Pony Stories 777

So, besides the one disasterous mission, the fight against the aliens in XCOM2 goes decently well. A few causalities here and there. The latest being the hero Jame Tames. Unlike some deaths that were due to commander error (sorry!) he died valiantly trying to kill a alien that was controlling a zombie. Otherwise, I think Silver “Journal” Glow is becoming my current favorite. She likes to find the highest spot and just take pot shots at bad guys. Named her gun “Unicorn” and when asked she tells people that it’s because her sniper rifle is long, pointy, powerful, and only useful when someone can point it’s destructive abilities in a safe direction. As for Cold In Gardez, with the abilities I picked there is a good chance he’ll be able to take the full charge of a berserker and just stab it in the head with a knife to kill it and keep fighting.

• The Game by Jay-The-Brony
• Spark Visions of Twilight by Tangerine Blast

 

Pony Stories 776

Playing XCOM2 again. This time with the Long War 2 mod, which is a major update/rehaul of the whole game. So far I’m liking it a lot. Much more strategy involved with the changes. For instance, when you send soldiers on missions it isn’t just send them, do the mission. They spend time infiltrating and the longer they can do that, the easier the mission is. Only there is a time limit in how long the mission is around. As well as infiltration is easier with fewer soldiers on the mission and what classes/equipment you send. Which is why I send just three soldiers on the mission that killed Estee, Super Trampoline, and Cerulean Voice. They were great at the initial infiltration! Once the mission actually started, not so much.

• The Sisters and the Dragon by cleverpun
• Numberography by ph00tbag

 

Pony Stories 775

So, unless my benefactor loses his job by then, looks like I’m going to be at Bronycon. Will be interesting to see what it’s like compared to other cons. Even at the price of skewing the demographics one more person towards the fat nerd guy side of the spectrum.

• How Does She Do It? by The 24th Pegasus
• Oops. by Dave_Bryant
• Discord Day Care by Viking ZX

 

Pony Stories 774

Just got back from seeing Valerian: The City of Planets. A movie that averages out to solid decent, worth watching. Visually impressive. Lots of cool ideas and scenes. Kind of terrible writing. The movie I want to compare it to is Avatar (blue people). Only this had interesting stuff in it and even some moral complexity. Plus a dramatic scene where a technician minor character saves the day! It also felt like it was missing a lot of context, so as an adaption it was only semi-successful. I’d love to read the original comics so it was successful in that part. It’s just that I got the feeling that I had to read the source material to get like half of what was going on.

• Simple Gestures by Jupiter VII
• Important Wizard by All Art Is Quite Useless

 

Pony Stories 773

I’ve been playing Portal 2 lately, and I’ve come to the conculsion it’s kind of a bad game. I mean the puzzles are neat some of the time, and the dialogue is very funny (in a dark humor way) almost all the time, but the entire middle of the game (the underground bits) are just kind of terrible. I’m still going to get all the way to the end (now that I’m out of the middle section) but it should have been half of the length it is.

• The Commander’s Compromise by kudzuhaiku
• Morning Surprise by Majin Syeekoh

The Commander’s Compromise by kudzuhaiku
Another story by the author that is decent-to-good, but makes me feel like I’m missing something. I’ve started The Weed, so hopefully that will fill in at least some of the blanks, but it’s still not a good thing. Shining Armor is nearly unrecognizable. The author has the whole stern detached leader thing going on. Which isn’t bad, just pretty much on the far other side of things from the show and most fan fiction depictions of him. Was quite jarring. The show is light and fluffy, the author writes dramatic but low-key slice of life fantasy (genre), and the world in the stories seems to bounce between epic fantasy and dark fantasy. So… I find it causes quite a bit disconnect when I’m reading his stuff.

Morning Surprise by Majin Syeekoh
Amusing in the same vein as the story it is a sequel to. Princess Cadance’s arrival was the best part. In a silly out of nowhere joke sort of fashion.