#which is bad enough on its own but extra awful when its a fucking predatory animal. youre going to get your 'friend' killed
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The downside to being more and more knowledgeable about animals and their welfare is so many "cute/wholesome" animal videos/pics aren't actually all that cute or wholesome 😔
#i leave em be because i dont lioe being a killjoy#but its like#'heres an adorable vid of a cat with a prey animal' that animal is in extreme danger you are being an irresponsible pet owner#like both from the obvious but also at risk of disease or the prey animal freaking out and trying to defend itself and hurting your cat#or people 'taming' wild animals and feeding them like youre creating a nuisance animal and hindering its dietary needs#which is bad enough on its own but extra awful when its a fucking predatory animal. youre going to get your 'friend' killed#or just stuff like i just saw a post about feeding possoms and like#and like. theyre very prone (esp young ones) to malnutrition rendering them literally incapable of walking.#like malnutrition as in not having dietary needs met#also people spread the 'theyre safe because they cant get rabies!' and it IS highly unlikely but they ARE NOT fully immune.#plus yknow. its illegal in most places to have wild animals as pets and in many cases you are not equipped to give them the care they need#IDK MAN#keaton quiz
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Local Teens Break Into Highschool and Fight Slime Monster, Self Esteem Issues Galore, Worried Parents Scold Stubborn Hacker, Strange Tech Geek Has Epiphany
Flying with their hoverboards to the school was both insanely fun and much easier than Danny expected - once Sam and Tucker were drilled on how to fly them properly. They landed on the roof, Danny slid them all into that space between spaces where the real was illusion and the unseeable was reality and they sank down into the school easily. Slowing their descent with a tug on the dark strings of gravity, Danny dropped everyone back into their natural solid state and waited for Sam and Tucker to take a deep breath. "I'm wondering if I even need to breathe cause I didn't have a problem with air passing through my whole body instead of in and out of my lungs."
"Speculation later," Sam said with a hand over Danny's mouth. "Let's go, alright? We need to find the security office, which should be this way." The goth lead the group and Tucker pulled out the USB with the data they needed on it.
"Why do you know where that is, Sam?"
"C'mon, Tucker, you do after school stuff in theater, you know how boring it is to wait for clubs to start. I just wandered around a bunch cause it's healthier than idling with some game."
"So you walked while playing a game?"
"Oh shut up," Sam rolled her eyes, nudging Tucker with her elbow. Once they got to the security room door, Sam reached for her pocket before pausing and turning to Danny. "I brought my lock pick for nothing when you can just walk us through the door."
"Why do you know how to pick locks?" Danny examined the door and pressed his hand on it. He could see the strings that wove together to make it, vibrations slow compared to the ones in the air. Curious, Danny plucked one of the threads and watched as the door became as solid as air. Tucker and Sam walked right through but Danny could see the door settle back into its proper state after just a moment. Danny slid into that breathless darkness beyond the door entirely and walked into the room, dropping into corporeality's warmth to see Tucker's PDA jacked into the main computer and pulling up the details on the Fenton tech installed.
Tucker's foot was tapping as he examined the layout of the security system and frowned. His fingers flew over the keyboard and the deeper he delved the less he liked. "Alright good news: I can get it done. Bad news: gotta shut down the entire system for a whole five minutes to do it, and that's a pretty long time for it to be down in case something attacks us now."
"What are the odds of something attacking us right now, Tucker?" The geek arched a disbelieving eye brow at Sam, who shrugged with a sigh. "Point taken. How about this? I stay here with you and Danny patrols the halls for a ghost attacking? He can sense them, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"Great as a point as that is, if I just close my eyes I can look around for a ghost right from here. Do it Tuck, I'll know if anything comes for us." Tucker nodded and got to work on his update of the system, inserting the USB after a frustrating fumble with it. Danny closed his eyes and looked around with more than his limited human senses. Electrical currents ran all over the school to keep the Air Conditioning running right, or as right as a high school could get it, and the power stored in the lasers hidden all over the school lit up like tiny lamps in the shadows surrounding them. But then the computer went dark and Danny felt a tug in the back of his head, pulling him toward an empty spot in the world.
There, off to the side, Danny could see a gap, a void where the snapping threads of electricity and heat should've been. He let that tingling emptiness build up in his center and spread outward, until it blanketed every atom of his being and the faint and distant chorus of Starsong echoed in the back of his mind. "We've got company. I'll go and chat, see if we can get through a ghost encounter without fighting first."
"First time for everything Danny," Sam encouraged - or at least he thought she was trying to encourage him - and Danny followed a current he guided to the source of that blank spot, where light and heat and power collapsed inward. When he got closer, Danny saw what looked to be an office and a few framed pictures of depressed teens with an overly perky ginger woman. He didn't have time to linger on that, though, because a green blob with arms and bright red eyes was staring at him. Danny waved with a smile.
