You’re just using an action figure to tell it with friends. If you really identify with Gamora and you really want to get railed by Steve Rogers, you can write that story – it doesn’t matter that they never actually met on screen. You’re writing the story of how they met. And, maybe, getting to share it with others who want to play the game with you.

In terms of why *I* ship the characters that I do – which, as I say, is all I can really speak to – I can say, for a start, that I don’t have many ships to reflect on. I am a hyper fixator (understatement) and when I get my hooks into a ship I will focus on that, and only that, for years at a time. When I say that Steve/Tony is my only interest… I really mean that canon analysis of CACW is my only interest, and I genuinely have written the same fix it fic like nine times now.

So, the full list, from age 13 until now is – Buffy/Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Doctor/Rose (Doctor Who), Doctor/Master (Doctor Who), Steve/Tony (MCU)

Obviously, these are not all M/M ships – but I acknowledge that they are all ships involving white characters and there are no F/F ships. I happen to agree that this is the sort of thing we should all take the time to reflect on, and I don’t think that asking myself those questions means that I can’t continue to enjoy my ship. It might mean changing things about the way I engage with that ship – but only if that self-reflection leads to the realisation that I’m doing something harmful, or averse to my actual values, in which case I’d rather work it out and stop doing it. And, to be honest, I don’t think a rundown of my reflections on this issue is really an answer to the main point of your post, and I’m really not an expert in these issues, and I doubt anyone is much interested in a snapshot of my personal musings – and this is already far too long. So, I won’t go into a side ramble about all my thoughts on that-

I will say, however, that I don’t want to be doing or saying things that are harmful, and that if you or anyone else wants to raise these issues with me, my inbox is always open, and I’m happy to have that conversation in whatever format you’re most comfortable with. As it happens, I’m open to all kinds of constructive criticism on my work (so you’re also welcome to let me know if you just think the writing sucks), but I think its especially important to be open to feedback of this kind. If, for example, you believe that *I* have ever unfairly side-lined a canon character in the interest of the romance plot, I would be grateful to hear your comments – that’s not something I’m trying to do with my work, and I’d only be happy to learn better how to avoid that.

However, getting back to what I think is the main point of your post – why the enemies to lovers? And yes, with the exception of a brief dalliance with Doctor/Rose, that is what all my ships have in common – because that *is* what I’m into. That’s the game I have in mind when I go to the toy box – it’s the reason those particular action figures are going to grab my attention first. And I’m sure that the many fans of enemies to lovers have different reasons for liking that trope, and for the ways they like to see it unfold – I can’t speak to that. I can only say that, for *me*, it’s an interest in examining conflict. I like unpicking arguments, looking at the points from different perspectives, asking myself what would have changed if different things had happened, asking myself what it would take to fix it… To be honest, I’m not a hugely imaginative person. You don’t see me constructing elaborate AUs or detailed fantasies. My fics are mostly media analysis essays disguised as stories, or thought experiments using Marvel examples. Half of my fics are rated T or G, and even the E rated ones are usually 100k words of introspection and then a very vanilla sex scene. The reason *I* gravitated towards Steve/Tony is because it’s a pairing with a lot of canon material to explore, and a reasonably vague central argument that can twist into lots of different ideas…

There’s a reason I don’t have a massive readership, to be honest.

Well, a few reasons, one of which is – as you can see – I ramble. But this is the answer to your question, or as best I can offer right now

Of course, if you’d like to continue the discussion, then feel free to message again.

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masseffectladynerd · 4 months

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An update; I'm back

I haven't been on or anywhere NEAR this website since before The Great Purge. I hardly knew how to navigate it even then, so hopes aren't terribly high for this iteration, HOWEVER. I do intend to stay well away from toxicity and drama and 'outrage clickbait' stuff. I will never get into politics, current events, PC crap; if I have it my way, this will be someplace I nerd out about my favorite things and or my artwork.

My life lately has been hectic and stressful enough, I just want someplace to blog and share things and relax with like-minded people. <3 All that being said...

My name is Andria, 35 F, I'm a digital artist first and foremost! I also: Write original stuff and occasionally fan-fiction, I RP (mostly via Discord), I'm a bit of a spelling and grammar stickler and I'll write text walls if you let me. I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, I live with one of my best friends and I have 2 black cats!

Current obsessions: Mass Effect 1, 2, 3 and yes even Andromeda. If played with a few minor mods it's great! The Angara... <3 O///O

DINOSAURS. I'm a dinosaur nerd. Literally you'd hate watching any of the JP movies with me, I spend 70% of the time critiquing what they got right, wrong etc. I'm awful.

I'll chitchat all day about metal or rock music! (Though I have everything from Britney Spears to The Beatles to Cannibal Corpse on my spotify).

SO YEAH, that's about me in a nutshell! I don't bite or judge! Feel free to drop me a message or ask about art commissions, cuz I DO take commissions! Might make a post on that later when I have a decent pricing sheet. In the meantime, have an example. Some Mass effect OCs.

#mass effect #update #announcement #bioware #introducing myself

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masseffectladynerd35 · 4 months

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I'm back I suppose

My life lately has been hectic and stressful enough, I just want someplace to blog and share things and relax with like-minded people. <3 All that being said...

Current obsessions: Mass Effect 1, 2, 3 and yes even Andromeda. If played with a few minor mods it's great! The Angara... <3 O///O

DINOSAURS. I'm a dinosaur nerd. Literally you'd hate watching any of the JP movies with me, I spend 70% of the time critiquing what they got right, wrong etc. I'm awful.

I'll chitchat all day about metal or rock music! (Though I have everything from Britney Spears to The Beatles to Cannibal Corpse on my spotify).

#mass effect #heavy metal #dinosaurs #art #digital art #update #return

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yourmomsandy · 5 months

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Dolphin dreams

Hello Blog >:]. Omg this feels so nice to say. I wanted to make one of these in forever but I get distracted easily so I never followed through. This is cool. I'm going to think out loud (just kidding, I'll be on mute actually, just the sound of my keyboard typing because it is very late and my mom doesn't know I'm still up) for a bit about dolphins because I ended up theming this whole thing around it.

Maybe I should start with why I love dolphins. I think when you are a kid you cycle through a defined set of hyper-fixations. Dinosaurs/cars/babies/dolphins/horses etc. I went through most of these. Dolphins clicked one summer long ago I can't remember when. We went to the canary islands and all I remember was getting a dolphin foam toy at the zoo that I used to play SO much to the point where the foam started to deteriorate and tear シ.

( ꒦ິ ཀ ꒦ິ )

As I grew up I randomly found more and more facts about dolphins via videos and social media. My Youtube viewing habits are odd. They mostly revolve around nostalgic habits I still enjoy to this day (such as listening to nightcore edits) , replaying videos I have seen 1000 times and still enjoying them, games stuff OR random hour long biology dissects. I'm not sure how I got into that but it informed me about many animals, dolphins included. I found out they actually exhibit quite aggressive habits at times which I won't go into detail. They are the secret villains of the ocean.

