quantumfiddlesticks

[quantumfiddlesticks]

unrestrained summer fun

[quantumfiddlesticks]

Following the author of The Last Unicorn on Facebook is the only thing that makes being on that site worthwhile.

(source)

[quantumfiddlesticks]

the author's barely disguised lack of socialisation and profound sense of alienation from all other human life

[quantumfiddlesticks]

Fabio Viale, marble sculpture.

[quantumfiddlesticks]

[quantumfiddlesticks]

action games have such cool animals and all they let you do is kill them. i understand they are not going to start changing their gameplay to make an exception. i think it was minecraft foxes of all things that spoiled me on video game animals as something you can observe even if you never given the means to truly control them in the ways that games usually conceptualize you being companions with an animal (a follower you can command, or a mount). you can build a cave or a shed or a roof and a fox will seek out the shade cast under your blocks, curl up, and sleep, only if there aren't predators in the area. if they can't find a suitable place to sleep, they'll just sit around a lot instead. red foxes prefer to hunt land animals over fish and snow foxes prefer to hunt fish over land animals. foxes can pounce over fences to get to prey. a fox that pounces into a snow layer will get momentarily stuck. foxes can pick up items in their mouths, preferring food items. if they have a non-food item you can get them to swap with you by giving them a food item. after a while of them trucking around with the food item in their mouth, they will eat it. when berry bushes fruit, foxes will trek over to eat the berries off of them. wild foxes flee from the player. if you breed two wild foxes, you get a baby fox that trusts you, which just means it doesn't flee from you and won't screech at night around you.

[quantumfiddlesticks]

reddit post with download links for the original release of disco elysium (v.4290106, 15/10/19)

and some relevant text from said post:

[quantumfiddlesticks]

it's funny how if the motive wasn't profit there could be ultra-processed food that's 'good for you'. like instead of replacing nutritious ingredients to get your customers to buy more you create like, an ultra-nutritious version of a food LOL

[quantumfiddlesticks]

when it’s really bad again and it’s still way better than it used to be but it’s still really bad. and you do all the right stuff and you try and try and it still really hurts but it’s working but it still hurts and you go see the beautiful majesty of nature and your soul is so close to being at peace but your mind is still in pain. and it’s better but it’s still bad. and the sun is setting.

[quantumfiddlesticks]

Never forget the fact that, because he was roleplaying as his nonexistent lil sister, his twitter account got banned for a while and had to scream publicity he was, in fact, Tatsuki Fujimoto roleplaying as his nonexistent lil sister.

And no one believed him at first.

[quantumfiddlesticks]

The Warrior of Light has the best dialogue sometimes

[quantumfiddlesticks]

Caitlyn Ki-rizz-mman our lesbian lord and saviour who’s canonically charmed/banged the most people out of anyone in this show including an enemy spy who still used her last words to thank her for the honour your unmatched game will always be famous 👏

[quantumfiddlesticks]

A little short but it’s part 1 of 3 hehe :)

[quantumfiddlesticks]

People can rant about the pacing of season 2 all they want, but the fact that they managed to fit a climax this epic and cathartic and painful this seamlessly in a single episode is nothing short of genius.

Like... y'all they really had it all

[quantumfiddlesticks]

I harp a lot on how I don't think the current episodic release structure for Arknights does it many favors in how it wants to tell its stories, and how it's story manifests for us, but there are some benefits to this type of long form structure, and it's moments that get better with hindsight. It's not impossible to do this in a more contained medium, as this is often a staple of the mystery genre of literature and film, but it is uncommonly employed in video games to great effect, with their contained stories often being played much more straight.

One of the benefits of releasing longer-form content is the ability to both make callbacks and to give additional details that change the meaning in earlier scenes. The most famous in Arknights, at least for me, is the scene in Wei's office in Chapter 2.

In it's original context, this is Wei Yenwu being aloof to the threat of Reunion, not even bothering to properly remember their leader's name. Once you learn though that Talulah is not just Reunion's leader but Wei Yenwu's niece, and suddenly the scene has new context. This is the scene I point to when I want to talk about how much of a slimeball Wei Yenwu is at this point in the story. This isn't him being aloof, this is Wei deliberately holding back information in order to manipulate for himself a better position. By not revealing his stakes, he wants to hold more power at the negotiation tables with Rhodes Island for Lungmen.

Of course he knows the name of the leader of Reunion, how could he not? How could he not remember letting Kaschey go and take her away, prioritizing Lungmen over the safety of his dead brother's daughter? But he's not going to show that to Rhodes Island, a bunch of strangers he intends to use in poor faith.

Now let's talk about a conversation in Chapter 10 you likely haven't thought about in quite some time!

That's right! We're here to talk about Nezzsalem's confrontation with Kal'tsit when she docks with Londinium. This is a really interesting scene that primarily serves initially to offer even more mystique to Kal'tsit and Theresa's assassination. After all, Kal'tsit and Nezzsalem knew each other, they even fought together at least once. The King of the Nachzehrer! He was there when Theresa was assassinated, and here he is now, inquiring about the death of the last pure Wendigo. None of this seems out of the question, but with some more time, it's possible to find this scene strange.

How did he know? Sure, the Nachzehrer thrives off of life and death, but they're more focused on war. The passing of lives to the Myriad Souls is the concern of the Banshees, not the Nachzehrer. Patriot is also not a Sarkaz hero, at least not directly, since he was a Patriot for Ursus, not Kazdel, and he was a supporter of Theresa at that. Given everything we know now, it's pretty unlikely that Patriot would have followed Theresis to Londinium. But it's still not completely out of the question. Babel reveals that the Military Council in its fledgling state knew about where he was.

This is a pretty small aside after Nezzsalem defeats Logos, but it managed to hit me like a brick, because the first thing I remembered was Nezzsalem confronting Kal'tsit about the death of Patriot. Patriot was not just a Wendigo to Nezzsalem, he was something of a son to him. Sure, he might not have been Nezzsalem's only student, but the Nachzehrer are not shown to be a particularly sentimental bunch pretty much ever, so the Sudaram going "Yeah. Your kid" is impactful here. Nezzsalem stands, having beaten Laqueramaline's son in combat, after Aefanyl had proven himself worthy of respect, as an old man thinking about his own son.

This reframes the conversation in Chapter 10. Nezzsalem knows Kal'tsit, it's implied he's known her for a very long time, and it's likely he's seen the different lives of Kal'tsit and likely knew of her involvement in the invasion of Kazdel a couple hundred years ago. So it's now also got that added element of the King of the Nachzehrer coming up to the landship and shaking Kal'tsit by the shoulders going "WHAT DID YOU DO". It provides new context for his anger. Kal'tsit was directly involved in the death of his foster son, just as she was directly involved previously in the destruction of Kazdel and one of the figures behind Babel.

It also adds some depth to Nezzsalem's acceptance. He died a warrior, maybe against one of the most fitting opponents upon all of Terra, and knowing that Patriot chose Kal'tsit quells that anger.

It's all neat. There's more that can be extrapolated from this, such as this providing something of an explanation for Patriot's military ability and potentially even his witchcraft, but those aren't as important or interesting to me. Chapter 14 is a story in a number of ways about the burden and threads of individuals who have lived an immensely long period of time, individuals who have found immortality in one way or another, and the ways that these lives ultimately intersect and weave with one another, and Patriot is another one of those patterns weaved through time.

[quantumfiddlesticks]

[quantumfiddlesticks]

gonna start asking hockey dudes on tinder if they can define goaltender interference and if they give me any answer other than “i don’t know” i’m unmatching them