"Hi there." The creature turned to stare at Danny and for a long moment, nothing happened. Then a maw of razor sharp teeth was bared his way and a guttural, bestial snarl hit his ears and Danny had to move as fast as he could. A clawed hand slashed at his side and Danny sucked in a hissed cry as the jumpsuit gave and his nicked skin was exposed. "Well fuck you too then."
Raising the wrist ray Danny caught the thing in the shoulder with a shot before it rolled out of the way and punched him in the gut, waves of pain spreading out as the fucking stretchy arm pulled back. Grabbing onto that rubbery green goo, Danny jabbed at the creature's center when he was yanked close enough. Unfortunately it opened up a hole in itself and Danny's fist sailed through that hole harmlessly. His arm was trapped in goop and the blob roared in his face, encompassing Danny's body and lunging into a wall, slamming Danny against it and ringing his head like a gong.
While Danny tried to get his bearings within the slime monster he felt it turn and something inside of him rang out in horror. He looked, past the monster and walls, and saw it looking in Sam and Tucker's direction. A bubbling fury boiled in Danny's chest when the blob started moving toward them, and the ghost boy reached inside of himself past the shows and whispering dark void, reaching for the light that filled the shadows and pulled it into himself and let it build and build up until every inch of his body shone like a star. Bright green and silver light poured out of Danny from every molecule of his body, sending the goo monster in every direction to splatter on the floor, walls, and ceiling.
Danny hovered there for a moment, taking deep superfluous breaths and pulling the strands of crackling pale light to his fingertips. Silver gave way to green and shined through his glove and Danny stared at it in awe. "Holy shit!" A fist collided with his face, knocking Danny into a chair. He groaned and raised a hand, cold light gathering until it burned brighter than a torch and flew from his palm to turn a chunk of the monster's arm into green vapor. "Back the fuck off flubber, I'm packing heat!"
Blank red eyes narrowed at him and Danny rose to his feet with his fists in front of his face, glowing green with wisps of white at the edges like smoke. The monster snarled at him, countless predatory roars and howls layered upon each other in a headache-inducing din before flinging itself back through the wall behind it and quickly leaving Danny's sight. Danny moved to chase after the thing and found that his body didn’t agree with that idea. “Fuck.” Great, ok, pain. No more talking, though the world shall mourn my silence. Danny flew slowly back to his friends, on the alert for the blob of ectoplasm, and flopped onto Sam’s back when he got into the security room. Sam started and aimed her wrist ray at him before seeing that it was just him.
“Gods, I hate you sometimes. Are you ok? You would’ve laughed by now if you were.” Sam looked down and watched Danny’s hands moving, and frowned. “A blob did this to you?” It was a smart blob. “That says something about you, genius boy.” Dig the knife in why don’t you? “Left it at home. Tucker, how’s the program going?”
“One full minute left.” Tucker spun around in his chair, Wrist Ray™ whirring up and ready to fire. “So a sentient blob monster was hangin out in an office at school. Wonderful. What next, Cthulu decides to take a nap in Lake Eyre and we have to go and deal with him?”
Don’t tempt fate, Tucker, Danny signed. We might actually have to deal with that after what we’ve done to those ectopi.
“That is both an exciting and depressing thought. How are we gonna deal with Cthulu?” To answer Sam’s question, Danny stood up and pulled a bit of heat and light to his hand, and it glowed brighter and brighter until a ball of ectoplasm burned in the palm of his gloved hand. “I’m not trying to be as blind as Tucker, Danny, please put that away. Thank you. That as fucking awesome! What, you can shoot plasma out of your hands now?”
There is a tiny portal to the Ethereal Realm in the center of my ghost, where my consciousness is stored, and I can pull extra ectoplasm out of it to burn and attack with apparently. Danny tilted his head and added, I think that’s how our more effective weapons work. Dad only made so many rifles so far.
“You know what? Good. I’m glad he didn’t make too many of those,” Sam said with a shudder. “Imagine him selling that technology to the military so that they’d be armed against ghosts. I don’t wanna know what would happen if we had that kind of power enmass.”
Before uncomfortable truths about their home could be brought up further, the computer screens all lit up and Tucker spun around to check on them. “Looks like everything is set up, and Danny can come back to school. Makes it a lot less lonely for us.” Tucker stood up and stretched. “The robotics club just can’t keep up with me sometimes.”
Awesome. Can we go now? I think I can fix myself up back at home, I have a first aid kit in my workshop.
“Wait, you have your own workshop?” Tucker lunged at Danny, who hissed and slipped around his fingers to hover out of reach. “Sorry. But for real, you have a workshop? Since when? Why have I not known about this?” Danny shook his head and chuckled, then clutched as his chest in throbbing pain. I better not have to take off my binder for this, or I’m gonna shake the thermos when I catch that thing. Reaching up to touch the ceiling, Danny grabbed onto the thread of energy running through the concrete and tried to pull it into him. The line of electricity snapped at his fingers and zapped him to the floor, bringing a keening whine from his throat as the pain radiated all over his body and the hand that had reached out looked to be glitching out, morphing into a dark swirling mass of cold.