I think I like their nefarious nature now. They fit into that creepy pasta 2014 aesthetic. I love that.

I have been looking back at the figure of the dolphin every since early 2023 (when I made this clip). Dolphin dreams, brain stimulation and ibs.

Don't think it will turn into anything but I still feel it's interesting. I am intrigued. Makes me think of something I wrote about randomness and art a while back that also never turned into anything.

There is a large degree of randomness to what I do. What is "exploration" if not randomness translated to the european ear. Instead of claiming I am ExPloRinG a place I think I would rather randomly walk into one. I think randomness accounts and recognizes chance as an active participant contrary to ExPloRinG which I feel instills the activeness in the explorer. I am often drawn to something and decide to work with it. Meaning eventually arises from my interaction and play but the early stages are joy and interest. I like working in this way. These days, finding any sort of joy in art making feels like a protest of some kind. ROUGH. We better hold on to it tightly.

I actually just googled if dolphins dream and I found out that apparently dolphins cannot dream because they do not experience a full REM cycle. That's a random fact I just found that somehow makes this better. See, random is good. I think a lot of the art I see would become better with a sprinkle of randomness. Artists don't know all the possibilities and leaving some bits to be revealed through the making is exciting while also bringing great unforeseen rewards.

My ego isn't flexed enough to make me believe I know exactly what the work needs. Often times I am wrong. I have long decided to follow the opposite route. I don't know what the work means when it starts and my role isn't to control. Not even direct. My role is to view and experience these revelations happening as I play, push and pull.

If you are a stuck think of the spaguetti on the wall. This was something I saw once in a house viewing in my second year of uni. We walk in to find a dried spaguetti glued to the wall. This is odd enough but what was fascinating was that it had been painted over. White. Act like that spaguetti. It served little purpose but It excelled at provoking and teasing me. It was a great piece.

NO MORE SPAGUETTI ON PLATES

...

EVER

#dolphin #random #shower thoughts #ocean thoughts #rant #vent post

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black-mesa-slut-voice · 3 years

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YOUR BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO CLASSIC HEADCRAB DOMESTICATION

Click below to start reading this comprehensive document!

Note: All of this is written purely for fun by an aspiring zoologist who simply loves genetics and speculative biology! This is only mildly inspired by source material, and isn’t completely indicative of canon. A lot of these things are just speculative or made up for fun!

If you want to use any of this information for your own headcanons, OCs, or fanart, you are 100% welcome to use it, though I would like to be credited!

If you would like to see more things based on these headcanons, ocs, or simply more things or art I’ve done on this subject, check out my #headcrabguide tag on my blog!

HISTORY

In the wake of the 7 hour war and the proceeding Combine invasion, there was a large amount of casualties. However, not all of these casualties were humans. Animals took a lot of hits as well, and in the remaining 20 years before liberation, the resulting environmental tolls as well as continued extermination caused this sixth mass extinction- arguably just as bad or worse than the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs. Nearly 75% of land animals and over 68% of marine animals went extinct in this time frame.

The most notable toll was on human-domesticated animals. Because of the Combine influence, any animal that was reliant on human care was almost immediately wiped out, both purposefully and inadvertently as humans were no longer available to care for them. All livestock species and most pet species were completely eliminated, leaving humans with few, if no animal companions.

Humans, however, are a very social species, and are naturals at befriending things that are arguably dangerous. Wolves, cats, and even less common creatures such as foxes, snakes, and spiders were kept and tamed and bred for companionship and work despite their danger. When the Combine forces were driven off and humans were once again allowed to practice the art of domestication, they were left with very few options. Some birds, a few select felines, insects, and alien species were nearly all they had to work with.

And so, work they did.

Headcrabs, despite their use as a weapon by the Combine, were one of the first alien species to actually be domesticated. It is theorized that this is because a number of factors- first is that the one of the leading rebellion leaders, Dr. Isaac Kleiner, actually possessed one name “Lamarr”, putting the idea in many people’s heads that they could be tamed and kept. The second was their abundance. They were easy to find and acquire, and despite their danger, could easily be captured. Third, they are very easy to selectively breed and mass produce. Lastly, it was quickly discovered that headcrabs are much more intelligent and social than previously anticipated.

In the wild of their home planet, Xen, headcrabs actually had a very complex social system and niche. They formed large groups- called casts- that staked out swathes of territory. The leader of the group was called a gonarch. The gonarch was a large, heavily mutated headcrab that was the sole reproducer, similar to that of queen bees or ants. Though it was large, fast, and capable of defending itself, it lost it’s ability to easily feed itself, as it’s mouth became much smaller to make room for the reproductive sac.

Because of that, the rest of the cast was tasked with hunting and feeding the gonarch in exchange for protection and reproduction. The smaller, albeit still mature headcrabs would go out, and attempt to hunt down anything it could- smaller things were eaten or fed to the gonarch, and larger things that had the right shaped heads could be ‘coupled’ with, fusing the headcrab to it’s host and creating a gonome. Though gonomes were more powerful and capable of hunting larger prey and defending the rest of the cast, in turn, they lost their ability to reproduce. Thus, most casts had one gonarch, several gonomes, and many crabs.

Gonomes could come in any species that was large enough for a headcrab to couple with- and is perhaps why headcrabs were actually so easy to tame. With the right social encouragement, a headcrab can easily recognize humans and other larger creatures as being part of their cast, and regard them in the same way they would a gonome- with social respect and friendliness.

With a few generations of selective breeding, headcrabs quickly became much more docile due to their natural instinct of accepting oddly-shaped creatures as part of their cast.

CARE AND HANDLING

Despite the generations of breeding leading to a much more friendly, domesticated headcrab, care must still be exercised with them in regards to handling. They are very similar to cats in the fact that, despite their domestication, they can still be wild at nature and will often hunt smaller creatures, and are capable of harming someone if provoked.

Also similar to cats are their sense of community. Like mentioned, headcrabs can be trained and raised to see certain people- usually a household- as part of their cast. However, this presents a problem with strangers entering their ‘territory’. If not properly socialized, headcrabs can be quite aggressive to anyone they don’t recognize as part of their cast. This is beneficial for those who don’t expect anyone, or want a ‘guard dog’ type of pet- but can be detrimental to those who have friends or family that may come to visit.

Though headcrabs lack eyes, they are not completely blind. They have subdermal eyes located near the base of their front legs, which can detect lights and shapes. That, combined with their ability to ‘taste’ the air with specialized glands, are how they recognize others and their environment.

If you plan on having someone visit, it may be best to have something that smells like the visitor on hand for a few weeks beforehand, so your headcrab can become used to their scent.

For headcrabs that don’t mind activity, you can also take your headcrabs on walks or trips into public to get them accustomed to having strange scents and people around them, leading them to be less aggressive, even at home. Of course, it is always a good idea to have proper restraint for any flighty, aggressive, or even headcrabs that have never been socialized in public before.

Another good way to prevent injury is physical modification. For headcrabs that simply are rowdy or aggressive- or even just as a precaution for the most well behaved crab- there are several things you can do to prevent injury.

When headcrabs first started being tamed, the most common method of modification was ‘debeaking’. Despite it’s name, it’s actually a misnomer, as headcrabs don’t have beaks, only radial rings and fangs. ‘Debeaking’ was the process of removing all 18 fangs on the underside of the crab surgically, usually when young. This prevents them from growing back and completely eliminates the risk of being bitten.

However, this practice was quickly upturned under the argument of it being inhumane. While the headcrab often doesn’t suffer because of this, as their fangs are only used for gripping prey and not eating it- if done incorrectly, it can be painful in the long run.

One of the slightly more common methods are ‘fang caps’. Similar to claw caps for cats, fang caps are a small, plastic cap that can be fitted over the fangs of a headcrab. With a small amount of specialty glue, they become long-lasting solutions for injury prevention with no physical harm to your crab. Despite the seemingly perfect upsides, there are also precautions you must take. It is possible for a fang cap to become loose or fall off either through being applied incorrectly or simply from wear and tear. Thus, you must always monitor the state of the caps to ensure there are no accidents.

The third option, and the least used, is clipping. Though it does not remove the whole fang, clipping refers to filing down/clipping each fang individually so it’s not sharp. However, this is generally not only difficult, but it’s actually uncomfortable for the crab, and they can grow back fairly quickly.

For headcrabs that are properly either defanged or capped, there is little to no risk of being bitten. If a properly cared for headcrab does attack or try to mount your head, it can simply be pulled off, as there’s nothing allowing it to grip onto it’s ‘prey’.

However, you must still be mindful of the long, sharp front claws. Unlike the fangs, these do not have nerves until very deep in- and thus, can be slightly trimmed and filed with no discomfort on your crab’s end.

FEEDING

Headcrabs- despite their predatory nature- are not only social, but omnivores as well. This fact comes as a surprise to some people who look at them and compare them to things such as spiders.

Indeed, though a headcrab is most definitely a predator, they’re more opportunistic than anything. They will often eat nearly anything they wander across, including small creatures, decaying corpses, fruits, fungi, algaes and lichens, and very occasionally some vegetables and leafy matter.

Most of what they eat is less dependent on taste, and more of their actual physical ability to eat it. Because of their hyper specialized mouthparts, they are unable to chew. Instead, they scrape at the soft parts of whatever is fitted into their mouth with a specialized, rough ring around the inner mouth fitted with a bunch of extremely small ‘teeth’, similar to that of a lamprey. Thus, they can only eat what they can scrape off with that, and cannot chew bones or anything hard or with too much roughage. It’s non uncommon to see a headcrab take something into it’s mouth, such as a small bone or rock covered in lichen- ‘suck’ it clean, and spit it back out.

Thus, headcrabs can be fed nearly anything that they can fit into their mouth. Of course, that is within reason- it’s always good to look up what is or isn’t toxic to your crab, as well as feed them specialty diets to make sure they get all of the proper nutrients they need without over or underfeeding.

The most common way to feed is with commercial ‘crabcakes’- rounded nutrient blocks resembling a large piece of kibble, that comes in several sizes to fit in any crab’s mouth. Once given, a headcrab will take about a few hours to eat it, and don’t need to be fed again for another few days, or up to a week, depending on activity and how many supplemental treats are given in between. Though it’s perfectly fine to feed them only cakes or only prepared food, the most enriching and balanced option is feeding the cakes once a week, with smaller, daily ‘treats’ of different varieties being given.

Some of these treats can include:

Pieces of meat (any type, cooked or raw)

Small, whole prey (commercially prepared mice or chicks)

Whole or sliced fruits (apple, pear, etc)

Tubers (potato, sweet potato, carrot)

Hard vegetables / stalks (chopped celery, broccoli, etc)

Mushrooms (anything edible by humans is edible for your crab)

As a special treat, sometimes you can replace a cake with a large ‘prey’ item that would also take several hours to eat. Some examples are:

Large whole prey (Whole birds, large chunks of meat, antlion grubs, etc)

Large fruits (Melons of any type are a favorite)

Large vegetables (heads of cabbage, heads of broccoli, etc)

Of course, any meat-based items are going to be chosen over non-meat items if offered.

BREEDING

Breeding headcrabs, unlike many other creatures, is generally not something that can be done unless you are a committed hobbyist. Namely because normal headcrabs- even if they are mature- are incapable of breeding whatsoever. The only type of headcrab that can reproduce are the gonarch, the heads of the cast. All headcrabs are biologically ‘male’ until they transform into a gonarch, or lost reproductive organs entirely as a gonome.

Originally a gonarch was produced when there simply wasn’t a gonarch in the group. The largest, strongest individual would then begin to grow and mutate, similar to how many fishes can mutate into a larger or opposite gender if needed.

However, this ability was removed from the headcrab- along with the ability to create proper gonomes- by the combine when they were being used as weapons. Though headcrabs were efficient at taking care of humans, anything larger and more dangerous threated to get out of hand; the combine didn’t want them reproducing out of control and becoming another threat. Incidentally, this is also when their eyes became subdermal as part of a side effect of gene altering.

Because of this, there are only two ways to breed a headcrab. One, and the most common, is to create an artificial gonarch sack. Blueprints were taken from the combine after their defeat that allowed humans to replicate the same technology that allowed them to mass-produce them before.

Artificial gonarch sacs are similar to ‘ghosts hearts’ where they are pseudo-biological, and accept any DNA put into it. Thus, you can insert DNA from any crab to become the ‘gonarch’ or ‘female’ DNA, and either get the smaller male to ‘mount’ the artificial gonarch in a specialized area, or do the male portion artificially as well.

The artificial womb also lets you control how many offspring are produced, as normally a gonarch can produce hundreds of crabs from each successful mating- too many, often, to properly take care of.

Much less common is the artificial transformation of a true gonarch.

Any headcrab can be stimulated to turn into a gonarch with the injection of artificial hormones that trigger the process. It will then take a few weeks to a few months for the crab to transform.

However, this is not recommended for a number of reasons.

First, they are large. They need much more than a house for their territory- they often need several acres, and if it’s deemed unsuitable for a nest, she will refuse to breed and become agitated.

Second, they are very territorial, aggressive, and dominant. If you were a gonome to them before, you still are- which means, in headcrab ranks, she is now above you, socially. Even the most docile crab becomes an aggressive, protective creature who will defend her young and territory with her life. Combine that with their massive size, they are extremely dangerous, even to a professional.