Past the ringing in his head and blood - ectoplasm? - rushing through his ears, Danny could feel himself being lifted up and carried out of the room. He did his best to make that easier, unweaving the shadowy tendrils of gravity pulling on his body, and soon it was just Tucker’s familiar and warm hands holding him up like a balloon. While Sam was working on the lock between barely opened doors so they could get out the old fashioned way, Danny pulled those lingering shadows back together until they were his hand again. But then his other hand glitched and he groaned in frustration. Looking all around, Danny sucked in a sharp breath and reached down to tap Tucker’s Wrist Ray™, which had the other boy whirling around with it aimed.
Tucker fired off a ray at the ghost, who snarled at him for burning off an arm, and swiped out a claw at Tucker. Danny pulled on the power inside of him and pushed it out of his still stable hand, building a wall of green around them that the claw smashed into, shattering it and causing Danny’s legs to dissolve. Tucker fired off another shot that pushed the blob back and shouted. “¡Tíranos hasta el techo!” Danny sucked in a sharp breath and concentrated. His lower half was dissolved into a nebulous cloud of shadows beneath him but he had both hands, and now he was grabbing up Sam and Tucker in his arms and pulling them through the door and up. He dropped back into solid space and saw Tucker and Sam calling their boards to them, and when he felt Tucker solidly on stable ground, Danny’s vision went dark, and the last thing he saw was the light of his transformation and Tucker’s chest in his face.
Unraveled and broken down and broken free into yet another star among the endless diamond sky. He can see it, the threads connecting every constellation. Chamaeleon calls to him, and he can see the kaleidoscope of flames weaving between the stars, crackling and vibrating in harmony to sing the most beauteous song. Just beyond it, he faintly sees the tangle of verdant greens that wove themselves with shadows into his friend. And she was not beyond the stars but before them, before him, and she was calling out to him and that was right, he was needed on the ground. He can reach out and dance among the stars another time, he knows they will be there for him, as they have always been there for him. It takes an eon, but mere seconds too, for Danny to remember how he is supposed to fit into the small confines of his body. He holds up his hand, turns it this way and that. Is this his? How has he ever considered himself something so… so small, so simple and well-defined?
“Danny? Danny, can you hear me?” He turned to Sam’s voice and reached a hand out, gently gripping her shoulder and nodding with a small smile. “Thank gods! Danny, are you ok? Can you speak?”
Danny tugged gently on that care concern help love that came through his bond to Sam and guided it to his jaw and chin. Letting out a sigh and snapping back to reality he nodded again. “Fornax, Sam that hurt. What happened? I passed out after Tucker got his board under him.”
“That blob thing attacked us while I was picking the lock, and Tucker got you to pull us out so we could get to our boards. Once you blacked out - bleeding, by the way, your head had been busted open - Tucker and I shot the thing until it left. When we got here, I started working on you while Tucker worked up a convincing lie to tell your parents.” She pointed at the door. “He’s right outside, but that’s as close as he can get without having a breakdown.” Danny nodded and slowly got to his feet. “You know that’s a dumb idea, right?”
“Isn’t that like, my middle name?” Danny chuckled. “I need to make sure Tucker is alright. And uh, Sam? Where’s my-” Sam handed over his binder and Danny smiled, slipping it into that in-between space and letting it solidify around him.
“Thankfully you don’t have a broken rib or that might just make it worse.” That was true. Danny easily could’ve been making his wounds worse with the constricting force on his ribs. Glancing down at himself, Danny tried to look just sideways of the world like he did when looking for ghosts, but when he did all he saw was his phantom jumpsuit. Huffing a breath he shook his head.
“I don’t feel like my chest is hurting much so I should be good.” Danny walked out of the door and saw Tucker sitting next to it. "Tucker, bro, thanks for saving my ass back there. Heard you did a great job flying, keeping me on the board And shooting the evil blob monster."
Tucker snorted, setting down his PDA. "That's cause I'm TF for Too Fine at a lot of things. Coulda done better by programming a remote activation for the security and lighting the thing up with it though."
"Surf lessons and videogames can't help you prophesy the future, Tuck." Tucker scoffed, shaking his head.
"No, my inherent genius does that. Calculating the odds."
Danny cocked a brow at him, unseen since Tucker was staring at a wall. "Oh, a gambler I see. Did the loot crates get to you? Do you need an intervention? Is it like the coffee thing?" Danny put his hand on Tucker’s shoulder, gently squeezing as he spoke.
Tucker finally looked at Danny, expression and tone flat. “You literally learned how to make the highest caffeine content cold brew coffee possible and drink it daily, there is no room for argument there Danny."