Third, it is very hard to regulate the exact breeding. She will only accept other headcrabs from her cast, and if she deems them unfit, will promptly kill them. And even once they are bred, they can produce several hundred offspring- of which it is very hard to take care of, and even harder to take away from her due to her protective nature.

Lastly, she cannot feed by herself. She requires being fed specialized food through specialized apparatus- and a lot of it.

It’s expensive, costly, and overall dangerous. Thus, artificial gonarch sacs are generally the go-to.

COLORS AND PATTERNS

Just like with previous animals that were domesticated, such as cats, dogs, and goldfish, after a few generations of breeding they began to exhibit unique colors and patterns. After enough time, unique, recognized colors, coats, and even breeds came to be official recognized.

It was made even easier because breeding for exact genes was made simple by means of artificial sacs. Thus, headcrabs come in a vast array of colors and patterns, some even unique to certain subspecies.

The most common colors are pale, albeit warm shades of tans, yellows, and browns. In more rare cases, they can take a more green, purple, or red tint.

Tan, ash, sand, and flaxen were the first recognized distinct colors that were bred onto headcrabs. Chocolate and umber quickly arose from the original tan, with rose following not far behind. When rose was cross-bred back with umber, it resulted in lilac.

Golden arose when sand crabs were bred for vibrancy, and sorrel was the result of a cross of golden and umber.

Flaxen gave way to wheat, and then swamp when bred for the cooler, greenish mutation.

Patterns, too, were something that quickly came about, not long after the first distinct colors began to be recognized.

The first patterns that arose were speckled, striped, and Siamese (named after the similar patterned cat).

Fawned came from a recessive mutation that reversed the pigment cells that caused the spotting pattern on speckled crabs, making them appear lighter instead of darker. Pearled arose when it was cross-bred back with speckled- which usually resulted in speckled, but sometimes in pearled. Because fawned is recessive, the only way to get fawned is to breed with another fawned or a pearled. Breeding a fawned and a speckled results in only speckled or pearled.

Snowshoe, similarly, rose from the same recessive mutation, though this time with Siamese. Similar rules apply; though an ‘in between’ similar to pearled does not exist, as they simply neutral each other out.

Capped rose from Siamese, though it looks similar to bullseye. Bullseye actually came from a very hyper specific mutation of smoked, and is one of the most rare patterns, much moreso than capped or smoked.

Striped crabs are what were bred into both smoke and ticked- with smoke being an increased level of pigment, and ticked being a decreased level.

Marbled is another very rare pattern with dubious origins. Some say it’s a standalone mutation, though others say it originated with smoke, bullseye, and even speckled. However, none of these are confirmed.

Of course, all of the patterns and colors on the charts above are not every single example- there are many more sub-variations of colors and patterns of each type, these are just the main, conformed and recognized ones. They also don’t include any non-recognized crossbreeds or mixes of colors or patterns that aren’t an established record.

UNIQUE BREEDS

Even moreso than recognized colors and patterns are unique breeds of crabs. Though, again, not even breed pictured above are all of them, these are just some of the more noteworthy examples.

Truthfully, nearly all crabs are going to be your standard breed, and not one of the ones pictured. Unless it is either obvious or has had a genetics test, it is safe to assume your crab is a standard.

Two of the most recognized sub-species are the racer and the false poison. These were both bred to be inspired by the combine-created species, the “fast” headcrab and the poison headcrab. Their target audience both began for people who liked them in theory or as an aesthetic, but lacked the funds, ability, or want to deal with the much more dangerous and aggressive ‘true’ versions.

Because they were intended for war, fast headcrabs and poison headcrabs lack almost all social aspects that standards do, are much more aggressive, flighty, wild, and dangerous. Not to mention to potent neurotoxin than poison headcrabs excrete, and the vicious teeth of fast headcrabs. Nowadays theyre both often bred for show or work, but we aren’t focused on them here, simply the standard crab.

Pancakes are some of the harder to recognized subspecies, due to their generally unassuming appearance. They’re named so because they’re typically ‘flatter’ than the normal headcrab, tend to range in the golden-sandy color range, and are described as being ‘soft and sweet’. True to that, that is the original purpose that pancakes were bred for- they’re small, lazy, hyper-friendly headcrabs that almost never attempt to show any signs of aggression unless severely pushed. They’re great for households with kids, or simply people who want a slightly less high-maintenance crab.

They can come in nearly any pattern and color, but again, tend to be in the warm, golden-yellow tone range.

Hunchbacks are a much more narrow breed, since it's recessive, and tend to be not as desirable for no other fact than their appearance. Still, that are amazingly unique. Because of the rarer, recessive nature, they generally only swamp/wheat/greenish colors, and only come in a narrower range of patterns, including speckled, smoked, striped, ticked, and marbled. Though, because of the fact that speckled exist, pearled and fawned theoretically could too- there’s simply yet to be documented evidence of a successful fawned mutation.

Nubbed is another breed caused by a rare mutation that has been successfully bred into a small population. It’s very easy to spot because of it; the mutation clearly causing their front claws to be short, or ‘nubbed’. Nubbed can come in any color or pattern, though they tend to follow the standard/less extreme patterns and colors. This is because it was because of a mutation that actually happened really early in domestication, before a lot of colors or patterns were even bred, and is a recessive mutation making it hard to breed with rarer colors and patterns.

Saddlehorns are an extremly unique and very specialized breed. They’re definitely recognizable by their concave back and the nub near the base of their front claws. They also have a pattern that's unique to only saddlehorns- which is the 'cow spotted' pattern. However, it isn’t just random spots. Though they do have large splotches, they always have a band going around their middle as well. They can come in any pale color, and the markings are usually in the brown to dark, almost black range.

Bunin or “Bubbleheads” are actually a relative of hunchbacks, and not saddlehorns, despite the head similarity. They tend to follow the same rules as hunchbacks, but instead of greenish tones, they come in golds, yellows and warm-orange tones. There has also been confirmed cases of fawned and pearled bubbleheads.

Volkov are a common, albeit specific breed that's bred for it's ferocity, but also it's loyalty. They’re often easy to mistake for a standard, and combined with their relative commonality make them hard to identify to the untrained eye. They appear like standard headcrabs, except they have a slight hunch to them. Their real difference lies in the personality.

As mentioned, they’re loyal and very attentive to the rest of their cast, but have a ferocity and sharp hunting ability that comes with it’s protectiveness. They’re often used as pest control or ‘guard dogs’. This makes them suitable for those jobs, but poor choices for people who live in high population areas or have lots of visitors.

They generally come in browns and blacks, but can truthfully come in any color. They can come in MOST patterns- all but smoked and bullseye.

Batas are another weird breed with a unique patterns, which is the squiggly markings centralized on their rump. They only really come in variations of the color pictured, golds, flaxens, and sandy. Similar to pancakes, they're known for being very complacent with handling, making them good for those with kids or for shows, where the more prominent the markings the better they judge. The difference is the fact that the whole breed itself is prone to many health problems, as it’s very recessive and commonly inbred. Purebreds are pretty expensive.

Silkies or “thinskins” are a breed that came from a mutation that caused their skin to be extremely thin. They're questionable morally to keep, since they're prone to getting wounded very easily, even by their own fangs and claws. Because of this, they have to be debeaked and/or declawed, or must have fang caps at all times and their front claws filed regularly, les they hurt themselves.

They also generally have a myriad of other health problems because of the inbreeding needed to get them, and are prone to several diseases, skin problems, and increased chance of injury.

They generally dont have any patterns, but come in most all colors. However, because of their thin skin, their yellow blood tends to show through, giving any color a yellow tint- and appearing outright yellow on lighter coats.

Munchkins aren’t as much of a breed as they are a mutation, and can come in any color or pattern because of it. There can even be munchkins of other breeds.

Hookclaws are a very newly recognized breed, and still have yet to be fully explored. So far, they can come in pretty much any color, but they never have any patterns aside from a heavy gradient on their back. More research is being done to try and breed patterns onto them.

SUMMARY

Despite their nefarious beginnings, headcrabs quickly arose as a very common, domesticated companion in the post-combine years. Though they aren’t for everybody, they make a fascinating, unique pet for those willing to put in the work and research. Or, even if you aren’t interested in adoption; the history and genetics are a fascinating, competitive, and potentially lucrative field for any young entrepreneur.

So whether you’re looking for a new companion, someone to guard the house while you’re away, or simply a new career in genetics, headcrabs are an amazing species to look into.

#half life #half life 2 #headcrab #headcrabs #speculative biology #alien biology #my art #ask to tag #headcrabguide

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xaeyrnofnbe · 2 years

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here is my pinned post!! info about me here!! (sorry it’s a mess of words. i am not a very organized person. i appreciate it a lot if you do read this stuff though)

CC’S BEWARE I AM STRANGE DO NOT LOOK AT ME. JUST PRETEND IM NOT HERE. anyway,

you can call me Xae

i strongly prefer masculine and androgynous terms and compliments… so like sir and mr. and all that stuff. you can call me a guy or a boy all you like. i’m not exactly a man but i vibe with the words y’know?

not all that great at social stuff online, so if you reach out and i don’t respond i’m very sorry, i probably want to chat as well i just panic as soon as i am paid any attention and also just don’t know how to talk online. if you wanna shoot me a message though, go for it! i’ll try my best. probably.

very open to questions about my headcanons, original characters, or other ideas i’ve posted on here! if you send an ask i most likely will respond in some way. cannot guarantee i’ll be coherent about it though

also, i post about a lot of different things, and don’t really have the mental capacity or care enough to manage multiple side blogs. so i would list all the things you might find on here but honestly it’s just everything i’ve ever been into. so. good luck with that i guess, follow at your own risk. (that risk being having to see stuff you don’t care about/don’t like)

i draw sometimes, but not a lot. lots of art mediums too. if you have something you’d like me to draw, lemme know i guess? i’m all ears for inspiration. though i’ll only really want to draw cartoon characters, dsmp or dsmp adjacent characters or ccs, and ocs sometimes. also animals or dinosaurs, love those guys.

oh and as a little warning if you happen to read this, i tend to reblog videos and pictures of insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and other leggy things, and rarely tag them, cause i forget. so if you’re freaked out by any of that, a follow may not be in order.

also also, i am very uncomfy with anything inappropriate, suggestive, or nsfw in any way directed at me! so keep that to a minimum pretty please.

if you don’t like something i did, or a particular viewpoint i like, or the fact that i like a person/media that you don’t, sorry not sorry, i’m just vibing here. if you don’t like it then don’t follow. block me if you need to.

oh and btw if you change your url and don’t say anything or i don’t see you say something about changing it, you’re a different person to me now sorry. i have ZERO object permanence when it comes to people on here i barely remember people i regularly interact with. again sorry but if you’ve changed your url recently and we’re mutuals or something, you’re a different person now in my brain and that past person either never existed or is dead now. oh well. whoops

with everything previously stated in mind, i’m pretty chill and open to chatting. and i usually follow people back if we have shared interests or if the person is funny. bye bye now!!

(oh and. if you’re curious. i am putting my current fursona here. just so The People have something to imagine me as if needed. and bc i love him)

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thetriggeredhappy · 3 years

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recently rediscovered your blog and read the fic from your dad spy au where scout starts out as the "guard" and then becomes scout from there and lemme tell you that shit put me on some s-tier brainrot. like a cranial decay type beat.

i had a concept in my head that instead of being hired as a guard, he could have been hired as a right hand man to the administrator like pauling, because i think hed be awesome in that position. like imagine having a personal merc who can get in fast and out even faster. but maybe he would stay in the base like the rest of them, sort of like a secret on call intel gatherer, who also maybe sometimes has to dig a couple graves. and also like, nobody on the team expects anything from him at first because its this 20 year old newbie kid. hes dressed in his formal clothes and he talks like somebody from relatively around boston but not quite. i can just imagine one day he comes back during a team dinner with his shirt half untucked and stained with blood, hair disheveled as he asks soldier if he can borrow his shovel, or him debriefing them for a mission when miss pauling is busy. same vibe as the fic i mentioned before but scout gets to have a job as cool as miss paulings. honestly id write it myself if i didnt have the attention span of a fly

anyways your scout content gives me life thank you

scout teamfortress but 20% more competent standing next to miss pauling teamfortress while she's doing her job and doing like silly quips and otherwise contributing nothing like it's a buddy cop film is literally my fucking ideal

(warnings for some canon-typical violence)

“Oh, Pauling, it’s good to see you again,” greeted the chairman, smiling in an imitation of a grandfather and clasping her hands perhaps too-kindly considering she barely knew him. “Young as ever, and still so stylish, I see. And who’s the new fellow?”

“He’s just here to help with transport, Mr. Montgomery, nothing unusual,” Miss Pauling replied, returning his smile and adjusting her glasses. “Heavy cases, you know how it is.”

“Of course, I remember you almost toppling clean over last time we made a trade!” Montgomery agreed, frowning at the memory. “You’ll pull a muscle that way, better to be careful. It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man. And your name?”

“Mr. Normandy, sir,” the new kid replied easily enough despite his slight East Coast accent, giving the man a firm handshake, expression neutral and stony, the picture of professionalism. Internally, Pauling breathed a sigh of relief.

“Firm grip there, young man,” Montgomery praised, nodding approvingly. “Tennis player, perhaps? Or golf?”