"I remember you helping him, Tucker." Sam sat next to the geek and nudged his arm
“Your point is?"
"You might be addicted to gambling and caffeine but we definitely can help Tuck." Danny and Tucker laughed, Sam and Danny wrapping their arms around Tucker’s shoulders in a group hug that was only somewhat awkward.
"Seriously though, Tucker, you did perfectly fine. I dunno how you manage to do all of what you do."
"It's how I'm gonna kick your ass in videogames one day."
Danny smirked. “I'll record it."
"I will destroy you, both of you know that." Sam turned her head up, looking all the world like the quern of destruction they knew she could be.
“We will conquer! Right, Tuck?"
"Yeah!" The boys pumped their fists in the air and all three of them broke down into a fit of laughter. They disentangled and got up, Danny wincing at the aches exasperated by sitting like that.
“Alright guys, let’s head to sleep and then like, tell Danny’s parents we beat Skulker and that’s why he’s all roughed up?” Everyone agreed with Sam’s idea - they usually did - and headed up to Danny’s room to pass out for several hours.
Shadows illuminated from within by starlight collected over countless eons swirl like smoke around him, letting him see the stars themselves weave together into beautiful shapes and beings just on the edge of imaginable. He can feel it, past the cold shadows in his mind, the fire in his soul that he can pull out, weave it with his shadows to make something new if only he knew how. If only he dipped his brush into that well of fire and plasma and life within him and painted the empty air with it. He can, he just needs to move his fingers, the small heavy things they are.
“Danny, honey! Breakfast is ready!” Danny felt himself groan at the sound of his mother’s voice and buried his head further into someone’s arm. The air shifted, the door open, and Mom gasped. “Danny! Oh Danny, what happened?” Right, he’d forgotten he had a few bruises left by that blob. It’s too early to remember things though. The concern worry fear pinging in his head was enough to drag Danny to full consciousness and address the mounting panic his mother was diving into.
“Good news is: I can go to school again. Bad news is: I can go to school again.” Danny propped his elbow on Sam’s side as his friends got up. “But uh, we turned the ghost to goop. I’m mostly fine. Only sting a little.” Danny groaned as he was shoved by Sam into Tucker who fell off the bed with his hand clasped around Danny’s shoulder. “What’s for breakfast?”
It turned out they were having waffles, eggs, and fruit salad for breakfast. Danny ate like there was no tomorrow, Tucker doing much the same while Sam went at s civilized pace. Must be years of being in a ‘proper’ home. Cutting out Danny’s powers they regaled how they beat Skulker and Danny held up the thermos full of ectoplasm they removed from the zoo. “So we’re safe now.”
“I expect you to contact me and your father next time you do something so dangerous, young man!” Danny could see the blue bleeding through the yellow in her aura and nodded dutifully. Mom relaxed into her seat and sighed. “I’m proud of you for taking down your first ghost though!”
“Thanks, Mom. He was a pain in the Apus.” A spark of yellow that had him grinning. “It’s a constellation o-”
“Trust me, Danny, I know.” Mom kissed his head and Danny rambled away about the constellation anyway. “I’ll let the principal know that the ghost is dealt with. You three eat up and do whatever it is you kids do after fighting an evil monster.” Mom walked away and Danny looked over at his friends.
“What do we do once we beat a bad guy?” Other than worry about the next one. I’m almost starting to think Agatha is a rarity. “Cause I kinda wanna try beating Sam in something.”
“You poor naive boy, you think you can actually win.” Sam shook her head and patted Danny on his shoulder. “One day you’ll learn.”
“That day is not today!” Tucker shouted around his eggs. “To victory!”
“I’m painting something on the loser’s back, just so you know.” Danny waved his fork menacingly. “If you squirm from being tickled by the brush then I will have to start over.” The three of them laughed, finished up their breakfasts, and headed to the living room to start up a star finder videogame for Tucker to try and beat Sam in. Tucker lost and Danny tortured him with the cool ticklish strokes of his paintbrush while he put down a painting of a toucan on his side.
“As fun as kicking your butt has been, I think I’m gonna take off,” Sam said as she collected her helmet and new magnetized boots. They did just as much damage as her old combat boots, but these let her stick to her hoverboard. “And I swear if you make that a pun, Danny Fenton-”
“Take off into the sky and make sure not to crash land!” Danny was knocked back by his jacket being thrown at his face and Tucker wheezed out a laugh next to him. The door closed and Danny pounced, pinning Tucker to the floor. “And so the jester took down the friar, twas hardly a fight.”
Tucker pushed Danny up and off of him, rolling over to sit on his friend and crossing his arms. “I am triumphant and rose to the position of king! As such, I’m gonna see if I can crack that idiot’s code. Mind if I use your little workshop?”
“As long as you don’t try to leave through the portal to the moon, it’s perfectly cool dude. Best of luck with the metal head.” Danny squirmed free and headed up the stairs. “I just realized I can paint over those glow in the dark stickers on my ceiling now!”