“Baseball, sir,” he replied, still evenly. “First baseman.”

“Ah! Of course! Were you any good?” Montgomery joked.

“At everything but playing in front of the crowds, otherwise I’d be in the major leagues,” he replied, tilting his head just slightly to imply that he was joking, his sunglasses glinting at the movement, and Montgomery barked a laugh.

“I like this one, Miss Pauling!” Montgomery said, and Pauling just barely caught herself from physically relaxing at it.

“We do too, Mr. Montgomery,” she agreed. “I was under the impression that you’re very busy today, so we won’t keep you for too long, we just wanted to sort out the final details surrounding the manufacturing rights for the—“

“—Pacific Northwest branch, up into British Columbia and Alberta, of course,” Montgomery agreed, nodding faintly. “Of course, of course.” He turned to regard his own man in a dark suit, the one standing to the right, who appeared to be unsuccessfully trying to stare down Normandy, who was completely ignoring him. “My briefcase, please.”

The man handed over the briefcase, and Montgomery put it on his desk, opening it and pulling out a sheaf of papers. “All our requests are submitted and approved, at this point we just had a few dustbins to take care of regarding initial percentages and making sure everything is wired to the correct accounts, which names are undisclosed, things like that,” Pauling explained as he glanced through the papers.

“Right, right, everything looks good here,” the man murmured, nodding to himself, sending his long-white hair just ever-so-slightly out of place. “I’m assuming these more sensitive documents should be sent some way besides through the mail?”

“If you finish them today I can take them with me, otherwise either me or Mr. Normandy can return to pick them up at your convenience,” she replied, to which Normandy gave a singular nod.

“Oh, it would only take me a short while,” Montgomery said, waving a hand. “We have a lovely lounge just down the hall from here if you’d prefer to wait there, it should only take me ten, fifteen minutes at most. In the meantime, I do believe there’s also the manner of payment for services rendered.”

Miss Pauling tilted her head just slightly to one side, confused.

“I arranged with Helen already,” Montgomery explained, not looking up from where he was initialing a few things. “The payment, rather than being wired, she asked to be made in material investment. A venture of mine from years ago that she’s willing to sit on. Rather than gold or bonds, she agreed to take some old currency of mine that my family collected, from early 18th century New Zealand and Australia. Monetarily it’s worth around the same, and I’m quite a bit attached to it to be entirely frank, but it was at her request to buy the whole collection from me, and after years of the work we’ve been doing together, well, I’d never trust it with anyone else.”

He gestured to the other man, the one on his left, who stepped forward to hand him a manila envelope, which he passed to Pauling.

“Inside is both keys, the door alarm codes, and all other security information for the building where the collection is being stored. They’ll ask for a few codes and confirmation of identity, only because several other art collections and artifacts are being stored there by other affluent individuals such as myself.”

“Thank you, Mr. Montgomery,” Pauling said, taking the envelope gratefully.

“Think nothing of it, my dear. Helen talked me into it all her own,” he said easily enough. “Now, gentlemen, if you would let Miss Pauling and Mr. Normandy into our lounge? I should have these wrapped up before any of us can even think about lunch, eh?”

One of the suits showed the two of them through the doors and down the hallway, through two doors bracketed by similar suits who simply nodded politely at Pauling and ticked their chins at Normandy as they passed them.

Normandy posted up beside the door for all of three seconds before they shut and Pauling pulled her glasses up, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and making a vaguely distressed noise. He then promptly relaxed, instead leaning his hip against an armchair probably worth the same amount as a small car. “So, uh, we’re glad that he’s giving us a bunch of commemorative coins from when dinosaurs still walked the earth?” he asked just below normal speaking volume, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. Very glad. Because unlike about six people total on the planet, he hasn’t figured out yet how valuable those are.”

“What, is a picture of a kangaroo on some copper really gonna make up for a couple hundred thousand American dollars?” Normandy asked, sounding doubtful.

“Not copper. Something else,” she replied. “I can’t tell you much more about it other than that, but these coins are made of something priceless to us. And to the Administrator.”

“…Love? Memories? The magic of family?” he joked, cracking a smile, and she rolled her eyes, moving to open the envelope and start reading the papers inside. “Hey, uh, not to question whether my job should exist, but what the hell am I doing here, exactly? Besides carrying a briefcase. Like, chivalry isn’t dead but I really don’t think you need me carrying your bags and holding the door for you.”

“You’re helping with security, basically,” she replied, adjusting her glasses to squint at tiny handwriting about the collection. “Mr. Montgomery is trustworthy, but he mostly hires out to… well, people like us. His security detail is mostly people we’d rather have screened, freelancers, stuff like that. A lot of people we contract out to are like that. Most of them have heard about me and know better than to try and pull something, since I can hold my own pretty well, but if they haven’t, seeing a second person might persuade them to think it over again.”

“Oh, so I’m like, uh, when it says ‘tow zone’ next to the no parking signs even though nobody checks, or when they’ve got a camera in the corner of the store that isn’t even plugged into anything,” he said, and the looked up at him, confused. “Like, uh, what’s the word… I’m a casual deterrent.”

“Sure,” she said, because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, shuffling the papers back away and closing the envelope again, making a note to ask the Administrator if she should change their current containment procedures to be closer to Mr. Montgomery’s. “Just… if there’s a fight, you deal with it, otherwise you just stand there and look like you’re paying attention.”

“That’s what the sunglasses are for,” he agreed. “I was blinking morse code at the guy across from me literally the whole time.”

“You know morse code?” Pauling asked, surprised.

“Just the alphabet, ‘S.O.S.’, and ‘ass’.”

She rolled her eyes again, and that’s when the door opened.

She expected Mr. Montgomery, not one of the men in suits. “Excuse me, both of you, if you don’t mind,”the man said, accent having the slightest English tilt to it, a Londoner if Pauling had to guess. “You’re Miss Pauling, the Mann Co. affiliate, yes?”

“That’s me,” she agreed, hesitant, and glanced at Normandy.

“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. Mr. Montgomery have you the wrong envelope on accident,” the man said apologetically, extending a hand forward. “We apologize for this unfortunate mix-up, it’s really quite embarrassing, but those documents are sensitive and we’ll be needing to see them back now.”

Pauling looked at him, and within a moment, shifted her expression. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she agreed, nodding. “No, right, of course. These aren’t the papers for the currency collection?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Brit agreed, head tilting just slightly, hand still extended, moving a fraction further forward.

“Well, thank goodness we figured out now and not with us halfway back,” she joked, and moved to hold the folder closer to her body. “I’ll take this right back to Mr. Montgomery, then.”

“He’s sent me to correct the error,” the man explained simply.

“Right,” she said, and saw in her periphery that Normandy had already started sneaking a hand in towards his primary, clearly having pieced together something she was only suspecting. “We can bring this to his office, then, right down the hall.”

“You misunderstand,” the man said, taking a step forward again. “I’ll be taking it to his office myself.”

“That’s funny,” Pauling said. “I didn’t realize you had clearance to be in there. Or to be carrying a semi-automatic instead of a standard handgun.”

The Brit reached for the semi-automatic, and before he could even get it out properly, Normandy hit one clean shot to the side of his head and another to his thigh, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Pauling had only as far as pulling her own handgun free, thumb on the safety, and breathed a sigh of relief, glancing over at Normandy, shifting to more comfortably hold her gun. “Quick reflexes,” she noted.

“Just noticed a lot sooner, maybe,” he shrugged, stepping forward to glance over the body, tucking his gun back away.

“What was your hint?”

“He’s here to give us the right folder, yeah? Well, why were his hands empty, then?”

She was just starting to nod and realize that as well when a second man shouldered through the door, holding a gun at the ready. Normandy scrambled to draw his own, but Pauling fired a shot into his knee, shoulder, and neck to send him dropping before he was even close. “There’s quick on the draw, and then there’s prepared,” she said pointedly. “Gotta think of if there’s more than one, new guy.”

He nodded, and drew his gun again, bending to hit the guy on the ground at the temple hard enough to knock him out if he wasn’t unconscious already. He then glanced up at the sound of a shout from the other side of the door, two men shouldering through, guns drawn but lowered. It was only the firm eye contact they made with both her and Normandy that made her pause the millisecond it took to realize these ones weren’t trying to kill them.

“Pauling, what on earth is going on here?!” Montgomery demanded, entering the room and staring with wide eyes at the bodies on the ground. “What could’ve possessed you to—“

“He was trying to run off with these documents,” she explained quickly, gesturing with the envelope. “He knew whatever was in here was valuable.”

“He drew his gun, sir,” Normandy added, tipping his head down towards the body, and Pauling glanced down as well and found herself a little surprised. He’d rearranged the man just slightly, apparently, adjusting the arm to be holding the gun a bit further outward. “Other one was aiming to kill.”

“My, my,” Montgomery tsk’d, shaking his head as he surveyed the scene. “What a mess. My apologies, Miss Pauling, Mr. Normandy.”

“It’s alright, but you need to start doing more thorough checks on your staff, Mr. Montgomery,” Pauling stressed.

“He’s only been here two weeks, sir, he was one of the men we hired in a hurry after the incident last month,” one of the bodyguards said, and Montgomery shook his head.

“Thank goodness nobody was hurt,” he sighed. “Mutiny, and besides that, they’re bleeding on my carpet. Here are those papers, Miss Pauling—what a day, eh?”

“It’s really alright, we handled it,” Pauling assured him, giving her bravest smile, a little exasperated now.

“Right, right, you and the first baseman,” he agreed, and Normandy fought back an actual smile.

“If you’d like, we can take care of those for you,” Pauling said, gesturing at the bodies. “To pay you back for the carpet and the scare.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Montgomery agreed, clearly relieved.

“My dad’s gonna be pissed, by the way,” Normandy was so helpful as to say on the way back up the path to the base. “And you’re fielding that.”

“About the suit, or the fight?” she asked, glancing at his clothes where he was somewhat covered in a fine dusting of mud and grime from the gravedigging, shovel still in his free hand.

“Both. Mostly the fight. Your fault for saying it’d be an easy one to start with,” he said.

“If it was going to be that much of a problem, you wouldn’t have gotten this job. I’d just have made you go do dishes all day or something,” Pauling replied.

“Point taken,” he said, walking ahead to get the door, holding it open for her. “Wait, we’re allowed to mention what we do, right? Just not names?”

“Or locations, even with travel distance. Round up to the hour if it comes up,” she replied.

“Sure, sure,” he agreed, trailing a step behind her as she led the way through the base.

In the common area, there was a bit of a ruckus happening. Soldier, Heavy, and Demo appeared to be having some kind of arm wrestling competition on a rapidly-toppling table, the Engineer was on a stepstool trying to fix the ceiling fan, and Sniper appeared to be half-watching the beginnings of an argument between Pyro and the Spy regarding use of the oven as Medic patched up a burn on his arm.

“Hullo,” Sniper greeted the two of them, sounding a little bored, Medic giving them a brief, polite nod. Normandy’s eyebrows were raised pretty far as he surveyed the room.

“Hi, Sniper,” she greeted in return, then cleared her throat, raised her voice. “Team meeting in five minutes! New mission for next week!”

Groans from the room at large, the eight mercenaries starting to finish up what they were doing and filing out. Spy moved over, glancing over Normandy and starting to talk to him in rapid-fire French, picking smaller bits of gravel off of his suit as they walked.

“Alright,” she addressed the room, Normandy peeling off from getting mother hen’d by Spy to stand next to the blackboard with her. “Monday, you’re all going on a transport mission. Getting the truck from point A to point B with everything in the boxes intact. Already we’ve had to put up with some people trying to get ahold of these things, so bring your guns.”

“Oh, our guns, you said? Lads, this is a serious one, keep your heads on a feckin' swivel, she’s sayin’ we might even need guns, can you believe it?” Demo faux-gasped, and chuckled when Spy bopped him on the arm, rolling his eyes at the Scot's theatrics.

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved off, flipping through the papers a bit. “So Engie, I’ll need the keys to the truck, me and Normandy are going to be loading those tomorrow, all of you need to be at this drop point bright and early.”

“How early?” Heavy rumbled.

“Six. Hour and a half of drive from here.”

Some complaints from the room that she sighed at.

“Hey, hey, calm the hell down,” Normandy cut in, and she glanced over at him where he had his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. “You chuckleheads get to have all eight of you to unload the damn thing, me and Miss P gotta do all the rest of this on our own and probably kill twenty guys on the way there and back. She had to be up at 6 AM, workin’ since 7 AM, lunch break at noon and nothin’ else, and we just got back now at, what, fuckin’, 10, 11 PM? Any of you work her shift and then see if you even got the energy to complain about wakin’ up early, how about that?”

The room went utterly devoid of complaint or backsass. “Thank you, Normandy,” she said politely, and he just nodded once, glancing off to the side. “Anyways, anything new on this end? Spy, how are you adjusting?”

“Very well,” he said simply. “I have nothing pressing to say. Once I’ve been updated from the stock weaponry provided here to my requested preferred weaponry, I believe I should do just fine.”

“I see you already have Herr Normandy digging graves,” Medic chimed in. “Straight into the hard labor, ja?”

“Eh, hey, y’know, it’s why they keep us young people around,” he shrugged, grinning, and there was a brief uproar to drown out Medic’s entirely offended scoffing and Spy’s snort-laughing.

“Get ‘im, lad!” Demo cheered, and Normandy indeed looked fairly proud of himself.