Tucker shook his head and headed upstairs as well. He grabbed his stuff, got on his board, and flew home with a quick text to his parents to explain that he’d been at Danny’s house again. Tucker shook his head and headed upstairs as well. He grabbed his stuff, got on his board, and flew home with a quick text to his parents to explain that he’d been at Danny’s house again. Once Tucker reached his house, touching down in his backyard and pulling the hoverboard into the garage to idle, he headed upstairs immediately to grab Skulker's head. When he got to the ladder that leads up to his trapdoor, Tucker was met with his parents and upset faces. "Uh, hi?"
"Young man, why were you out all night without telling us first? That dangerous... ghost thing is still out there, hunting you and your friends. Your leg has only barely gotten any better!" Wow, Tucker definitely needed that reminder of the dull throbbing ache that the Advil was masking just well enough for him to ignore on the way here. Moms were the best at unwanted reminders, Tucker was beginning to think. "You could have gotten hurt!"
"Well, would it make you feel better to know that I am 100% sure that Skulker isn't a problem anymore?"
"If you could give us proof of that, maybe." Dad frowned. "That doesn't excuse not telling us that you were staying the night with Danny. We were worried sick."
"If you let me up into my room I can show you that proof." They conceded and let Tucker climb his ladder, following up immediately after. "I've spent like half my nights at Danny's place anyway." Tucker rushed over to his closet and pulled the helmet to Skulker's suit out of the pile of clothes he'd been hiding it under.
"That's no excuse young ma- Tucker what in god's name is that?" I've never seen Dad so close to cussing in front of me before. This is a true milestone.
"Tucker Malik Foley is that the head of the robot ghost that shot at the targets in the backyard?" His mom didn't sound very thrilled, and Tucker could admit that he should've seen that coming but he needed the head anyways.
"I told you that the Fentons have great hologram technology and you saw that I have Sharon back, right? See, the hoverboard, some holograms and the kind of backdoor that opens up when you put someone else's things into your own stuff lead to us taking Skulker down. He's back on the other side where he belongs. And I thought 'hey, I could shut it down and eject him through my PDA, what can I figure out with my laptop' and I can see that you're not happy with the idea, which makes sense, but if I can figure out how Skulker's armor works then not only could I make something insanely effective at deterring ghosts from attacking us, but I'd also be able to make something that I can sell! And just imagine what kind of things we can get if I made money off of this." His parents had one of those silent conversations people had with looks and Tucker scrambled for something to add, something that would stop them from taking this away from him when he was on the edge of a breakthrough. "I'm close to breaking down all the firewalls, I know I am. I made an entire cybersecurity system for Dad's job, I think I can manage to crack a firewall."
"And how," Dad asked, "are we to know that you're doing this safely? You might trigger some sort of self destruct in the thing if you do this." Mom gave Dad a look, and Tucker almost snorted. "What? Angela this is like we stepped into a sci-fi world and I have no clue what to expect, so why wouldn't an evil ghost have a self destruct inside the robot suit it was possessing?"
"Valid enough concern, Dad, but I already disabled that and I uh, I'll do it at Fentonworks. They have all kinds of stuff for volatile experiments there. If something is about to blow, I'll get behind a blast shield and be as safe as possible." Another long moment of silent deliberation and his Mom sighed.
"Alright, we'll allow it. But if you at all get hurt then all of the suit that I know you're trying to hide from us is going to the dump, you understand me mr.?" Tucker put the head on his bed, launched himself at his parents, and hugged them both tight. "This doesn't excuse you getting into a fight with a ghost young man." They were both hugging back, so Tucker laughed it off. That was a discussion for later.
Before his parents could make it a discussion for then and there, Tucker grabbed the head, slid down his ladder, and got to his board as quickly as he could. Taking to the skies, Tucker zoomed straight for Danny's workshop building instead of going through the Fenton's house. Opening the door, he rode the board in and blinked a couple of times as he looked around, getting a better chance to take it all in. "So this is where he does all of that art. It looks like Dr. Fenton put every painting or doodle Danny's ever done on the walls in here." There were very few empty spaces on the walls of the very first room, easels and framed paintings and even first-grade doodles that Tucker recognized were hung all around the room. Dismounting the board, Tucker headed down the stairs and plopped himself in Danny's wheely chair, spinning around a couple of times before setting down Skulker's head and opening a drawer. "Danny and I are gonna discuss him moving my stuff when I leave it here."
With Skulker’s helmet on the table and connected to his laptop, the room was full of the hum and buzz of electricity, the clacking of his fingers on the keys and Tucker lost track of time. Sure, he’d managed to shut it down and open up the thing to force Skulker out of the chest but those were the easiest things for him to access even with a backdoor. “There’s no way someone like Skulker could’ve made something with this much protection. I usually have something like this dealt within two days tops.” He hit enter once more, running his firewall crack and leaned back. “There’s gotta be something useful in all of this.”