“Monday, transport mission,” Pauling noted over the noise, writing it up on the chalkboard to hide her own smile from the room. “Normandy, you and me are doing the boxes tomorrow. Everyone on the same page? Good. Dismissed. Oh, and Pyro—stop taking the fire alarms down when they beep. They’re beeping because you light things on fire in the base. Do that outside.”

“Oh, hey, uh, helmet guy, All-American Beef,” Normandy called, and Soldier straightened up. “Here’s your shovel back. Gettin’ my own tomorrow.”

 Soldier walked directly over to him, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “That’s a high honor, Cadet,” he said, tone grave. “Do not take this responsibility lightly.”

“I, uh, I won’t?” he said hesitantly, and blinked a few times as the shovel was carefully taken from him before it was promptly marched from the room in double-time. Only then did Normandy look over at her. “So he’s always like that?”

“You’ll get used to it,” she assured, dusting chalk from her hands. “You should get to sleep soon, we have to be up early.”

“Sure thing, Miss P.”

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #my fanfiction #dad!spy #father-son bonding au #shut up me #que?#in this au he picks a fake name like she does. later i think demo starts calling him norman and some of the others do as well as goofs #also apologies for montgomery i couldnt quite get away with not naming random rich guy. just barely scraped by with guards one through four #everybody talks

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neoyi · 3 years

Text

So there were new indie game directs (Day of the Dev and Wholesome Games) and I was basically Foaming Mouth Guy from Avatar because I’m hyped for indie games.

Since I can’t ill afford to shut up about my opinions, here’s a big, fat blog on what particular games I’m either looking forward to, has piqued my interest, or at least curious enough for me to comment on it even if it’s not within my wheelhouse.

Axiom Verge 2: I have no horse in this race, I just think it’s nice of them to let players skip boss fights if they want to for ease of gameplay.

Toem: A Photo Adventure: Some evil genius combined photo snapping and meandering sidequests together into one game, knowing I’d be putty in their hands. There’s actually a few photograph games in these directs, but this one grabbed me because the list of quests you do looks so specific that it scratches a particular itch for me.

Garden Story: Incredibly lovely Mother 3-like graphics aside, this game hits all my buttons: quest-based gameplay to help numerous NPCs, managing the layout of your town, exploration, and RPG-like elements make this one a dream indie game for me.

Vokabulants: For some reason, this game’s setting isn’t doing it for me, but I’m awestruck with their decision to use stopmotion for the entire thing. Rarely utilized, always cool to see.

Death’s Door: I don’t care about birds, but I DO like grim reaper stuff, so color me piqued.

Elec Head: I already knew about this game thanks to Game Maker’s Toolkit’s Game Jam, and I think I have it bookmarked on itch.io, so it’s nice to see this will get fleshed out into a full game.

I haven’t played the Game Jam version, but the minimum coloring (yellow = electricity which is what you need to trigger to progress) compliments the concept well.

Walk: I am a wimpy baby chicken bitch, so I can’t do horror games, but developing the entirety of Walk’s environment to look as if they’re seen from grainy cameras is such a brilliant way to convey the terrifying unknown your player character has to face. I won’t play this, but I am definitely going to watch a Let’s Play of it.

Moonglow Bay: I’ve been excited for this one for a while. All those hours playing the fishing minigame in Ocarina of Time (and eventually Majora’s Mask) and lamenting for the existence of an entire game with an excuse plot to fill out a fish compendium will soon be fulfilled. I’m so ecstatic.

Loot River: What the fuck? What the living shit? How did they animate the water like that? What the shit? What the goddamn hell? It just looks so good!

Recolit: This game has potential to be atmospheric. It also feels like the kind of game that can deliver a Surprise Spooky or two. For some reason, the main character walking through the barely lit museum really spoke to me.

A Little to the Left: A game where you arrange objects until they’re are properly organized and/or structured? Oh-no, who made this game for me?

Yokai Inn: Sold just for the adorably whimsical graphics alone.

Mythic Ocean: Undersea exploration and sea creatures are my jam. Hope this game will fill a hole in my heart that Abzu sadly did not.

Beast of Maraville Island: I see this game and Donkey Kong Country share a continuity through their banana birds.

We are OFK: Tell you the truth, I don't really care about Band Origin stories (I'm not really a music buff kinda person), but I've been waiting for Teddy Dief and co's game for a while. Whether or not I take anything from this game by end, I know I’ll never stop listening to “Follow/Unfollow”, which I have been obsessively playing in the background non-stop the past two days. If they ever bring out the inevitable bandcamp soundtrack, I hope they also include THIS version of the song that played on the Day of the Dev pre-show because it’s just so *chef’s kiss*

Dordogne: The game's premise isn't really doing it for me, but I dig the watercolor approach.

The Gecko Gods: I remember playing the Gex 2 demo decades ago and being mesmerized by the titular character’s ability to crawl on top of walls and ceilings, and being particularly disappointed at how underutilized it was. The Gecko Gods looks to fill in that gap and I'm intrigued.

Tasomachi: It’s about an airship. I gotta. I gotta!

Bear and Breakfast: I like the art style, kind of like a webcomic if it was picked up by Cartoon Network or Netflix.

Sally: MORE airships? Well, this is the indie direct that just keeps on giving, now isn’t it?

Rainbow Billy: Repaint a black-and-white world into color is becoming A Thing in indie games, but the animation and style is just bursting with charm.

Unpacking: I played the demo for this one and it did a decent job hitting my button. There wasn’t anything more to it other than unpacking and just putting stuff in its appropriate place (it didn’t feel like there was much wiggle room - books go on bookshelves and maybe on top of a drawer, shoes goes in closet and nothing but the closet, etc), but it beats real packing/unpacking any day.

Cloud Jumper: THREE games with or about airships? Now you’re just spoiling me.

Teacup: This one just looks delightful. It feels like playing through a children’s book.

Muttropolis: You take pictures of dogs!

Amber Isle: You know, I don’t think I see enough towns and villages in games inhabited by dinosaur folks.

Moonshell Island: Apparently I’m easy to please. I see indie games look this vibrant and colorful (almost pastel, but not quite) and I’m Phillip J. “Shut up and Take My Money” Fry. I don’t even know what this game is about, but I want it.

Lego Builder’s Journey: Okay, this looks nice and the graphics are mind-blowing, but does anything made and owned by the LEGO company actually count as an indie game?

Powerwash Simulator: who made this game for me?

Toodee and Topdee: Oh, this is clever. Perspective games in my head seem to have been relegated mostly to whatever Nintendo did with their 3DS games, but this looks like it captures the spirit of it without the 3D or the eye-strain that came with it.

Apico: I’m getting a 2D open world exploration vibe from this game and I’m down for that.

#indie games #video games #day of the dev #wholesome games #neoyi talks

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