Ding! Humming, whirring, buzzing, the head came to life with emerald flame and something clicked. Tucker saw the programs pop up on his screen, the programs, the blueprints, and weapon schematics, and the code sang to him, how to do what Skulker did with just a bit of energized ectoplasm! Music filled his ears, his soul, his fingers. His human mouth could not sing the melodies, but metal could and metal would.
"The world is just vibrating strings, you just gotta know how to play the universe's song." Tucker took special note of one piece in particular. “Intangibility modulater huh? Thank you Hunter Grovsner, you’re so pathetically weak of a ghost your suit has to compensate. Now then,” Tucker thinks, thinks of all the things he could do with something like that, thinks of how to best make it convenient, and he starts designing, letting the music of the universe guide him, “let’s get to work.”
#Danny Phantom#Danny Fenton#Sam Manson#Tucker Foley#Bertrand#Maddie Fenton#Angel Foley#Maurice Foley#Fanfiction#Phanfiction#fanPhiction#PhanPhiction#Fanphic#fanfic#Phanfic#PhanPhic#Monstrous Chosen Spellslingers#MCS#Rexy Writes
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Calmish Thoughts: Epic Games Store and Sale
So, I have to admit that I shouldn't do this. I have had multiple breakdowns over the past couple days trying to discuss this, but I am anyways because I think it's important. Now, to preface, I planned to be an accounting major when i went to college. I still went to a year and a half for that and took both micro and macro economics. I have talked to economic professors and gotten them to admit that economic principal has been abused too far for the current market. Let me know if you want that one because it's about supply, demand, and the minimum wage and is FASCINATING.
But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I am here to talk about Epic Games because they have done somethings laughably wrong, but unlike what a lot of people are claiming, they are currently the model to me of what good, flourishing, HEALTHY capitalism looks like and I would like to open up a discussion about that. I will try to cover as much as I can here, and in a few days will try to cover any mistakes and additional points I missed in a follow up blog.
1. Their Storepage
Let's start with the unforgivable and the thing that most of Epic's real problems stem from: The store page. It has no reviews, barely a search function, no categories, no shopping cart, and looks like the UI prioritized form over function. It looks half baked and like it should have had another half a year to a full year of work put into it before it was released.
...Probably because that is genuinely what happened. After all, Epic is working VERY quickly right now and I suspect someone in the marketing department said, "We either announce this at E3 this year with Supergiant's next game as an exclusive and FREE, or we have to wait a year for another major event to announce it at, at which time we will either have forced delays on games we want on the storefront, or straight up missed getting those games into timed exclusivity contracts."
With everything that is coming out that Epic has managed to get ahold of that it likely had some insight on at the time, delaying the store page probably looked like a non-option. Does that excuse them? FUUUUUUCK NO. People are getting banned from things like Paypal for suspicious activity, finding anything on the damned thing is a nightmare, and at least 50% of their sales catalogue is in preorder games, especially amongst their exclusives. HOWEVER, we also know that they are working on all of that and that many of these games are getting released later this year and with enough marketing behind them that if you care about them, you'll find them.
Again, not good, and it is the worst thing about the store but... Well, I'll wait to talk about Steam for later, because I have a lot to say on that matter, especially in their response to all of this.
2. Epic is Chinese Spyware
Now, I am putting this as how I always heard about it, which putting it that way is a complete lie. They are funded by Tencent, but Tencent is not the majority shareholder of the company, and not the only investor. Now, the claim of it being spyware... Again, the rush in making their store page kind of fucked them here. A: They had a program that appeared malicious and grabbed information about what you were buying and who you were buying through. That's kind of like saying DA owns your art though so they can modify and post it in order to make thumbnails. That is something they essentially need as a business and they only track those numbers, at least currently, on purchases you buy through them.
Problem is B: When it was first released it would copy certain files over from Steam without permission from the user. That is... bad. That is just bad. And they have said as much and they are working on it. Does that mean as quickly as we'd like? No, but if that is a problem still there a year after launch for Epic, I think they'll get crucified. If what they had been doing was illegal, Steam's vocal complaints and suspicions about them would have brought out a settlement... But again, I'll get to Steam later.
3. Epic Games is Killing PC Games With Exclusives!
Alright. *cracks knuckles* We're now getting into the stuff that REALLY pisses me off to hear. So, let's first talk about what exactly exclusivity on a platform means and how it is obtained. A publisher/company affiliated with a console, such as Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, will hear a pitch from a company and nod saying that they like it. They like it so much that they'll give the developers MUCH more money then usual for a publishing deal if they are willing to only put it on their console. This is supposed to be a forever thing because it's how the company makes back its money through sales of their consoles and higher brand recognition. It is almost entirely a marketing tactic... on the publisher's side.
Now let's swap that to the developer's side. They want to take a risk and do something big and out of the box. This can be creating a third person shooter with shields, an alien world, and NEXT GEN GRAPHICS!, or create a big, open world superherp game that makes you FEEL like the superhero. Or, maybe, it allows a company to try to break from a normal formula of knights, European aesthetic, and slow gameplay to something faster, Cthulhu and Victorian in mythos. And if none of you have picked up on the fact that I'm talking about Bloodborne, Spiderman 2018, and HALO, then you live under a rock. Exclusive deals have led to some of the best, genre defining games period because of the additional development time, money, and help they get for doing this.
So, where does Epic sit on this? Well, PC exclusivity has kind of always been a thing, but they're changing it to launcher exclusivity...
3.5 Epic Games adds another Launcher!
Grow a fucking pair you entitled pieces of shit! It's one fucking launcher that's entirely free to download!
Sorry for that outburst. I genuinely cannot put up with that argument after my time at Job Corp. Anyways, what they're doing is that they'll give a company extra money and marketing, like any exclusive deal, for them to sell only on the Epic Games Store page... for a year. After a year they have no control over it unless the developer has decided to work only with Epic period as far as sales go. This approach has garnered them a lot of hate from gamers who are watching their favorite game series like Metro. The go there to die...
And sell more copies of their game than they did for the previous installment. Yeah, weird how awful this is when so many developers love it. They get to experiment with their games more, take more time, and Epic is willing to put in the effort to show them off unlike.. Well, I'll get to it.
4. Epic Games is Killing Games and the Economy By Giving Developers More Money
*opens mouth* *closes it* *sighs* I genuinely told one of my followers to fuck off over this point. That statement people make about the revenue split is so mind boggling counter intuitive that it pisses me off that I actually have to fucking talk about it. But, talk about it I do have to.
So, for anyone who doesn't know, Epic takes 12% of revenue from game sales on their platform. On top of that, if you use Unreal Engine, their engine, to make the game, they waive the 5% licensing fee they normally do on other platforms. Steam on the other hand, and I'm not waiting this time because fuck you Steam, takes 30% of every sale and only gives 70% back. So, let's say you make a game using Unreal. Here are the numbers for developers on returns:
Steam: 30% to Steam + 5% to Epic for their engine = 35% of sales taken off before ever seeing the developer.
Epic: 12% to Epic= 12% taken away before seeing the developer.
That is three times as much lost if you are using Unreal. If you're not, it's still two and a half times as much lost. So, I'm going to go into an analogy I heard at one point about Epic. That Epic is like Walmart in their predatory tactics and trying to undercut their competitors. However, let's actually compare how the two are going about this. Walmart does it by telling manufacturers that, due to their lion share of the market, that they can either sell to them cheaper, thus allowing Walmart to sell at lower prices at higher profit to themselves, or they won't stock a product and thus the company will stay in obscurity. Larger companies will take this because they have their own money to wave around and bully the places they get their resources from, forcing those companies to have to do the same and etc. etc. This is part of why Walmart screws over their employees and customers so infamously. They have to cut a corner in order to get this buying power and they do so by screwing everyone who isn't them.
Epic meanwhile... takes the hit to the chin and keeps going. They figured out that as purely a digital distributor that upkeep and service fees on their store did not need to be so high so, in order to be competitive, they took the financial burden on themselves and spread the money to the other companies and their developers. They thus increase the ability for these companies to make more games, treat their employees better, and spread money into other sectors of the economy because of the investment that...
Holy shit, Regen was right for the first time literally ever about Trickle Down Economics. Shame someone isn't doing that despite their profits...
5. Epic Games is Killing the Economy With Their New Sale!
This is going to hit everything of the Epic Games Epic Sale that is going on. For anyone who doesn't know, the sale is that any game that is 14.99 or higher is on sale at specifically 10 dollars off, even if it was already at a discount. How is it on sale? Well, Epic is making it so that instead of the developer or publisher having to decide to lower the price of it, Epic is once again taking it to the chin to give the discount themselves and paying the ten dollars out of pocket while their developers see no change in what they get for each sale. It's akin to Subtember on Twitch where if you got a gift sub, you could get another month at an extreme discount while the streamer on Twitch got the full amount of the sub they normally do.
So, what went wrong? Well, somethings legitimately wrong. Epic incorrectly thought that because they were taking the monetary hit that they could do this without warning and/or consulting the developers and game holders ahead of time. Theoretically, this makes sense as they're only trying to do the developers a solid through this pricing. The problem is that it messes up promotional campaigns that these other companies plan to do and... to some fucking morons, 'devalues the product'. To explain why that's wrong... AH!
So, when does a sale happen normally? Well, let's use Walmart and their clearance section. An item goes there when it is deemed no longer wanted by the populace and they want to get rid of it. At the price it is put at, it is commonly sold at a loss or break even for the company, but people who would not spend the original amount on the item will now be interested in it, increasing demand and making sure the item gets sold so they get some money back from the purchase. A digital sale is similar, but this time just being willing to accept less profits from those who wouldn't buy it otherwise. After all, digitally it takes very little to stock an endless supply of a product on a marketplace, so you never have to worry about initial investment that needs to be made up. However, how many times have you seen a game on Steam and go, "Well, that's neat, but I'm going to wait for a sale." In that moment, you have become someone who has deemed that product less valuable than it is initially proposed at. Companies know that there are people out there like that and thus will reach out to get those sales by dropping the price temporarily and making sure you buy the product at all rather than never.
This also DOESN'T DEVALUE THE PRODUCT! Just because something went on sale before does not mean it's suddenly tarnished. People are, USUALLY, smart enough to go, "Man, it was nice for them to put this 20 dollar game on sale for a week at 10 dollars. It's a shame I couldn't get it then, but 20 dollars was the price it is normally sold at." Something going off sale is not a fucking price hike (and yes, I saw Jim Sterling's video earlier today, and yes I think he's a fucking moron like usual) but instead it returning to normality.
A fucking price hike is the bullshit that Supergiant Games pulled. See, they came up with an excuse that "Hey, our European fans can't get the discount because of a few cents because Epic is (it wasn't) screwing up getting the conversion right." So what did they do? Up the price by a dollar and thus keep their actions honest? Nope! They upped it to 25 bucks instead of the 20 it is commonly sold at and claimed "Hey, we always planned to make it this price anyways, we're just doing it earlier now." And this is where this type of sale comes into trouble for the person trying to do right. Supergiant realized that if they raised the price by five dollars they could still look like their game was on sale at 15 while raking in another $4.40 off of every purchase generated by the sale. That is a tactic joked about in clothing commercials about retail stores doing so that their sale looks better, but doesn't actually save you as much money.
And guess who hasn't corroborated with the claim that the sale didn't work in Europe? Europeans. Guess what game is still eligible for sale after Supergiant put it back down to 19.99 because of backlash? Hades, the game Supergiant upped the price on. That isn't Epic's fault. That should be getting people to think twice about how good Supergiant is and make them concerned as to what other bad practices they might be employing in order to make an additional profit.
Now, the last thing I will comment on in the sale is the lack of a shopping cart. Because there is no shopping cart, purchases must be made individually. After a time, to try to help against fraud, banks and online services will often lock a card or account if they deem this sort of activity as unusual. This takes, at best, just a call to your bank to fix. I don't know what the worst case scenario is. This was a GROSS oversight on Epic's part and hopefully will be fixed by the time the sale is over in a MONTH. So, like much of the rest of Epic's stuff, it is damaged by moving too fast, not preparing enough, and by customer facing aspects that are ugly and NEED to be fixed.
I would rather have that then
6. Steam
Yeah, I want to open a discussion on this too. After all, what has Steam done since Epic has opened their store? What has Steam done over the past half decade? Arguably: Little good, and little of anything people want. After all, Steam's client still doesn't feature mutliple tabs, they tried implementing paid mods without improving the client at all or explaining why it would be better for modders to do so (just that they would ALL make more money) and they have LOOOOVED fanning fan flames furiously over Epic. After all, if they didn't what would happen?
They would have to try. They would have to do something other than trying to make as much money as possible. And this isn't just me trying to make Steam/Valve out to be a villain. This is reminding people that they are. After all, Valve's biggest published game in the past few years was Evolved. Evolved was a game that, by PUBLISHER DEMAND was decided to have a season pass, lock most of its content behind hundreds of hours of grinding, and this all led to a game that ended up dead rather than the something special it could have been. At this point the developers have even turned it free to play to try to keep the game alive, but for many it was too little too late.
Steam has gone unopposed for too long with practices that aren't healthy. That comparison before of Walmart? Well, if Epic fails, every developer who wants to publish on PC will have the same problem they had before as they turn around to Steam and ask, "Hey, can you only take a 12% cut so we can try to keep making games?"
Steam: "Sweety, if you're that strapped for cash, just crunch some unpaid overtime and give me my fucking money." Because that has been Steam's response this past half a year and to developers who could really use a break to help make it so that their companies can be incentivized to take care of their developers. But hey, I mean, if you're a game that will get lost in the Steam shuffle because you aren't made well enough to get on Epic (which I do hope is changed someday) but were never going to make it anywhere on the front page of Steam... Well, Steam isn't ever going to give you that big, front page banner ad, and I really only have sorry to say to you and to wish you the best of luck, because Steam isn't going to reward you for their loyalty, or they haven't shown any sign of that yet.
And again, I would love to hear from all of you in the comments below. Also, an admitted counter to Steam's stuff is that they are now allowing more porn on the website, but I feel like that's more to compete with Nutaku than to allow better games onto their platform unfortunately, because we need better developed porn games first.
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